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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Arts Council is taking to support museums.

This Government supports museums nationwide through Arts Council England (ACE), as the national development agency for museums, offering funding and professional advice to museums of all sizes in England.

ACE typically invests over £44 million in museums annually, through the National Portfolio, the Museum Development Network, and National Lottery Project Grants. In addition, DCMS is funding ACE to deliver an additional £45 million of support for museums this financial year, through the new £20 million Museum Renewal Fund, and a new £25 million investment in the Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND).

ACE further supports (worth £70m a year), which provides an alternative to the cost of insurance for loans, without which many major exhibitions would not be possible. ACE also operates the Cultural Gifts and Acceptance in Lieu schemes, enabling important new acquisitions for museums (worth £45m in 2023/24), and other schemes such as the UK Museum Accreditation Standard, and Collection Designation.