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Arts

My Lords, I was especially pleased to hear the speech of my noble friend Lord Smith of Finsbury. When he was Secretary of State, he undertook to free the museums and galleries of their entrance charges. That made a notable change to how culture is looked at in this country. You can go into any museum or gallery and you do not pay anything. We have seen the numbers rise. I remember, as a boy, going to Colne museum in the north-west quite frequently. I was the only person there. You go into a museum now and there are crowds of people: you can hardly see some of the exhibits for the number of people. That is due to my noble friend Lord Smith and what he did, for which we should be extremely grateful. In 1975, new taxes were introduced when I was at the Treasury that would have impacted on stately homes. That would have closed a number of houses that had been an outstanding part of our national heritage. Fortunately, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was persuaded to allow the Finance Bill to exempt those properties from the high taxes that would have destroyed so much of our national heritage. On the subject of national heritage, I mention Stonehenge, which is now a place that people visit in large numbers. Again, as a boy, I used to go there—well, I went twice—and I was almost the only person there. That was in 1945 or 1946. But now there are so many people, expenditure is required to change the roads to allow some of these visitors to see it as it should be seen. Patrick Cormack in the House of Commons played a most important role in bringing the seriousness of the legislation at the time to our attention. After my period at the Treasury, I came to play a part in the All-Party Group on Arts and Heritage, of which I became president. More recently, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been set up, and we have seen a greater acceptance of the role of the arts in our country. Funding from the DCMS for the arts did increase, but many of the further expectations are not being met. My noble friend Lord Smith referred to this, and said that this was most unfortunate. Expenditure has stalled, and we really need now to restore it. We see that our spending on culture and its consequences amounts to 0.6 per cent of our national income. Some other western European countries have much higher spending on culture; in some cases, it is more than double ours. The very valuable renaissance in the regions committee, of which I was a member, was set up by my noble friend Lord Smith to produce a new vision for our museums under the chairmanship of Matthew Evans, as he was then, or the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, as he became, who will wind up the debate. The committee played a most important role in bringing together museum talents from all over the country, which to a large extent existed in isolation from each other. Some museums were in a deplorable state, and were brought together so that they had some regional assistance. That has been very valuable, and the noble Lords, Lord Smith and Lord Evans, played a notable part in that. As a result, many parts of the country have a system of support for these museums and galleries that was badly needed. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has worked with the Arts Council to make a number of valuable additions to our buildings. One example that we have all admired is the refurbishment of the Royal Opera House, which is a delight. We have seen the better running of so many of our great galleries and museums, such as the National Gallery, the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery—to name just a few. The Manchester City Art Gallery and the Lowry Centre have also seen outstanding improvements. I have two complaints which I need to bring to the attention of my noble friend. One is the slowing down in the increase in resources being made available. The other is that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has too wide a remit. The area it covers is so embracing that the culture part might suffer from the expenditure on sport, particularly with the coming of the Olympics. Its range of responsibilities is very wide. I know that the budget is being drawn up so that this will not happen, but anyone with experience of these arrangements will know that there will be some considerable over-runs as we approach the 2012 Olympics and the demand for money for that. There is a danger in one department having responsibilities for both the Olympics and culture. In these circumstances, the arts will be under pressure, and the necessary increases in their requirements must not suffer. As my noble friend Lord Smith has said, expenditure on the Arts Council should not be stalled. This is most serious, and it needs to be reconsidered.