§ Mr. Dorrellasked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts when the Minister for the Arts will be replying to the first report of the Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts of Session 1983–84 on the effect of the abolition of the Greater London council and metropolitan county councils upon support for the arts; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WaldegraveMy right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for the Arts has today written to the Chairman of the Committee, giving a detailed response by the Government to the Committee's report. My right hon. and noble Friend would like to record the Government's thanks to the Committee and to the many individuals and organisations which gave evidence to it.
The Government welcome the emphasis given by the Committee to the funding role of successor borough and district councils for essentially local and sub-regional arts activities, and endorses the Committee's wish to see an enhanced role for the regional arts associations. It is also good to see that the Committee was in basic agreement with my right hon. and noble Friend on the provision of extra central funding for the national companies and other major arts and museum bodies of national and international standing directly affected by the abolition of the GLC and MCCs.
The Government have now decided on the form that the central funding, announced in my right hon. and noble Friend's statement of 11 April last, should take for the Greater Manchester museum of science and industry, the Walker art gallery and its outstations, and the Merseyside county museum.
For the Manchester body, the Government will directly fund the existing charitable trust by means of a grant-in-aid from the Office of Arts and Libraries.
In Merseyside, a new trustee body will be established, on a broadly similar basis to the existing national trustee museums, to take responsibility for the county museum and the Walker art gallery and its outstations. This will be financed by grant-in-aid and thus be accountable to the Minister and Parliament. This decision reflects the Government's view that the main museum and the art galleries are of a scale and character to merit this status.