Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Main Page: Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in thanking my noble friend Lady Royall for securing this debate and in congratulating her on her appointment as chair of the trustees. We have a number of trustees and ex-trustees present, so it is a glittering occasion for the People’s History Museum. I declare an interest as a very willing funder—no arm twisting was involved—of the innovative Radical Heroes scheme. Indeed, the cheque is in the post for my next instalment, which is due. It was interesting to hear that the Minister has connections in this area as well. I hope he will expand on that when he comes to respond. I also buy, when I can, copies of posters from the museum’s vast collection and I regularly visit it when I am in Manchester.
I ran a cultural organisation in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a rather difficult time economically. The British Film Institute, like lots of other bodies at that time, had real difficulty in making ends meet when audiences dried up and the money was cut from the centre. A bit like the People’s History Museum, we had a combination of problems, partly because the audiences were not coming but also because within the British Film Institute we had the national museum for film, a library of books and collections of papers from film makers which were important to our core mission. Had we not had the support of the incredible philanthropist J Paul Getty Jr we would not have survived. However, throughout the time that he funded us he made it consistently clear that he would not fund core costs. His money was there to take the institute into different areas of interest; to explore, research and publish in a way which would not have been possible without his generosity but which was not the core functions which he felt were for government. Indeed, he used to summon Ministers—as rich people often can—to make it clear what their responsibilities were. Some of them listened, which was great, and we survived.
My noble friend Lady Royall made the point that the difficulty is finding this core funding. It is easier to get people interested in funding exhibitions and involved in and enthused by the material in your collections. However, money for opening the doors, cleaning the place and making sure it is available day in, day out, 365 days a year has got to be found somewhere and it is not easy to do. There are no easy solutions to that problem, but you can make sure that the institution itself is in good shape. We have learned from this debate that we have an excellent operation up in Manchester. As I have already said, it has good trustees and fundraising which looks exceptionally good to me. It is a very impressive list of people and they seem to be very effective. They get audiences—100,000 in a year is very good for a place like this museum and it is a tourist attraction as well as a centre for local people and a recognised research base.
So what is the problem? It is the snare of being designated as a national collection but not being funded to operate as that. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain why that conundrum has arisen. The designation under which it falls is run by the Arts Council. I have read a report on its website that makes it clear that the designation scheme is important in relation to museums which are not in the national category but it is a bit coy about how that is going to turn into effective operation. Arts Council England says at one point:
“We will use our public investment”—
presumably that is the grant from DCMS—
“to support the development and enrichment of these collections for the long-term public benefit. We will continue the active dialogue we have with other funding bodies to promote the potential of their investment in Designated collections in addition to Arts Council funding”.
I hope the Minister will say what the Arts Council is doing to support this organisation, and what it can expect from the Arts Council going forward if it cannot get support from national government. As we heard, when we had a similar debate two years ago, money was made available from the DCMS to put the museum on a new and sustainable funding footing. However, it has been left alone, unlike the Geffrye and Horniman Museums, which have been picked up and supported through continuing funding from the department, so there is a bit of a dichotomy there. We worry that somehow this museum is being picked out and not supported in the way that others are, possibly because it is not in London and has no lobbying body to promote it. That may be one of the reasons for this situation.
Current events surely make it vital that we conserve and preserve our history. You would have thought that having a vibrant museum in Manchester, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, means that it would be picked up, supported and made a fuss over. It certainly would not be left to slip between the cracks, as seems to be the case, or even face closure, as the noble Lord, Lord Monks, hinted, or dispersal of its collections. Surely this museum is too important to be abandoned. I hope that we can save it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for this debate, and I thank other noble Lords who contributed. I particularly thank the noble Baroness for alluding to my non-conformist, suffragist, pacifist great-great-aunt, who was the first woman to be elected to Manchester City Council. She was a non-conformist. I think the underlying subtext is: what went wrong?
I do not know whether my comments will address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about Ministers’ breadth of vision and interest in relation to the arts. I will address that in a minute, but first I would like briefly to outline the steps that the Government are taking to support museums, and then address some of the specific questions that have been raised.
We think it is important that the Government still support, and are keen on supporting, the arts. Funding for regional culture is predominantly channelled through Arts Council England. Between 2015 and 2018, Arts Council England will invest about £118 million in museums. This money is used to care for collections, support work with the local community and help museums develop creative, self-sustaining financial models. Arts Council England also determines which museum collections are designated as having national significance. There are 144 such collections in England. The People’s History Museum has been one of them since 1998, as we were told. This is important because achieving designated collection status opens up new sources of funding, such as the DCMS/Wolfson fund. That partnership has already spent nearly £40 million refurbishing more than 300 museum and gallery spaces, and is continuing to do so. A new round of applications has just closed, and early next year a further £4 million will be provided to the successful organisations, helping more people to access these collections. I was very pleased that in August the People’s History Museum secured £273,600 from the Arts Council’s museum resilience fund to support its Builders and Dreamers: the Future of Ideas Worth Fighting For project.
In addition, the Heritage Lottery Fund helps museums to pay for major capital projects. Around a third of all Heritage Lottery Fund grants go to UK museums across the UK, which in 2014-15 alone meant that the Heritage Lottery Fund invested £430 million in museum projects. Against this background, the Government’s wide-ranging museums review, announced in the culture White Paper and led by Neil Mendoza, will seek a deeper understanding of museums around the country. The public call for evidence closed at the end of last month, with more than 1,500 full responses. It has three elements, two of which directly relate to this debate. It looks at the big picture in the State of the Nation report on English museums, including the role of government and arm’s-length bodies, such as Arts Council England, in working with museums. Secondly, it looks at non-national museums to examine more closely accredited local and regional museums to better understand things such as the impact of changes in funding, the new models of working, what works and why, how to deal with museums in difficulty, how to ensure that collections and expertise thrive, and the responsibilities of local authorities for the provision of services. Lastly, for completeness, it looks at national museums in undertaking a strategic review.
By next summer, the museums review will make recommendations for how government can best help and enable regional museums to flourish. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked whether the review had visited the PHM. It has visited 40 regional museums as part of the review, including other museums in Manchester, but not, I believe, the People’s History Museum. The People’s History Museum was able to contribute to the consultation but I do not believe that it did so.
Another important government consultation also closed last month, on the museums and galleries tax relief. From April next year, this will help museums produce and tour exhibitions.
Last month, Arts Council England announced its 2018 to 2022 funding settlement. This will be £622 million every year, with an increase of £37 million for national portfolio organisations. Moreover, Arts Council England will increase the proportion of funds spent outside London by 4%.
For this new funding round—to an extent, this addresses the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, about the position of the People’s History Museum—museums will be able to apply as national portfolio organisations, which have replaced the current major partner museums system. Applications are now open, bringing new opportunities for regional museums to access more funding, and rewarding the best and most innovative. That means making access as broad and diverse as possible in terms of both visitors and staff, and making the museums relevant to changing times and audiences. It might also mean better embracing the possibilities of digital, as the noble Lord, Lord Clark, mentioned, in order to open up collections to new audiences and put communities in touch with museums in new ways. Many museums are doing great work in these areas. For example, the Museum of London has done wonderful digital work on the anniversary this year of the Great Fire of London, including building the 17th-century city in the game Minecraft.
The favourite museum of the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer—the open-air museum Beamish in the north-east—has just received nearly £11 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund for Remaking Beamish. This creates a 1950s town populated by objects given to the museum by local people, including the noble Lord.
The Government also continue to fund exciting projects such as the Great Exhibition of the North, which will run for two months in 2018 in Newcastle. Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums will play a big part in this celebration of the very best of northern art, culture and design.
I turn to some of the specific points raised by noble Lords. It is true that in 2011 the Government said that they did not want to cut the People’s History Museum adrift, so there were a number of facilitations. For example, they facilitated discussions between the People’s History Museum, the British Library and the National Archives in 2011, following suggestions from the People’s History Museum. However, the British Library is a DCMS-sponsored body and the National Archives is a non-ministerial department, and these discussions failed partly due to funding restrictions and partly due to the British Library and the National Archives feeling that the People’s History Museum was not a good fit.
In December 2014, there were more discussions between the DCMS and the British Library, but they did not get to the point of the British Library doing due diligence and determining the feasibility of taking on the People’s History Museum. That is why, at the time, Ed Vaizey agreed an additional £100,000 beyond the termination of the agreed funding to enable the museum to continue. However, that was always on the understanding that that would be the final payment.
Various things happened and I could go on, but I would like to point out that the People’s History Museum is a great success. It attracts 100,000 visitors a year. It runs a successful programme of public events and exhibitions, which included an exhibition of parliamentary democracy in advance of the last election, and it delivers a learning programme for all ages. I mentioned that it had attracted large funding grants on the basis of that.
My noble friend Lord Cormack talked about national museums and their influence on the regions. Of the national museums which are directly sponsored by the DCMS, seven are present in the regions, and they are encouraged to work with regional museums through their funding agreements with the DCMS. National museums lent objects from their collections to 1,629 venues in 2014-15.
Regarding the Government’s view of the arts and what should be done in terms of the so-called devastating cuts, I would like to point out that the settlement for 2018-22 for Arts Council England is a budget of £622 million per annum across the three primary funding streams. This is a flat-cash settlement compared with 2015-18 and is protected in the 2016 Budget. In fact, over the spending period Arts Council England gets a 2% increase. Investment outside London will be increased by 4% by augmenting the amount of funding available through NPO funding streams by a further £37 million per annum.
There are a number of questions that I still have to address from the noble Lord, Lord Monks, about Manchester museums. There are national museums in Manchester. The Museum of Science and Industry is one and I think that the Imperial War Museum has a branch there. I have some more questions which I am afraid I do not have time to answer. However, we very much welcome the variety of such interesting, innovative, and important work in our museums, and we recognise the crucial role of arts and culture in making places communities where people want to live, work and learn, and which visitors from abroad want to visit. We wish the People’s History Museum all the best.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but after making the point that there are questions unanswered he normally adds a little phrase to say that he will write to people—he did not say that this time. For the convenience of the House, will he confirm that he will write to people to answer the outstanding questions?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Of course. I was going to say that I will be very pleased to answer all the questions that I have not been able to.
As I was about to say, we wish the People’s History Museum all the best under the stewardship of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and her team. No doubt they will make it the go-to destination for those attending the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in 2017.