Quote:quote:Robert Key (Salisbury, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source

The renaissance programme is welcome, but of course the more people who go to our museums and the more television programmes that are made, the greater the profile of archaeology and the bigger the problem of storage, especially of archaeological finds. I would be grateful if the Minister would make an assessment of that problem in the coming months, as many museums and county archaeology services are completely at their wits' end about what to do with all the finds that have to be dug up because of planning permissions and so on. It is becoming a serious financial burden on local authorities and independent regional museums.

Quote:quoteavid Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport) Link to this | Hansard source

It is right that the hon. Gentleman acknowledges the huge success of the portable antiquities scheme, which has meant that many local finds go to our local museums, but it is probably also right to say that for most museums only between 10 and 20 per cent. of their collections are exhibited. A lot can never be exhibited because our museums plays a key role in the academic study of artefacts and contribute to our knowledge base for those artefacts and their history. We are exploring with the MLA how we can increase touring, especially, in dialogue with our colleagues in Europe, to eastern Europe. I hope that that, in particular, will increase people's access to all that wonderful treasure.