NATIONAL MUSEUMS' CIRCULATING EXHIBITIONS (Hansard, 8 February 1979)

§ Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge)
My Lords, the money allocated to the national museums and galleries and to the Area Museum Councils takes account of the plans of those bodies as submitted in their annual estimates, but the Government do not exercise a detailed control over the way the money is spent. I hope that enough money will be available to the national institutions in 1979–80 to allow them to increase the number of travelling exhibitions. But I must point out that money is not the only factor involved: space and manpower are highly relevant.

§ Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU
My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether the Government are fully aware of the continuing concern and anxiety felt by provincial museums, Area Museum Councils and also the British Museums Association, not only about the closing of the V. and A. department, which co-ordinated these activities so successfully over a hundred years, but also about what they feel are the totally inadequate alternative arrangements and the need for more co-ordination and finance, as recommended by the Drew Report on Museums?

§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE
My Lords, I think the Drew Report is a rather separate issue. It is a very comprehensive report, involving a recommendation that the Government should spend a further £6 million a year on museums, and I do not think that in answering this particular Question I should be asked to deal with that. It is a very difficult and important point which we shall have to deal with later. But a good deal is happening. The British Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Science Museum have made available new exhibitions, and more are being planned. I am making the greatest efforts to ensure that their allocations for 1979–80 will be sufficiently generous to permit these plans to go ahead and further increases to be made. I will arrange for a full list of their activities in this field, both actual and planned, to be made available to your Lordships' House as soon as possible.

§ Lord COTTESLOE
My Lords, can the Minister hold out any hope that the regional services of the Victoria and Albert that were closed down last year—a very severe deprivation in the Provinces—will be restored? It is very important that they should be.

§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE
My Lords, I cannot hold out any hope on this particular suggestion. When a cut is made as part of a national policy, it is not often that you can simply put it back again. What we are hoping to do is to provide other facilities which will, to begin with, equal, and in the end perhaps even surpass, those which the V. and A. so admirably provided. But I do not wish to mislead the House into thinking that there is any suggestion that these will be restored as they were. I wish there were.

§ Lord REDCLIFFE-MAUD
My Lords, is the Minister aware that what he said earlier will be of great help to those of us who feel strongly that the dissolution of the Victoria and Albert scheme was a disaster from the point of view of the country as a whole and, in particular, from the point of view of people outside London; and that what he said about the efforts not to replace it necessarily with 823 another Victoria and Albert scheme, or to revive it, but to do something which will be better than the Victoria and Albert scheme was before, will be very much welcomed?

§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE
My Lords, I always try to help, so I am glad that the noble Lord thinks that what I said may be helpful. This is a very difficult situation. It was—and I have never denied it—a very difficult pill to swallow when we had to make these alterations, and we are trying hard to produce something as an alternative. There is some progress to be reported. There is not, I think, a monetary hold-up at the moment—there are other hold-ups, but not a monetary hold-up—and I believe that in due course we shall do so. I do not think I can go further than that.

§ Viscount ECCLES
My Lords, if it is not possible to have travelling exhibitions unless there is a charge for entrance, would the Minister prefer to have exhibitions with a charge rather than no exhibitions?

§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE
My Lords, that is an extremely neat question. I must think rather carefully before I answer it. We certainly have a number of special exhibitions in both the national and the local museums which make charges, and I have no objection to that. The Government have no intention of imposing charges on the major national institutions, which is what, if I may say so, the row was about before.

§ Lord HUTCHINSON of LULLINGTON
My Lords, would the Minister not agree that the circulating department of the Victoria and Albert acquired a large quantity of items for the specific purpose of sending them on circulating exhibitions, and that therefore the closure of that department was a gross dereliction of duty to the public in regard to those items?

§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE
My Lords, my noble friend will not expect me to accept his description, "a gross dereliction of duty". That would be going rather far, even for a 824 supporter from behind. But I have always said that I think it was a pity, and I am sorry it had to be done.