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Science and Heritage (Science and Technology Committee Report)

My Lords, before launching into the report, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that picture restoration which, as he rightly said, is a very controversial subject, is amenable to scientific analysis, and much more so than it used to be. The noble Lord will also know that it is called ““flat art”” in the profession. Just because it is the most popular with the public does not mean that there are not a great many other things that need looking after. Bearing in mind the committee’s welcome conclusion to a very interesting and helpful report, that the maintenance and the service base for conservation is severely under threat, I thought that I would go back to first base. Along with my noble friend Lord Waldegrave I went back to the Acts of Parliament, and I hope that your Lordships will allow me to include Kew, which of course is not a DCMS body. It is interesting because it represents a contrast to DCMS bodies but is not in the original Act. Two of Kew’s functions out of six are: "““care for their collections of plants, preserved plant material, other objects relating to plants, books and records””," and, "““keep the collections as national reference collections, secure that they are available to persons for the purposes of study, and add to and adapt them as scientific needs and the Board’s resources allow””," which are stringent statutory tests. Those statutory tests are included in, for example, the British Library, which is a DCMS body in which I have an interest, because a small part of the British Library is for the study of American matters, which was founded by my father and my stepmother. I was a member of the main committee, and my noble friend Lord Selborne was the chairman of Kew. When I was chairman of Kew, I well remember being told that Kew was accessioning to the herbarium between 40,000 and 50,000 new specimens a year. There were at that time between 4 million and 5 million specimens, so I did a rapid calculation of how long it would be before another herbarium building would be needed—and indeed it is under construction right now. The statutory obligations of these bodies and the priorities of the DCMS are strikingly different. There have been two reports—the 2001 and the 2006 report, Understanding the Future. There are 13 bullet points in the report published in November 2006, and they are almost exclusively on education and social engineering—learning resources, diverse communities, dynamism, highly skilled and representative workforces and working more closely with each other and partners outside the sector. There is no mention of either science or conservation. These issues are familiar: two years ago we had a debate on museums and, apart from talking about collections available to the public for enjoyment and education, I suggested that handing on collections in no worse and, if possible, a better condition, was one responsibility of governing bodies. At the time, that was not extensively debated. I added the ““if possible”” because it was clear at that time that the resources to look after collections were in very short supply—and they always will be. There is a question of priorities. There is never going to be sufficient money, trained people and scientists to do everything that needs doing. In reply to that debate, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, said: "““There is an element of contradiction between the concern that the department ought not to be too controlling in its approach to the museum sector—I fully share and understand that point; it is deeply appreciated—and the demand and constant pressure from all sides for increased resources””.—[Official Report, 9/6/05; col. 1030.]" I think that we may find that we come back to something similar this afternoon. The Minister also emphasised keeping at arm’s length and that there was no need to be heavy-handed. The question that fascinates me about the committee’s report, in the demand for science and the application of that science—and it is primarily material science that we are concerned with—does not start in the museum sector. It starts with building aircraft, turbine blades and all sorts of much bigger and more widely-based endeavours and is a spin-off into the museums and other heritage sectors. This is an extremely important addition to what noble Lords wrote in the report. The heritage is growing exponentially; somebody dies today—and that was a previous generation; that person has left something. There is no calculation for that. The MLAC should be asked to consider, among the other things that noble Lords have asked it to consider, at what rate heritage is expanding. That takes me back to Kew and the preservation for taxonomic reasons of between 4 million and5 million pressed flowers, as you might call them, in folders. They were being used when—what happened? Someone won a Nobel Prize for research into DNA. The whole purpose of the herbarium immediately changed, because you can take a 250 year-old plant specimen and extract the DNA, which upsets the Linnaean structure of plant life and adds a huge amount of knowledge. In the course of what followed, the Jodrell laboratory became three times the size that it was in 1983, when the heritage Act was passed and I first went there. Even the Bowes museum in County Durham, of which I am chairman of the trustees, is adding to its collections. A very nice gentleman from York sent us a 19th century French Limoges dinner service, which was very pretty, with masses of pieces. He said, ““It came down to me through the family. I am getting old, and unfortunately I have a tendency to chip things. There is nobody else in my family who is sufficiently responsible to look after this dinner service, and it would be much safer with you””. What are we to do? Accept it, or say that we have no resources for accepting another dinner service? An old lady gave us some 18th and 19th century drinking glasses. We thanked her, and she wrote back saying, ““I remember these in my grandmother’s cabinet, and I expect she got them in the equivalent of an Oxfam shop””. The DCMS’s priorities say: "““Government and the sector will find new ways to encourage museums to collect actively and strategically, especially the record of contemporary society””." I am not sure whether accepting 18th and 19th century glasses is either strategic or particularly active; it certainly has nothing to do with contemporary society. One is left in a dilemma about what attitude to take. We must also take on board the rapid expansionof scientific knowledge. My noble friend Lord Waldegrave mentioned engineering. One of the British Library’s big problems is that it does not know the materials from which some of its collections have been made. It has to put them to a detailed scientific examination as to the material, the fibre length and what it is supposed to do with it now. We cannot think of this as a static problem. Generally speaking, the sector knows what it needs to do but it does not necessarily know how to do it or where to go to get it done. The problems are understood in a conceptual sense; it is the solution that is very difficult. I looked at what the DCMS said in answer to the committee, which might relate to how institutions would think about spending money on conservation. It said that, "““it is not for Government Ministers to determine how the specific funds allocated to their sponsored bodies are to be spent””." The response continued that, "““as well as being public bodies, these museums are independent charities, whose trustees are obliged to act in pursuit of their charitable purposes, as set out in statute””—" and then appended a rather contradictory statement— "““rather than solely in pursuit of Government policy””." I thought that statute was parliamentary and that Ministers did not depart into some other realm of policy that could not be traced back to the statute. I want to bring the theme of the funding agreements to the Committee’s attention. I am sorry if your Lordships think that I am going on too long. The funding agreement between the DCMS and the British Library sets out the outputs and levels of performance that the library is expected to deliver to achieve ministerial objectives. I suggest that the DCMS looks at Kew, which is a Defra body. Instead of having the stewardship, scholarship, research, access and business excellence blocks in its targets and performance indicators, of which there are a great many, the DCMS should look at Kew, which has long-term performance targets, which have been discussed with Defra. They are Kew’s targets—it owns them—and they are not micro-managed as so many of the performance indicators set up by the DCMS are. Their heading is, ““Science, Conservation and Sustainable Use””. That is the first set of six targets for Kew. I feel strongly that the Government already have in their hands a much better regime than that applied by the DCMS. Finally, on financing agreements, one of them ends with: "““measurable improvements in service delivery, the achievement of the Funding Agreement targets and its contribution to the delivery of Government policies will be factors in the Secretary of State’s decisions over future allocations””." If we want these institutions to spend the money as their boards decide is right in a distributive sense—this for conservation, that for access and that for business excellence—we cannot continue with such a detailed regime in circumstances where no more money will be promised. If we do not free up these institutions to make their own decisions, we shall be making a great mistake. If we do, an awful lot of the issues which the committee addressed will solve themselves.