Though I am sure that the Daily Telegraph story is correctly transcribed,
I am afraid that there is in fact no "guarantee" in the (English) Culture
Secretary's announcement.  Chris Smith, the Minister who made the reported
announcement has no standing at all in the other three kingdoms of the UK
- Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all of which  now have admission
charges at some national museums, and the announced additional funding
does not apply to any of these three countries, nor to the
significant number of "charging" national museums in England that are
funded through other ministries, notably Defence.

More substantially, without new legislation (which has not been announced)
the Minister does not have the legal power to force even those national
museums funded by his own ministry to drop admission charges.  Most of
the current trustees, who have to power to accept or reject the
minister's proposals and wishes, were appointed by the last government, as
were most of the current directors, and it is very widely believed that
a philosophical stance that was strongly pro-admission charges was seen as
an important pre-requisite for both trustee and senior staff (especially
director) appointments in many cases.

Those who have been such strong advocates of admission charges as a matter
of principle would therefore have to make very public climb-downs before
they could voluntarily agree to the implement the Minister's proposals.
Indeed, only last night the director of one of the largest national
museums explicitly refused to confirm that the minister's proposals would
be implemented.

Patrick Boylan