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Police and Justice Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and ordered to be printed.
Business of the House: Debates Today
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Amos on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Lord Bragg and the Baroness Hayman and on the first Motion in the name of the Lord Wright of Richmond set down for today shall each be limited to 2½ hours.—(Lord Grocott.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Childcare Bill
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of another of my noble friends, Lord Adonis, on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
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Clauses 1 to 48 Schedule 1 Clauses 49 to 103 Schedules 2 and 3 Clauses 104 to 111.—(Lord Grocott.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Legal Services Bill: Joint Committee
11.37 am
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend the Leader of the House on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on any draft Legal Services Bill presented to both Houses by a Minister of the Crown, and that the Committee should report on the draft Bill by 25 July 2006.—(Lord Grocott.)
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House, but perhaps I may ask the Chief Whip a question about this Motion. It refers to "any draft Legal Services Bill" from which I assume that no draft legal services Bill has yet been presented. It establishes a committee that has not yet been set up, and it will require that committee to report by 25 July this year. For a committee to be established to report by 25 July on a Bill which we have not seen seems an extraordinary timetable. I do not know how comprehensive the Bill is, but it is a rather curious Motion. Perhaps the Chief Whip could enlighten me.
Lord Grocott: My Lords, the Bill is due to be published on 24 May, so the period will run from that date to 25 July. I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that it always seems a short time. However, experience tells us that these committees are very popular—there is no shortage of people to take part in them and they are very effective in the two Houses—and that they report on time. I have every confidence that the talents from this House that we shall offer the Joint Committee coupled with those of the other House will do the job. We will have to suck it and see, but I am confident.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, how can the House judge whether this is an appropriate timetable, given that we have not seen the Bill?
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I suppose at some point the House is asked to assume the good faith of everyone involved, including those who carry out pre-legislative scrutiny. This Government have a splendid record—I shall repeat that in case anyone did not hear: a splendid record—of making far more Bills, far more frequently, subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. There is an element of trial and error in the development of any new system, but this should be another popular
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landmark along the route. I hope that we shall continue to encourage these pre-legislative Joint Scrutiny Committees.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, we should certainly encourage pre-legislative scrutiny, but with regard to the timing, we did establish the other day, when setting up another Joint Committee, that the date given for reporting could be for an interim report if that is how the work of the committee has worked out. I take it that this will be the case here too.
Lord Grocott: My Lords, that is not quite the question I expected, I must admit. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, made representations that it was too short a period in regard to the Joint Committee on Conventions—the slightly more contentious committee, as it has turned out—and he will know that my noble friend the Leader responded by saying that if the Committee was to come back and say the timeframe was too short, something would be done about it. I am happy to say, as the noble Lord may know, that yesterday, when this Motion was debated in the Commons, my right honourable friend Jack Straw said,
"if the Committee comes to the view that it needs more time, we can return to the House to seek an extension—it will not be my intention"—
this is his statement as the Leader of the Commons—
"to stand in the way of such a request from the Committee".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/06; col. 449.]
So that is further evidence, should any be needed, that we are a listening government and that we are extending the period.
On Question, Motion agreed to; and a message was ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.
Arts
11.41 am
Lord Bragg rose to call attention to the contribution of the arts to the economy and the well-being of society; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the National Campaign for the Arts, an independent lobbying organisation.
Debates on the arts arrive in your Lordships' House with the regularity of the first cuckoo. They can have, I suggest, something of the same effect. They can lift the spirits; they raise the heart; we are licensed to soar above the earthbound debates which are the grit and soil of your Lordships' daily grind. Loud sing cuckoo then this morning and, judging from those noble Lords enrolled for the debate, it will be a full-throated chorus. With so much talent in prospect, I shall largely confine myself to an overview.
The arts in this country have become a largely unacknowledged focus of new forces and powers. Like mediaeval Barons raising their standards all over the Kingdom, the cities of Glasgow, of Newcastle, the
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cities of Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, the cities of Birmingham and Bristol find regeneration in the arts, rejuvenation through the arts and proclaim their loyalty and gratitude to the strength of the arts. The cities of Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh lag not an inch behind, nor do Cheltenham and Brighton. I could go on until the clock strikes 12.
All send messages to the capital that the arts irrigate minds, bodies and estates, both inside their city walls and in the countryside around them. A town without a festival, as the song says, is like a boat without a rudder or a fish without a tail. Book festivals flourish as once did the shrines for mediaeval pilgrimages. Film festivals, dance festivals, theatre and music festivals—the Festival of Britain is now, and it is all over this land. This is not pangloss; it is provable.
Of course, as we shall hear, there are failings, shortcomings and short commons—and there always will be until funds become infinite and artists can confess that they are satisfied. But, on the whole, to adapt the inscription on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren in St Paul's Cathedral, if you want to know of Britain's art, circumspici—look around. The great lure of London depends on the City and on tourism, and tourism depends on the huge and unmatched range of the arts here. The capital blooms in all four seasons.
When I hitchhiked to London in the 1950s I could have the Tate Gallery to myself in the morning. Now it teems, it buzzes, it takes wing in the new Turner Gallery, as does the National with its own new wing. The Tate Modern is a must visit for the youth of Europe and the National Portrait Gallery shines with care and attention. The Whitechapel is about to enjoy a spectacular step change and the East End is as busy with artists as once it was with dockers. And the arts have now been accepted as an important help in therapy: the hope and help for many who are mentally ill and disabled, the consolation of sickness.
I suspect that we will largely be talking about subsidy—a drab word but it has an illustrious history. Most of what we travel to wonder at in ancient civilisations was subsidised. Europe is a monument to the grandeur of subsidy, whose art remains long after its politics crumble away. It is also worth remembering that the arts flourished under the subsidy of private patronage and private enterprise. Shakespeare began his writing career under private patronage. It persists, and with benefits.
Subsidy today takes us into the public realm because, to put it at its simplest, subsidies for the arts in this country are paid for by everyone in the country and therefore, logically, everyone ought to have a voice and a slice. On the whole subsidy since the Second World War, when it hit its stride, has gone towards the older and more traditional work—once upon a time called the high arts. Great work has been done. But 60 years ago, that admirable early system of subsidy slid effortlessly into the traditional class system, which it aped and, to some extent, still does. Adam Smith's "trickle down" effect was a justification when anyone was so out of order as to call for it. To some extent, trickle down has worked especially well in
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the past eight years, when it has been accelerated. This Government have turned the tap wider open than ever before.
It is also true that millions of taxpayers cannot afford to go to the opera houses or do not wish to go to opera houses or dislike opera altogether, yet they have to pay for it. At the moment, our Royal Opera House is in a great period not only in performance but also in reaching out to a wider public. Yet this question has not been resolved. It is a different category of argument from that employed to justify all of us contributing to the health service. The arts are a free vote—the whips are off. We are gradually extending our reach but we cannot claim we have anywhere near herd immunisation.
The canopy under which the arts shelter and thrive in this country is provided by the interweaving influences of radio, television and newspapers. Most people get most of their arts through radio and television. BBC and ITV, for instance, are far and away the biggest commissioners of drama in this country. There are new playwrights, new plays and new actors in droves, and works of great distinction are often the outcome, while the contribution of Radio 3 to the classical music of this country, from both the canon and the more contemporary, continues to be exemplary.
Subsidy in this country is now entrenched. Maynard Keynes and the post-war Arts Council, formed out of CEMA, got the ship launched. The Arts Council grew in the 1950s, especially with the regional arts associations, but it was in the 1960s that a sea change began. Jennie Lee, the first Minister for the Arts, saw to that. Her actions and her attitude fired arts policy in this country with a new confidence and a new sense of purpose. I also think that by driving through the Open University, she added mightily to the general appreciation and appetite for culture in this country.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Arts Council was often in troubled waters, although the sums of money still crept up. There was unrest, strikes and public outcries. Then, in the 1990s, like the US cavalry, in came the National Lottery. It was and still is a very great boon. It addressed the infrastructure and enabled new centres, which are now almost invariably the pride of the places which they help sustain. It is a worrying aspect that the percentage given to the arts by the lottery is falling. Here we have something that has worked and has given a great deal to communities economically, socially and in terms of pride. The lottery should keep its promise to the arts, and in full.
When, in the early days of this Government, I spoke on the same platform as my noble friend Lord Smith, I suggested that there was an opportunity to take forward the image and impact of the arts as dramatically as had happened under two previous Labour governments, those of Attlee and Wilson. And so I think it is proving, with no little thanks due to my noble friend and his successor in the other place, Tessa Jowell.
Even though we know that statistics are often statistically unreliable, they must at some time claim their time to shine, so here are a few. It is estimated that
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exports by the creative industries contributed £11.6 billion to the balance of trade in 2003. This equated to around 4.1 per cent of all goods and services exported from the UK. KPMG has predicted a 46 per cent growth in employment and 136 per cent output growth in UK creative industries between 1995 and 2015. Spending on the arts has increased by 75 per cent since 1997, from £196 million to £412 million. Free admission to museums and galleries has opened them up as never before. It is wonderful to see places seething with interested children, drawing in front of the paintings they have been brought to see and drawing from them, one hopes, inspiration which will last a lifetime. Two-thirds of our population took part in arts activities last year. Visits to museums are up by 75 per cent since 2001 and the introduction of free admission.
A million young people have benefited from lottery investment in the Youth Music programme, which is a joy. If you want to be truly uplifted, go to the Albert Hall for those three days of the annual national music festival from schools all over the country, all shapes and sizes and all sorts of bands and orchestras, often with instruments furnished by local councils and local businessmen. The quality of music is world-class, and indeed some of these young people beat the rest of the world in open competitions. The passion of the young players, their knowledge and education, is deeply impressive. I could go on with more statistics, but I am sure more will be forthcoming elsewhere.
There are, as I said, shortcomings, gaps and recurring crises, and they will be addressed by others, but I believe that over the past decade the broad overall picture is positive. Yes, the arts need more investment. There is a sense that, despite all that has been done in the past eight years, we have caught up but we have not pushed forward enough. The danger is still that, because of the way the arts are interconnected with private patronage, sponsorship and the sale of tickets, even small cuts from the subsidy percentage can bring down the best constructed schemes. Surely that must not be allowed to happen. There are also fears that the Olympic project will swallow too much leisure subsidy and strip back the arts. That will not do.
What we are getting in this country is something increasingly for everyone. We still lag behind many other countries in the money we give per capita, but nevertheless what comes out of subsidy in this country, because of the other forms of finance and our traditional and extraordinary talent pool, is at the moment a vigorous flowering, one that not only gives pleasure and delight to millions of people who live here and come here but that means we send our artists' work out from here the world over, ships of culture in the enterprising tradition of Drake.
Finally—most importantly, I believe—the arts give people a place in which they can exercise and enjoy their imagination, that most mysterious and dynamic of faculties about which we know so little, though we all share in its oceanic embrace. Through our imaginations we can think back to the big bang, faster
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than the speed of light. Through our imaginations we can empathise with ancient, even alien cultures. It is imagination that will take us forward on the journey and enlarge and understand the mind, of which our neuroscientists claim we use only a fraction. It is by imagining other and finer worlds that we will claim a better future. When Einstein was asked what was the most important attribute of all, he did not say advanced mathematics. "Imagination," he replied. "Above all, imagination."
The arts explore imagination. It is their magnet. That is why I believe our galleries are full, the hunger for the theatre grows and people want to experience the activity itself. They want their imaginations tested. Through art we can be guided into new realms of transformation, our sensations enlarged and refined, our reach extended, our brief lives multiplied. Imagine: to enable people empowered through the unleashing of imagination. That will be the completion of a true democracy, and, I believe, a salvation for our own future as a species.
Imagination is at the heart of the matter. At the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare writes:
From the poets and artists come the languages of feeling and thought, especially the very words that describe our lives. Shakespeare again:
Yet we can all be poets, because the word "rose" was formed long ago by anonymous people in a deeper past who were like us, and out of that word comes a mushrooming of images and ideas: rose-tinted, rosy cheeks, rosy prospects. Words are us. They are our greatest possession, our difference, our distinction. Our language comes—and imagination brings it—from our collective presence.
Often it is artists who light the way. That is why to grow and be fulfilled we need and will indisputably be enriched by the arts, which in this country now, despite some ill winds, must reach out to embrace everyone. It is that possibility that is the great, the new, the unprecedented prize of our times. I beg to move for Papers.
11.54 am
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