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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to support and provide direct funding for Tate and Art Explora’s Mobile Museum to enable it to resume so that the collection can tour around some of the country’s most deprived communities.

Like the Noble Lord, I was delighted to visit the Mobile Museum when it visited Tate Britain on 13 May and to hear how it has been bringing exceptional art from our national collection to people across the country. Its recent, specially-curated exhibition, 'Soup, Socks and Spiders! Art of the Everyday' focusing on still lifes, was shared with people in Nuneaton, Walsall, Ashfield, Wigan, Rotherham, Stoke-on-Trent, Tarporley and Runcorn. I was delighted to learn more about the education and engagement this involved, and to be able to express my Department’s support for the project. My officials and I will continue to discuss this and other aspects of its work with Tate, as one of our arm’s-length bodies.