The government has been accused of having contempt for the arts over the loss of music teacher jobs since 2011.

Shadow arts minister Kevin Brennan highlighted the loss of 1,200 music teachers during Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions in the Commons today.

Mr Brennan said the Conservative government had allowed the exodus because ministers did not care enough about creative subjects.

He said: “The recent announcement by the government on music education barely pays the pay increase for people teaching music, and since 2011 over 1,200 music teacher jobs have been lost.

“Isn’t that a direct result of the government’s contemptuous attitude towards creative subjects?”

Arts minister Michael Ellis said the Tories had focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) due to “inherited education failures”.

He said: “The situation the government inherited in 2010 and the state of education was because of the Labour government’s incompetence when it came to that.

“As a consequence of education failures by Labour, this government focused on Stem subjects.

“We now want to focus on arts subjects as well, including music.”