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Museums and Galleries

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, on securing this debate. In my brief contribution, I first declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. To become a member, one needs to obtain a million visitors a year. I have been chairman since 1990. Today we have 40 members, 16 of which are major galleries and museums. As the noble Lord said, there is clearly a major problem with a substantially increasing number of wealthy national and international collectors and the downward pressure on budgets, to which the noble Lord referred. He gave some national examples. I should add that the National Portrait Gallery can now put aside for acquisitions only about £305,000 out of a turnover of £11 million. The Imperial War Museum can allocate only £125,000 annually to acquisitions, which may be less than the value of a single set of medals at auction. I wish particularly to draw attention to the position of regional museums. Clearly, they have problems as there are far fewer private major charitable foundations in the regions and relatively few major plcs and national bodies have their headquarters there. Tyne and Wear museums tried to buy Turner’s ““Dark Rigi”” painting, which had been hanging in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, but in the end it went for £2.7 million at auction, which was way outside its resources. National Museums Liverpool saw its annual acquisitions budget fall to £50,000 by 2001. It managed to lift it back to a quarter of a million pounds last year but fears that the budgetary cuts being mooted by the Treasury during the coming CSR round—as referred to by the noble Lord—will impinge on even that small figure. Finally, the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, which I had the privilege to chair for nine years, has only the fund for the Preservation of Industrial and Scientific Material (PRISM), administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, to call on, which itself has very limited surplus funds to provide for new acquisitions. The museum is finding it increasingly difficult to add to its collection. An item of local importance, a Model T Ford made in Trafford Park, has come up for sale and the museum needs to find only £15,000 to £30,000 to buy it, but it is experiencing real problems in doing so. Those problems are being experienced regionally and nationally. I fully support the points that the noble Lord made.