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Finance Bill

I wonder whether the hon. Lady’s argument is accurate. The national museum of Welsh life just outside Cardiff is a fine institution, and it is free now, because the policy of the Welsh Assembly and of this Government has been to try to make all national galleries and museums free. Many people argued that museums would suffer from not getting admission charges, but I go to that museum several times a year—certainly every time friends come to visit—and it probably makes far more money out of me now, because I go four or five times a year. I wonder whether the precise arithmetic is as the hon. Lady would have us believe. Sometimes, because people have free admission across a year, they go to the museum or gallery more often, including the bookshop or coffee shop, and spend more money. If the gallery or museum is not short-sighted, it may end up earning more money rather than less from that.