---

Listing Buildings

We often have very good debates on the Adjournment and the contributions of all hon. Members tonight have been very important. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing the debate. I formally acknowledge in the House the excellent work that she does on behalf of her constituency, both in the constituency itself and in representing her constituents' interests in Parliament. I have discussed with her informally on a number of occasions the issues that she has raised formally during the debate. I am pleased that she has been able to put her concerns on the record. We have a draft Heritage Protection Bill, which the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is currently considering, and I hope that it will take into account the comments of the Members who have spoken—none of whom serves on the Committee—when making its representations to Ministers as we take the Bill forward. Let me begin by endorsing what my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) said. Like him, I firmly believe that, at its best, conserving our heritage, including our industrial heritage, is crucial to building strong communities. Sometimes the best of community spirit comes out of celebrating and understanding our past, and of using that to reflect the values of the present and to inform how we think about the future. Heritage, at its best, has a very important role to play in building identity, cohesion, a sense of community and strong communities. Every city, town and village in our country is made up of a collection of buildings that portray how it has evolved over time. There is a duty on all of us in government to make a list of those buildings that are of special architectural and historical interest. The way in which we designate them is intended to allow the planning system—we will come on to whether or not it works—to protect the buildings and to enable the management of our heritage to be carried out in such a way as to ensure that we leave a legacy for future generations that reflects the strength of our past. I want to pick up on various issues raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport, for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), but with particular reference to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport. She talked a lot about the transparency of the system. She then talked about our having a clearer understanding of, on the one hand, the roles and powers of English Heritage, with its responsibilities for listing and the listing system, and on the other hand, local authority planning departments and officers and what they have to do within the planning framework. She also talked about the importance of English Heritage giving a clearer indication, when it lists, of the implications of listing—the features that would need to be listed and retained, and matters on which it would have a view and on which listed building consent to alter the building would be required. She talked about the importance of subsidiary criteria to which English Heritage should have regard in listing decisions—not just the statutory criteria, which are those of special architectural and historical interest, but also the wider economic and regeneration implications of listing. Finally, she talked about whether we should have a separate heritage budget so that the costs of protecting our heritage are much clearer. I would like to deal with each of those points. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud has talked to me at length outside the Chamber about the issues that his constituency faces. He will understand that the hospital issue is currently under consideration, but I will say to him that I have asked that the relevant health authorities also have the opportunity to put in their representations so that I can balance them against the representations of English Heritage. He raised a number of issues that I shall address. One is the importance of marine heritage assets. We address that issue in the draft Heritage Protection Bill, and I agree with him that we will want to bring the management of those assets into the more coherent framework that we are attempting to establish through the Bill. Such an approach will allow proper protection and celebration of those assets, which are important in Britain, given that it is an island and is thus surrounded by a lot of sea. I believe that 12 miles of sea is in the ownership of the Crown, so we have to employ a complicated mechanism to ensure not only that the Crown takes its proper responsibilities, but that it is properly compensated for any work that it has to do in protecting marine heritage assets. I would like to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that we are examining the whole issue of marine heritage assets and how we can best ensure, in this radical review of how we manage all our heritage assets, that such assets will also get their proper place in the ecology of our heritage.