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Museums and Galleries

It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said in his excellent opening remarks. It is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, president of the All-Party Parliamentary Arts and Heritage Group. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, it is very nice to welcome the Heritage Lottery Fund initiative of an investment of £3 million to be allocated in 2007-08. Grants will be available from £50,000 up to a maximum of £200,000. It is envisaged that as many as 20 projects around the UK could be funded from this initiative. Obviously, much has been covered in this debate. I should like to emphasise one or two things. Members of the Committee have touched on how well served we are in this country by our museum directors and their professional staff who have transformed our great museums in an extraordinary way in the past few years. That has been greatly helped by the lottery. I much enjoyed my time as a Heritage Lottery Fund trustee. As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, said, people pour into museums now in unprecedented numbers, which is wonderful. I am glad to know that all Members of the Committee get the All-Party Parliamentary Arts and Heritage Group notice—if anyone does not, please see me and I will make sure that you go on the list. The Committee will have seen from the recent notice that the group goes to exhibitions of quite extraordinary quality—Velasquez, Rodin, Holbein, Leonardo and Hockney. I do not believe that there is anywhere else in the world at this moment where one could put together such a programme. This is wonderful stuff, but it is a different story when it comes to museums and galleries adding to their collections, as we have heard. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, made a quite salutary speech. He explained that putting an export stop does not mean that something is saved for the nation. It is sad to hear the 60 per cent failure rate that he described. One of the main problems is the vast prices that pictures command. We read press headlines, such as ““Mystery Russian pays £51 million for Picasso’s Mistress””. A few years ago no Russian would possibly have paid more than £5,000. There are so many more people now in this international market. No government can be expected to pick up the tab for keeping everything in the country that we would like to keep. However, I hope that there will be some additional help. Another area which has been touched on, and where I feel that a more imaginative approach would be possible, is tax regimes. In America, private donors are encouraged to give, and it has a very effective tax regime. In this country, a little extra encouragement would mean that a lot more items are given to the country. I am not sure that the Goodison report has been taken on board. As various Members of the Committee have said, there were lots of very good things in that. Perhaps the Minister could look further at the Goodison report. We are talking about government support for museums and galleries, but on looking at galleries over the years and centuries and at how they obtained items, most have come from private donors—not from government at any point. I hope that the tax regime can be looked at further. When private owners wish to sell high value items for the maximum that they can get, they are quite often depicted as being extremely greedy and it is suggested that they should donate them. When the Duke of Northumberland was criticised because he wanted to sell Raphael’s ““Madonna of the Pinks””, his response was, ““I am selling this painting to preserve our national heritage””. He meant that he was using the money to preserve a castle, two Grade I listed buildings, 200 Grade 2 listed buildings and a famous collection seen by 100,000 people a year. His outlay on all that is massive. In that case, the picture was saved for the nation by the lottery, but that will not happen very often. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned the 1922 list. Perhaps the Minister will comment on its status because there are very few items on it and it always seems that it should not be left to lie. In fact, the Halifax Titian is on it. It is not always easy to know with certainty what to keep for the country for future generations. I do not suppose that Damien Hirst’s ““The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”” of 1991, otherwise known as the ““Shark in Formaldehyde”” would make the list. But that was bought in 1991 for £50,000 and sold 14 years later to America for £6 million, which gives an indication of the problems that there are in keeping up with prices. Recently, I was sent a card showing people in a contemporary art gallery where one person is scrutinising a red box on the gallery wall. The caption read: "““Dot making a fool of herself in the art gallery by admiring the fire alarm””." None of us have that problem when looking at a Raphael or a Titian, but there are endless opinions about what should or should not be kept for the nation. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.