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2.53 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for allowing me to contribute to the debate. I shall take only a moment. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) made a fascinating speech--it reminded me of the Brighton pavilion, of which Sydney Smith said it was as if St. Paul's had gone down to the sea and pupped, because the hon. Gentleman was all over the place. However, he made some extremely telling points. I was sorry that he took so many personal swipes at people, but that is part of the cut and thrust of political life.
Public architecture since the war has gone through a rather barren period. There are some notable exceptions, of which Richmond house in Whitehall is one. On the whole, however, there is not a great deal of which one can be inordinately proud.
The Minister of State, Department of National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat):
I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) for introducing the subject of the debate. It is an interesting subject and he made an extremely interesting speech about it. It is a shame that it has to be raised on the Adjournment of the House, when there is not the opportunity for discussion. It is a pity that this is not some sort of Bill, so that we could have a lengthy Committee stage, with lots of giving ways and ideas being tossed about. As you said earlier, Madam Deputy Speaker, no doubt the right people will have heard these remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait) from the Whips Office is sitting on the Front Bench. Perhaps she can arrange for us to have a good, in-depth and detailed debate on this truly important subject.
There are periods when people seem to care about their architecture and others when they do not. There are always isolated examples of great monumental buildings, but the architecture that really affects people's lives is on a more modest and more widespread scale. There was a golden age of British architecture from perhaps mid-Victorian times--this splendid building is an example, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) said--until the eve of the first world war. It produced the great offices of state, the national museums and the churches in the new suburbs. My hon. Friend will remember that we talked about the conservation fund for churches the other day.
The hon. Member for Rotherham kindly made some remarks that, in the context of debates as elections come close, were as near adulation as the Opposition will ever
admit to--namely that the Department of National Heritage has a sensible policy for architecture. I am grateful to him for those pre-election crumbs of praise.
The Victorian period also produced the rows of attractive terraced houses, which will serve us for many years to come. If the industrial revolution produced the back-to-back slums, which in most cases have now been consigned to history, it also produced the estates built by the Peabody Trust and others to give poorer people a quality of housing that they could hardly otherwise have dreamed of.
The inter-war years too produced many fine buildings, including a flowering of municipal architecture throughout the country--such gems as the Hoover factory and Charles Holden's stations for the London Underground.
Generally speaking, the post-war years failed to rediscover that enthusiasm for good architecture. Understandably, we were in a hurry to rebuild. Resources were scarce, and emphasis was put on efficiency of construction, rather than on fine aesthetics. There was a reaction against the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, epitomised in the no-frills approach of the modern movement. There was also an increase in scale which seems, for a while, to have outrun the ability of architects to absorb it into the urban fabric, with the result that we had a rash of faceless tower blocks and cliffs of monotonous office facades dominating our streets. Perhaps that period should make us extremely cautious of adopting a centralised policy for architecture.
It would be wrong, however, to suggest that that was a generation of architecture without merit. English Heritage, in carrying out its thematic surveys of post-war buildings, identified many worthy of close examination and a modest number which were sufficiently distinctive to be candidates for listing.
In recent years there has been a remarkable upsurge of public interest in architecture. It was given particular emphasis in the early 1980s by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his views, there can be no doubt that he struck a chord with many people who felt that the architecture of the previous 20 years had been heading down a blind alley.
The debate has continued, with all the major newspapers running architectural pages, and headline exposure given to items such as Norman Foster's millennium tower, Daniel Libeskind's extension to the Victoria and Albert museum, or Gabrielle Bramante's tiff with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, which did not like what she produced for it. I welcome the increasing interest in architecture, which must result in a demand for higher standards, and the establishment of a network of regional architecture centres, where ordinary people can find out about current projects and proposed developments.
The hon. Member for Rotherham spoke particularly of public bodies. Here again, the record is mixed. Round the corner from here is No. 2 Marsham street; few will lament its passing. By contrast, just up the road we have Whitfield's Richmond house, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) mentioned: a distinctive Government building of the 1980s which will bear comparison with any of its neighbours in Whitehall.
Further afield, many people believe that we had a narrow escape in Nottingham, where an undistinguished design was put aside at the last minute in favour of a design competition. The result was the Inland Revenue headquarters by Sir Michael Hopkins, which has been widely acclaimed both for its architecture and for its innovative system of natural ventilation. In Leeds, as it seems to many, including the hon. Member for Rotherham, there was no such reprieve: Quarry house has attracted widespread criticism and stands as a monument to insensitive development.
Those projects demonstrate two of the principal risks to which any building design--especially for a Government building--is exposed. The first risk is that key decisions are taken by very senior people who may have little understanding of the practicalities of a building project. They may take far-reaching decisions without fully appreciating their impact. They need early and expert advice. At Quarry house there was an early decision on the amount of floor space to be squeezed on to the site, with the result that the bulk of the building was excessive and any architect would have had difficulty fitting a building into the scale of the area.
The second risk, which may also arise from uninformed decisions, is that the time allowed is often unreasonably short. In both of those projects a design-build approach was adopted to save time. Design-build can produce an excellent building in the right circumstances, but it must be chosen for the right reasons.
The timetable for Nottingham did not allow time for a proper appraisal of alternative design proposals. It was only when the then Minister, Francis Maude, who I hope will return to the House shortly, took a personal interest that the tight timetable was relaxed and time was found for alternative designs to be considered.
How can we improve the chances of success? The Royal Fine Art Commission, a body that is sponsored by my Department and one of whose roles is to encourage higher standards of architecture, has advocated that every major Government building should bear the name of the Minister who commissioned it. I am not sure that I would agree with that.
That is not the slightest reflection on the aesthetic judgments of Ministers in this distinguished Government, but because of the simple and practical point that Ministers move on, and few would see a major building through from inception to completion; but we tend to push responsibility too far down the ladder. There should be a very senior person--a project champion--to take personal responsibility for a project, and take credit, or the reverse, for the quality of the finished building.
Major buildings are, in future, likely to be commissioned under the private finance initiative. That will introduce new problems, and we are trying to address them positively. The basic principle is that public bodies will procure services rather than assets. Thus, for example, a Department will not commission an office building, but will sign a contract for the provision of office space, leaving the supplier to decide how best to provide it. However, a major public body must retain responsibility for what is done to the built environment in its name. The public client will therefore wish to ensure that its chosen supplier understands the process of design and regards architectural quality as important, and is determined that the building and its associated setting will make an improvement to the public realm.
My Department is working with the PFI executive to prepare best practice guidance on how a requirement for high architectural quality may best be built into a PFI project. I am sure that, like me, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye felt her heart sink when the hon. Member for Rotherham said that we should give advice to the Treasury, knowing the intense, almost unreasonable difficulty involved. For once, since no money but mere quality is involved, I think that I can say that the Treasury will accept that. Perhaps it is dangerous even to say that. I hope that it will accept that quality must be built into PFI arrangements.
We already have experience of good design under PFI arrangements. The Royal Armouries has obtained what is widely agreed to be an excellent new museum in Leeds. Although I have not visited it, I am told that it has added a distinguished building to a key site in the city, one of which we can be proud.
Another area with great potential for public architecture is the national lottery. On Monday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage opened the exhibition of lottery projects at the Royal Institute of British Architects. The visit happily coincided with the day when the total raised for good causes by the lottery passed £3 billion. The potential of the national lottery to extend architectural patronage is enormous and the 24 arts and sports projects in the exhibition demonstrate that architectural quality at the appropriate level is a prime component of a successful lottery project.
We held a seminar last year for lottery distributors, to share their experiences in how best to encourage design quality. They re-emphasised that architectural success is the result of a close partnership between an informed client and a skilled architect. It is crucial therefore that a client, who may have had little to do with building projects, can find advice. The distributors already run a programme of conferences, workshops and road shows to make early contact with potential applicants.
I hope that our handbook on architectural competitions will help. Published last year, it was deliberately written for the promoter who has little experience of such matters.
Design competitions have the great merit of offering a range of creative proposals, and they have a record of bringing forward promising young architects who might otherwise find it difficult to make their mark. However, they are expensive in abortive effort and are not always appropriate. Sadly, they also have a record of intemperate accusations and recriminations.
Our new handbook recognises the equal validity of appointing an architect by competitive interview. That approach gets the architect and the client working together from the beginning, and has also produced excellent results. The inspiration comes from the architect, not from the method of selection.
Finally, I should say a word about the world squares initiative, not just because Parliament square, Whitehall and Trafalgar square are local issues for the House, but because architecture is about places as much as buildings. I hope that the means can be found to control traffic so that people can enjoy the experience of those two great squares. I hope that architects in other cities will recognise that every building helps to create a place that will be important to more people than will ever use the building.
I hope that I have said enough to demonstrate our commitment to improving the architecture of the public realm. It will not be easy, because money is always tight. We should not underestimate the courage required for a public servant to invest in quality. However, good design is not necessarily more expensive. The Broadgate complex achieved high architectural quality within tight cost limits. In a different field, Hampshire county architects, under Sir Colin Stansfield Smith, have produced a succession of excellent schools to standard cost allowances.
Good architecture is a sound investment, but it needs both a good architect and a knowledgeable and committed client. We know that we have good architects: British architecture has a high international reputation. I hope that our public bodies will match them, and play their part as enlightened clients.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes past Three o'clock.
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