Museums: Funding

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking and congratulating my noble friend Lord Monks on bringing this debate to the House. The People’s History Museum is a fantastic national and international museum—you can see that when you visit it. Having said that, as a fellow Mancunian, I am very pleased that it is located in Manchester and the north-west, and I think that my noble friend is probably also pleased about that.

At the time that the funding of the People’s History Museum changed, I was the chair of the National Coal Mining Museum for England, which was affected by the same regulations. I make this my first point as I think that it is the source of the difficulties experienced by the People’s History Museum. In 2010, the Government decided that some of national museums—those that were not covered by an original statute—would be funded in a different way. I think that my noble friend Lord Monks described it as the DCMS relinquishing control and sponsorship. If my memory serves me right, every single one of the affected museums was a national museum outside London. The national museums in London were not affected by this provision.

My museum was affected in the same way. It meant that an awful lot of time and effort had to be put into securing a partnership in order to survive. The Coal Mining Museum already had a partnership with the Science Museum. However, the People’s History Museum, which did not have that alignment, has experienced a lot of difficulty. Even in our case, the time, effort, resource and the legal work involved in making that new relationship work was not worth the effort. To tell the truth, the reason it was done was to reduce the number of quangos, because that was the government commitment at the time of the general election. That is not a great episode in the reputational history of the DCMS.

I will make two further brief points. Regional museums, or museums in the regions—whichever way you wish to look at it—are very important. We are very proud of our national museums, which are some of the best in the world, but we now worry about the gap between the north and the south and between the regions and the capital. This is one example of where we have not quite got that right. Regional museums are important not just because they tell a story but because they are part of the cultural fabric of their cities, towns and villages, which helps regeneration, promotes social and cultural cohesion and helps give us a better education service.

Although I applaud the work that the Arts Council has done since it took on responsibility for museums, if you look at the ways that museums now seek funding, for example through grants, you will see that the regions find it more difficult than London. Philanthropy is not as easy if you are a regional museum, and money from local authorities is not as available as it used to be. For all those reasons, regional museums are having a tough time. I am delighted to draw that to the House’s attention in this debate.