My Lords, I have tabled this amendment because the responsibility that the Government have had for 160 years in giving consent for the erection of public statues in London should not pass away unremarked. Also, perhaps more importantly, there has to be a concern about where the responsibility for all public sculpture in London, not just public statues, should ultimately live. The area of London in question is Greater London but excludes the City of London and Inner and Middle Temples, as the very helpful notes to the Bill indicate.
There is a case for handing over ultimate responsibility for all public sculpture, not just statues and not just new sculpture, to the GLA. The timing of this amendment is interesting in the light of the think tank Centre for London’s call for greater devolution for the GLA, including, I understand, the ownership of public land. There is also a case for treating all public sculpture equally, at least administratively, which, with the change that the Government are making here, we are part-way towards doing.
I say this because I believe it is the specific environment, the place itself, that should be the starting point and of paramount concern. If the environment demands that there should be a sculpture sited in that place, the question should be asked: what kind of sculpture should it be? Should it be a memorialising sculpture or
something else? However, we tend instinctively to do things the other way round. There is a national clamour to memorialise such and such a person, and then sometimes an unholy compromise arises in terms of the use of public space.
My first question to the Minister is why the Government are retaining the 1854 Act at all if they are removing the key responsibility for consent for public statues. Yes, I believe that these decisions should be taken with the locality permanently in mind, but I am not at all convinced that the ultimate responsibility for decision-making for new public sculpture in London should reside with the local authorities. Public sculpture generally should be under the stewardship—I stress, the stewardship—of London. New public sculpture in London is foremost a city-wide issue, of primary concern to London and Londoners.
With regard to my amendment, which is really a first stage in my train of thought on the subject, I do not for one moment believe that any current mayor should be making personal decisions about these things. I would have strongly disagreed with any suggestion that Generals Havelock and Napier ought to be removed from Trafalgar Square. Public sculpture should be removed or relocated only under exceptional planning considerations because to do otherwise, for aesthetic reasons or reasons of political correctness, is to excise history and that is wrong.
However, considering the future, I would be very happy—I think that others would agree—if there was a 20-year moratorium put on all new sculptures memorialising the military, the royals and politicians. Our culture is considerably wider than that. Last week, a fellow Peer suggested to me that there should be an independent decision-making body of experts. There is merit in that; in Berlin, for example, I understand that there is a citywide system of open competition for all new sculpture under the auspices of Berlin’s association of visual artists. Comparisons can be made here with the manner in which the very successful fourth plinth project is administered, whereby decision-making is down to an independent group of judges yet the project itself is under the stewardship of the mayor.
My second question is: might the Minister promise to find out whether, over the years, there has not developed a substantial archive reflecting the Government’s involvement with public statues in London? Westminster City Council, for example, confirms in its guidance on public statues and monuments that it currently submits detailed plans and drawings to the Government. Has an archive built up and is it publicly accessible? If so, as it would be of great interest to the public and historians, what do they plan to do with it?
We often take public sculpture in London for granted but when people from this country or from abroad visit London for the first time, the very first things they want to see include Nelson’s column or the Shaftesbury memorial fountain at Piccadilly Circus. Public sculpture is part of the face of London and says important things about our history and cultural identity. It is perhaps too important to be left only to
local planning departments and it is fitting that the GLA should take more of a role in this area. I beg to move.