HC Deb 14 December 1998 vol 322 cc589-90
4. Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East)

What his plans are to improve access for children to museums and galleries. [62129]

The Minister for Arts (Mr. Alan Howarth)

As my right hon. Friend announced this morning, funds will be made available to allow the trustees of the national museums and galleries that charge for entry to introduce free admission for children from April 1999. That will apply both to main sites and to branch museums.

Mr. McNulty

I thank my hon. Friend for that welcome news, but can he clarify whether that means that children will have free access to museums and galleries when they are not in a school party? Can he also enlighten me a little more on what joined-up or grown-up thinking the Department has about sharing that key educational resource with other Departments?

Mr. Howarth

I can encourage my hon. Friend on both points. For example, until now, children who visited the Science museum in a school party gained free admission, but did not if they visited it on their own—other than at certain times of the week—or with their families. The Science museum will now have the opportunity to offer them free admission on all occasions, and I am pleased to understand that it is its wish to take up that offer.

My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the need for co-ordinated policy development on education. He will have noted, for example, that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), announced a £140,000 fund to support schools to work with museums and galleries to provide innovative learning opportunities out of school hours. We are developing an agenda with the Department for Education and Employment on a number of fronts, because our museums and galleries are a wonderful educational resource.

Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey)

The announcement made today, which has been referred to, was described in the accompanying press release as the biggest ever reform of cultural funding and organisation". Is not it absolutely typical that, instead of the announcement being made in the House, it was made at 10 o'clock this morning at the Tate gallery?

Is not it a tragic misdirection of funds that nearly £100 million—which could have been of real value to museums throughout the country, including children's museums such as the Roald Dahl museum—will go to a handful of mainly metropolitan museums in an attempt to compensate for the cost of free admission? Surely that is a wasteful exercise in ideology, which will benefit few children, many of whom already get into museums for nothing.

Will the Minister confirm that the chief beneficiaries of that policy will be overseas tourists and, of course, Her Majesty's Treasury, which will benefit to the tune of tens of millions of pounds a year in VAT receipts that it did not previously get? When will the Government stop using arts policy as a tool of dogmatic Labour party policy?

Mr. Howarth

It would appear, unfortunately, that the hon. Gentleman may have neglected to read parliamentary answers last week. I refer him to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on Thursday 10 December, in which the relevant announcement was duly and properly made to the House. The briefing given this morning was supplementary to that.

The principal beneficiaries of the policies that we have announced will be children, and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is happy to contemplate the continuation of charging, which acts as a barrier to children experiencing great art and getting to know the great collections of our museums.

Of course other policies and funds are designed to enable more and more people to enjoy the treasures of our museums; for example, a £15 million challenge fund supports the designated collections and a £7 million access fund from the heritage lottery fund supports museums and galleries. As we have already announced, the heritage lottery fund will enjoy an extra £50 million to use between now and 2001, and it has been confirmed that it will continue to receive 16⅔ per cent. of the proceeds of the national lottery. Thereafter, the regional cultural forums will engage local authorities much more closely in developing an integrated policy across the country. We have much in hand to improve access to and enhance the educational activities of museums and galleries across the country.