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Museums and Galleries

I shall quote one important sentence from the Government’s recent manifesto: "““We will explore further ways to encourage philanthropy to boost the quality of our public art collections””." That was a welcome statement. This debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is timely because it gives the Minister a chance to respond and tell your Lordships what progress is being made. I add one word of congratulation—because one should always given the Government credit where it is due—on the introduction of free admission to national museums and galleries. It was an extremely important step, and we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Smith, for winkling the money out of the Treasury to enable it to be done. It has made an enormous difference, and the numbers of visitors have gone up. It has encouraged overall museum visits to other museums as well. It is a great achievement. I add one word of caution, however. Under the original scheme, museums and galleries were given an amount of money to take into account what they lost from the admissions. That is now going to be all put in as the allocation of their DCMS funding. We will have to watch very carefully that there are no cuts so that those museums in that position are not penalised by going down that route. Not only have they lost admissions but, due to the increasing number of people, the cost of running the galleries is increasing, too. The noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, asked the Minister a Question in July about funding, and the Minister gave an interesting answer to a question of my own. He said that the Government would, "““continue to explore options for encouraging philanthropy and are in discussion with the working group on the UK’s literary heritage, chaired by my noble friend Lord Smith of Finsbury””." He went on to say that there was a meeting. The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, did not mention that meeting, which rather concerned me. I worry that the fact that he did not mention it means that progress has not been made—because I am sure that if it had he would have said so. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that. He went on to say that, "““there was a meeting between DCMS and key people and directors in the museums and galleries world where all the concerns that we are talking about today were raised and discussed””.—[Official Report, 24/7/06; col. 1541.]" I think that noble Lords would be interested in what progress has been made. To be fair, the Minister acknowledged the concerns that exist on funding. He quoted a report from the National Art Collections Fund that argued that, "““92 per cent of museums surveyed felt that there was inadequate funding””.—[Official Report, 24/7/06; col. 1542.]" We all know of the concerns that they have. I shall try to limit my remarks to what I regard as the collections and how we can ensure that acquisitions continue. There are two routes to go down: there is the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which is the fund of last resort for the nation’s heritage and comes to the rescue by making emergency acquisitions. Because of that it is always under a timetable problem. It is always in a mad panic to try to raise money to stop works of art that have gone through the reviewing committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, going abroad. That is not very satisfactory. An interesting idea was put forward this evening of acceptance in lieu being brought forward into people’s lifetime. It would make life much easier and give the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the museums much more ability to raise the money. That is certainly a sensible idea. I hope that the Government will look at it carefully. As we have heard, the amounts of money are increasing in the art world all the time. There is nothing we can do about that; I suspect that every time a museum has ever bought something over the years, everybody has always said that it has paid too much. That is always going to go on—and in 20 years’ time, if we are still around, we will look back and say how cheap things were at the time. The other source of funding is the Heritage Lottery Fund, which has funded the National Heritage Memorial Fund and has given some money for acquisitions—but there seems to be a reluctance to do so on the part of that fund. Can the Minister explain that? The Heritage Lottery Fund seems fundamentally reluctant to give money for acquisitions. Is that because of the way it is set up? After all, the Government are responsible for it. The fund is, of course, getting less money as a result of the changes that the Government have made to the National Lottery, because more money is going to the Big Lottery Fund, and that is a concern. The Heritage Lottery Fund funding has come down—and that is something that we would do something about. We are all concerned about the same things: we are all concerned about the collections in our country, how to add to them and what to do about it. We are all here to give the Minister support in the perpetual fight against the powers that be to improve funding for the arts.