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Museums and Galleries

Those who know about the state of our museums, both national and local, know the truth of what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, told us in his opening remarks, which has been underlined by subsequent speakers. The role of museums, as a kind of bridging between education, both formal and informal, giving pleasure to domestic British citizens and to those from aboard and as a national resource in a world where intellectual property will be the driver of the future wealth creation our country needs, are in peril. I shall focus my few comments on the problems this crisis poses for the system of export control of works of art and cultural interest in this country, overseen by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, which I have the great good fortune, pleasure and honour to chair. This, we understand, provides a vignette, which throws light on the wider problem. The reviewing committee arose from the work of the Waverly committee, set up by Stafford Cripps, Chancellor in 1950, and reported two years later to RA Butler in the ensuing Conservative Government. It addressed the implications of the exodus of items of cultural and historic interest and value from our country, and to advise what should be done about it. Of the committee’s members, all but one have separate entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; the odd one out being Ruth Dalton, who appears under her husband’s. They produced recommendations which have been the basis of government policy, regardless of party, ever since. The system they devised, while it could be criticised by the intellectually rigorous as illogical, cleverly balances the interests of owners, the art trade and museums, all of which matter to this country, in a manner generally considered fair, even handed and workable. As such, it is generally accepted by all affected by it. In short, the members of the Waverly committee displayed great wisdom. The system depends on the regular work of the committee itself, which determines whether items seeking an export licence are of such a high quality that they meet the rigorous definitions of national treasure which, in turn, precipitates a time-limited right of pre-emption by a possible UK purchaser if the market price is matched and certain other requirements are met. In addition, the committee also prepares an annual report for the Secretary of State on the workings of the system of export control, which is, inter alia, always placed in the Libraries of both Houses. Central to the system is that if an item meets the rigorous definition, it cannot be exported if a UK purchaser comes forward. In practice, this means that of about 40,000 items subject to export licences, somewhere between 20 and 40 will meet the test. While it does not necessarily automatically follow that all items meeting the criteria should not be exported, a failure to stop more than a handful represents, it seems to us, a systemic failure. On a year-by-year basis, the figures fluctuate but, over the past decade taken as a whole, something like just over 60 per cent of export-stopped items, taken by value, end up leaving this country. We believe that is a failure, and that a 60-plus per cent failure represents a systemic failure, be it in the health service, the education system or, equally, in this area. In money terms, the cost of turning failure into success is, as a number of other speakers have said,de minimis: in our context, at current prices, I would have thought about £25 million a year. I suppose that sounds quite a lot. Think of what footballers earn, however—one was reported in the paper last week as earning £100,000 a week—or what houses down the road from here might cost, or the cost of hospital equipment or military hardware. After all, despite the caveat of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, it also represents an expenditure where capital growth is more or less guaranteed. In public expenditure terms, it is the equivalent of deciding, when walking down the street, whether to put 50 pence or a pound in the collecting tin for charity. It has nothing to do with budgeting the public finances, any more than petty change in a collecting tin materially affects noble Lords’ personal budgets. It represents less than the figure the Times represented as the cost of removing tattoos by the National Health Service, although I gather that is now disputed. It is about half the amount of money that paper reported a couple of days earlier to be the cost of bungled prosecutions. It pales into complete insignificance compared to the £2 billion Euro-VAT carousel scam. In return, the monetary value of the investment will be enormous, as a cursory look at back reports of the reviewing committee clearly shows. It is a classic case of policy makers knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. What should be done? The reviewing committeeis not partisan. As its chairman, I consider that members vote for all three main political parties. That does not stop us agreeing on the problem. As I have already mentioned, one of our roles is to advise the Secretary of State on the workings of the system. Long before I was ever associated with it, for years the committee had been saying that the system was not working as it should, for the reasons I have given. If it is not working properly, perhaps we are all wasting our time. As one leading UK museum director plaintively said to me recently, ““What can I do? You export stop something of the highest quality. I would like it in my museum, where it would be entirely suitably placed. Yet I know from experience that I shall not raise the money. Quite rightly, I have to try. Yet, because it is a slightly unusual item, I know that I am wasting a lot of my, already hard-pressed, staff’s time on a futile quest””. I have every sympathy with him. I shall not suggest that the Government write out a cheque. We have been around that track already. It could be said, however, that the key is looking at the problems in as many ways as possible. I shall not argue that the Heritage Land Fund or the National Heritage Memorial Fund should be compelled to support respectable applications to acquire all so-called Waverley items. First, their terms of reference do not and probably should not overlap exactly. Secondly, they are already under enormous financial pressure, which looks as though it will get worse, even though their resources are already too small. Nor shall I argue that the National Heritage Memorial Fund should be given the full amount that the National Land Fund was originally allocated, even though it is hard to think of anything more shameful than government conscripting men to the war, and then plundering the fund set up in memory of those who died. It is the kind of thing that private individuals go to prison for, and it is particularly shameful that my party was responsible. Rather, I shall press two priorities, one of which has already been touched on. First, as was mentioned, Sir Nicholas Goodison pointed out in his report for the Treasury, Securing the Best for Our Museums, the way in which the tax system encouraged charitable giving to help museums is not working as it might. The Treasury’s proposition that nothing is required because the existing arrangements have not been taken up appears to overlook the simple fact that the evidence from elsewhere, both inside and outside the English-speaking world, suggests that the existing UK rules and arrangements are not fit for that particular purpose. It is therefore hardly surprising when they do not seem to have the desired effect. They should be made fit for purpose, and we on the committee firmly believe that discussions should be entered into to identify the best ways for delivering what we are today all arguing is in the national interest. Secondly, the committee has responded to the consultation from the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, arguing that some of the money—there may be an enormous amount—could properly, and should be, put into an acquisition fund. All kinds of lobbies will no doubt have designs on this money, but to allocate some to remedy this failure in contemporary Britain seems entirely proper. We have advised the Secretary of State of our response, and look forward to her— Do I stop or go on?