The British Museum’s missing items: MPs to quiz British Museum Chair, George Osbourne, and Interim Director, Sir Mark Jones
This one-off evidence session sees the Culture, Media and Sport Committee examine the loss of items from the collection of the British Museum, reported this summer. MPs focus on the reputational and financial implications for the Museum and the wider national collections.
The British Museum was the UK’s 2nd most visited museum in 2022 and is home to around 8 million items. In August 2023, the museum launched an independent review after it emerged up to 1,500 items had been lost or stolen, mainly gems and jewellery from the Museum’s Department of Greece and Rome.
Meeting details
The first panel features George Osborne, Chair of the Trustees at the British Museum, and Sir Mark Jones, the interim director of the British Museum. MPs will focus on the implications for the Museum itself and may question the witnesses about what efforts have been made to retrieve the missing items, damage to the museum’s international reputation, and what this may mean for future relations with other institutions.
In the second panel, the Committee hears from Maria Balshaw, Chair of the National Museums’ Directors Council and Director of Tate, and Lord Parkinson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Arts and Heritage, with questions focused on the wider heritage sector. MPs may seek to understand whether issues at the British Museum are symptomatic of the entire sector, what lessons can be learned, as well as the reputational impact on heritage institutions across the UK.