 Rwyf sights cham. I welcome to the 26th meeting of the Education and Skills Wales Committee. Our first item of business today is a change to committee membership. I would like to put on record the committee's thanks to Mary Fee, who has been serving on the committee and wish her the best at her new parliamentary duties. I welcome Ian Gray, who is joining us today and I invite Mr Gray to declare any relevant interests. Mae Gwein ef wedi dweud bod yn ymwybodol y byddi'r White Cross am gwell, ond mae'n gweithio i bruniau mewn gwirio i ystyrpas aa oedd mynd i'r cysylltu yn gyfio'n cysylltu ond rwyf ymgyrch gyntaf iawn. Ieithaith y cysylltu i ei ddechrau am deall, ond mae'n credu ei ddechrau i ddechrau i mewn gwirio in private today and whether to take future reviews of evidence or a music tuition inquiry in private, so our members can tend to take agenda items 6 and 7 in private. Thank you, and as the committee can tend to take future reviews of evidence and music tuition in private. Thank you. Agenda item 3 is for coordinate legislation evidence. It has to consider an instrument that is subject to affirmative procedure. An affirmative instrument is two agenda items. First, the committee will have an opportunity to ask questions of the minister, and I welcome Richard Lochhead to committee this morning, along with his officials. The details of the instrument to the affirmative procedure included in paper one. We are considering today its assigned colleges, University of Highlands and Islands, Order 2018. I invite the minister to make an opening statement, and I welcome James Boyce, head of college policy and Gemma Grant's list to the Scottish Government to committee as well. Good morning, convener, and good morning to the committee. It's fine to be back again in a different capacity, and I congratulate the new members of the committee who are at their first meeting today. It's a good committee, speaking from experience. In terms of my new role as the minister for further education and higher education and science, I look forward to engaging with the community in the weeks and months ahead, and I'd be more than delighted to come back again in the near future to discuss any of the big issues that are on the agenda at the moment with the committee. In terms of today, however, I'm here for a relatively technical issue, but I do appreciate the opportunity to speak to the committee about the draft assigned colleges, University of Highlands and Islands, Order 2018. This draft order will assign Argyll College to the regional strategic body for the Highlands and Islands region and the University of the Highlands and Islands. Argyll College is one of the smaller colleges in Scotland, providing tertiary education across 11 centres throughout Argyll and the Islands, serving a population of approximately 88,000 people. In the region of the Highlands and Islands, eight colleges are already assigned to 2HI. Argyll College was not assigned to 2HI in 2014, as it did not meet what are known as the fundable body criteria under the Further and Higher Education Scotland Act 2005. The decision was made after the determination by the Scottish Funding Council in April 2014. However, Argyll College is already represented on UHI's further education regional board and is an academic partner of UHI. In practical terms, all the assignation will do is change the route by which funding is distributed to Argyll College. Until now, North Highland College has contracted with Argyll College for the provision of further education in the Argyll region. North Highland College is already assigned to UHI and has been responsible for assuring the delivery of quality fundable further education by Argyll College. After the assignation takes place, funding to Argyll College will instead go from the Scottish Funding Council to UHI and from UHI to Argyll College as part of its distribution of the further education funding for the region. Before Argyll College can be assigned to UHI, the Scottish Funding Council must be satisfied that the college complies with the fundable body criteria under the 2005 Act I mentions. Those ensure principally that a college has adequate provisions in place dealing with its governance and management, as well as financial accountability and quality control mechanisms. Between 2014 and 2018, Argyll College was assessed by Education Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council and UHI's own internal audit service. All outstanding recommendations from earlier assessments have now been addressed. On 29 March 2018, the Scottish Funding Council wrote to my predecessor proposing the assignation of Argyll College to UHI, since it was then satisfied that Argyll College now met all the fundable body criteria set out in the act. My public consultation was published on 28 May and closed on 25 June 2018, and 100 per cent of its responses supported the proposal to assign Argyll College to UHI. In summary, the assignation is strongly supported by the sector and powers the college to take accountability of its governance and funding under the oversight of UHI as a regional strategic body. I am confident that the benefits that will bring to the learners, employers and communities that the colleges serve will move forward. I am happy in that basis to take any questions from the committee. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from members of the committee? None at all? Okay. We will move to agenda item 4, which is the formal debate on motion S5M-14432, in the name of the minister. I would invite any members who want to contribute to the debate. No contributions. On that basis, the question is that motion S5M-14432 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much to the committee. I take it that will be the normal process when I appear before committee in the future. I hope that you do not regret your former offer. I hope that you do not regret your former offer, because I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for us to have you before us again. The committee must report to Parliament on the instrument and members' content for me is convener to sign off the report. We are now going to suspend for a few minutes to allow our witnesses to change over. Thank you very much. I welcome everyone back. We now move to agenda item 5, which is music tuition in schools inquiry. The committee is conducting an inquiry into music tradition and the first week of the committee's inquiry. We are starting to hear about the experiences and perspectives, particularly from young people. We had an informal session that was born with a number of young people and interested stakeholders to hear their experiences. We are glad to welcome two of the young people to the table to provide formal evidence. I welcome Catherine Mackay, member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, for Glasgow Southside, and Alice Ferguson, member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, for Linlithgow. The informal session that we are based on is in the paper 2 of the committee's papers for today. I would like to start the session by asking Alice and Catherine if they could say just a little bit about their experience of music tuition at school and the experiences of their peers and, indeed, their constituents as MSYPs. I invite Alice Ferguson to go first. Hi, everyone. My name is Alice Ferguson. As Clare said, I am an MSYP for the Linlithgow constituency. I am also a young person who participates in the instrumental service that West Llewyn offers. I started a campaign last year after the free service was under threat from West Llewyn council budget cuts. The campaign that I started was called WL Music and it invited young people all across West Llewyn to express what they thought about the service and why they would like to see it saved. It was extremely moving. The comments were just so powerful from young people, from primary age children to secondary age children. It was clear that young people had so much they wanted to say to save the service. You will deny thousands of young people in West Llewyn the opportunity to develop their musical talents, which, at this point, they may not even know they have. Like we were saying in the formal session, you do not only learn how to play an instrument, but you learn so many skills that you can take through life. By introducing a charge for instrumental service, you are denying young people this opportunity, depending on how much money they have, which should not be the case. In West Llewyn, when you have gone from a free service to charging, it is unfair and it is not right to deny young people these opportunities. Personally, from a point of view, as I was saying, I have not just developed skills in trumpet. I play trumpet, I have done my great exams in trumpet, but I have made new friends through music and through the extracurricular music provides. I have become more resilient, confident and open-minded in everything that I do. From a mental health point of view, I have benefited from the creativity and feeling that I am part of a community, part of something like a band is really good for my mental health. The one-to-one teaching that I have had from my music teacher is something that you do not get in any other class. This has allowed people to establish a relationship of trust, continuity and security, which often young people struggle to find in teachers or peers. I think that that has demonstrated that music is not just about playing an instrument, it is about the skills that you build that you can take through life. Catherine, would you like to contribute? Hi, I am Catherine Mack, MSYP for Glasgow Southside. I want to echo Alice's point. I went by winning from primary 4 up until fifth year at school. It allowed me to get into sitting national five music and taro music, which was fantastic for me. Learning violin did not just provide me with the skills of being able to play violin and being able to say to people that I can play violin. It also allowed me back when I played it to actually join an orchestra in the school, to make new friends at the orchestra, to join the string group, which was at the school as well. I also, while I am at university, with my studies at university, I am wearing a saxophone right now. That one-on-one tuition with my teacher Ms Freeland has been invaluable. If I hadn't of learnt how to play violin and saxophone, I wouldn't have been able to have that national five music or higher music, because as part of that book of occasions, you have to either play two instruments for your exam or play one instrument and sing. I cannot sing to save my life, so that was not an option. It had to be violin and saxophone. However, if you don't make music tuition free for all young people, how are they, which are I going to be able to do during national five music or higher music? That would affect so many Glasgow Southside constituents. Many Glasgow Southside constituents do not have the virtual funds to learn how to play an instrument. Before learning how to play an instrument, who knows what potential talent we could be missing out on? We could have the next Bach, the next Nicola Benedetto, the next anyone in our schools, so you really cannot cut music tuition. The amount of skills I have learned, friends I have made for music, even general knowledge about music, is all very handy. It is definitely a big issue for constituents in Glasgow Southside. It is not something that you can work out. The amount of benefits to music for it will weigh any financial costs and barriers to music tuition. I am going to open up to contributions from the committee. I said answer on who has already indicated. I was interested in what you were saying, Catherine, about qualifications. Obviously, as you rightly say, this is much more than to do with qualifications, but you did mention exams and so on as well. I was interested in that because when I was minister in this area, one of the things that happened was that we set up a working group on instrumental music tuition. One of the findings of that group was that whatever else local authorities around the country did about that, they should not be charging for lessons that led up to a qualification, an SQA qualification. I would be interested to know what your experience is around that and whether you think that to get an SQA qualification in a music-related subject that people are having to pay to get there. In my experience, it varies. I did not have experience of a state school. I went to Craig Holmes' school. If you were going to do national five music or higher music, tuition was free if you sat in keyboard or vocal. In fact, you could get both free if you did keyboard. You would just get tuition from your music teacher, like normal, and then he would also teach you singing as well. If you wanted to do any other instrument, like saxophone, I do not know treble, ukulele, but carnet, then you would have to pay because that was a specialist teacher who would come in. I am not quite 100% sure what the scenario is for every other school, but ultimately, yes, you can still get it for free for some instruments, but I do not think it should be a case of some instruments for free for doing your SQA qualifications and others, because that would be just as bad as just because you can get likes of keyboard for free for your SQ exams, but not via win. That would still be putting people off sitting national five or higher music, maybe the advanced tier if they wanted to. Good morning. Thanks for the excellent opening statements from both of you. Can I just ask if you could give us an idea of maybe how many of your friends might be either put off from taking up music because of the potential costs or the costs involved in some instruments? What impact is that having on people that you know? Well, I am part of the school band and watching the transition from the service being free to after the charges have been implemented, the band is just not the same. There aren't as many people there, and the people that are there almost feel like they have to be there now because they are paying, whether before it was you chose to do it, you did it for yourself rather than because your parents are telling you you have to because they are paying £382 a year now, and it's just really sad to lose that sort of spirit and lose that feeling that you're doing something for yourself and not because you have to, and I know a lot of my friends have now dropped out of music just because they can't afford it, which is ridiculous. Why should you be denied the opportunity to play something, to do something that you want to do just because you can't afford to? It's really sad and it's such a shame that some people aren't getting this opportunity. When it's your friends as well watching you being able to go on and do trumpet and do band, and then not being able to, you feel rubbish. I've got a slightly different response because I'm currently at university, so we're not quite affected in the same way at Glasgow Caledonian because I'm doing social sciences as a degree, so if you want to do music, it's a case of do-it-it-with, but one thing I noticed is that it's definitely at university level, there's actually a free music society to help people, not people, so students coming further on or musical talents from school. In terms of friends, so I was speaking to some of my new university friends and some of them were actually talking about how at school they weren't outright denied music education, not at all. It was more case of the cost to put them off, and that feels like an absolute shame to me. That makes me quite upset, actually. Let's think that this girl from Milg Navy, I think, couldn't learn how to play violin because of the cost, because she didn't want to financially burden her parents. Think about it, she could have ended up being fantastic, could have gotten a grade eight potentially in violin, could have been an extra child prodigy, and that's it because of the cost, so she couldn't do it. There's been other experiences as well, because obviously university is more broad in terms of the people you meet. There's an awful lot more cases of people who have become friendly of saying they would have loved to have taken music at school, but due to the financial barriers, they're missing out. It's completely imperative that you've got to have music free for everyone, because cost shouldn't be a barrier. You can't put a price in music. It's such a fantastic experience, and it should not be something that you've got to pay for. I want to bring in Ross Greer. A number of the people who've submitted written evidence to us were really keen to highlight that those who benefit the most from free music tuition are often people from family backgrounds where they wouldn't necessarily have a range of other opportunities if you had to pay for them, because of family income most obviously. Alice was wondering, the experience that you mentioned with the changes that you've seen in your school band and the changes across West Lothian as a result of that, have you noticed that the people you've said have not been able to continue? Is there a bit of a common thread there that those from backgrounds where the family has a lower income are or have been the most likely to not continue with their music? It is the privileged that are getting to do music now, which is going back to Victorian times where only the elite get to do violin, only the elite get to do music. The council are wanting to reduce inequality, but by charging for music, they're increasing inequality because the people that can afford it are getting these opportunities to go to music camp to go and to play concerts, to learn an instrument, do grade exams and the people that can't afford it, the middle, the people that don't qualify for school meals, but the people that can't necessarily afford to pay £300, £500, £600 a year, they're not being able to get this tuition, which is having a negative impact on the young people and it's increasing inequality as opposed to reducing it and it's, as I keep saying, it's a shame, it's not right, it's that the privileged are the ones that get to do music and the ones who can't afford to don't. Do you want to come in on that one Catherine, are you? I think Alice has basically covered everything very well, so I'm quite happy to move on to any other questions. Thank you. Jenny Gilruth. Good morning to you both. I'd just like to pick up on a couple of things you both mentioned. Alice, I think you spoke about the charge being, was it £382 a year? Can I just ask what does that charge cover then? Is it all your tuition and is it rental of the musical instrument then? How does it work? So it's 382 pounds for a year's tuition and with that covers one 25-minute lesson a week, so that can be sometimes it's one-to-one but sometimes now because of the reduced numbers it has to be six to ten pupils because the teacher is travelling. It also covers band, so a band happens, or band orchestra, an ensemble sort of for like an hour, but that roughly works out for £10 for a 25-minute lesson, which is you can get for cheaper if you go private, like a £10 would get 30-minute private tuition, one-to-one. So why are people paying £10 for a 25-minute lesson with maybe six other people? 382 pounds is what it is in I know, in Clackmannshire, we're talking about it, it's over £500 for a pupil to have music tuition, but in West Lothian £10 for 25 minutes of playing an instrument is quite absurd. That's helpful, thank you. Catherine, you mentioned that you were offered the violin, I think, in primary 4, is that right? Can I just ask, how did that come about? Were you identified as a pupil in your class or how did you get that offer? Maybe Alice, you can talk about how you were first offered the opportunity to play a musical instrument and when that came about in your education. I could have started violin in primary 2, but I never fancied trying an instrument until this night at the school held, where every music tuition teacher came in and had their instrument and so on, and you could go up and try each one and kind of see if you fancied learning how to play an instrument. So I kind of went around all of them, little people were me very enthusiastically. I tried out this violin and the music teacher for violin was this baron, was there? I immediately loved it, so it wasn't a case of being gifted at that point in time, oh my god, my poor appearance having to listen to my practice. It was more a case of I just showed an absolute love for computer told and other instruments, so I thought they were okay, but I'd rather try to play a violin. You said she was your music teacher? She was my violin teacher, so she specialised in violin, she'd just come in once a week to do all of her pupils and that bit. So there was a kind of music evening then whereby you would all offer the opportunity to try different instruments? Yeah, so all pupils were just invited to come along and basically just try ahead and string the one to see if they fancied taking out music. Okay, thank you. Alice, what about your experience? In around primary five I think it was, we were all, I don't know if it was like an assessment, we were all sort of made to fill out this form and I think it tested to see if we were, not tested such but assigned us to either strings or brass and then from there we were given the opportunity depending on how compatible we were to take up strings or brass. This continued throughout primary five to primary seven and then I know in S1 the opportunities sort of extended to woodwinds guitar and from there pupils could choose to do guitar or choose to do woodwind and that's how it came about. And so when you were in primary school was it a music specialist that delivered that? Yes. It wasn't your class teacher? Yes, it was a music specialist. Who came in? Right, okay, thank you. Thank you. Alice Smith. Alice, I wonder could I ask you as far as you're aware within your school are there any other charges of any sort for any other subject area or additional tuition or is it just music that's got this problem? As far as I'm concerned it's just music. I think when I was reading the papers it said that music is the only subject to have charges to complete the exam I think that's what it said but someone said in my WL music campaign that I find it unfair how when we are low on money music and art get thrown away and you'd never ever get charged to do maths you'd never do you just wouldn't and why is it that maths is more valuable? Maths and science stem subjects are more apparently more valued more valuable than music and creative subjects it's quite strange that you seem to have to pay hundreds of pounds to be able to sit music exams or be able to get instrumental tuition but you can sit science for free. You described your campaign that you have been very successful with could you just tell us a little bit about that campaign and some of the responses that you've had and what you hope to achieve with that? Yes, so the campaign run about this time last year and it ran for a couple months it was when young people were given sort of a card which said and they held it up why whistle being instrumental service should be saved this was at the point before when it was under complete threat that it was going to get completely scrapped and young people as I said from primary to secondary filled in why they wanted to share their experiences on why they wanted the service to be retained and some of the responses were it helps improve my coordination allows me to participate in something educational creative and rewarding that I would never normally have the chance to experience also music should be accessible by everybody not just the privileged and it opened up many doors for me the response there are a good lots of responses but you're posted on social media people were retweeting it people were talking about it people were sharing the experiences and it was just a great way of getting that personal touch across and that music is that's what the instrumental service is about and it was really great to hear all these experiences from young people and music makes you smart I find it unfair when we are low money music and art get thrown away. Did you get any response from the local authority to that campaign have you had any official responses to it? I've not had any official responses but the campaign definitely reached a lot of the councillors and I think it did play a part in retaining the service to some extent. In other words you feel that there's quite a strong pool of public support for what you're achieving that's good to hear. Mr Gray. I want to ask a bit more about choice of instrument you both talked a little bit about that when you talked about how you started but I had a specific question for Alice around West Lothian because I think I'm right in saying if I'm not you'll correct me that initially the council proposed to keep tuition free but to restrict it to brass only and as part of the campaign and the response from the public they took an alternative path which was to keep tuition more wider but to start charging for it and I just wondered how you felt about that because I mean I understand you would like to see all tuition free but there was almost a choice there wasn't there between keeping it free but very restricted or starting to charge but keeping it wider and I just I just wondered how you felt about that choice which was the the better thing. Yeah so initially as you said the council proposed that they cut 50 percent of the service and I believe it was just brass woodwind and piping that would remain free and my campaign was focused very much on the fact that music should be available for everybody and that music should be free because otherwise that's promoting inequality and so that's what I was primarily campaigning for and obviously when Wesleyans had a free service for goodness knows how long and then suddenly like that you're charging £382 per pupil is not what I was after and lots of my constituents were. Sure I mean I understand that but I'm kind of asking about the I mean how why did you both feel you had a choice when it came to instruments? I mean did you feel you could learn any instrument at all or or not your choice was did you feel your choice was restricted? I certainly think now the charges have been implemented and the whole thing has become far more restricted and far less you know it's far less about what music's about now it's far more restricted and not as not as good but you learn trumpet don't you so so an option would have been for that to remain free but some of the instrument of tuition to disappear I suppose I'm asking do you think that that would have been better or not than what happened which was the charge for everything preferably the outcome would have been free for everything but I know the cuts had to be made and so ideally everything would have been remained free and now that charges have been implemented across the instrumental tuition I think has negatively impacted the service altogether. I just wondered when you both of you when you started how wide a choice you felt you had about what instrument you would learn or whether you felt you kind of got the chance but it was trumpet or you got the chance but it was violin or did you feel you had quite a wide choice what instrument to learn? I think that was having the wider choice of violin or trumpet was definitely nice to have but the whole opportunity being able to be given an instrument and be taught how to play an instrument and to be part of a band to be part of a ensemble that was far more appealing to have that opportunity something that you've never done before in primary school and then be given this like door that was open to a world of music and skill building and all that was far a great opportunity a greater choice and being able to pick between two instruments. Catherine, you sounded like you did get a choice of what you would learn here. Um well yes I did definitely but I feel like my answer is going to be a bit different because it was Craig Holman not quite a state school he like yes I did have a choice but ultimately if you're going to private school you're probably going to be able to afford the extra tuition for an instrument but I feel like even though I did have the opportunity to choose an instrument I wanted that would not be that would not have been the same if I had been at a state school so yes just because my experience was absolutely fine in terms of the charges doesn't mean to say that people here who maybe are struggling financially wouldn't manage I just still think that tuition should be completely free for all in state schools it just seems wrong I mean like Alice's hour where you get mass for free get English for free you even get drama etc for free so why is music always being the first to go in the topping block it just seems so wrong to make it that you've got to pay for it when beforehand it used to be free but in a lot of systems if you're studying music as a subject you don't pay it's only if you're doing instrumental tuition outside that and for the band so do you think that's okay? I mean acknowledge that that's an improvement and that yes you could still then wear a musical instrument but that seems a bit restrictive and that you've got to set music as a qualification well if you just want our music for the benefits for mental health to become to get new friends in an orchestra to get that experience not everyone is going to realistically want to sit national five music it isn't just performing it's also quite theoretical if you like that's a bit unfair to force or near enough force people to have to sit a national qualification music when you might not feel comfortable sitting the theory side as well I still feel like that would be a barrier I think ultimately the best solution would be just keep music free for everyone the benefits are there mental health improves you end up with more friends if you join a band or an orchestra heck even your grades can improve there's been studies out there saying that people who do music do far bats or in all the other subjects as well it seems like quite a clear solution to keep music free for everyone thank you thank you very much I'm interested in well I think first of all this issue about if you want to do national five or a higher you need to do an instrument you need to do two instruments but what's happening is people are restricted in their choice so it's not I want to do a violin I'm a violin specialist I want to do my higher music well you can't do violin because of your charge for it I think I'm interested in your sense of how common that is I suppose my more general point is has the youth parliament done some work to identify not just what's happening in West Lothian or in Glasgow but more broadly how different local authorities are responding to this challenge and to what extent what's happened in West Lothian is common in the experience of young people well the Scottish youth parliament as most of you are aware is a democratically elected voice of Scotland's young people and we have a unique democratic mandate to represent the views of young people aged 12 to 25 across Scotland and part of our policy is that the Scottish youth parliament believes that music tuition should be free for all secondary school pupils in Scotland local government should strive to implement this by 2021 and this was passed in 2015 but it was renewed in August this year so I think that shows that young people in Scotland want music tuition to remain free and it's all across Scotland that this is wanting to be happening and that's what the Scottish youth parliament have identified and hope to happen. What I'm interested in, I accept that the youth parliament has and I'm very persuaded round the whole argument around the importance of music and actually music tuition in terms of qualifications as well but to what extent it's not just a policy statement by the youth parliament but to what extent have you done any work on what's happening in other when you've always had your campaign highlighted what's happened in West Lothian and I wonder what is do you know what the experience is in other local authorities is West Lothian an extreme case or is it kind of an average case of what's happening? Oh very, could you please repeat the question? Sorry, I'm just interested whether I can see the youth parliament has taken a policy decision believing free tuition and it's driven by experiences of some young people like in West Lothian where they've started being charged to what extent do you know from other elected representatives to the parliament is happening in other parts of Scotland? Okay, so I can't really speak in behalf of all local authorities because I'm Glasgow based but I can't imagine that West Lothian would be the only one. I remember when I was sponsored her campaign it definitely appeared as though other local authorities from the Scottish Youth Parliament were taking a massive interest in this because they were taking such big interest that other local authorities would also be facing the problem. I definitely don't think it's just West Lothian who's experiencing this and pretty sure Glasgow's facing it as well. Maybe not in quite as an extreme scale as West Lothian, because West Lothian was very bad according to Alice, but I think definitely all local authorities are struggling to some extent with music tuition. One last question about the West Lothian situation. Is there any provision for families who have a low income to pay less when they were increasing the charges for everybody? Was there any distinction made for families who perhaps might have been on a low income say maybe pay less? Those who receive free school meals do get the tuition for free. However, it's the people that don't qualify for free school meals, but it's the people in between that are going to miss out most, the people that don't earn the most money in the constituency. It's the people that are just squeezing by who are just getting, you know, what is doing music going to compromise, football lessons, going on school trips. People can't afford to pay for music tuition and it's those people that are not only going to need it the most, not going to need that continuity, trust, skill building that music tuition provides, it's them that are going to miss out the most. Back to your other point, I know certainly in Clackmannshire that they've just doubled their charges in the last year. I think that the whole idea that music is not as valued, is invalid across Scotland, is the big point that this situation in West Lothian is trying to get across, that music is just as important, instrumental tuition, it's just as important if not sometimes more important in building skills that STEM subjects do and it's this whole idea that this attitude needs to change and by cutting the budget we give to instrumental services is working backwards, it's telling people that they can't build these skills that music builds, it's telling people that music isn't an option, it's STEM subjects, it's academics, it's not music and creativity. That's what this whole campaign was trying to get across, that music is important and music does build more skills generally speaking than some academic subjects. I agree with a lot of what you said and certainly my youngest son benefited from free music tuition and he learned keyboards and guitar and it stood him in good stead since he left school but there was a survey by Connect who used to be the old Scottish parent teacher council and there was a couple of comments and I just want to know what your reaction was to the comments and it says, however, a few individuals made comments that they were willing to pay if money goes to help those who can't afford tuition. As a high earner I do not believe my children should receive tuition for free and would be happy to pay if this subsidised lessons for others. What was your view on that me? My view is that in what I was saying earlier you've got the people, you've got the spectrum, you've got the people that don't earn much and then you've got the people that earn a lot. It's people in the middle that would generally speaking not be seen to be given extra help, it's those people that are going to miss out, it's those people that just get by to live a happy life. It's them that are going to be disadvantaged from this because they're not going to be seen to have any help or they're going to have to compromise other things to not do music tuition and that's what I think the whole message of free tuition is that it should be equal for everybody no matter who you are, what financial background you come from that you should be able to get instrumental tuition for free and by dividing it up into how much you earn and drawing lines that you qualify for it for free but you don't that's promoting inequality. Of the 32 local authorities 23 of them have been charging for a long number of years although some of them charge for the higher of instruments and not for music tuition itself if that was the model that was a charge for the instrument as in a higher fee as opposed to no music tuition would that be more acceptable or would you rather just was all free? If it's all free that's the way to go. In my constituents views as well as WM music has showed people want it to be free because it's the benefits are colossal. I was just wondering if you had a sense of how your teachers feel about this and if any of them actually said anything directly to you don't need to name them obviously but you know just wondering if you've had that sense of you know of their opinion? I know teachers certainly feel very upset about this taking instruments off pupils because they can afford to do lessons but can't afford to buy their own instrument watching pupils go to concerts but their parents can't afford to pay the tickets for the concert because they're paying for the tuition. As a teacher that just must be heartbreaking to watch pupils you've taken through from primary 5 to then in S3, S4, them dropping out because they can't afford to do it. As a teacher that's not why you go into the teaching profession and I know teachers have been really upset by the whole situation that having to take away something that so many young people value just because they can't afford their parents can't afford to or parents can't afford to pay. Are there any further questions from the committee? I thank both Alice and Catherine for coming along this morning and particularly I think you've picked up on many of the themes from the informal session particularly about the added benefits both chair educational achievement but also for mental health and social skills which I think was very important and also the hidden cost I think was another theme from this morning as it's not just about the tuition there's also access to the instruments and the opportunities to participate in orchestras and things like that that might have additional costs so and I think that's all been covered so thank you both very much for your attendance this morning and we're now going to move into private session.