Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gloria De Piero on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many local authority-owned museums have closed down in each of the last three years.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Neither DCMS nor Arts Council England holds information on museums closures. However, there are just under 1800 accredited museums.

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 21 Major Partner Museums from £20.3m to £22.6 million. In addition to this, regional museums can bid for funds from ACE’s £10 million per year Resilience Fund. They can also bid for lottery funding from the HLF. 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 and Industry.