New Clause. — (Charges for Admission to Museums and Galleries

Part of Orders of the Day — Public Libraries and Museums Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 June 1964.

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Photo of Mr Brian O'Malley Mr Brian O'Malley , Rotherham 12:00, 8 June 1964

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) has raised the important point that the museums and art gallery services are part of the education sysem. On looking at the new Clause and at Clause 12 of the Bill, which deals with museums and art galleries, I would say at once that in the Bill the Government have done little to advance and improve the standards of museums and art galleries.

Too often, the general picture is one of neglect, sometimes of the complete absence of museum and art gallery services. I would have hoped that when the occasion arose for the Government to present a Bill which affects museums and art galleries, they would have given us something better than these two Clauses, both of which are permissive. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said that he was pleased to see the inclusion of subsection (2) in the new Clause. It seems to me that hon. Members on both sides welcome that subsection, although one wonders how effective it will be.

There are a number of questions which should be asked about it. It is all very well to say that local authorities shall take into account the need to secure that the museum or gallery plays its full part in the promotion of education in the area", but the subsection goes on to say that the local authority shall have particular regard to the interests of children and students. Is it the Minister's intention that children and students will in no circumstances be charged for entry to art galleries and museums? Subsection (1) of the new Clause empowers local authorities to make a charge. Subsection (2) recognises that it is important that museums and art galleries should be for the benefit of the educational service and for children and students.

5.45 p.m.

If a local authority decides to impose a charge for admission to its museums or art galleries, will the charge include children and students? If so, will it be a partial or a full charge? Will the local authority be able to charge children and students from its own area, on the one hand, and people from outside its area, on the other? When we have a national system of education, it would be nonsensical to draw arbitrary distinctions according to where people live.

The Government began with the basic assumption that they wished to preserve the status quo concerning museums and art galleries. I listened with sympathy to some of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Sir B. Stross). One recognises that there are museums which have a real claim to make a charge of some kind in special circumstances. It is eminently reasonable to allow the authorities which run such services to continue to do so because of those limited and special services.

Apparently, however, to enable that kind of situation to continue for a minority with special services, the Government, instead of drafting detailed provisions to allow those special services to continue, have come forward with a new Clause which will allow all local authorities to make a charge for admission to museums or art galleries maintained by them.

The Minister said that the Government did not intend to encourage local authorities to make a charge, and this may well be the case. My fear is that once this provision goes on to the Statute Book, local authorities will not be concerned with reading what the Minister has said about the Government's intentions. We will, in fact, be giving local authorities power to charge at their own discretion. What made me fear that the gates might open wide was the remark made by an hon. Member opposite that if local authorities find it expensive, presumably because of salaries, to keep museums and art galleries open on a Sunday afternoon, it is entirely reasonable that they should be able to make a charge.

If there is one time during the week when museums and art galleries should be open, it is a Sunday afternoon. If we are to get that kind of argument, local authorities will be able to decide all kinds of special circumstances which many of us who are interested in this part of the educational service would regard as having no validity.

Therefore, while I appreciate the Government's motives in the new Clause, it seems to me that to preserve the privilege of a few local authorities to make charges in special circumstances the Government would have done much better and served the interests of the educational system more satisfactorily by introducing a Clause to deal with those special circumstances in detail rather than introducing the kind of Clause that they have done today.