Olympic Games 2012: Heritage and Arts Funding

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Baker on having introduced this debate about arts and heritage. I declare an interest as chairman of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, the so-called Waverley committee. The purpose of the committee, which is appointed by the Secretary of State, is to advise her about aspects of export control of works of art, particularly in respect of certain individual licences and more generally on the workings of the system. We do that once a year and publish an annual report, which is laid before Parliament. Our role is that of the candid friend. My remarks today will essentially focus on that; they are based on those that I made in the debate on 30 October last year in the Moses Room and on the Minister’s response. I would like, as we lawyers say, to incorporate those by reference into my remarks. The reviewing committee subsequently discussed that debate. Although policy discussion is obviously confidential, and I do not speak here as chairman of the reviewing committee, I do not think it improper to say that members were of the view that the serious and important points and issues raised in the debate were not properly dealt with in the Minister’s reply. I shall proceed from that starting point. As my noble friend Lord Baker has said, the lottery was established to do things that it was thought improper to fund from taxation, at least in part. We have been told in terms by the Secretary of State that one of the functions of the Heritage Lottery Fund is to assist with that position. Already there is a problem, and I have every sympathy with the trustees of the fund and their role in the context of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in this regard. They have had to make some very difficult decisions, because you cannot do everything all the time. The simple consequence of the recent developments in lottery funding allocation is that a bad problem will inevitably get worse. It is important to be clear that the Waverley system, in which I play some part, is a tripwire. It is the line of last resort. It is concerned with objects whose leaving the country would be a national misfortune. With the exception of me, this is not a group of laymen. They are experts and scholars at the top of their respective professions. We are not talking about people taking decisions who are mountebank dealers trying to sell soi-disant ““art”” to hedge fund managers with huge bonuses. They are the equivalent of the highest expertise in any sphere you may care to find around the country. The objects we are concerned about are by definition important to the cultural capital of this country and of outstanding value to our great institutions, part of whose mission is to acquire objects. We are talking about objects of world importance. They are at the core of the definition of ourselves, Britishness, the role of this country and its reputation in the world. People talk about price. It is trite to say that the best things are always cheap, but a lot of the inflation in the art market is in areas outside the scope of the committee. Contemporary works of art and things that have not been in Britain or have not existed for more than 50 years are outside the scope of the system. Currently, as I have said, it is not working. Only 60 per cent by number are saved, representing something like 40 per cent by value. We deal with a number of antiquities and archives that are, relatively speaking, inexpensive. What museums do in this country is popular. We have the Minister’s word for it in the previous debate and, what is more, a recent survey by the National Museum Directors’ Conference shows that 43.5 per cent of people visited museums in 2005-06, the same number as watched sport on television. The Minister has also said, ““We can’t throw money at it””. My instinct is to agree with that, although I ask him to think about it; after all, whatever else you can say about the Olympics, buckets of cash are being chucked at that. The reviewing committee’s work suggests that around 4.5 per cent of the total budget for the Olympics would have enabled this country to acquire every single object that met the Waverley criteria but was subsequently exported since the committee was established in 1952. In other words, in the period between this Olympics and the last time they were held in London, something like 5 per cent of the money involved in the 2012 Games would have acquired everything. The real answer—I go back to a remark of my noble friend Lord Baker—is that we must look at other ways of funding this. I repeat what the Minister said last time: "““I repeat that these opportunities are there, but they are not being exploited to the full. It weakens any argument for further tax concessions and further help from the Treasury if things that are already in place are simply not used””.—[Official Report, 30/10/06; col. GC 54.]" There is no logic to that. To argue that, because something is not working properly, it should not be changed seems fundamentally illogical. The Treasury is still considering the proposals made by Sir Nicholas Goodison, at its request, about changes to the way in which works of art are acquired in this country. That provides a wonderful opportunity to look at this again. I said so in the previous debate and I say so again now. In the United States in 2003, according to Giving USA 2004, something like $13.1 billion was given in private donations to the arts. In the UK that would amount to around £1 billion. That is a rough estimate, but it shows what can be done. That is the kind of direction the Government should look to in order to resolve an actual, not a theoretical, problem. There would be no need for debates about this if the Government addressed the issue in that way. It is sad, but things have come to a pretty pass when Ministers for culture in this country become the apologists for the philistines. I feel very sorry for the Minister as he stands at the Dispatch Box. He is like the hero of Henry Newbolt’s Vitaï Lampada, who, noble Lords will recall, was in the Army, in the desert in the imperial wars: "““The sand in the desert is sodden red,""““Red with the wreck of a square that broke,""““The Gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead,""““And the regiment blind with dust and smoke””." And what is in the noble Lord’s ministerial brief? It is, "““Play up! play up! and play the game!””."