Policy

The DJ and author Annie Macmanus has told MPs that the music industry is "a boys' club" with a system  “rigged against women".

Macmanus was giving testimony at the Government’s Women and Equalities Committee on misogyny in the music industry.

Speaking on behalf of "a real range of" women in the music industry, the former Radio 1 broadcaster said that she had not experienced or witnessed sexual misconduct personally. However, she felt her 19-year career at the BBC had given her a "shield of protection" to discuss the issue openly.

She said: “There are common threads that run through everything I've heard.

"That is that women, especially young women in the music industry, are consistently underestimated and undermined, and freelance women are consistently put in situations where they are unsafe.

"It's infuriating, the amount of women who have stories of sexual assault that just kind of buried them and carried them. It's just unbelievable.”

She added that if an individual with a high profile were to speak out, “there could be a kind of tidal wave of it.”

The singer Rebecca Ferguson also gave evidence to the MPs. She described misogyny in music as “the tip of the iceberg” and said: "Bullying and corruption are being allowed to happen".

She told MPs: "There are plenty of times when you're placed in situations where you are being compromised and where people are abusing their level of power.

"But as well as that, the thing that worries me the most is the rapes that are going unreported. That's what concerns me the most - the fact that women feel like they can't speak up.”

The committee previously questioned Sir John Whittingdale, Media, Tourism and Creative Industries Minister, about the lack of legal protections for freelancers, the use of non-disclosure agreements to silence victims and improving standards to tackle discrimination. 

Government must recruit "an army of music teachers" to avert the risk of a lost generation of talent, leaders in the music industry have warned.

A manifesto published by UK Music ahead of the general election expected next year, calls on a new government to develop a comprehensive, medium- to long-term music strategy for growth.

In addition to investing millions in music education and boosting the number of teachers, it calls for controls in relation to the use of AI, action on the difficulties faced by artists touring in the European Union and the introduction of a tax credit to encourage new UK music production.

The manifesto also calls for an end to "rip-off" secondary ticketing practices.

UK Music’s Interim Chief Executive Tom Kiehl said: “We run a real risk of a lost generation of musical talent in the UK without urgent action to stem the decline in music education.

“The government must put music education front and centre by recruiting and training an army of new music teachers to give young people the chance to learn to play an instrument and the potential of a rewarding career doing something they love.

“Unless we invest in our young people and give them the opportunity of musical education, there will be an existential threat to the talent pipeline on which the music industry relies."