Clause 42
Greater London Authority Bill
2:00 pm
Michael Gove (Shadow Minister (Housing), Communities and Local Government; Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 67, in clause 42, page 45, line 4, at end add—
‘(3) Nothing in this Part of this Act shall affect the exercise or performance of the general functions of the Board of Governors of the Museum assigned to them by section 3 of the Museum of London Act 1965.’.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Lady Winterton. The Minister and all the Front-Bench spokesmen have expressed their gratitude to Mr. O’Hara for his chairmanship of the Committee. I wish again to place on record our thanks to you for the graceful way in which you have chaired our proceedings and we look forward to serving under your chairmanship for the duration of the Committee.
I hope that the purpose of the amendment will be congenial to the Government. All that we want to do is to provide the Museum of London and those whouse the museum, in particular its governors, withthe reassurance that is implicit in everything that the Government have said so far but which, for the convenience of the future trustees and of the Mayor, might be better written into the Bill. The Minister said that, given that the Museum of London deals so explicitly with London’s history and culture, it makes sense in devolutionary terms for its governance tobe in the hands of the Greater London authority, particularly the Mayor. In broad terms, we can see the logic of that.
I am sure that the Committee will be aware that other museums in London, such as the Horniman museum, have a similar constitution to the Museum of London in that they receive grant-in-aid funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport but have a particular London focus that would not be covered by the amendment. However, it is appropriate that the Museum of London, because of its specific focus on London’s history and culture, which is not shared by the Horniman museum, should have the benefit of the Mayor’s closer attention.
The purpose of the amendment is to deal with the role of the governors who might be appointed by the Mayor in future. One of the issues on which we need greater assurance is how the change of funding will not lead to a diminution in the independence of the trustees and those charged with the governance of the Museum of London. Because grant will come fromthe Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the Mayor and he will be responsible for giving that grant to the Museum of London, worry has been expressed that he might use the grant to bend the museum to his particular ideological or cultural preoccupations.
We all know that culture policy can sometimes be used for ideological ends. Whether in Vietnam, Cuba or St. Petersburg, museums that have been erected by people or maintained by Administrations have been used not so much to enlighten and inculcate a sense of pride in the nation’s history, but to press a particular ideological agenda.