Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2016-01-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate his Department has made of how many museums and galleries charged for entry in (a) 2005 and (b) 2010; and what estimate his Department has made of how many museums and galleries plan to introduce such charges in 2016.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Thanks to an excellent Spending Review settlement in November 2015 – the Government is honouring its manifesto commitment to keep entry to the permanent collections of our national museums free.

Through the Arts Council England, DCMS is increasing funding for major partner museums to £22.6 million to enable greater regional spending. In addition to this, regional museums can bid for funds from ACE’s £10 million per year Resilience Fund. We are also investing millions of pounds to boost local and regional museums – for example, £5 million towards a new South Asia Gallery at Manchester Museum and £2.5 million to the Manchester Museum of Science andIndustry.

Spend on DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries was £389.7 million in 2014/15. In 2005 spend was £397.4 million and in 2010 it was £474.7 million. The Heritage Lottery Fund is also a major source of support to museums. To date, HLF has supported a total of 38,000 projects with £6.6 billion across the UK with around one third of this being allocated to museums, including support for capital projects, acquisitions and skills development.