ULSTER MUSEUM ORDER, 1962 (Hansard, 16 May 1962)

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (EARL JELLICOE)

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The purpose of this Order is set out in the explanatory note, and I think it is quite clear. It is simply to add the Ulster Museum to the First Schedule to the National Gallery and Tate Gallery Act, 1954. This is being done at the request of the Government of Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Government seek in this way to recognise the new status of this relatively small but admirable museum, since the First Schedule tends to be taken as a definitive list of the national collections of the United Kingdom. Apart from this, there is the practical point that promotion to Schedule 1, if I may use that term, will enable the Ulster Museum to benefit from transfers of works of art under Sections 3 and 5 of the 1954 Act.

When the National Gallery and Tate Gallery Bill was before Parliament, what is now the Ulster Museum was still the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, administered and financed by the City of Belfast. This institution was not included in the First Schedule because it was virtually indistinguishable from other municipal collections. The United Kingdom Government appreciated the special place which the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery occupied in the life of Northern Ireland, but did not feel able to treat it as if it were a collection administered by the Government and financed from the Exchequer. It was therefore left out of the Schedule. Nevertheless the then Financial Secretary—now my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary—said, during the Committee stage of the Bill in another place [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 532, col. 1355]: If at any time a new situation arose and the gallery were transferred from the Belfast Corporation to the Government of Northern Ireland, we should all feel that a very strong case had been established for a Treasury order to be made … so that it could be included in the Schedule. That new situation has now arisen, my Lords, because under the Museum Act (Northern Ireland), 1961, 624 the Ulster Museum is created out of the old Belfast Museum and Art Gallery.

The new museum is to be very largely financed and administered by the Government of Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom Government, for their part, are therefore anxious to fulfil the promise made in 1954 and to meet the special request of the Government of Northern Ireland. That is our reason for seeking to make this Order, which I wholeheartedly commend to your Lordships. I beg to move.