Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the report Why collect? published by the Art Fund in January 2018, if he will commission a comparative assessment of the public funding of (a) galleries in the UK and (b) galleries in (i) the US, (ii) France and (iii) Spain.

The recent Mendoza Review: an independent review of museums in England found that over the last ten years public funding to museums and galleries in England has totalled over £8.4 billion. It is not possible to disaggregate the proportion of this funding that is invested just in galleries. As culture is devolved, there is also no estimate of UK-wide funding. As part of the usual business of Government, officials regularly review and consider international comparisons in the development of museums policy. Credible data on international expenditure on museums and galleries is limited and there are no current plans to undertake further research.