| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
The noble Baroness asked about educational work and information. As soon as we have approved the orders, the Talk to Frank website will immediately have information posted on it. As I understand it, we are also preparing educational materials to distribute. These must obviously be targeted at the younger generation, which is most likely to be where the problem will be experienced. We are ensuring that materials are distributed widely, particularly to schools; I understand that the Talk to Frank campaign has already produced two information leaflets that will provide more details of the impact of methylamphetamine, both in its powder form and in
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC31
The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, asked about classification. The best that I can say is that in classification we try to ensure that a mix of medical and social harms is understood in the reports that are prepared. We integrate that into the way in which the classification system works through the advice that we receive from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Obviously, at all times there will be debate and disagreement about the appropriateness of the classification of some individual drugs, but it is the Government’s clear view and the clear position of the advisory council that the classification system is evidence-based.
I contend ultimately that the classification system works well, is effective and provides a readily understandable framework on which the harm of substances can be indicated and on which appropriate criminal sanctions for possession and supply of particular substances can be based. In those terms, there will be common agreement that it serves a useful purpose. However, it is only one part of the Government’s wider drugs strategy. The advice that we have from practitioners in the field—and I agree with it—is that a review of the classification system at this time would add very little value to the work that those practitioners undertake and could in some ways operate as a distraction. Their focus must be on tackling the problems caused by drugs; improving the quality of information; ensuring that we crack down on dealers; and making sure that those who come into contact with law enforcement also get access to treatment, because in the end that is the best solution. It is about getting people out of drug-abusing habits and ensuring that they get the appropriate medical and social support.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo): There is a Division in the House. We will start the Unstarred Question in 10 minutes.
[The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 5.27 to 5.37 pm.]
Museums and Galleries
5.37 pm
Lord Howarth of Newport rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve support for public museums and galleries to enable them to make new acquisitions for their collections.
The noble Lord said: Our current collections are facing significant difficulties in making new
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC32
The Art Fund tells us that 70 per cent of the 1,800 registered museums now acquire objects mainly or solely by gift—they are passively acquiring rather than actively collecting—and 60 per cent allocate no funds at all for adding to their collections. Time does not permit me to recite the sad litany of pre-eminent items that have been sold into private hands or abroad—the ones that got away—nor will I recite the notable successes in acquisition; the facts are well known to your Lordships. I will just say that, in case after case of success, The Art Fund—a private charity—has contributed funds, including for the purchase of contemporary items. The Art Fund is to our cultural life as the RNLI is to our maritime life.
Why is it so important that our museums and galleries should continue to collect? There are four reasons. The entry of a new item into a collection is like a shot of adrenalin: it stimulates, excites and energises. Curators who collect look with fresh eyes and imagination; collecting prompts new interpretation. Public collections reflect our senses of local and national identity and contribute to developing them. They recall to us our history and heritage and they should express the changing nature of our society and the mix of cultural influences, whereby it is renewed. We should be as intensely concerned to promote social cohesion through cultural policy as we are through educational policy.
We are one of the world’s leading creative economies. If we are to remain so, students of art and design, and consumers, need to see examples of the best that is being created in Britain and across the world. We desire still to conduct ourselves as a beneficent force in the world. Museum collections that hold a mirror up to the world will help us to understand with due sensitivity the world with which we engage.
What is to be done? What should the policy be? I suggest that there are three separate although interrelated issues: regional collecting, the active collecting of contemporary art and the important heritage items.
In relation to the current inability of so many local museums to collect, the Heritage Lottery Fund has just now come forward with an important contribution: a new fund of £3 million dedicated to supporting acquisitions. Some of the money is to be used for training to develop among museum staff the skills to collect, and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council will also contribute assistance with this training.
This initiative demonstrates the continuing and thoughtful commitment of the Heritage Lottery Fund, amid all the other pressures and expectations placed on it, to support for acquisitions. The
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC33
I should like to ask the Government to take the opportunity of the legislation stemming from the new White Paper on local government to create a statutory duty on local authorities to support their museums and galleries and, indeed, the arts and heritage more broadly. As we have seen with libraries, a statutory duty alone does not do the trick, so I would also ask the Government to introduce a cultural component to the revenue support grant system. Without this, it is hard to foresee that the funding will ever be in place to support the proper formation of curatorial staffs with the skills and the margin to develop local collections.
There is then the question of how our major regional and national museums are to be able to acquire items that would significantly enhance their collections. These include the items that the reviewing committee judges meet the Waverley criteria. They also include important contemporary or near contemporary items which it is part of the formal remit of some museums—the Science Museum, the V&A and the Tate—to collect.
The largest single source of funding for museum acquisitions is the Government’s acceptance in lieu scheme—one among a number of important tax concessions that the Government make available. In the year to March 2006, 38 items with a value of £25.2 million were accepted for the nation in lieu of inheritance tax. In consequence, a great variety of beautiful things went to a great diversity of places. There is one enhancement of the AIL scheme which I particularly hope the Treasury will be willing to consider. Recommendation 27 of the Goodison review is that owners of pre-eminent objects should be able to submit them during their lifetime for acceptance in lieu against tax on their future estate, and that the objects could remain with their ex-owners by agreement with the museum into whose ownership they pass.
The other new tax relief I would request—and I sought this when I was Minister—is Goodison’s recommendation 34: that donors should be allowed to offset the gross value of pre-eminent works of art against income tax, as is the case in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Australia. The Labour Party’s manifesto committed the Government to find new ways to encourage philanthropy in the cultural field, so I am hopeful.
Assisted by these reforms, museums and galleries would be able to step up yet further their own fundraising. It is perhaps not yet axiomatic on this side of the Atlantic that trustees have a duty to bring in substantial funds. When Ministers appoint trustees, they will of course continue to look for a spread of skills, but among trustees surely there should be some whose main job is, frankly, to fundraise. It would cost the Government nothing to be quickly forthcoming in
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC34
I will not call upon the Government in present circumstances to increase grant in aid. As the Minister for the Arts noted with legitimate pride in the Commons debate on 11 October, spending by DCMS on its sponsored museums and galleries has increased in real terms by 16 per cent since 1997. I confine myself to imploring the Government not to cut their grant funding to museums and galleries. We are given to understand that bodies funded by DCMS are being advised to plan for 7 per cent cuts. Given the general good health of the economy, given that the culture budget of the DCMS is so tiny within the totality of public expenditure, and given the havoc that would be caused by 7 per cent cuts and the uproar that would follow, I hope that the Treasury will spare these budgets.
The only request for an uplift in central government spending that I would make is that, over the planning period, the Chancellor should go further in replenishing the National Heritage Memorial Fund. Following the establishment of the National Lottery, even though the Government had promised that lottery funding would be additional to public expenditure, grant in aid to the NHMF was cut from £12 million in 1993 to £2 million in 1998. The Government have already done much to make amends. Grant in aid has been increased to £5 million and the Chancellor has promised to increase it again to £10 million next year. If he would set us on a clear path to raise it to £20 million, that, together with other resources, would enable our public collections to secure the acquisition of a good proportion of the pre-eminent objects that come on the market. To replenish the NHMF would be seemly. This memorial fund was created to honour the memory of those who have died for their country. That should include those who have lost their lives in hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The one component of the overall problem that would remain would be that very small number of supreme works of art that from time to time are put up for sale but there are compelling reasons to ensure they are secured for one of our public collections. A case in point at the moment is the Halifax Titian, “Portrait of a Man”. This picture may fetch £80 million, and the National Gallery has concluded that it cannot make an offer for it.
I would like to propose that a modern version of the Paramount List should be drawn up, with a similar agreement to that which the Treasury first made in 1922. In 1922 the chairman of the trustees of the National Gallery, Lord Lansdowne, wrote to the Treasury to say that the trustees,
- “feel very strongly that a certain limited number of works of art, less than a dozen in all, at present in private possession in England, are of such international importance, that they deserve special and separate provision to be made for their retention here ... The prices at present paid for such works may appear large to the unthinking, but viewed from the standpoint of History and of National repute they are infinitesimal ... their retention, for the Nation which possesses them is not only a duty but an economy. Their retention is also a thoroughly democratic
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC35
The Treasury considered the case and concluded that, if the sums in question represented the reasonable value of the pictures, this was a proper thing to do. The Chancellor, Sir Robert Horne, announced the Government’s commitment to support, at uncertain dates in the future, the retention in the United Kingdom of the pictures on the list.
The agreement held. In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald wrote to the chairman to say that the new Government would “readily” renew the undertaking. Four out of the seven items on the original list were in due course acquired by the National Gallery. Another on the list, which did not pass into National Gallery ownership but instead came to the National Gallery on long-term loan was the Halifax Titian, now removed from the National Gallery’s walls to be put up for sale.
As late as 1972, a special Exchequer grant was given to enable the National Gallery to purchase one of the pictures on the original Paramount List, Titian’s “The Death of Actaeon”. The history of Exchequer grants goes back to the earliest years of the National Gallery. Since the creation of the NHMF in 1980, however, the Government’s line has been that Exchequer grants would no longer be necessary. This has not been the view of the Scottish Executive, which in recent years has provided grants to make possible the purchase by Scottish institutions of a Botticelli, a Titian and the John Murray Archive. While a replenished NHMF would indeed obviate the need for an Exchequer grant in all but a few cases, a special grant is needed if we are to restore such an item as the Halifax Titian to the walls of the National Gallery. The cost of a picture of this importance is simply beyond the scope of the NHMF, the HLF and all the efforts of which the system is ordinarily capable. However, a sum even of £80 million is, I submit, affordable. Such a figure is within the margin of error of national accounting. We are the world’s fifth largest economy.
A modern list of perhaps 12 or 15 paramount items in all cultural fields should be drawn up by those best qualified to judge what they should be; realistic valuations, though difficult to determine in the nature of the case, should be made; this Government and Parliament, like their predecessors, should commit themselves to supply these funds as occasion in due course demands.
I believe we need to do these things to secure the continuing vitality of our museums and galleries, for our national self-respect and to present ourselves confidently to the world. I would hope that all parties could agree on what is to be done.
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC36
5.50 pm
Lord Lee of Trafford: I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, on securing this debate. In my brief contribution, I first declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. To become a member, one needs to obtain a million visitors a year. I have been chairman since 1990. Today we have 40 members, 16 of which are major galleries and museums.
As the noble Lord said, there is clearly a major problem with a substantially increasing number of wealthy national and international collectors and the downward pressure on budgets, to which the noble Lord referred. He gave some national examples. I should add that the National Portrait Gallery can now put aside for acquisitions only about £305,000 out of a turnover of £11 million. The Imperial War Museum can allocate only £125,000 annually to acquisitions, which may be less than the value of a single set of medals at auction.
I wish particularly to draw attention to the position of regional museums. Clearly, they have problems as there are far fewer private major charitable foundations in the regions and relatively few major plcs and national bodies have their headquarters there. Tyne and Wear museums tried to buy Turner’s “Dark Rigi” painting, which had been hanging in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, but in the end it went for £2.7 million at auction, which was way outside its resources. National Museums Liverpool saw its annual acquisitions budget fall to £50,000 by 2001. It managed to lift it back to a quarter of a million pounds last year but fears that the budgetary cuts being mooted by the Treasury during the coming CSR round—as referred to by the noble Lord—will impinge on even that small figure.
Finally, the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, which I had the privilege to chair for nine years, has only the fund for the Preservation of Industrial and Scientific Material (PRISM), administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, to call on, which itself has very limited surplus funds to provide for new acquisitions. The museum is finding it increasingly difficult to add to its collection. An item of local importance, a Model T Ford made in Trafford Park, has come up for sale and the museum needs to find only £15,000 to £30,000 to buy it, but it is experiencing real problems in doing so. Those problems are being experienced regionally and nationally. I fully support the points that the noble Lord made.
5.54 pm
Lord Smith of Finsbury: I begin by declaring my interests as director of the Clore Leadership Programme and chairman of the London Cultural Consortium and the Wordsworth Trust. I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Howarth on securing this debate and on his excellent speech, which was only to be expected from someone who served with great distinction as Minister for the Arts when I was Secretary of State.
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC37
He has highlighted, rightly, the serious difficulty that museums and galleries throughout the country have in being able to have any sort of acquisition policy. That is obviously of particular relevance to those collectors of modern and contemporary art, who, in order to maintain the contemporary nature of their collections, have to be able to continue to refresh them. It is also important for those museums and galleries that remain the great storehouses of the past. These are the places where our identity as a nation and as community is kept, stored and made available for understanding and cherishing by all of us. When particularly important works of art or objects become available, it is important that these museums and galleries can add to their collections.
A number of helpful developments have taken place over the course of the past eight or nine years. The changes that we were able to make in the acceptance in lieu procedures in 1998 have transformed the way in which acceptance in lieu has been able to be used. The Heritage Lottery Fund has done sterling work over the years in assisting museums and galleries with acquisitions. The Art Fund continues to play an absolutely invaluable role. But there is a need to look at how we can solve this very real problem for museums and galleries—and my noble friend identified a number of them.
I particularly draw attention to the proposal that acceptance in lieu could be brought forward so that it could be triggered while the owner of a work is still alive, rather than simply being able to be prayed in aid when they have died. That would make a very real difference. It is a proposal that a number of us have made to the Exchequer in the past couple of years in relation to papers and manuscripts of contemporary writers. Exactly the same principle applies to the works of art that are held by collectors.
On the subject of manuscripts and papers of our living writers, which are important items for many of our major collections, one very small change could make a huge difference. At the moment, VAT is not paid by an acquiring institution if a manuscript or collection of manuscripts is in bound form; it classifies itself as a book and is therefore free of VAT. If it is in unbound form and the papers are loose, VAT has to be paid on them. That is an absurdity, which could easily be solved at a stroke by the Chancellor.
All this has also to be seen in the context of the overall funding for museums, galleries and the arts in general. My noble friend rightly identified the anxiety across the whole field of the arts, culture and museums and galleries about the forthcoming spending review. If one looks at what this Government have achieved on arts, culture and museums over the course of the past nine and a half years, one finds that the record is outstanding. The increases in investment made available, the opening up of free admission, the rejuvenation of large parts of the cultural life of this country constitutes a huge success story. It has been driven by substantial investment by the Exchequer into this part of the Government’s purview. It would be a tragedy if all of that were now to come to a juddering halt. If we are facing either cash standstills in funding or, even
30 Oct 2006 : Column GC38
None of us is asking for the moon. All we need from the Chancellor is current funding plus an element of inflation. If we were able to achieve that, our museums, galleries and performing arts could all continue to flourish. I hope that the message will go out loud and clear to the Chancellor that that is important. Within that, it will be important for museums and galleries to be able to maintain, refresh and develop their collections, and to keep these important storehouses for the benefit of us all.
6.01 pm
Lord Bragg: I join the other speakers in congratulating my noble friend Lord Howarth on calling this debate, and on covering the waterfront so well that I have spent a lot of time cutting and slashing my own speech. It was cut and slashed even more after my noble friend Lord Smith got cracking. It will be a bit shorter, noble Lords will be relieved to hear.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |