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Museums

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Addington, as he touched on one of the central themes of the museum of which I have the privilege to be the chairman—unpaid, like the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, is of the Railway Heritage Committee—namely, the National Museum of Science and Industry. I return to the eloquent and much appreciated speech about children and the National Railway Museum made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. We are a family of museums made up of the Science Museum in south Kensington, the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford and the railway museum with its new and splendid out-station at Shildon, to which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has paid such tribute. It has been a great advantage to the National Railway Museum to have his expert help. I join the noble Lord in saying that the achievements by Locomotion at Shildon, which is in a highly deprived region, have been outstanding. The partnership that has been built with the local authority is remarkable. The effect on the local community is already astounding. My noble friend Lord Eccles—whom I congratulate and thank for instituting the debate—touched on the economics of museums and their power to create jobs and wealth in this country. A study by McKinsey stated that in its first year Tate Modern generated economic activity worth £100 million. I shall not claim activity of that scale for Shildon, but, proportionately, I almost would. New investment is coming to that deprived town. For the first time for many years there is talk of new housing there, of other investment and of people concentrating again on Shildon. That has been done in a positive way—not looking backwards—because of the effect of that museum on bringing in people. Already it has more than doubled the projected visitor numbers that it had in its first year. That is my first point and a point made eloquently in the National Museum Directors’ Conference report of last year. It is a major industry. Of course, at the centre of its purpose is enjoyment as well as many other social purposes, but we must not underestimate how important it is to our national economy. The noble Viscount mentioned correctly that there were about 2,500 museums in the country, generating 100 million visitors every year, more than go to all the country’s live sporting events. Thirty-seven per cent of UK adult residents—over 17 million people—visit museums and galleries at least once a year, which is one of the highest proportions in Europe; 50 per cent of school-age children visit museums and galleries at least once a year; and a quarter of all visits are by children. The figure is much higher for the Science Museum, although that creates one of the Science Museum’s problems because, as the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Faulkner, said, long gone are the days of exhibits in glass cases. We now have the most modern, beautifully designed and highly intelligent interactive exhibits that the children can use, but they also wear them out. One problem with science and technology exhibitions—the problem is not confined to them—is that our interactive exhibits suffer wear and tear that is reflected in costs. The Minister should take great pride, as I do, in the fact that the numbers have increased hugely since the introduction of free entry. I support that policy, but there are some consequences. Having sat on the other side in another place, I know that it is easy to claim a great victory for some initiative but more difficult to produce the money to go with it. Museums that used to charge are compensated under a formula by the Government for free entry. Our compensation is at a low level, and as the policy has been much more successful than envisaged, a considerable strain has been put on our finances. I shall talk about finance. The noble Viscount, Lord   Eccles, rightly said that not everything in the sector depended on public money. I speak for none other than my own museum and board of trustees, but the great national and regional museums depend crucially on public money. Although the sector is extremely vital and full of life and initiatives at the moment, there is also a sense of growing strain in at least some of the big museums. If one looks at the   numbers produced by the National Museum Directors’ Conference report, one will see that in recent years in a number of the great museums, of which mine is one, the funding has not even kept up with inflation and has far from kept up with the increase in average earnings. That puts a tremendous strain on our staff and on our relations with our staff. A high proportion of our expenditure goes on our people. There is a funding problem. It throws up unwelcome and difficult problems. The future of the Science Museum library has been much written about in the national press. It is difficult to see how we shall be able to fund, as we should, the maintenance of that world-class library on the history of science. We shall try to do our best. I pay tribute to the department; it has plenty of knocks but perhaps not many ha’pence. I pay tribute to the permanent officials in the department and to their Ministers, who have been responsive to a request that we should have an objective look at the funding of the library and of the Science Museum to see whether something can be done about it. I pay tribute to the permanent Secretary, Sue Street, and perhaps in particular to her colleague, Richard Hartman, who deals with the museums on a day-to-day basis. They have been very helpful to us. The issues facing the great museums are rather well dealt with. The debate is not about politics with a capital P, but I want to make a political reference. I think that it is fair to say that, at the last election, those of us who now work in the museum and arts sector gave the manifesto prize to the Conservative manifesto. It has been noted that a number of policies carried on by the last Conservative administration, in which I served, with opposition from the Labour Party, have now been adopted by the Labour Party to great acclaim. Who can complain about that? In economic terms, they have been a rather Thatcherite government—perhaps I should not use such words. To put it mildly, there has been a surprising continuity in economic policy that has been greatly to the benefit of this country. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that he should continue that procedure and steal the policies in the Conservatives’ arts and museum manifesto to which I pay tribute. My honourable friend in another place, Mr Hugo Swire, the Member for East Devon, who knows what he is talking about on the subject, had a good deal to do with it. It contains a number of sensible suggestions, some of which have already been made by the noble Viscount. We should, for example, return to the excellent Goodison report and reconsider some of the encouragements to giving: lifetime giving on the US model might well be a point to pick out. Other aspects of that report should be used. I was attracted by the idea of a national acquisitions fund. It is easy when in opposition to say we should spend more money; nonetheless, a national acquisitions fund would be very attractive. Our acquisitions budget in the Science Museum is tiny, although with help from many supporters such as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, we were able to raise money from the public, from one of the lottery funds and from private donors to buy the ““Flying Scotsman””, to great acclaim. We have virtually no acquisition fund. That is an idea that I hope the Government might steal from the Conservative manifesto. Even more important is the idea that we should allow museums and other arts organisations to bid for endowment from the lottery funds rather than simply adding facilities that are often difficult to fund. That seems an admirable idea. I end with one warning and one anxiety. The Olympics bid is coming up. It would be a tremendous opportunity to showcase the British museums. It would be in London, if we were lucky enough to win the bid. There is also an anxiety about that: after Australia and Greece won their bids, the effect was to diminish funding for arts and museum programmes. I very much hope that we can be assured by the Minister that if, as most people in the country hope, we win the Olympic bid, the other small budgets in the DCMS will be well protected. It should be seen as an opportunity for south Kensington, with the prizes being given in Hyde Park. It would be wonderful to have the great museums of Britain, effectively, as part of our bid rather than for the museums to be anxious that they might suffer.