Victoria and Albert Museum: Slide Loan Service (Hansard, 2 March 1981)

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

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts is still considering what alternative arrangements he should make in order to ensure that the slide loan service will continue. He intends to make an announcement as soon as the details are sufficiently settled.

§ Lord Plant
My Lords, while I thank the noble Earl for that helpful reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that the 6,000 applicants (including the Workers' Educational Association) who annually use this service will be encouraged by that reply, but would wish to know how much longer they must wait before the service is resumed? This is a valuable library and the slides are as much a national treasure as the objects that they depict. I would press the noble Earl on the question of how much longer we must wait before the library service is resumed.

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I cannot say yes or no to some of the statistics of the noble Lord, but may I remind him that the slide service is still going on. The Government are conscious of the need to maintain it in an uninterrupted form. To permit a period of closure would inconvenience all the users, whether lecturers, teachers, public school pupils, students or 1214 those who attend adult education. The intention is to ensure continuation of the service in a form which I cannot yet announce.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, if there is to be a period when the slide service will not be available to the public, will this be at a time of the year when young people will be taking their A-level examinations? There are now 10,000 students taking History of Art as an A-level subject. Will this mean that the slide service will not be available at that crucial time? Is the Minister aware that, unless a definite announcement is made soon, the many freelance lecturers who give adult education classes cannot sign contracts for the autumn and are in danger of losing their jobs?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those remarks. Not only are the Government aware of future contracts being in jeopardy but they know that present contracts are in that situation as well. That is why I said that the Government were conscious of the need to maintain the service in an uninterrupted form.

§ Lord Strabolgi
My Lords, are the Government aware that, due to the Civil Service staff cuts, up to 20 rooms a day have to be shut at the Victoria and Albert and that the whole museum is shut to the public on Fridays? Will they consider transferring the V and A museum from the Department of Education and Science and putting it under independent trustees like most of the other national museums, which have fared much better in this respect?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, the Government have confidence in the director of the Victoria and Albert and, on this issue, are trying to find an alternative solution.

§ Lord Strabolgi
My Lords, are the Government aware that the director of the Victoria and Albert has himself deplored the cuts imposed upon him, which he described as "tragic"?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, the director has made a decision of his own with regard to the slide museum and one within his own province.

The Earl of Gosford
My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether the Minister in another place is thinking in terms of this library continuing at the Victoria and Albert, or going to another museum or being taken over by private enterprise? We are talking in terms of half a million slides worth something like a quarter of a million pounds. If the slide collection is going to another museum, why sack eight people from the V and A and take on eight people at another museum? If it goes to private enterprise and there is a charge to be made for taking slides out and the charge becomes too much and the company then fails, can the Ministry guarantee that this valuable asset will be kept and returned perhaps to the museum?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, the noble Earl has asked a number of different questions. Perhaps it would be easiest if, with the leave of the House, I repeat what 1215 was said in a Written Answer on 29th January in answer to a similar Question in another place. My right honourable friend Mr. Channon said that his right honourable friend the Member for Chelmsford had announced on 10th December his decision to ensure that the slide loan service would go on. My right honourable friend went on: I fully endorse that decision and am now considering alternative ways of providing the service bearing in mind the particular needs of those who use it ". That is how it rests, and discussions are in progress at the moment.