National Media Museum

Debate between George Galloway and Gerry Sutcliffe

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Galloway (Bradford West) (Respect)]

I am relieved, up to a point, that I do not have to come to the House this evening to savage the Minister as an enemy of the people, or to denounce him as a philistine and cultural vandal. I am relieved because I have always considered him rather an adornment to the Government of brutes with whom he sits—a civilised man; a kind of lipstick on the pig.

I am also relieved because, in a meeting the Minister graciously gave my colleagues and I just a day or two ago, up to a point, he rather shot my fox. There I was, with my parliamentary colleagues—four parties are represented in Parliament from the Bradford district—absolutely united and leading what looked like becoming a mass campaign of the entire city and district against a proposed act of cultural vandalism, but the Minister disarmed it in the first line of the meeting by telling us that the Bradford National Media museum would not close.

We are grateful to the Minister for that, although he will forgive us if we want to look the gift horse a little closer in the mouth, because there are, of course, more ways of closing somewhere than simply locking its doors. However, we are grateful that the Minister had the sense to listen to the public, led by the five parliamentarians from four parties, the city council, and the local newspaper, the Telegraph and Argus. There was, as I have said, a crescendo of opposition to the proposed closure, and it is only right to commend a Minister who listens. I hope I do not spoil his chances in the forthcoming reshuffle—I wish him well, and am grateful to him up to this point, when I must part company from him.

The National Media museum is fundamental to Bradford. It is a national treasure, but it is fundamental to Bradford, a city with a sea of troubles, with mass unemployment, mass poverty, mass child poverty, record infant mortality rates, record deaths in hospitals and so on. Bradford has so many problems that it could not afford another. If the closure as leaked—I will come to that point in a minute—had gone ahead, it could have been a death blow to a great city, which in 1903 was the richest city per capita in England, but which now, in 2013, does not have its troubles to seek, particularly in the city centre, where we have a hole in the ground where Westfield was supposed to be. When I arrived there at least 15 months ago, the iconic Odeon building was crumbling and shrink-wrapped, looking like it was going to fall down. If the National Media museum had closed on the back of that desertification of the city centre, it could have been a death blow, so I am grateful that the Government have announced that it will not close.

In part, it will not close because the public expenditure cuts in this age of austerity, which the Government are imposing on the country, have turned out, in the case of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport at least, not to be as severe as planned. We are told in authoritative media briefings that 10% has been reduced to 5%, but, as the late and lamented trade union leader Alan Fisher once said, 5% of bugger all is bugger all. Five per cent. off our shrunken budget will be a serious blow none the less, so my first question to the Minister, which I hope he addresses, is this: the museum will not close, which is wonderful, but what will happen to the capital programme and capital expenditure on the building? Will the building be not closed, but allowed to crumble? Will the vital physical changes in the building not be possible? As my colleagues and I will advance, and as we advanced in our meeting with the Minister, many things about the National Media museum need to change. That is the first question.

To move on to my second question for the Minister, I have doubts as to whether the National Media museum belongs in the Science Museum Group at all. Media to me is an art rather than a science. The science of how film, radio and television get into the living room or the cinema is interesting, but not as interesting as the content of the film, radio and television. The National Media museum in Bradford is the repository of the national BBC archive, but who knows about it, who can access it and who can see it? The whole notion of the national Science Museum Group should be brought into question by this debate.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that there was a radio station supported by the BBC in the National Media museum. That station left in March of this year without any fight from the museum. That is why we all smelt a rat. My hon. Friend might want to comment on that. That surely had an impact on visitor numbers to the museum.

[George Galloway]

Undoubtedly; that was one of the most popular attractions. It was interactive: people could get behind a desk and conduct make-believe interviews. Future politicians were being groomed in that studio in Bradford. Now it is gone and no fight was put up for it.

To skip ahead in what I was going to say, I belong to the Deng Xiaoping school of socialists: I do not care whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. The state must of course be a major stakeholder in museums, and free admission must be defended at all costs. The National Media museum has half a million visitors. That is down from 1 million, but it is not nothing. The overwhelming majority of those half a million visitors are from Yorkshire and Humberside. Most of them, very unusually for a museum, are from lower socio-economic groups. Charging would be a death knell for us and the state must be there to guarantee that that does not happen.

However, the BBC is a national institution that is deeply in need of a new lick of paint to renovate its tattered public reputation. Why does the BBC not help to pay for the National Media museum? Why can the BBC logo that used to be at White City not be up on that building? Its archive is there. The public pay for the BBC. Heaven knows, any money that it spends on the National Media museum might save us from hours of tripe that, I am sorry to say, would otherwise be included in its output.

Perhaps other media outlets could be involved. I am not arguing for the rehabilitation of Mr Rupert Murdoch, but I have written to His Highness Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, with his great media interests, and asked him to sponsor the museum. That is how desperate I was. Perhaps, I am glad to say, he did not reply.