Museums and Galleries: Admission Charges for Non-UK Residents

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

DCMS is committed to working in partnership with councils and local leaders so that residents’ needs are met, but we are also reviewing wider funding structures and addressing challenges across the entire sector. This includes through the review of Arts Council England and the Government’s commitment to restoring stability to local government finances. We really do understand the issues that a number of cultural institutions are facing.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if you start to exclude people from museums, you start to remove their spending in museums’ cafés and gift shops? Can this be an official part of any review of charging structures for entrance to those institutions?

[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.