| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Renton: I am sure that many noble Lords would regret it if more museums had to charge the public for admission. It becomes especially regrettable if parties of schoolchildren and their teachers have to pay. Either they or the schools might not have the necessary funds. For parties of schoolchildren, visits to museums can bring to life the teaching of history, archaeology, geology, biology and other subjects. Therefore, if museums find it difficult to pay their way without making charges, surely some way must be found to try to keep them open without having to charge for admission.
It appears that at present the National Lottery Fund and the National Heritage Memorial Fund cannot be used for the purpose of enabling museums to pay their way because of the principle of additionality. That principle prevents those funds being used in addition to government grants, if Government grants can be used. Sometimes government grants can and have been used to help museums to stay open. One must consider whether this Bill will help in any way. I should be grateful for my noble friend's interpretation of it, because I believe that it is only a matter of interpretation.
Under the present law only specific projects can be funded. If we look at the Bill closely, Clause 1(1) amends Section 3 of the National Heritage Act 1980. Under subsection (2) it is provided:
- "The Trustees may, for the purpose of ...
(b) encouraging the study and understanding of them and the compilation and dissemination of information about them".
The "them" refers to the matters dealt with in subsection (1) which go beyond projects. For example, matters of zoological or botanical interest are included. Reference is made to improving access to them. That looks like admission to the public. Reference is also made to display. That is what goes on in a museum. It also refers to "encouraging enjoyment of them". Museums can provide enjoyment as well as interest. It goes on to provide:
- "or for any purpose ancillary to those purposes [the Trustees may] give financial assistance for any project"--
that appears to be a word of limitation--
- "which appears to them to be of public benefit".
Alas, the word "project" does not appear to me to include the general cost of running a museum.
Let us look, perhaps a little more hopefully, at what is said over the page. One finds that a new subsection (5) is to give financial assistance,
- "by way of grant or loan out of the Fund, and in giving such assistance the Trustees may impose any conditions they think fit".
Those conditions are set out in subsection (6). They include "means of access or display". That looks like admission to the public and what the public are to be shown.
Finally, I refer your Lordships to subsection (7):
- "In giving any financial assistance under this section for any project for the preservation or enhancement of anything, or determining the conditions on which such assistance is to be given, the Trustees shall bear in mind the desirability of public access to, or the public display of, the thing in question and of its enjoyment by the public".
All of that looks very helpful, but it is a matter of interpretation in the light of the existing law which prevents additionality. It must be borne in mind that interpretation, stretched as much as anyone dare, is sometimes not enough. If one wishes to alter the previous law, one must amend it specifically. For that reason, I shall be very interested to hear what my noble friend has to say about the effect of the Bill on what is proposed. I shall be interested in whether or not he believes that the amendment is necessary to achieve that purpose. If there is any doubt about it, I hope that the amendment, or something like it, will be accepted.
Viscount Astor: The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, gave a clear description of the merits of not charging for admission to the British Museum. Of course, the British Museum is not the only museum that does not charge. The National Gallery does not charge for admission. I believe that this amendment is rather dangerous for galleries. It would allow the Government--in effect the Treasury--to escape from all the assurances that had been given about additionality.
My noble friend Lord Renton said that there was a law which prevented additionality. I do not think that there is. There is simply an undertaking by the Government. One must remember that the Government do not give away lottery money. The distributing bodies give it away.
I am against the amendment because, in effect, it says that if post-settlement the Government cut the money which goes to the British Museum, lottery money will make up the difference. That would not prevent the Treasury from making cuts. I believe that it would encourage it to make cuts, because under the proposed amendment it would know that a museum could go to the Arts Council or the National Heritage Memorial Fund and say that its budget had been cut, that it might have to charge and that in the Bill it was provided that it could get lottery money. It would be very dangerous. I understand the noble Lord's concerns about charging but I do not believe that this amendment in this Bill is the right way to deal with the problem.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Renton: I thank my noble friend. If, by a slip of the tongue, I referred to the law of additionality, I was wrong; it is the principle of additionality. But it is a governing principle because it is something which the Government decided upon before giving away any money.
Lord Donoughue: I fear that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, described the reality of the current situation
in this area, which is that cuts are made by the Treasury regardless. If there is any suggestion that money may be obtained from the lottery, that is used as an excuse, but if that money is not available then the cuts are made in any event.However, I should like to say a few words in support of my noble friends Lord Strabolgi and Lord Jenkins. On this side we feel that perhaps the most important current single issue in the area of heritage is the plight of our museums and especially the British Museum, which, as has been said, is the world's greatest of its kind. I am puzzled. I believe that it is bizarre and ludicrous for the British Museum to be forced to make a charge which will exclude many of our citizens, especially our younger citizens, from its treasures. In the case of the British Museum, that will be all for the lack of £6 million per year when on another hand we see that £0.5 billion or more of lottery and other public and private money is ready to be hosed over the toxic wastes of Greenwich yielding little of permanent value.
I know that those are two slightly separate issues, but in the end, it is part of the heritage problem that we have in our society and I find it quite incomprehensible. In responding to the amendment, I should like the Minister to inform us as to whether existing legislation enables support to be given for the purposes suggested by the amendment.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: I find this a very misconceived and astounding amendment. I am sure that politics come into this more than practical matters in relation to the future of museums. I can think of many reasons, as I am sure can other Members of the Committee, why lottery money should be made available to our national museums for new purchases, enhancement of collections and so on. But why should we wish to subsidise rich American and German tourists who visit the British Museum? I believe that 80 per cent. of visitors to the British Museum come from overseas and a recent survey pointed out that 80 per cent. of those were not only able but willing to pay an admission charge, as, indeed, is charged at the Louvre, the Hermitage, the Kunsthaus in Vienna, the Uffizi in Florence and so on. There are no criticisms there.
And then there is the allegation that attendances have fallen. But I believe that the number of visitors was never counted in the first place. There cannot be a reduction from a number which was unknown in the first place. The way in which counting takes place at the museums still leaves a lot to be desired.
I believe that lottery money should be used for capital projects, and that was the main reason that it was set up. But to pour millions down the drain of an ever gaping hole is no incentive for the trustees to establish any sensible policy. It is easy to make no charge for children and old-age pensioners. Many museums do that. That is not difficult.
I want lottery money to be used to improve what people come to see. If that is done, even more people will wish to pay to see the museums. Let us keep the money for that. So much can be done but to subsidise overseas visitors seems to me to be extremely silly.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: I suggest to the noble Lord that he should speak to his noble friend Lord Gowrie, who will tell him that the notion that 80 per cent. of visitors to museums are foreigners is absolute nonsense.
Lord Inglewood: We have had a heartfelt and wide-ranging debate on this amendment. I am sure that the Committee will be aware that, under Clause 1 of the Bill, the trustees of the NHMF will be able to provide financial assistance for projects aimed at securing, displaying or improving access to heritage items and encouraging enjoyment of them. Thus the Bill allows the NHMF to consider assisting projects which would secure reduced admissions charges, which was the point made by my noble friend Lord Renton. I believe, therefore, that the Bill as drafted covers the purposes of the noble Lord's amendment. If the trustees of the NHMF receive an application and consider it appropriate, and if the policy directions permit, they would be able to provide financial assistance in this way.
It will be for the trustees to exercise their discretion as to how they should use their new powers. However, I would envisage that they might wish to give priority to projects which would encourage members of the public who might not easily be able to afford the cost of admission charges--for example the young, the elderly and the unemployed--to visit museums and other similar venues to enjoy them.
Thus I hope your Lordships will see that the noble Lord's amendment therefore adds nothing to the powers of the NHMF beyond what the Government are proposing in the Bill as drafted. However, what it does do is actually to restrict the discretion of the NHMF in undesirable ways. The amendment would give favoured treatment to the national museums and galleries, and I do not believe it is desirable to favour some organisations in this way, as is proposed. The trustees of the NHMF should have the freedom to determine their priorities within the heritage sector as a whole. The amendment would restrict that freedom.
The noble Lord's proposal seeks to address the long-term revenue needs of the national museums and galleries. However, while this is a matter for the trustees of the NHMF, I should be surprised if they would wish to use their powers to commit lottery money towards the long-term revenue costs of the national museums in order to avoid the need for a general admission charge. Any such assistance would principally benefit those visitors, including, as my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu pointed out, the large number of visitors from overseas who are well able to afford admission charges. Those museums and galleries which already charge generally offer free entry to special groups such as the elderly, children and the unemployed. The new powers could enable the trustees of the NHMF to assist museums in offering further concessions. Furthermore,
lottery funding to prevent general admission charges would raise issues about substitution for core funding and affordability. As has been mentioned, it would be difficult to reconcile such a commitment with the Government's statement on additionality.The proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, would also raise difficulties for the NHMF in determining how much financial assistance was needed by the various museums in order to help them avoid the introduction of admission charges. On what basis could such decisions be taken? In order to maximise their bids for financial assistance, the institutions would have every incentive publicly to maintain that they intended to introduce charges and it is difficult to see how the NHMF could form a judgment on those bids without exploring in great detail the institutions' finances and the options available to them for controlling expenditure and raising alternative sources of income. Certainly it would be a significant burden on them, I would expect.
The amendment before us refers to the "imposition" of admission charges. I must emphasise--and this was a point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Strabolgi and Lord Jenkins--that there is no question of the Government imposing this on the British Museum or on the other national museums, and let us be clear, the future of the British Museum is a very important matter and of concern to everybody in this country. The decision on this is entirely a matter for the trustees of each institution, who are in the best position to make that judgment in the light of their own needs and priorities. Of the 12 national museums and galleries sponsored by my department, six have introduced an admission charge. In each case the decision was taken solely by the trustees.
The Government neither encourage nor discourage charging for admission by national museums and galleries. It is up to them, and many galleries in the world do make a charge. In the case of the British Museum, it has recently completed a fundamental expenditure review--the Edwards Report--which has pointed out that the museum must balance its books: an entirely unobjectionable proposition, I would suggest. In order to do that, necessary and prompt action needs to be taken. One--but only one--of the possibilities raised is the introduction of admission charges. It is for the trustees themselves to decide what is to be done to improve the financial condition of the museum.
Given that the Bill as drafted will enable the trustees of the NHMF to provide financial assistance to museums and galleries and other heritage venues for discrete projects which would enable them to reduce admissions charges in specific circumstances, I very much hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment. I am reluctant, for the reasons I have touched on, to accept his proposal because it conflicts with the principle of additionality and because of the other actual and potential practical difficulties which I mentioned.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page