National Museums and Galleries: Free Admission (Hansard, 21 February 2000)

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, funds have been made available to permit free access for children since April 1999 and free access for pensioners from April 2000 to the currently charging national museums funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. We are continuing to assess the most effective ways of enhancing access in 2001. However, as at present, decisions will ultimately be taken by the trustees.

§ Viscount Falkland
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. It did not exactly answer the Question on the Order Paper, but I understand the Government's difficulties in giving free access to all. When the Government have to be selective about where they will give free access, will they always bear in mind that access to picture galleries for young people, whether they are students or young people in work, stimulates an interest and enthusiasm often for life, which is transmitted to future generations?

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Viscount's final point. I am glad that in putting that question he moved to the word "access" rather than the word "admission", which was used in his original Question. Access is a great deal more than just admission. Access includes the ways in which museums and galleries can improve the presentation of their collections and improve the hours in which they are made available; it includes the publicity for them; and it includes the way in which 8 they are extended to the wider world outside museums and galleries. It is that wider sense of access about which the Government are most concerned.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that free admission to their own property is the right policy to adopt in this connection? Does he also agree that, while trustees must make their own decisions, they can be encouraged one way or another to adopt free admission? That policy has been an immense success and has increased access to museums and galleries. It would be a great pity to limit it in any way at all.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, my noble friend is too modest to remind the House that, when he became Minister for the Arts, he called in the directors of the museums and galleries and said, "You are not going to charge for admission"; and they did not. Those were happy and simpler days. We have always said, as my noble friend rightly says, that access will be the cornerstone of our cultural policy. We are always looking for new ways to achieve that. We are conscious that when we can achieve better access, including free admission, it actually works. The number of children going to galleries and museums which used to charge for access and which ceased to do so in April last year has increased over the year by around 22 per cent.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I declare an interest as an unpaid trustee of the Royal Air Force Museum. Perhaps I may ask why, as a national museum sponsored by a government department, it is not included in the policy to which the noble Lord has just referred. It has to wait until there is spare money in the defence budget in order to follow the policy, which is apparently a national policy for government-sponsored national museums.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, I am conscious of the problems there have been in discussions with the Imperial War Museum, which is the parent museum. Is the noble Baroness talking about Duxford?

§ Baroness Blatch
No, my Lords. The Imperial War Museum and Duxford are all right. They are included in the national concession. The Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon is not included in the national policy and yet it is a government-sponsored national museum.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, my original Answer referred to national museums funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I understood that that was the basis of the Question. However, I take the noble Baroness's point. If I may, I shall write to her and place a copy of my letter in the Library.

§ Lord Puttnam
My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Science Museum. The situation is not quite as clear as the noble Lord. Lord McIntosh, 9 explained, because we have an insane situation with VAT. At present, if it is a free museum, VAT is not refunded, whereas if it is a museum with paid entry, VAT is fully refunded. At the moment an enormous amount of building work is being carried out at museums all over the country and large amounts of private finance are being used to enable that building work to take place. When will the Government unhook this crazy situation in which in order to become a free museum one is penalised by having to pay VAT on new building?

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, my noble friend is of course right on his facts. It is true that, if museums were to become entirely free in terms of admission, they would lose the right to reclaim VAT, as they would cease to be businesses in a VAT sense, except on proceeds from their catering facilities and book stalls. As a result they would lose around two-thirds of their VAT reclaim. We have succeeded in persuading Customs and Excise that that should not apply if, as is now the policy, they admit children and pensioners free, but it is a matter for the museums to negotiate with Customs and Excise and to seek to persuade them that they are still businesses even if they have free admission. My noble friend's point about VAT and capital works is true as well.

§ Baroness Thomas of Walliswood
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the excellent opening of the Monet waterlily show on Sunday night is a perfect example of what my noble friend Lord Falkland is trying to achieve? People of all ages, kinds and descriptions crowded into the museum at very strange hours—I arrived there at about five o'clock in the morning—and it was a wonderful occasion. Is there anything the Government can do to encourage such an imaginative use of museums which really does increase both access and admission?

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a most valuable point. I agree with her about opening hours. If she looks at the National Gallery, she will see that outside it boasts of the fact that there is still free access and that it is open for longer. We are anxious to encourage that for the permanent exhibitions as well as for the special exhibition to which the noble Baroness referred.

§ Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, if the Government have always meant that free access does not mean what the public believes to be free access—free admission—why in their press release of 24th July 1998 did they refer to the fact that the money they were giving to museums and galleries would, enable Trustees of the major national collections—including those which currently charge—to introduce free access for children from next year; for pensioners in the following year; and universal tree entry in 2001"?

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, I did not say that free access was not the same thing. I said that access is a wider concept than free admission. Indeed, in the comprehensive spending review we have 10 provided the money for trustees, if they wish, to provide free admission, other than for pensioners and children, in 2001. Some of them do not wish to do so. What happens to the money and the way in which we can achieve wider access is still a matter for discussion between the Government and the trustees.

§ Lord Tomlinson
My Lords, would my noble friend agree with me if I suggested to him that it is not just a question of central government funding? Will he join me in congratulating Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council on the opening of the new museum in Walsall, which it has guaranteed to be open free of charge to all citizens?

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, I cannot wait to go to Walsall. It sounds very exciting. Lottery funds have been used as well as council funds.

§ Lord Tomlinson
And European funds!