§ Mr. Fauldsasked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts whether he will publish in the Official Report the attendance figures for 1984 reported by the national museums and galleries in England, broken down to the individual institutions but comprising their outstations, with figures in each case of the percentage increase or decrease on the attendance figures for 1983.
§ Mr. Waldegrave[pursuant to his reply, 9 January 1985. c. 426]: The information requested is as follows:
Estimated attendance in 1984 Percentage change from 1983 British Museum 3,467,044 +12.6 Imperial War Museum 1,365,888 +8.8 National Gallery 2,936,926 +1.4 National Maritime Museum 600,000 * National Portrait Gallery 581,395 +24.2 Science Museum 4,510,103 -5.7 Tate Gallery 1,265,605 -0.3 Victoria & Albert Museum 2,079,204 -6.4 Wallace Collection 177,613 +0.2 * No quantifiable change. The estimated figure for attendance at the Imperial War Museum includes visitors to the Cabinet war rooms in Whitehall which were opened to the public on 6 April 1984. Admission charges were introduced at the National Maritime Museum in April 1984, and the figure quoted is an approximate estimate based partly on the number of admission tickets sold, some of which cover more than one entrant or visit. Other museums record visitors manually, and in most cases the figures are regarded as being accurate to within about 5 per cent. This limits the interpretation of apparent annual changes in attendance, which may also be affected by other factors at individual museums and galleries.