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Science and Heritage (Science and Technology Committee Report)

I willingly congratulate the noble Baroness and her sub-committee. They asked a good question, formulated an important issue, made a vigorous case for action and have provoked some responses—some more satisfactory than others, but that is not bad going. I underline how important this issue is. We have an extraordinary heritage, and we ought to care for it as best we can. Our heritage, in important measure, defines who we are personally and our common identity. It is important for the economy. Heritage has been under pressure: the wear and tear of mass tourism, which tends to destroy what it comes to enjoy, and pollution and under-funding. We ought systematically to mobilise and develop scientific resources to care for the heritage. The traditional approach has been that central and local government distribute money to more-or-less independent institutions at arm’s length. They have conservation at the heart of their responsibilities, English Heritage evidently so. Collections-based institutions such as museums, libraries and archives are there, importantly, to conserve our heritage. The view has been that trustees and professionals should be allowed to get on with their jobs, as ought academics; professional and expert interchange will occur spontaneously, and the problem will take care of itself. The trouble is that this has not worked well enough. A shortage of money has meant that conservation has all too often been deferred, and the priorities of institutions have varied. We read that the Natural History Museum spends a significantly larger proportion of its resources on conservation, for example, than does the Science Museum. The Government’s priorities have emphatically been for access and education. Stewardship features in the funding agreements that DCMS makes with the institutions it funds, but not in the public presentation of the DCMS. We need a coherent, purposeful drive for conservation, using the best science available. That is not inconsistent with also urging some degree of caution. We need a systematic use of science, but not a gung-ho one. In their time, Reynolds, Goya, Goethe, Delacroix, Ruskin and Morris all pleaded restraint on the part of those exulting in the application of new technology to restoration. Every age imposes its own vision on heritage. In the eighteenth century, restorers used to lighten up pictures; in the nineteenth century, they darkened them down. In the twentieth century, they made them look like photographs. Every restoration risks a trauma and irreversible damage. The notion of a return to the authentic may indeed be illusory. As with medicine, so with conservation; we need self-aware, self-disciplined, self-critical science. There have been disasters: the restoration of Titian’s ““Bacchus and Ariadne”” by the National Gallery and the treatment by the Wallace Collection of some of its Watteaus. In 1962, the ICA staged some debates on conservation. The National Gallery technicians were led by Helmut Ruhemann. The case against radical cleaning was led by Professor Gombrich. Gombrich accused Ruhemann of ruining the Titian; Ruhemann accused Gombrich of liking dirty pictures. This story is well told in a plangent polemic by Sarah Walden, The Ravished Image. Many lessons have been learnt about impetuosity and excess, but bad reasons for intervention abound: if money is available, we had better use it; activism attracts money and official approval; if a sale or an exhibition is coming up, we had better smarten up the picture and make it more appealing to today’s taste; the public want novelty, so if we have not got any money for acquisitions, we had better dress up one of the pictures we already have. There is always the temptation to use your virtuosity and to show off. We must use science, but use it wisely and well. The Select Committee is right that we need leadership, organisation and a strategic drive in our application of science to the heritage. The question has arisen as to who should do what, and the committee has proposed various remedies and a distribution of responsibilities. But it has found some reluctant debutantes. The DCMS says that a national strategy for heritage science is entirely appropriate and agrees that it should have a chief scientific adviser, although it points out that, given the ragbag of its responsibilities, he would have to be the kind of polymath that we do not these days produce. If sport, which so preoccupies the DCMS, were to be taken away from it, perhaps that would help the chief scientific adviser and the Secretary of State. We are all tempted to play these parlour games about reconstructing Whitehall. We shall see what happens in two or three weeks’ time. Meanwhile, the DCMS is coy. It says that it distributes money to bodies at arm’s length, and trustees are independent. But the department is quite happy to lean on the institutions which it funds when it suits it to do so. Perhaps fairly, it doubts whether its own expertise and direction would be a good substitute for those of the institutions that it funds, but that is not quite the point. Heritage—both the moveable and the immoveable—and the heritage of science need a champion and a strategic co-ordinator. That role needs articulation, which is lacking in the key documents from the DCMS and lacking in its diffident response to the Select Committee. The DCMS has been enthusiastic to take the lead on creative industries or sport and science. Why is it so reluctant where heritage and heritage science are concerned? The MLAC is even more of a blushing violet. It is chaperoned by the DCMS, which says that it should not join this particular dance—that is for Icon. But we look to the MLAC to be a facilitator, a sign-poster, an encourager and a standard setter. This cannot be left to Icon, the Museum Documentation Association or the National Preservation Office. The National Museums Directors’ Conference and the Museums Association cannot take the role that government and their agencies need to fill. The predecessors of the MLA did take responsibility. The MGC had its conservation unit. In 1980, the Standing Committee on Museums and Galleries, as the body was then known, published a document, Conservation—Museum and Galleries. It concluded that: "““Neglect may cause less damage than injudicious intervention””." It is well worth reading its study of the ethics of conservation. English Heritage has paddled usefully under water, but also abjures leadership, taking the view that no single body has both remit and capacity for a directive leadership and that the appropriate model is collaborative partnership and shared ownership. That view is also reflected in the response of the British Library, which, while it says that it is ““absolutely fundamental”” that we should have a comprehensive national strategy for heritage science, continues to endorse the distributed, federated, collaborative system. English Heritage at least is helpfully willing to provide co-ordination and a secretariat and, as it puts it, "““its share of intellectual leadership””," in the form of one post for a one-year exercise. But what lies beyond? In striking contrast is the response of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which has been splendidly positive, eager to grasp this torch and to make heritage and science a major part of its forthcoming strategy, if only it can get past the CSR. The CSR is a sort of Cape Mogador of Whitehall. Medieval cartographers used to write on maps where they imagined there were oceans south of Cape Mogador, ““Here be monsters””. If the AHRC can get past the CSR and float into well-funded waters, it is more than happy to use a significant share of its resources for heritage and science. Moreover, in the mean time, it has been mobilising the other research councils and the Office of Science and Innovation. Research Councils UK’s response to the Select Committee in the addendum attached to the Government’s response is really magnificent. The AHRC should be congratulated—as the noble Baroness did—on making the running to secure funding for cultural heritage from the European Union seventh framework programme. It has, with the EPSRC, created the new post of director for heritage research and made the wise appointment of Professor Cassar. I understand that there are further staff for research and co-ordination and an immediate allocation of additional resources of £1 million for work in this field. It is working on establishing the baseline, mapping, consulting, networking and co-ordinating. If it could bring the NERC back onto the turf, that would be particularly important for archaeological science. The AHRC is strongly committed to promoting the transfer of knowledge to public and charitable organisations as well as to private enterprise. The AHRC, with its unabashed interest in science, may be able to help to generate the scientifically literate humanities scholars and the arts literate scientists that the British Library expressed a desire to see on the scene. The AHRC cannot do it all, any more than Icon can. The issues remain how we get leadership, how we energise the system and how we are to be effective. Those questions need answering by the Government. There is a need to create a permanent forum through which the situation can be assessed, strengths, weaknesses and gaps can be identified, priorities set, strategies developed, tasks distributed, money secured, all the necessary centres of excellence promoted, knowledge disseminated and people recruited and trained. Ideas on those and on many other matters should come up from the bottom, but, pace the committee, the leadership must come from the DCMS or its successor. Only at that level will we get a national overview and drive, co-ordination within Whitehall, between Whitehall and the devolved Administrations, between this country and others and co-ordination of the sector. The DCMS says that its writ does not run in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Luxembourg’s writ does not run in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania; but you have a common secretariat and you rotate the presidency. It is too easy to find reasons why X or Y should not lead. We cannot muddle along with swathes of our heritage decaying. Where there is a will there is a way.