Museums and Galleries: Admission Charges for Non-UK Residents

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

As I said in my initial Answer, we currently have no plans to charge for entry to national museums, but the noble Lord is right about what happens when people visit those museums, particularly those which would potentially see lower visitor numbers if they were not free to enter. I am not going to do a league table of which ones I think that might be. There has currently been no impact assessment or any sort of feasibility study on this, because we do not currently have such plans. However, I entirely anticipate that the huge benefit to museums and galleries of visitors’ spend on retail and hospitality when they go to these museums would be considered.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. I welcome the Minister’s caution. To me, the biggest challenge, quite apart from the rights and wrongs of a charge in the first place, would be the logistical challenge of separating visitors as they came into the gallery. How on earth do you decide who has to pay and who does not? I suspect that the cost would outweigh any benefits, so I welcome the cautionary notes. However desirable it might be in theory, I do not think it would be realistic in practice.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I agree with the caution that the noble Lord expressed. We would have to consider a whole range of issues. This is not to say that we are not always looking at how we can bring more funding into the sector, but anything we do needs to be measured against the disbenefit of any action we might propose.