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Heritage

I thank the hon. Gentleman for correcting me on the dates, but still the idea makes no sense. There is no displacement and that is the basis of the Treasury’s point. The lottery is at the root of this issue. The Minister has to understand that if there is to be an election in 2009, it simply is not good politics to have in every constituency three or four lottery projects that are short of money because funds have been raided for the Olympics. That is complete madness and no sane Government would do it. We have to resolve this serious issue quickly, not in 2008 or 2009, and before we start raiding for the Olympics. Something on which I pride myself is my work on saving ships. The hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and I saved, not quite single-handedly, HMS Cavalier, which was about to be towed to Malaysia for scrap. I am pleased to say that we bullied the Heritage Lottery Fund into giving us £800,000, and the ship is now in Chatham naval dockyard. Although we have won the debate that ships should come under the Heritage Fund, we have the same problems that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) mentioned about listing. We could list endless boats—hundreds and hundreds—because we are a maritime nation. We have a top 50, but what is the good? They are going to be sunk. They will be properly listed, but it is not just the priority order that matters—funding has to be attached. It is mad to say simply, ““Here is the list.”” What business runs like that? It is crackers to say, ““Here is the list, and it will be the list next year and the year after.”” Money has to be put to these things. If it is not, I am afraid they sink or get taken down the day before. It is a madness. We are not dim; we can work this out. It hurts people who served on those boats in the war when they are not preserved. We should see that that is wrong. I have a rather interesting story about the Tudor mansion in my constituency in which Henry VIII spent his honeymoon with Anne Boleyn. It was falling down—indeed, it has very nearly fallen down—and because of the money shortages in 1996, English Heritage put up £200,000-worth of scaffolding to save the façade. I asked the then Minister whether he would list the scaffolding, because I could not understand how on earth we were going to save it. However, I am pleased to say that Dr. Thurley came to visit and he considers it to be one of the great examples of Tudor architecture. We have finally saved the façade, and for those of us on the Isle of Sheppey, there is not much from that age left, so I say a big thank you to the Minister. It is fantastic, and as he knows, when it reopens I have asked him to open it.