Wanlockhead Museum Trust and Museum of Lead Mining
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S2M-3933, in the name of Alasdair Morgan, on Wanlockhead Museum Trust and Museum of Lead Mining.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes that 2006 is the 250th anniversary of the founding of Wanlockhead Miners' Library, established by the lead miners as part of their educational and cultural activity and now under the care of the Wanlockhead Museum Trust; recognises that the award-winning museum itself is a unique monument to industrial workers in the Lowther Hills, as well as being a valuable economic asset to today's economy, and believes that the Scottish Executive should act to ensure that arrangements are in place so that the museum's trustees can plan for the future with some degree of certainty instead of encountering the intermittent financial uncertainty which, on occasion, threatens the very existence of the museum.
I apologise to the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport for keeping her here after the long debate that she has already endured.
It is with great pleasure that I open this debate on the future of the Wanlockhead Museum of Lead Mining and its associated miners' library. However, time will allow me only to skim over the various issues.
Wanlockhead, as members know, is the highest village in Scotland. It is very privileged to host the mining museum, which preserves the industrial area of the villages of Wanlockhead and Leadhills on both sides of the county march of Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire.
The Wanlockhead area is a mineralogical site of international importance. Seven of the 700 or so known minerals were first discovered in the area and lead mining was carried out there at least as early as 900 AD. Silver and gold mining were also important in the area; indeed, the gold that adorns the parliamentary mace was donated by gold panners working in Wanlockhead.
Geology apart, the village is also notable for having Europe's second-oldest workers' subscription library, which was founded in 1756. Lead miners of the period paid a small subscription to assemble a collection of books to improve their own and their families' education. In fact, education always played a significant role in the development of Wanlockhead. On her trip round Scotland in 1803, Dorothy Wordsworth commented that the children of lead miners from the village were studying Greek and Latin at the local school.
However, because of changing economics, lead mining has long since ceased to be a viable industrial activity. Such was the decline that in the 1960s, when only 30 or so residents remained in Wanlockhead—most of them in houses in very poor condition—the local council of the time suggested that it might prefer to evacuate the village and have the remaining houses demolished.
Fortunately, that proposal, which would have led to the mainland equivalent of the evacuation of St Kilda, did not go ahead. The village now has a much higher population, who live in more modern houses, and Wanlockhead Museum Trust's activities have contributed to economic regeneration and provide valuable employment in a part of the country where jobs are very hard to come by.
In addition to the superb display of minerals that one can see in the museum, the facilities have been expanded over the years to include the refurbished lending library; a row of restored houses, which is used to portray miners' lives in the 18th and 19th centuries; access to one of the former lead mines; and the opportunity to participate in gold panning activity.
The museum has attracted several awards, notably one from the Gulbenkian Trust. It is a VisitScotland four-star attraction, is Investors in People accredited and has recently become the first independent museum to get museum accreditation to Museums, Libraries and Archives Council standards.
Despite that, the museum has regularly been struggling as the end of each financial year approaches. The museum closes during the winter months, because even global warming has not yet made Wanlockhead an all-year-round attraction, but the 18 or so temporary staff—there is one permanent staff member—usually commence work in the latter part of March in preparation for the April weekends, which are often the busiest of the entire season. However, the current imbalance between revenue and expenditure means that, even with an overdraft facility, the trust can run out of cash prior to the commencement of each new season. With each successive year, the date at which that happens tends to come earlier and earlier.
This year, cash ran out in January and the situation was such that, along with certain delays in finalising the next year's payment that the museum was going to get from Dumfries and Galloway Council, the management of the museum could have no certainty that there would be money available to pay staff wages when the museum reopened for the new season. Such was the dedication of the staff that, when the situation was explained to them, they volunteered to work initially without payment until the situation could be resolved. Fortunately, the funding stream from the council became available at the last minute, but the problem is that next year the pressure will be even greater.
Dumfries and Galloway Council has been generous in its on-going support for the museum project and I am in no way critical of what it has done. Indeed, it has now committed to funding the museum over three years, albeit at a real-terms reducing rate. It has never committed to funding the museum's revenue shortfall in its entirety, nor do I think that it should, because surely Wanlockhead is much more than simply a local visitor attraction. It is a site and a museum of national significance within Scotland and as such it deserves to get a firm commitment—whatever that commitment might be—from the Executive, to allow it to plan with certainty for the future. I would argue that that commitment should be such as to allow the museum to employ both the professional curator and the education officer that it desperately needs. It is simply not good enough that the operation of that important part of our tourism industry and of our cultural heritage should depend on the good will of trustees and on underpaid staff who are willing to work without wages.
If one were to evaluate Wanlockhead Museum of Lead Mining on a purely financial basis, it would clearly have to close. What the Executive has to decide is whether it has any interest in retaining the existence of the project or whether it wishes to wash its hands of its responsibility. As I said, the museum has elements of national significance. Ironically, the part of the museum that houses the collection of the greatest national significance, namely the library, is the least popular part of the museum with visitors. However, if the museum did not exist, at the very least the library's collection would have to be preserved by the state and would presumably moulder in some basement of the National Library of Scotland.
In September 2000, in answer to a question, the then Deputy Minister for Culture and Sport, Rhona Brankin, said:
"we announced in the National Cultural Strategy a national audit of museum collections to inform the development of criteria for a restructuring of the sector, with the aim of establishing a sustainable funding framework for the future."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 28 September 2000; Vol 8, p 191.]
Currently, almost six years on, the Scottish Museums Council, on behalf of the Executive, is developing a significance scheme to allow the channelling of national funds to those museums that have some national significance. However, even that is not likely to be ready until sometime next year at the earliest, and experience tells us that decisions on allocation of funding will take even longer. The trustees of the museum have some justification in wondering how much longer they must wait for decisions to be taken. I look forward, as they will, to the minister's reply.
I sincerely thank Alasdair Morgan for bringing the subject forward for debate. Not many people believe that Wanlockhead is in the constituency of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, but it is and the constituency is all the better for its presence.
Anybody who has been to the Wanlockhead Museum of Lead Mining would agree that it is unique. One only has to visit to appreciate that uniqueness, and I repeat the invitation that I first issued to the minister following her announcement on the national cultural strategy to visit the place when she can possibly find room in her diary to do so. As well as having a fascinating visit to an unforgettable monument to the incredibly hardy souls who carved their living from the hillsides, she will see some superbly tended moorland and, as Alasdair Morgan rightly pointed out, the waters whence came the gold that is inset into the head of our mace in the Parliament.
I completely endorse the content of Alasdair Morgan's speech and there is no need for me to repeat it, however worthy it is to repeat wise words. The amount of money that the trustees need to maintain the viability of the unique attraction at Wanlockhead is peanuts compared with expenditure on other museums and other measures that are taken in the cultural world. For once, I do not accuse Dumfries and Galloway Council of doing anything other than its utmost to support an attraction that is within its boundaries. However, it cannot be right that, in 2001—the year of foot-and-mouth disease—the museum was dependent on a well-wisher's donation of £25,000 to keep it going. Neither can it be right that, this year, the staff volunteered to work for nothing—which says an enormous amount about their commitment to the museum and how the trustees run it—nor that yet again, before Dumfries and Galloway Council was able to make a grant available, a benefactor had to lend the trustees £20,000 to allow wages to be paid and the museum to open.
It is surely more than ironic that this debate follows this afternoon's debate on our historic environment, but that simply highlights the tragedy this year when the museum's book and exhibition funds, which the trustees had painstakingly built up, were wiped out by the necessity to prevent the historic environment of Wanlockhead from falling into disrepair through damp and environmental damage. That is the level of the tightrope on which the trustees walk, and it is a national disgrace that that is the case, as the unique nature of Wanlockhead allows the visitor to experience the reality of lead mining and the horrendous conditions with which most of the miners put up in the exact location and context within which the mining took place. It is not only important for tourists but a vital component of our children's education about Scotland's cultural and social past. My colleague Murray Tosh will expand on that education experience.
Rather than repeat the many good points that Alasdair Morgan made, I will quote a letter from a Dr James Begg to The Herald last autumn. He said:
"I was disturbed by a Herald article several weeks ago on the threat to the Wanlockhead Lead Mine Museum, and deeply dismayed by today's news of its imminent closure if the paltry sum of £20,000 cannot be found to keep it running through the winter—and of the failure of the Scottish Executive to offer any assistance.
This museum is not just ‘an old building stuffed full of dusty exhibits'. It is a living museum with eighteenth and nineteenth-century miners' cottages, unique machinery, and an opportunity for visitors to don hard hats and penetrate deep into the hillside through the narrow workings of an old lead mine, giving a wonderful insight into the appalling conditions in which men, women and children had to toil 200 years ago, high in the Leadhills.
I write this with feeling, as someone whose great-great-great grandfather worked in these mines in the early 1800s—and someone who has brought enthralled overseas visitors to this magical spot high in the heart of the Lowther Hills. I find it inconceivable that … there is not a spare £20,000 lying around which could be donated without pain to save the Scottish Museum of Lead Mining—and the local community. And perhaps there might even be a wee bit extra, to promote and publicise more widely what has unfortunately … been one of Scotland's best-kept secrets!"
Following the minister's statement on the cultural strategy, I wrote to her and she advised that the museum may apply under the museums recognition scheme, which will be rolled out later this year. I hope that, tonight, she does not simply hide behind that possibility but will take the opportunity of the debate to make a significant first step in changing Wanlockhead from one of Scotland's best-kept secrets—as revealed in that letter—to one of the jewels in Scotland's crown, which it undoubtedly deserves to be.
I congratulate Alasdair Morgan on having his motion accepted for debate. I apologise for not having signed it, although I thought that I had done. I am sure that my Dumfries and Galloway Council colleague, Jim Dempster, will take me to task for that oversight. Like many others who have represented the area, he is extremely and rightly proud of the excellent visitor attraction in his ward.
As Alex Fergusson said, we have just been discussing the Scottish historic environment policy. SHEP 1 refers to Scotland's industrial heritage, specifically to the Verdant Works in Dundee. I am particularly delighted to see the recognition of the importance of our industrial heritage in that policy document. I do not think that it can be overemphasised. Industrial museums such as the Museum of Lead Mining at Wanlockhead, the Verdant Works in Dundee, the Scottish Mining Museum in Midlothian and the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther teach us about the lives of our forebears in ways that no other medium can. No film, DVD or television programme, however well made it might be, can compare with the experience of being inside the workplaces or homes of those who worked in those industries or with seeing the actual equipment with which they worked.
Speaking as a Labour Party member, I believe that such museums tell us why our forebears had to become involved in the trade union movement and why they had to fight for better conditions and a better environment. It is important that we support the industrial heritage museums, because we should not lose sight of where we came from. If we do not support them, we will lose sight of our past and our young people will not understand what their grandparents and great-grandparents had to endure in the course of their work.
As Alasdair Morgan said, Wanlockhead is a remote village. The Museum of Lead Mining brings visitors up to Wanlockhead who would not go there otherwise. I do not know the area as well as either Alasdair Morgan or Alex Fergusson, the previous and current constituency members, but I do not think that there is an awful lot at Wanlockhead to bring visitors up there other than the museum. It brings in people and money, supporting the local economy. It is a real asset to the area.
Back in 2003, during my brief period as Deputy Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, the Scottish Executive provided a grant of £30,000 to the Wanlockhead museum. I felt at the time that I was somewhat unpopular with officials for wanting to make the grant. The resistance seemed to come from the civil service. There was a feeling that, because some industrial museums had been set up independently or by voluntary bodies, they should not have any expectation of national support, as nobody had asked the National Museums of Scotland or whatever to set them up. The people who had set them up were apparently expected simply to get on with it.
I feel now, as I did at the time, that that is a churlish attitude, and I sense that the Executive is now moving away from that. The way in which the SHEP now describes the museums is different. A huge amount of effort has been put in by volunteers and by those who believe passionately in the preservation of that part of our heritage. We ought to congratulate and support the people who have done that, rather than just leave them to get on with it. I hope that there is a way forward, perhaps through a discussion around the expansion of the role of the National Museums, of which the industrial museums could somehow possibly become part.
It is important that we continue to support our industrial heritage, which I believe to be as important to our understanding of our past and of our nation's history as any artefact, any crown jewels or any other object that we might see stuck in a box somewhere. I hope that there is a way to develop a mechanism of long-term support for our industrial heritage.
I congratulate my colleague Alasdair Morgan on securing the debate, although I take issue with his stating that the minister had to endure this debate after enduring the previous one. I thought that we made the previous debate relatively chirpy and stimulating. Mr Morgan can read the Official Report afterwards and see whether that description fits the bill.
I first encountered Wanlockhead completely by accident. I used to commute to Edinburgh from my home in Galloway. Once, on my way back down the road, I took the turn to the lead hills too fast—the first turn goes to Wanlockhead and the next to Elvanfoot. I made my way, on what can be described only as a helter-skelter road, up the hill to Wanlockhead, which I did not expect to find—it is an astonishing wee place—only to take the helter-skelter road back down again. I did not stop that day; I was in a very bad mood, because I had taken the wrong road and it was pouring with rain. However, I did return thereafter—I will come to that.
Wanlockhead is a strange place which, as far I understand it, has its roots way back in Roman times, when it was likely that the Romans mined lead there for their plumbing. After that, the monks came. Finally, in the 18th century, the London (Quaker) Lead Company started to mine in the area on a commercial basis. Although it mined lead primarily, I understand that the silver and gold for the mace in the Parliament came from the lead hills. Wanlockhead is a mystic little place in its own way.
In the 19th century, the Rev Porteous coined the phrase "God's Treasure House" to describe the area, because it was so rich in minerals. In 1876 he wrote that there were 274 men and boys employed in mining in Wanlockhead. In addition, there were shops, butchers, tailors and cloggers. There was even a doctor, who was paid for half by the Duke of Buccleuch and half through a levy, which I suppose was like our national insurance contributions.
The first miners were gold prospectors who lived in tents, from which a community developed. The population of the village in 2001, which I am sure has risen—I hope that it has—was 158. There were not many children, as the population was mainly elderly, and some of the houses were used as holiday homes.
The notes that I have state:
"Wanlockhead is still considered very rural and occasionally in winter, snow can still close the roads, completely isolating the village from the rest of Scotland and the World!"
That takes me to my last encounter with Wanlockhead, when I went to speak to a Burns supper. I set off, not in my Mini this time, but in a Ford Ka, on a snowy January night, with the snow piled up at the sides of the road. I think that Alasdair Morgan was there that night, too. There were stars in the sky and the moon was out. There was something unreal about driving up the helter-skelter road to the remote, rather romantic and dramatic village at the top. When I got there, there was not a soul in sight. I am known for taking the wrong road frequently, but I knew that I could not have done so this time, because I had been there before, in the rain. I got out of the car and walked about, but heard nothing and saw nobody—there was no sign of man, woman nor beast.
Finally, I located the village hall and opened the door. There were banners everywhere and I heard the clinking of glasses. Everybody was happy and chattering away. It was as if I had wandered into a Guinness advert—although I think that it is Tennants lager that reaches the parts that other beers cannot reach. The whole community was present, as it would have been on such occasions in the centuries when there was mining there.
Even today, after taking the city bypass and the motorway, when we get to Wanlockhead it seems as if we are in a different, dramatic and rather striking place. I take slight issue with Elaine Murray's saying that if the museum was not there, there would not be an awful lot to bring visitors there. I think that Wanlockhead village should be visited in its own right, given that it is Scotland's highest village and given its history, which of course includes that shown in the museum. People should visit that strange place that is balanced all on its own on the top of the lead hills. I remember it being a striking little place and I will help the local tourist board with its adverts.
I hope that, after having endured—to use the words of my colleague—the previous debate, the minister will add Wanlockhead to her list of places to visit, if she has not visited it already. I hope that she will consider the issues that members have raised about the funding of its museum.
Unlike the members who have spoken hitherto, I have never managed to get to Wanlockhead. I have corresponded with Wanlockhead Museum Trust and tried to help it in the past, because its financial problems have continued off and on over a number of years. I make a definite pledge to visit this year.
Various aspects of the issue are typical. First, there is an enthusiastic bunch of local volunteers and the community is keen. I am in correspondence with ministers, although they never pay attention to anything that I say, about how we should give more power and resources to community councils and other community groups, so that they can be enterprising in supporting facilities such as the museum at Wanlockhead. There is local energy and talent and a wee bit of resources can enable people to develop local attractions into pillars of the community.
Secondly, we must consider how we attract more people to Wanlockhead, which is not easy to get to—in the past I have intended to visit the museum, but I did not get there. We should advertise the museum better. During the debate on the historic environment I mentioned that trails are a good idea. Many people go to New Lanark, which is hugely successful and is really just Wanlockhead on a large scale. It would be helpful if the many people who visit New Lanark could be induced to go to Wanlockhead, because it is a similar attraction. There could be a network of educational and tourist attractions in the area and pupils from schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh could be taken on a day trip to Wanlockhead at some point during their school career.
We could develop a network that built on the contribution of monks to the Scottish economy. Monks were the Tesco of medieval times. They were successful entrepreneurs and the Borders abbeys and sheep farms were the biggest enterprises in Scotland of the time. Monks developed salt panning at Prestonpans as well as lead mining, and monks established enterprises in Midlothian. We could develop an interesting network based on monkish activity.
We can use our brains to help Wanlockhead to become the well-known and well-supported attraction that it should be, but in the meantime if a small amount of money is needed to keep the museum going, we should provide that. The minister does good work on large-scale cultural activities and there should be a similar attitude to smaller projects. We should keep the museum going until it can attract enough money to pay its way. I hope that the minister will respond, because between us we can make the museum a going concern.
I congratulate Alasdair Morgan on securing the debate. It follows logically from the debate on historic environment policy, which the minister began by making the obvious but nonetheless important connection between our heritage and education. Donald Gorrie developed that point.
I was a school teacher for 25 years and I regularly taught Scottish history. Every year I would take the third year class on a day's field trip. We would go to Wanlockhead in the morning and New Lanark in the afternoon, so I am familiar with the reaction of children to both places. Throughout those years, the future of the museum at Wanlockhead was in doubt. There were regular staff shortages because the museum had no money and the film that the museum showed on continuous loop, which was the most academically informative part of the visit for my pupils, eventually began to deteriorate badly—either the museum has stopped showing the film or it has managed to replace it. Abandoned railway trucks and the detritus of old machinery lay rusting in the open air because there were no funds to conserve and protect them. Alex Fergusson showed me a letter today that says that the museum has recently had difficulties with the workers' cottages, which are an important part of the display. All those points go back to the museum's lack of core funding and security.
Donald Gorrie made an interesting comparison between Wanlockhead and New Lanark, which by contrast is a place of riches. At New Lanark, the critical mass from the volume of visitors and the range of activities allows the development and presentation of the site. While I will not diminish New Lanark at all, because it is a wonderful place to take children, it nonetheless is much less representative than Wanlockhead of the reality of working-class life during the development of industrial Scotland. Wanlockhead was not developed by utopian owners who set out to create what were, by the standards of the day, ideal working and living conditions. Wanlockhead was a remote place to which people were attracted by whatever means possible. They were not paid money, but were given credit for a year and were then left in debt at the end of the year, which meant that, when they came to be hired again, like agricultural labourers in the pre-industrial system, they had no option but to sign on for another year of indentured labour. That was before the truck system and the system of company stores were made illegal.
The workers lived in appalling housing and worked in dreadful conditions, whether they were miners, drilling and blasting into the hillsides and penetrating down into the depths of the earth, or their children, panning for lumps of ore in the icy-cold waters of the streams that flow down the hillsides. Wanlockhead is representative of a way of life in industrial Scotland that we overlook. Earlier this afternoon, Des McNulty, in talking about industrial Scotland, spoke quite correctly about the great cities and the shipbuilding industry. Many people do that but fail to capture that industrial Scotland began in rural settings, such as textile villages in remote locations, such as New Lanark, and coal mining villages. Coal mining was not an urban experience, but it was Scotland's principal industrial occupation until well into the 20th century. The vast majority of miners lived in isolated villages and communities, although many of them have now been swallowed up by larger towns. The same is true of our steel industry, which began in places such as Muirkirk and Glengarnock, which were isolated villages.
Wanlockhead is a magical place that captures Scotland's experience at the point at which industrialisation was beginning in rural settings. People lived in appalling circumstances that we could not believe nowadays. How did those men and their families react to the conditions and the health, living and wage standards that they endured? The answer is that they formed religious congregations, engaged in radical politics, joined temperance societies, played football and educated themselves. They clubbed together their pennies to build a library so that they could have real experience of Scotland's culture and educate the brightest of their children to give them a better life and future. I cannot think of a better monument to the pride and self-sufficiency of the Scottish industrial working class than the one that is provided at Wanlockhead.
I do not remember where, but during one of the activities of the Parliament, one of Donald Dewar's aides told a story of how Donald, on some trip that he had undertaken in his duties, had been taken way off the road but had insisted on returning to go to Wanlockhead to visit the library, because he understood its significance in the story of the Labour movement and Scotland's working classes. All of us should grasp and understand about Wanlockhead that it was a place where people battled by themselves against the most appalling conditions and, through self-help, endured and left a monument that has been bequeathed to us.
That monument now requires core funding and a degree of financial stability so that it can contribute to what the Scottish Museums Council called in a publication this week one of the most important parts of our tourist industry—genealogical tourism. If we want to take people past the excellent websites and databases with which the genealogist starts and out to experience the life of the people of Scotland, we need places like Wanlockhead. The issue is not about propping up something out of sentiment and sympathy; it is about using an asset that survives and that can convey to our people and to tourists something of the reality of Scotland's past. It is an asset that we must cherish and that we must not allow to decay and wither.
I congratulate Alasdair Morgan on securing the debate and on describing the museum and the area in such an interesting way. All things considered, it has been an interesting afternoon and I have enjoyed the debates.
In responding to the cultural review, I was keen to clarify the roles of the Executive and of local authorities in supporting non-national museums; that is a description that I do not particularly like, but I am still struggling to come up with a better one. We stressed in our response to the cultural review that local authorities have a key role in ensuring cultural provision in their respective areas. The Executive proposes to promote the development of that responsibility, building on its substantial current contribution to achieve more consistent delivery and standards throughout Scotland. We propose that the culture bill will create a legislative framework for delivering rights and entitlements. In developing the bill, I will consider how its provisions could affect the existing duty to make what is described in the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 as "adequate" provision.
Audit Scotland's performance improvement figures for 2003-04—the latest available—show that Dumfries and Galloway Council owns more museums than any other council in Scotland. I must admit that that surprised me. The council is doing well in terms of its expenditure; as we have heard, part of that expenditure goes to the Museum of Lead Mining, which will receive £37,000 in 2006-07. Dumfries and Galloway's net expenditure per head of population for heritage and museums is £7.44, which compares favourably with the Scottish average of £7.74.
The local authority is playing its part, but how does the Executive support non-national museums? The channel for that support is the Scottish Museums Council. That is not a smokescreen that I or anyone else want to hide behind. As well as general support for its members, the SMC administers a number of grant schemes on the Executive's behalf. The largest of those is the regional development challenge fund, which is providing about £1 million over the three years from 2003. The aim of the fund is to develop the capacity and sustainability of the museum sector through active partnerships. Ten partnerships have been established, covering the whole of Scotland. The Museum of Lead Mining and Dumfries and Galloway Council benefit from being partners in the future museum-south west collaboration.
Two other grant schemes administered by the SMC are the main grants scheme and the small grants scheme. In 2004-05, Wanlockhead Museum Trust received grants totalling £10,000.
Does the minister accept that, welcome though individual grants may be, they do not address the problem of the on-going gap in funding that I suspect will always be there? Does she understand the frustration of trustees and others who, having received answers in 2000, are still no nearer getting a final aye or nay? Is that in part due to what one could almost describe as the delaying tactics and churlish attitude of some civil servants? Only a fraction of the money that was spent on the cultural review would have kept Wanlockhead going well into the millennium.
I am coming to what might happen, so Alasdair Morgan's intervention is timely.
As colleagues will be aware, when I responded to the cultural review in January, I announced additional funding of £500,000 per annum over two years for non-national museums. That funding scheme, which will be administered by the Scottish Museums Council, is designed to support collections of national significance in the care of local authorities and other organisations. Future funding for non-national museums will focus on supporting significant national standard collections. We are reviewing with the SMC how best to channel support to industrial museums. I hope that that will not take much longer. We also expect our national institutions to provide advice and assistance to the non-national museums where appropriate.
As we have heard, the Wanlockhead miners library celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. It was established on 1 November 1756 by 32 men who said that it was "for our mutual improvement". As Alasdair Morgan correctly said, it is the second-oldest subscription library in Scotland and, indeed, Europe.
Members will be aware that 2003 was the 150th anniversary of public libraries in Scotland, which developed from those subscription libraries. That anniversary was also commemorated by a debate in this Parliament. I remember the sniggers with which some of my colleagues on the Parliamentary Bureau greeted my suggestion of that topic for debate. However, it was one of the most oversubscribed debates that we have ever had, such was the positive attitude of members to libraries, particularly those in the areas that they represent. Everyone had a story to tell.
I link the two events to emphasise the Executive's additional support for local authorities. Not only is there an extra £500,000 a year for non-national museums, but the same amount is available to help the public library service to improve its standards of provision and facilitate co-operation.
As colleagues will have heard me say during the debate on the cultural review, the Executive currently dedicates 1 per cent of its total budget to culture and that figure is about to rise. The Executive's support for collections of national significance, including those held by the cultural non-departmental public bodies and agencies, will continue. We will channel funds to the collections that the nation owns and to the collections that are held and managed by bodies that are independent of Government. We will also seek to incentivise the raising of standards in museums throughout Scotland. As we seek to achieve greater efficiency in delivery, we will allocate resources to best attain national priorities for the conservation of collections and the improvement of public access to them.
However, support for non-national museums, such as the Museum of Lead Mining, must come primarily from the local authority, although there will be targeted financial backing from the Executive, channelled through the Scottish Museums Council. Additional funding will be available to collections that are of what we call a "significant national standard".
I am pleased to note that the celebration to mark the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the miners library starts this weekend. The event—called Scotland's highest birthday party—is part of the show Scotland series of events in museums and galleries across Scotland that is organised by the Scottish Museums Council.
The Scottish Museums Council awarded the Museum of Lead Mining a grant of £1,500 towards the celebration and would be happy to consider a further grant application for other events related to this anniversary.
The show Scotland initiative is a new creative events weekend celebrating Scotland's museums and galleries. A programme of exciting events designed to capture the public's imagination is taking place in more than 50 museums and galleries throughout Scotland this bank holiday weekend.
I hope that, as a result of our raising the profile of the Museum of Lead Mining in this debate and because it features in the show Scotland events, more visitors will be attracted to Wanlockhead and that that increase will help the museum to become more sustainable.
I am sure that this is a discussion that I will return to over the next few months, as our final programme is set out. Meanwhile, I congratulate Alasdair Morgan on securing this debate. I have been interested in the speeches and I will pay great heed to what has been said.
Meeting closed at 17:44.