Memorandum submitted by Christopher Price
As a onetime chair of one of your predecessor
bodies—the Education, Science and Arts Committee (1979-83)—I
wondered if I might offer your Committee some comments on your
imminent inquiry. After leaving parliament I have kept in touch
with DNH and DCMS through a spell on the Arts Council as chair
of Yorkshire Arts. What follows is a personal reaction to your
inquiry's remit.
Funding, with particular reference to the adequacy
of the budget for museums, galleries and archives, and the impact
of the London 2012 Olympics on Lottery funding for their sector
The remit and effectiveness of DCMS, the Museums,
Libraries and Archives Council and other relevant organisations
in representing cultural interests inside and outside Government
These two issues are inextricably linked. In
other areas of government, policy coherence has been achieved
through funding bodies. This has involved government departments
delegating funding to an agency, while remaining able to give
general directions to that agency—examples are the Arts
and Sports Councils at DCMS and the higher education funding council
at DfES. Recent discussions in DCMS over extending this role to
MLA came to nothing. Experience suggests that agencies are more
effective with funding as well as advisory responsibilities. Why
did DCMS reject this option? Was it because of opposition from
some national museums and galleries?
Acquisition and disposal policies with particular
reference to due diligence obligations on acquisition and legal
restrictions on disposal of objects
As far as due diligence obligations in acquisition
and legislative restrictions on disposal are concerned, the policy
objectives behind current proposals for new legislation in the
UK should be elucidated. Does DCMS have any policy on cultural
mobility and restitution claims? Its current approach appears
to avoid any declared "policy" whatever and to hand
over decision-taking on an ad hoc basis to the particular museum
or gallery involved. The danger then will be ad hoc tinkering
legislation with the public at large scarcely consulted and the
public interest scarcely considered.
In spite of the efforts of Norman Palmer and
the committees he has chaired in recent years, there is no unanimity
yet on how to handle disposal issues—especially high profile
ones. Some national museums would like a freer hand; others—including
the British Museum—appear to remain in favour of continuing
the Attorney General's role—one which other institutions
see as operating in an unnecessarily narrow and piecemeal manner.
Within this context, however much the committee
might wish to limit the inquiry, it will be increasingly difficult
for it to isolate disposal policy within a national framework.
The EU is successfully developing policies on cultural mobility
within Europe. International cultural policies are producing cooperation
agreements worldwide whereby issues of "disposal" are
increasingly superseded by reciprocal loans and exchanges. The
UK and Australian prime ministers have established an agreement
over the restitution of human remains.
Voluntary agreements of this kind can do much
to staunch the current the spate of international litigation—which
is palpably a less satisfactory path towards resolving claims
and tends to make cash rather than cultural value the criterion
for resolution. An international cultural environment is now fast
developing in which national policies and legislation have to
take into account international imperatives. I hope that any conclusions
by the Committee about disposal policy will have regard to this
reality.
7 September 2006
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