Museums and Galleries: Financial Sustainability

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Barran

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The Government do not have any plans to designate any other museums as national museums. Moves have been made to increase funding, particularly to regional museums, through Arts Council England; obviously, we are very keen for them to thrive. We have seen new museums open regionally, and important loans have majorly boosted visitor numbers. We are keen to see that continue.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, many other large cities have a hotel tax. One only has to go to New York to see that it is quite a large percentage of what one pays. What about having a hotel tax in some of our cities—particularly London, which is awash with tourists all the time—and using at least some of the proceeds as a contribution to our museums and galleries?

[Baroness Barran]

Again, the noble Lord makes an interesting suggestion. Our broader view is that we expect museums and galleries to continue to be funded by a mixture of public money, philanthropic money and other forms of fundraising.

Immigration: Community Sponsorship

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Barran

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I thought the noble Lord was asking a very fair question until the last moment. I do not think anything has gone wrong; we are seeing a significant acceleration in the number of groups at different stages of the process. Just over 50 groups have gone through the whole community sponsorship process. The work done by Reset and other civil society groups around the country has addressed some of the blocks that meant we got off to a slow start. The application process has been significantly simplified, the training is now available on the Reset website, and groups are starting to share their successes. There are now over 100 groups in the process of application, so we can be confident of seeing a strong increase next year.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, many people who welcome the idea of community sponsorship have said to me that the scheme in this country is too bureaucratic and that we just cannot get it organised. Is there any way in which the Government could look at this and cut through the red tape so that local people can get on with it and provide the sponsorship support they want to?

[Baroness Barran]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. At the risk of repeating myself, there really has been a visible acceleration in the number of groups applying. It was just a handful in the first 18 months or so of the programme, and it is now accelerating quite quickly. A good conversation is going on between community groups. If the noble Lord has specific examples, I am happy to share them with those responsible.