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Arts

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Bragg vividly reminded us, there is a huge amount to celebrate about the state of the arts in Britain, the quality of public support for them and their benign impact on the economy and social well-being. Let us take the case of music. It is fair to say that for too long public support for music was less than handsome. We liquidated peripatetic music teaching; we put music on the margin of the national curriculum; we drove our second violinists on to benefits; and we failed to provide a first-rate large concert hall in our capital city. Yet, defying gravity, the lark, if not the cuckoo, ascended. Night after night in London you can hear great music superlatively performed. I contest that for some years London has been the world’s leading musical city. What could be more sublime than the Spitalfields festival in Hawksmoor’s Christ Church? In August in other great cities of the world, the concert halls are silent, but in London, and in every home if people want them, thanks to the BBC and the inspired direction of Nicholas Kenyon, we have the Proms. The neglect, if that is what it was, has ended. The Arts Council of England is now spending more than £100 million on music and an additional £10 million on youth music. It is working intelligently in alliance with the educational system, the lottery, local government, the BBC and the industry. The industry itself is worth £5 billion a year. It has critical mass and momentum. The Arts Council sees itself as catalyst, investor, broker, knowledge bank, advocate and development agency, and it performs this role at a time when technology is making it possible in new ways for anyone who has the will and the talent to compose, create, perform, record and distribute. For those who really have talent, five new centres of advanced training in music will be open in 2007, with students supported by bursaries from the DfES. Live music now unites us not only in the locality where it is performed but nationally and internationally. The Arts Council, by supporting western European chamber music, south Asian classical music and folk and roots music, helps us in our society to express our cultural diversity, to develop mutual appreciation and influences and to move towards a new culture and new harmonies. The scene in architecture is brilliant in many aspects. The roll-call of British architects of world distinction is impressive. Consciousness of the importance of good design is developing encouragingly among our people. The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, in the short period of its existence, has become a great force for good, yet there are ways in which we could do still better. Will the Government accept the advice of the Royal Institute of British Architects to reform the private finance initiative so that the design function becomes far more influential? We know that good design over the lifetime of a building is positively an economy but, under the contracting system and the methodology that we now have with PFI, the upfront costs of good design are not accommodated. We need to ensure that good design, along with sustainability and value for money, is secured. The National Audit Office report on the first generation of PFI schools is an awful warning in terms of design. There is a growing body of academic evidence that well-designed hospitals cause patients to fare better. The work of Dr Ulrich at University College London, for example, explains this powerfully and convincingly. I hope that my noble friend and the Government will respond to the very sensible suggestions made by the RIBA to change the procedures. The Government must also help us to look after old buildings. Our country houses—I mean the complete entities, including architecture, furnishings, paintings, sculptures, gardens, parks and landscapes—are among the great artistic glories of our heritage. Private owners need public support for their stewardship in the public interest, the interests of the rural economy and tourism, and in the interests of the nurturing of our sense of national identity and solidarity that the experience of visiting these great houses develops in us. Will the Government take very seriously the representations of the Historic Houses Association on trust law and historic properties maintenance relief. Equally, we must find more effective ways to look after our historic churches and places of worship, as the right reverend Prelate has told us. Historic places of worship teach us about our history and the artistic creativity of our society, and reinforce our sense of community incomparably. Will the Government respond to the inspired call from English Heritage to fund an affordable strategy, building on the strong foundation of the Chancellor’s existing support for the VAT costs on repairs to listed buildings? Many of your Lordships will have been pleased to see that Marcus Binney, the founder of the SAVE Britain’s Heritage, was honoured in the New Year Honours list. Will the Government go further and heed the advice of SAVE? Will they immediately spot list the general market building at Smithfield or will they call in the application for demolition of this important building, which is due to go before the Corporation of the City of London next Tuesday? Will my noble friend give me an assurance that he will pass on this plea to Tessa Jowell and Ruth Kelly today, and may we have an answer immediately because the issue must be decided instantly? Will the Government also ensure that Network Rail and the developers do not demolish span 4, which is listed grade 1, at Paddington station and replace it with an office block? Will the new Secretary of State think again about the Housing Market Renewal Initiative—that Orwellian label refers to a project to bulldoze huge numbers of terraced houses in the north. Such houses are individually unpretentious in their architecture, but terraces are an aspect of the British genius for urban design and community. We should have learnt from the hideous experiences of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that that kind of cleansing—the wrecking of our heritage—rends and scars our social fabric as well. Will the Secretary of State call off the bulldozers? The Prime Minister is said to be concerned with his legacy. There would be no better initiative for him than to restore and re-energise his better public buildings programme. What in the end do we remember? Do we remember the rows, the gossip and the statistics? No, it is the enduring buildings and the works of art that symbolise an era.