Heritage: V&A Purchase Grant Fund

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

I thank my noble friend Lord Ryder for bringing up the big society, which plays a key part in the agenda of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The DCMS will give Arts Council England responsibility for the purchase grant fund as part of its new responsibilities for the museum and library functions of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, so that the Arts Council can balance the interests of all the grants and make strategic funding decisions. This will save money and be more efficient.

[Lord Harrison]

Given that the origins of the V&A came in the aftermath of the 1851 London exhibition, which celebrated the best of British workmanship and design, will the noble Baroness say what is being done now to encourage museums such as the V&A and the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery—which has a long association with business—to team up with business and industry to ensure that we promote the best of British design, especially in some of the new visual arts industries, to the benefit of a nation that wishes to recover economically?

[Baroness Rawlings]

The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, is absolutely right that the more that we combine those two areas, the better. Renaissance was another such project that his Government set up several years ago. I hope that there will be further work with renaissance to encourage more donations.