HC Deb 30 May 1963 vol 678 cc1712-24

11.30 p.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn, — [Mr. Finlay.]

Mr. W. G. Morgan (Denbigh)

It is rather hard to belabour my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary with yet another financial problem after the long discussions which we have had on the Clauses of the Finance Bill, but he will appreciate that the matter which I shall raise is one in which the Principality of Wales has a very keen interest. It is not the first time that this problem has been brought before the House. Hon. Members will recall that this was the subject of an Adjournment debate just over two years ago, when the subject was raised by the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) and the reply was given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in his then capacity as Minister for Welsh Affairs.

The particular matter which I wish to raise, and which was raised then, is Treasury support, by which I mean capital grant, to that part of the National Museum of Wales which is known as the Welsh Folk Museum and is situated at St. Fagan's Castle, near Cardiff. May I, at the outset, make one point clear, and I do so to dispose of it and because it was gently touched upon in the previous Adjournment debate, to which I have referred, in April, 1961. I am not here concerned—and I think that the House need not be concerned—with the question whether the National Museum in Cardiff and the Folk Museum at St. Fagan's should be separately administered.

I know that powerful arguments can be adduced either way, and I do not propose to go into them tonight. All I am asking the Government is that for this purpose, and, indeed, any other purpose, they should regard the Folk Museum, about which I shall make my observations, not as a mere appendage of the National Museum in Cardiff, because both institutions are constituent elements within the framework of the Welsh National Museum in just the same way as the British Museum at Bloomsbury and the Natural History Museum are constituent elements in the framework of the British Museum.

My hon. Friend already has some idea of what the Welsh Folk Museum is and how it came into being, but perhaps it would be of some assistance to the House if I recapitulated some of the salient facts about it. Its official life began when it was opened at St. Fagan's Castle on 1st July, 1948, but, in fact, it had its genesis as far back as 1932, when the so-called sub-Department of Folk Culture was set up in the National Museum in Cardiff in the charge of Dr. Iorwerth Peate, to whom Wales owes an immense debt of gratitude for his creation of the National Institution. That sub-Department was promoted into a full Department in 1936, and thereafter began the search for a suitable site. In the nature of things, events were held up by reason of the late war, but in 1946, due principally to the great generosity of the Earl of Plymouth, St. Fagan's Castle, near Cardiff, with 100 acres of garden and grounds, were acquired on nominal terms for the Folk Museum.

Suffice it to say that there has been enormous progress and development since 1948. To begin with, there was only a skeleton staff and very little in the way of exhibits except the castle itself and its grounds. Today, fifteen years later, there is a staff of nearly 80 and two main Departments There is the so-called Department of Material Culture and another dealing with oral traditions and dialectology. As far as the first is concerned, since 1949 a large number of traditional Welsh buildings have been removed to the folk museum and re-erected there. I do not propose to run through the list, but they include such varying donations as an ancient farmhouse, an eighteenth century woollen factory and even a Unitarian chapel.

Pausing there for a moment, I should like to emphasise that every building without exception has been a gift from its owner and that the cost of removal and re-erection has been borne in every case by donations from various institutions such as Welsh local authorities and the Pilgrims' Trust. There has been no Treasury support at all for this work.

The principal object of the second Department, which deals with oral traditions and dialects, is to make a comprehensive survey of the whole field of spoken Welsh, particularly in those areas such as Monmouthshire where the ancient dialects have almost disappeared. It is a self-evident truth that this work, by its very nature, is very urgent. Here, again, such funds as have been obtained for this work, and which are by no means sufficient for the purpose, have come from two sources, the Gulbenkian Foundation and contributions from a radio appeal. There has been no Treasury support.

I come now to the crux of my appeal to the Treasury tonight, and that is the housing of the Welsh Folk Collection. This is generally regarded as one of the finest collections in Europe. It is also necessary that there should be adequate ancillary accommodation as well as accommodation for the exhibits themselves. This collection was started off at the National Museum at Cardiff, but was moved some time ago to St. Fagan's Castle, which everyone will agree is its natural home.

The crucial question of storage arose and, as an ad hoc measure to care for these items, it was decided to build a small section of the Folk Museum, which had been on the cards for some time. It was erected at the cost of about £15,000. This sum was provided entirely by Welsh local authorities. Again, there was no Treasury contribution. Suffice for me to say that the storage space provided by this erection of part of the necessary buildings is absolutely packed with specimens, and it is only possible to have a very small cross-section of them on exhibition. As will be readily appreciated, work of this kind cannot stand still. The collection of items has to go on in view of the rapid disappearance of traditional materials of country life.

There are two main disadvantages resulting from this congestion. In the first place, there is no proper place in which to exhibit the object obtained, which is the raison d'être of any museum, and, even worse, insufficient storage space and consequent deterioration of the items there.

I have concentrated so far on the necessity for storage space, but of course, it is important to bear in mind that one needs administrative offices as well. One also badly needs a restaurant, because on good days about 2,000 to 3,000 people visit the museum, which is a very satisfactory state of affairs. This position was realised as far back as 1959 by the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries, to whose advice the Government, very naturally, pay considerable attention. That body issued its fifth Report that year and I do not propose to refer to it in detail because its contents were brought very forcefully to the notice of the Government by the hon. Member for Anglesey in an Adjournment debate in 1961, and I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will have considered it as well.

It is sufficient for me to say that the position has steadily worsened since 1959, and there is now literally no storage space available. I want to be perfectly fair as to the position in 1961. The Standing Commission, to which I have referred, had in its Report given two priorities to Wales ahead of the Folk Museum. The first was to the west wing of the National Museum in Cardiff, the estimated cost being about £350,000. The second priority was to the National Library at Aberystwyth, the estimated cost of which was £200,000, and the Treasury guaranteed a grant of about 90 per cent. of the total involved, which would have amounted to £ ½ million.

It is only right that I should add, in fairness to the Government, that in the course of the Adjournment debate to which I have referred, a grant of about £3,000 was promised towards the construction of a car park at the Folk Museum, which was made necessary by the large number of visitors. I do not think that in those circumstances one could reasonably have expected the Government to do more than they did in 1961, and I certainly do not seek to criticise them for the action they then took in view of the priorities laid down by the Commission. The short point is that that was two years ago. Things have got appreciably worse since then, and it is important that this matter should be reviewed and urgently reviewed.

I pray in aid two things in particular. First, there has been a sixth Report of the Commission on Museums and Galleries in 1962, as a result of which the Folk Museum has been given top priority in Wales. Secondly, I refer to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in the debate in 1961: I am not questioning the need. I have seen the congestion, there. I realise that these are not conditions in which objects of great historic interest should be stared…There is no question of this application having been rejected."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 652.] I think that these are the main points which I wish to urge, but I would bring to the notice of my hon. Friend two further matters. One is that the Welsh Folk Museum is the only national folk museum of its kind in the whole of the British Commonwealth. It has been visited by people from overseas. Indeed, I think that I can fairly say that it has proved an inspiration for folk museums elsewhere. Northern Ireland has shown a shining example in passing an Act in its own Parliament for an Ulster Folk Museum, to be financed jointly by the State and the local authorities. Ironically enough, the trustees of that Folk Museum, which only acquired its site in March, 1961, have paid frequent visits to St. Fagan's for guidance and advice. I understand that the newly appointed director is constantly in touch with the Welsh Folk Museum.

I come to my last point, the hardest point of all, I suppose—the question of cost. What the Museum authorities would like to have would be a further grant of about £100,000 per annum for three years. That would cover the cost of the store rooms, galleries, administrative offices and the rest. I stress that it is the store rooms and galleries which are the most important. The council of the Museum has issued an appeal to the public for 10 per cent. of the funds needed, in the hope and expectation that the Treasury may be persuaded to provide 10 per cent. I hope that it is not being over-optimistic in this respect. So far the public have responded very well, but that no move has come from the Treasury and I hope that that silence will be broken tonight by my hon. Friend and that a promise will be made of assistance to this institution, which, I can fairly say, is one of the proudest creations of the Welsh nation.

11.42 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

Having received my season ticket for St. Fagan's Museum this morning, I am very glad to stay behind tonight for this debate and to congratulate the hon. Member for Denbigh (Mr. Morgan) on raising this matter and on the way in which he has put his case. I warn the Economic Secretary, before he replies, that 75 per cent. of the Members in the House at the moment are Governors of the Museum of Wales and that. therefore, we are in the majority and he had better be very careful about what he has to say.

There is a case here. The Museum is, in fact, suffering from its own popularity. I have seen the growth in the number of people attending over the years, and there is no doubt that it is impossible for it to show the exhibits which it has at present. Although I do not know the financial details as well as the hon. Member for Denbigh, I am sure that there is a very strong case here for making further provision to enable the exhibits to be displayed. It is no use having them all higgledy-piggledy as they are at the moment; they ought to be set out on show so that they can be properly seen.

I was very interested in what the hon. Member had to say about the need for a language laboratory. I think that the Welsh language took a terrible blow from the recent failure of Television Wales West and North. Whatever may have been the failings of that organisation, nobody ought to laugh and say, "We told you so", because I think it is a terrible thing when a language appears not to be able to command the attention which it ought to command. It is of vital importance--I say this as someone who does not speak Welsh—that language should be preserved for the future.

I hope that it will, indeed, be more than preserved. I hope that it will remain as a lively and vigorous and poetic and fluent method of expression. There should be the creation of a language laboratory to survey and record not only the language itself, but also the different dialects of Wales, the differences which exist at present, audible even to my untutored ear. That, I understand from the hon. Member, would cost only £6,000. I hope that a start at least can be made on that project in order to house the staff necessary for the purpose, but I also urge the Economic Secretary, despite the stringency, to tell us that he can give some help to the Folk Museum as well.

Like the hon. Member for Denbigh, I do not wish to go into the question of politics, if any, but there is a need here which should be met for the people of Wales. I will conclude, because the Economic Secretary accused me, in an earlier debate tonight, of moralising, by moralising again and saying that people who have no pride in ancestry will have little care for posterity.

11.46 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Edward du Cann)

As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said, we ought to be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Denbigh (Mr. Morgan) for raising this very important subject tonight. I know him to be a Welsh speaker and it was obvious from his remarks that he is a Welsh patriot as well. I will do my best to answer the questions I have been asked. It is a little unusual to find myself outnumbered by Welshmen in this Chamber.

The House will forgive me if in the short time available I have to speak rapidly. The National Museum of Wales was created as a result of the initiative and generosity of the people of Wales and it is the youngest of the big national museums in these islands.

We have been speaking mainly about money and I want to talk principally in that context. The first grant was £2,000. In 1963–64, the grant in aid is £443,000, of which £196,000 is for maintenance expenditure and £247,500 for capital expenditure. These are large sums. Ten years ago, in 1953–54, the comparable figure for maintenance expenditure, there being no capital expenditure, was £60,250, so it has multiplied by three since then.

At that time the total staff was 97 and today it is 155. an increase of 60 per cent. This is fine progress. Indeed, none of the other museums has developed more rapidly. The museum has made very great strides indeed and we all rejoice for that. One of the most important developments was the decision to establish a new Department of Industry, which received Treasury approval in 1957–58, and a history of industry exhibition was opened in 1960.

At St. Fagan's, to which my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East referred, a survey of oral traditions has been launched. Great progress has been made in this urgent work of recording many of the old dialects of Wales before some of them, alas, die out with the last generation of Welsh speakers in their localities.

I thought that my hon. Friend was a little unfair to the Treasury when he said that though there had been a grant of £1,500 from the Gulbenkian Foundation and contributions as a result of a radio appeal, the Treasury had contributed nothing. That is not so. The Treasury has provided staff whose salaries amount to £7,500 a year, and the Treasury has also met the cost of adapting one of the buildings, formerly the director's house, and also provided a new Land-rover at a net cost of £700. I do not argue that more cannot be done, but the Treasury has made a contribution. These developments, among others, explain the increase in the grant-in-aid without which the developments would not have been possible. Treasury help now represents, and has done for some time, 90 per cent. of income for the Museum from all sources.

I should like to say a few words on the new west wing. The greatest development of all in this period has no doubt been the work done on the building of the west wing of the National Museum. In 1961, the then Minister for Welsh Affairs announced that the Government had decided to make an Exchequer contribution of 90 per cent. of the approved cost of the two Welsh building projects recommended by the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries as deserving priority, to which my hon. Friend has rightly referred. One of these was the west wing of the National Museum in Cardiff, which was then estimated to cost £350,000, a figure now revised to around £400,000. One of the perennial problems is the way in which original estimates do not seem to be fulfilled. I do not blame anybody, but it illustrates one of the difficulties. The other development was the completion of the first bookstack of the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, estimated to cost £200,000.

The first sod was cut on the site of the new west wing in June, 1962, exactly fifty years—a rather romantic thought—after the foundation stone of the Museum was laid by King George V. The work is now progressing rapidly and it is hoped that it will be completed in 1964. Provision for the Exchequer contribution has been made in the grant for the last three years: £10,000 in 1961–62, £71,000 in 1962–63 and no less than £247,500 in the current year, making a total of £328,500 to date with the balance to come next year.

The remaining 10 per cent. of the cost is being raised by a public appeal which the Museum has launched for £150,000, a target designed to provide a contribution not only for the west wing but also for future building projects in Cardiff and at the Welsh Folk Museum, to which I now turn.

We certainly do not regard the Welsh Folk Museum as a mere appendage of the Museum as a whole, but as an integral part of it. I was grateful to my hon. Friend for saying something about its history and its activities. It is certainly a unique and very remarkable place indeed. We know that the Museum Council is very anxious, as are many people in Wales, that an addition should be made to the building of the modern Museum Nock for the work of the Welsh Folk Museum.

Unfortunately, the Government simply cannot afford to do at once everything they want to do about the immediate projects of the 17 national museums, galleries and libraries throughout the United Kingdom. This is now the principal difficulty, which I am sure my hon. Friend recognises. There has to be a system of priorities, and the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries, to which the Government look for advice in these matters, did not originally—as my hon. Friend fairly pointed out—attach as much importance to the Welsh Folk Museum block as it did to the west wing in Cardiff.

However, again as my hon. Friend stated, in its sixth Report in June, 1961, the Standing Commission listed the Museum block of the Welsh Folk Museum among the needs deserving high priority, and the Museum Council, thus encouraged, renewed its application for a grant towards the cost of this work, now estimated at £346,000.

The scheme is very ambitious. It may be that the essential needs of the Welsh Folk Museum could be met by building on a more modest scale spread over a period of time. The possibilities of this are being investigated. It must be right to investigate these possibilities. It would not be practicable to bring building projects for the Welsh institutions within the museum schemes falling on the Vote of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, but we shall certainly need the advice of the Standing Commission on relative priorities.

This unique and splendid museum is sixteen years old. It is perfectly true that the Treasury has not yet provided a significant capital contribution. My hon. Friend is accurate and right to make that point, but the current grant has increased sixteen-fold from the estimated need when the Museum was founded in 1947. Therefore, we have not been inactive, idle, ungenerous or unrealistic. The assistance grant has increased from £4,000 in 1947 to £71,000 last year; and, moreover, it is a fact that it was originally suggested that the Treasury would not be called upon for a capital contribution. However, be that as it may, the Government believe that what is now needed is an agreed provisional building programme extending over a period of years and covering the essential needs of the National Museum of Wales, including the Folk Museum and the National Library.

There have been some preliminary discussions with the Welsh authorities along these lines, and the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries will be con- sulted. It is too early to say anything definite about priorities or timing or the level of Government assistance, but it is a fair assumption that some building for the Welsh Folk Museum will come high on the list, and we shall certainly make an announcement as soon as we can. We have this in mind. We must assess the position sensibly and realistically, and we shall do so. We shall make an announcement as quickly as we can thereafter.

I have one regret, which I think the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East will particularly understand. It is this. Although I have visited a number of the museums and galleries for which the Treasury is responsible, I have not yet had the opportunity to visit the National Museum of Wales. That omission I intend to rectify at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. Callaghan

I extend an invitation forthwith. We will give the hon. Gentleman a jolly good time.

Mr. du Cann

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If we can get rid of the Finance Bill I will come along. Incidentally, we are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his help on that Bill. There are so many things in the Museum that I have read about and of which I have been told. I do not think that I need go into them in detail now; I only wish that I had the time to do so.

I am told there is some doubt on the subject of admission fees, and that there are some people who object to paying them. However much I am welcome, I shall pay my fee cheerfully, for it must be right to operate a system whereby the very great strain on the taxpayer is mitigated by the contribution of those who visit the museums. I shall look forward to coming, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for his invitation. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Denbigh will be there to put the red carpet out for me and for my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Rees), who is sharing the Treasury Bench with me.

There is no question that the National Museum of Wales is a shining example of what can be achieved by partnership between the different interests concerned in the creation and development of a great national institution such as this. The Welsh people, both the wealthy—of whom we have heard a certain amount during our recent debate—who have given splendid donations of money or objects for the collections, and the great numbers of patriotic citizens who are not wealthy, but have put their coins in the collecting boxes; industrial firms in Wales, who have responded generously to the public appeal and who have also given most of the exhibits for the department of industry; local authorities; and, of course, last but, naturally, not least, the Exchequer.

It is, perhaps, inevitable that over the years the Exchequer should have become by far the largest contributor. That does not mean that the contributions of the other partners are any less important and valuable than they used to be, either in themselves or as evidence of the place which the National Museum occupies in the hearts of the people of Wales. It has been clear that it occupies a real place in their hearts.

I wish to say by way of reassurance to my hon. Friend that we think we can claim that Treasury assistance to the Museum has been on a worthy scale and that there has been and can be no justifiable complaint of parsimony or lack of sympathy on the part of the present Administration. Indeed, should there be any suspicion of that, let me do my best now by what I have said to dispel it, for, certainly, there is no lack of sympathy and nothing but admiration and equivalent pride.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Twelve o'clock.