Museums and Galleries

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, many of your Lordships will know of and appreciate the invaluable contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, to the All-Party Parliamentary Arts and Heritage Group: he is its president, and a very fine one. We share his deep appreciation of national museums and galleries in England and their contribution to public life. Our national museums and galleries are among the finest in the world. I reassure him that their trustees and directors set an admirably high standard of collections care, exhibitions and public programmes. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport shows its confidence in them by providing four-year funding settlements.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, as a former trustee of national museums and galleries of Liverpool, and given that the Liverpool museums and galleries are the only national museums and galleries outside London, can my noble friend reassure me that there is absolutely no question of any change in this unique status, especially considering the enormous development and improvement there has been to those museums and galleries?