Phenomenal figures reflect our national institutes

These figures are quite phenomenal and reflect how, both for the people of the UK and for foreign visitors, the national museums and galleries are a very strong draw.

My own museum, the Natural History Museum, has had 4.7 million visitors in the past 12 months following the opening of our new Darwin Centre. In the days of charging we attracted 1.6 million. The public have embraced free admission and are telling the Government very firmly how much they value it and, to be fair, the Government has recognised this, including free admission in the Coalition Agreement.

Yet we, like all government-funded organisations, are now looking at the prospect of very large cuts. The question will be to what extent can we be protected by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport from the worst ravages and at what point will our trustees have to look at measures to increase income where charging might necessarily be a component.

I would find that disappointing. Free admission is retained by relatively modest amounts of overall government funding and the investment is paid back many times over in terms of the tourist economy alone, where the national museums and galleries stimulate something in the region of £1 billion to the economy.

If our budgets are cut, public programmes will suffer because of the need to protect our internationally important collections and the expertise that makes them accessible and a valuable research resource.

Cutting back on what we can deliver for visitors would be a significant blow because the funding of museums and galleries has grown only at about the rate of inflation since free admission was reintroduced, only two thirds of the rate of all govrrnment departmental expenditure over the same period.

In addition, if ministers can protect museums and galleries it can only be to the detriment of other areas of the arts and heritage which also deliver fantastic value for money for the tax payer. London needs successful museums and galleries and a thriving cultural community, especially in the run up to 2012 when the eyes of the world will be focused here.

* Michael Dixon, chair of the National Museums Directors' Conference, the association of directors and chief executives of the UK's national museums, galleries, libraries and archives