Covid-19: Museums, Galleries and Historic Buildings

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, museums and galleries depend for their success on an army of freelancers and SMEs providing specialist services on a project-by-project basis. These are the people who bring collections to life, and yet their livelihoods are facing decimation as a result of this pandemic. Many had all of their work cancelled overnight but have discovered that they fall between the gap of government support schemes, often because they are part self-employed and part PAYE, or because they operate through personal service companies.

The cultural sector is a complex ecology with symbiotic interdependencies between buildings-based institutions such as museums, smaller organisations, a workforce that is 47% self-employed, and a vast number of creative businesses, 95% of which employ fewer than 10 people. Given this, will the Minister press her DCMS colleagues to ensure that the diversity of the sector is better reflected in the make-up of the Cultural Renewal Taskforce which was announced yesterday? People with experience at the established and large-scale end of the sector can, I am sure, speak for the interests of those at the smaller-scale and more flexible end, but is there a reason why they cannot be around the table in person to speak for themselves?