Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this debate, and other speakers who have raised issues I would normally have raised in relation to vulnerable children, mental health and the homeless, particularly the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, concerning smaller overseas charities. Unless we continue to support these, we will not have global health security.

However, I want to discuss immediately the plight of small charities, including museums, using the Florence Nightingale Museum as an exemplar. I declare my interest as a trustee. The situation there at the moment is very financially unstable. The museum has four months of operating costs left—this is with the excellent furlough scheme in place. It costs £20,000 a month to operate while closed—maintaining security, conservation, basic engagement and business planning—and with only three and a half full-time equivalents out of our normal staff team of 13. At this time of year, given the Easter and May bank holidays, Nurses Week and, this year, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the museum budgeted to take up to £3,000 per day. Instead, we closed on 17 March, which means no income. These are the months that pay for the quieter periods in winter.

The museum has been losing income since February when groups from overseas, notably China, Japan and Europe, began to cancel. We have also lost 20 school bookings, which reduces our ability to encourage people into the nursing profession at a young age. It is currently suggested that, post opening, museums and attractions will do well to attract 25% of 2019 figures. We will face the added stigma of being based in a hospital, and the added challenge of a central London venue, where very few people may wish to visit and which can be easily accessed only by public transport.

Social distancing measures of the type currently being employed by German museums post lockdown will not make museums sustainable without support: no group talks or performances; limited numbers. As a small charity we balance the budget each year, but we do not make considerable profits. It would be a sad reflection on our society if the only international nursing museum, the Florence Nightingale Museum, were forced to close at this point in its history. How do the Government plan to assist small museums over the next two years? Might this involve capital grants, perhaps to enable free access to certain museums as they gradually reopen?