{"id":2501474,"date":"2026-07-14T12:37:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2501474"},"modified":"2026-07-14T12:37:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:37:34","slug":"lisa-nandy-warns-pop-is-getting-posher-as-ed-sheeran-inspires-new-music-libraries-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/lisa-nandy-warns-pop-is-getting-posher-as-ed-sheeran-inspires-new-music-libraries-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisa Nandy warns \u2018pop is getting posher\u2019 as Ed Sheeran inspires new music libraries scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The UK government\u2019s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has warned that \u201cpop is getting posher\u201d as the government unveils a new range of boosts for the music industry, including transforming public libraries into music lending spaces.<\/p>\n<p>The new initiative was directly inspired by <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/rollingstone.co.uk\/tag\/ed-sheeran\">Ed Sheeran<\/a>\u2018s charity The Ed Sheeran Foundation, which has previously funded music lending in libraries and youth centres. It forms part of the new <em>Turn It Up: Our Plan for Music\u00a0<\/em>initiative which was unveiled yesterday (July 14).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"rs-related-articles\">\n<h4 class=\"rs-related-articles__title\">Read next<\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Sheeran first championed the idea when the Culture Secretary met him during a visit to the singer\u2019s hometown of Ipswich. The scheme has now secured \u00a312.5m in funding, which will go towards recording booths, mixing desks and an array of other equipment being installed in libraries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI first met Ed a few weeks into this job at the Euro 2024 final where I was introduced by former Sports Minister Tracey Crouch,\u201d Nandy told <em>Rolling Stone UK<\/em>. \u201cEd is incredibly passionate about kids from state schools having opportunities in music and he\u2019d just read that we had become the first entirely state school-educated cabinet in history and wanted to do something together. On that visit to Ipswich, he showed us what he was doing, we kicked around some ideas and the lending library came out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new initiative, Nandy explains, is an attempt to counteract her belief that \u201cpop is getting posher\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>As part of this, an extra \u00a315million will be given to the pre-existing Music Growth Package, which aims to help the emergence of artists at home and across the globe.<\/p>\n<p>At least \u00a310million of dormant assets of funding will also go towards a Creative Mentoring scheme, which will give thousands of children in the care system and young people the opportunity to receive in-depth mentoring from creative practitioners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe last Labour government had a program called Every Child a Musician and enrichment funding was flowing into our schools,\u201d Nandy told <em>RS UK<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou had a whole host of people in the cabinet who were passionate about music because it had changed their lives. I would say we\u2019re recreating that passion and that commitment with this government.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DavdyIOib3D\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" style=\" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);\"\/>\n<p>The announcement comes as <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.co.uk\/politics\/news\/sir-keir-starmer-resigns-as-prime-minister-of-the-uk-62283\/\">Keir Starmer prepares to stand down as Prime Minister<\/a>, with Andy Burnham widely anticipated to replace him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of this journey started with the Greater Manchester Music Plan,\u201d Nandy said. \u201cMichael Dugher has been appointed as our first UK music champion, and Andy previously commissioned him to come in and write a strategy for Greater Manchester to rebuild some of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added: \u201cIt was about helping to rebuild the whole ecosystem from the ground up because every artist starts somewhere. And that \u2018somewhere\u2019 has largely disappeared in recent years. This plan takes its inspiration from something that Andy started years ago and that I was very proud to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other new announcements include reforms to the licensing system such as increasing the number of Temporary Event Notices (TENs) from 15 to 20 per year and raising the total event days for festivals from 21 to 26.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement also confirmed the government is freezing the 15 per cent business rates relief for live music venues for the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Kiehl, CEO of UK Music commented:\u00a0 \u201cUK Music has previously called on the government to deliver a long-term music strategy to help safeguard and grow our world-leading industry that contributes \u00a38billion to the economy, brings in \u00a34.8billion in export revenues and supports 220,000 jobs. It is welcome that the government have listened to our calls and are launching a Music Plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis long term plan comes at a time when it is more crucial than ever that we join forces to find solutions to the challenges facing our world-leading sector. These include the impact of artificial intelligence on music creators and companies, the barriers to overseas touring, the threats music spaces face, the challenges small businesses and freelancers experience, and the need to protect music in schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kiehl added: \u201cWe look forward to working with the government, its music champion Michael Dugher, our members and the rest of the music industry to make the make the most of this opportunity, to build on the foundations that a Music Plan creates, and to ensure that our sector remains a pillar of growth which helps boost jobs and opportunities right across the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rollingstone.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK government\u2019s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has warned that \u201cpop is getting posher\u201d as the government unveils a new range of boosts for the music industry, including transforming public libraries into music lending spaces. The new initiative was directly inspired by Ed Sheeran\u2018s charity The Ed Sheeran Foundation, which has previously funded music lending [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2501475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[38262],"class_list":["post-2501474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-ed-sheeran"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lisa-Nandy-warns-\u2018pop-is-getting-posher-as-Ed-Sheeran.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501476,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501474\/revisions\/2501476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2501475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}