Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
THURSDAY 9 JULY 1998
MR
PETER
MANDELSON
and MISS
CLARE
PILLMAN
220. Yes, it is.
(Mr Mandelson) There may
be one or two people I would rather were not beside me, I guess.
But I have not been stuck there, I have chosen to go on
the Underground, I travel on it, I arrive at my destination, I
get out and I go to where I am going. What more can I do? But
if I do not want to go on it I will find some other way to spend
my time, like not go to the thing at all, or not arrive at work,
or not go and visit my Mum.
221. But that is the attitude you are taking
towards the Dome, you are just saying, with all respect, you will
either do it that way or choose not to do it at all. But the
family is impressed by this, they might come, they will say, "I
want to go to London, I want to go to the Dome", and you
are basically saying, well, we just put up with the transport
system. I personally would not like to take my wife and two children
on the Underground during the rush hour, it is not a pleasant
experience now, and it will not be a pleasant experience then.
(Mr Mandelson) Can I suggest
to you, with respect, that you travel at another time during the
day, if you want to avoid the morning rush hour. There is no
law which says that you have to travel to the Dome on the Underground
between 8 and 9 o'clock in the morning.
222. Yes, but I go back to what you said, your
words were - - -
(Mr Mandelson) Not least
because it is not open until 10.
223. But people will come to London early so
they can be at the Dome before 10, and if you work that back,
with the easiest calculation, to be at the Dome for 10 o'clock,
it means that you are going to hit the Underground before ten,
and in my book 9 o'clock, or 8 o'clock, comes before 10. People
will come early. You have talked about evening out traffic flow
of visitors. I do not believe, however humorous you might find
this, that the way you have expressed yourself will even out the
flow of visitors, there will be undue pressure during the rush
hour, which you clearly do not agree with?
(Mr Mandelson) Except
that the flow of visitors I was talking about was in relation
to the ticketing system, not the operation of London Underground.
And if Mrs Fraser wishes to come early into London and perhaps
do some shopping on the way, or to stop off and visit friends
during the course of the rush hour, before the Dome opens, that,
I am afraid, is a decision for her, not for the New Millennium
Experience Company.
224. And that is how you will be presenting it?
(Mr Mandelson) To Mrs
Fraser?
Mr Fraser: No, to the
public. I hope you will not be presenting anything to my wife,
thank you. You will be presenting the Dome package as a day out.
This is a very important point, because people have certainly
written to me about the question of the Dome. There are eight
hours in the day when they can go there, potentially. I believe
that people will try to get there as early as possible. You,
clearly, do not believe that to be the case. They will want to
get there from 10 o'clock, when it opens. I am just not convinced
that people are going to come later in the day, to miss the rush
hour, because they have got their own interests at heart. That
is the only point.
Chairman
225. Let me add to the point that Mr Fraser is
asking, because there is another aspect to this, and that is that
a lot of people may go to the Dome without necessarily arranging
to go into it, there are refreshment facilities around the Dome
area, there is a walk around the Dome area. It may well be that
some people, who either would like to go into the Dome will be
resigned to the fact that they cannot, because of the advance
booking arrangement, there may be others who think that it would
be nice to have a day out, travel on the river, take a look at
the Dome from outside, take advantage of the refreshment facilities
that there will be which are not connected with the ticketing
for the Dome, and have a day out in that way. That is not unlikely;
indeed, if you have had the opportunity of visiting the Guggenheim
Museum in Bilbao, there are large numbers of people who congregate
around the Museum without actually going in it, it has become
an attractive place on its own. So I think that, while Mr Fraser
is concentrating on those who are wanting to go to the Dome in
order to go into the Dome, and that obviously will be the overwhelming
majority of people, nevertheless, the transport burden might be
added to by people who are looking for a day out without going
in, by people who might not be able to afford to go in, for example?
(Mr Mandelson) Yes, Chairman,
I am sure you are right, but I do not think it will be anything
other than a marginal addition to the flow of visitors to the
Dome itself; and, secondly, I do not think that marginal addition
is necessarily going to be concentrated exclusively in the short
period of the early morning rush hour. A further consideration
is, of course, that you will not be able to get onto the Dome
site without a pre-booked ticket, as you have already been told,
so whilst people may want to go on a boat tour, as part of their
visit to the Thames, or historic Greenwich, and there will be
a strong tourist, visitor connection between historic Greenwich
and new Greenwich, if I can refer to the Dome in that way, and
they might want to go on a boat trip round the Greenwich peninsular,
or whatever, to go onto the Dome site itself will require a ticket.
And I think that should serve to avert the sort of scenario that
you are understandably worried about.
Mr Fraser
226. Just a last comment. I just do not think
we will overcome the problem of people trying to get there early,
even if they cannot get onto the site, even if these restrictions
are there. It is human nature to get somewhere early if you are
going to spend time there. That is my point.
(Mr Mandelson) But nobody
is stopping them doing that, if they have a ticket. If they have
a ticket and they choose to travel on the Underground during the
rush hour, I do not think that will be the end of the world for
them or the Underground system, but, above all, it will be their
choice, and for them to exercise, and I do not think that is unreasonable.
Ms Ward
227. You stated, Mr Mandelson, in your opening
comments about this journey, and the Select Committee travelling
with you on the journey. I think that it is fair to say that
some of us did not join the journey at the very beginning and
perhaps came on latterly, as we have seen the development of the
content. But we are as keen as you that the destination should
be worthwhile for this long journey. When we were talking yesterday
to Jennie Page and Bob Ayling, they were explaining that the contents
of the Dome are still being developed, particularly from those
ideas that we saw early in February. Do you think there is a
risk that the commercial desires of sponsors in the negotiations
that you are continuing to have will affect the overall outcome
of the particular Zones that they are sponsoring?
(Mr Mandelson) I do not
mind the sponsors affecting the outcome, as long as they do not
govern and determine the outcome; in other words, I do not mind
having a dialogue and a perfectly good set of discussions over
them, I think they will be able to help, they will have something
to contribute, and I welcome that. But the editorial control
of the contents lies with the Company, the New Millennium Experience
Company, and not any of the sponsors.
228. So the decision on the contents will be
taken by whom, by designers, by the Company, or by you?
(Mr Mandelson) It will
be taken, ultimately and actually at every stage along the line,
by the New Millennium Experience Company.
229. And what part will you play in that?
(Mr Mandelson) I hope
that people will ask for my judgement every now and again, ask
me for my views, ask me to contribute, but I am a shareholder
and sponsoring Minister, I am not a full-time chief executive,
so I am not there every day, although I know that, for the Company,
it sometimes feels that way. It is not a series of negotiations
we are embarked on, in developing the content. I have recently
visited four of the design companies, just to visit, just to get
a feel for what they are doing, just to satisfy myself that the
right people are thinking along the right lines and are moving
to the destination that we want, indeed, I have spent the last
two Fridays doing that, and I shall visit most of them, I hope,
before the recess, and probably some during the recess too. And
what I feel about the design companies is that they are different,
all of them, being design companies, by definition, they almost
would be different, they are creative people, in scale, background;
but I like the feel of them, I like their instincts, I like the
intelligent way in which they talk about the creative process
they are engaged in. And I think that they are very, very well
holding in balance the competing needs of entertaining, of inspiring
people, of educating people, but also giving people an easy day
out. You had a very interesting discussion yesterday, (Mr Faber)
is not here, but about children, I thought the points he raised
were spot on, actually, they might have seemed a little perverse,
in a sense, but I thought they were spot on, because people will
be coming with kids, and they have got to be able to manage a
day out which really is fulfilling for everyone but also easy
and comfortable for everyone to enjoy during the course of the
day. I am not going to sort of trigger another long discussion,
as you had yesterday, about what to do with kids in pushchairs,
but I think these are really good questions. And I feel about
the design companies that they are thinking imaginatively and
realistically and sensitively about what they are doing, and they
are holding all these things properly in balance.
230. Perhaps we can focus in on one of the specific
Zones that we have seen or heard a little more about, The Spirit
Zone. Do you think that Christianity will play an integral part
of the Experience, of the visit to the Dome, or is it just incidental
to it?
(Mr Mandelson) No, I think
that our Christian heritage needs to be, and will be, fully acknowledged
in The Spirit Zone. The contribution of Christianity to our history
in this country and to our society is important, but it will not
be exclusive; there are other faiths, there are other communities,
who want to see their role and their beliefs and their activities
reflected in the Dome, and I think that is right.
231. And one question about the National Programme.
We have heard, on one of our other visits away from London, about
the National Programme of the Millennium Exhibition Company, and
we have heard you mention today, and indeed the evidence from
Jennie Page yesterday, about the "Our Town" part, where
the towns will have an opportunity to display an exhibition in
the Dome. Do you think that there is any real enthusiasm, or
indeed knowledge, in any other part of the country, about this,
apart from Stirling, who obviously know they are going to be the
first, and how do you think that we can actually make the Dome
and the Millennium Experience something that is felt throughout
the country and is a National Programme, rather than just a one-day
event for most people in London, at considerable cost?
(Mr Mandelson) I think
it is terribly important to do that, and that, as you know, was
one of the original five conditions set by the Government a year
ago, when we decided to go ahead with it, making it a truly national
event that reached out to people of all ages and backgrounds and
every part of the United Kingdom was terribly, terribly important.
Now what the Dome does is provide a unique national focus for
the celebrations that are taking place across the country. The
National Programme itself will consist of three things, the Learning
Experience, all the educational activities that will go on associated
with the millennium celebration and the Dome, and I am very pleased
to say that the interest being shown by schools and by teachers
has been really very strong indeed. I know, from my own post-bag,
how much is going on, particularly in primary school classes,
all over the country, because I am on the receiving end of many
people's ideas, albums, scrap-books, self-made domes, using various
materials, and they all find their way through the Cabinet Office
post-room and land in my room, and I see them all. And, I think,
in the case of Stephen Timms's constituency, they having come
to me, I am going to visit one of the schools who have shown a
lot of interest so far. And I am very encouraged by the fact
that the New Millennium Experience Company, having recently surveyed
a thousand teachers in different schools across the country, have
found that 60 per cent of those surveyed would come with
their kids to visit the Dome if the price was right, 85 per
cent want to receive resource packs on the construction and design
of the Dome, so that they can start undertaking classroom-based
activity before they come to the Dome, 96 per cent want to
be kept in touch with development through a newsletter. But it
is not just the Learning Experience, the educational programme,
there is also the Millennium Challenge, which you are familiar
with, things like SchoolNet 2000, Children's Promise, the musical
competition, the Millennium Voices, which will be boosting musical
education and activity throughout the country. But the third
element to it, as you know also, is the Festival itself, the £100 million
Festival. So the Learning Experience, the Challenge, and the
Festival, taking place between now and the year 2000, and then,
in the case of the Festival, during the year 2000 itself, will
generate a thousand flowers and more, blooming in different ways,
consisting of different sorts of activity, of educational, cultural,
heritage, sporting activity, in different parts of the country,
to celebrate the millennium in each and every way that local communities
and towns and schools wish to. And what that will all lead to,
I hope, will be not only a sense of great national involvement
and enjoyment of the millennium celebration but also, of course,
a desire to visit the Dome itself. So one needs to see the Dome
in a very much broader context that the national celebrations
take in their different manifestations, but also that huge time-frame
now, which will really properly get under way towards the end
of this year, carry on during 1999 and throughout 2000 itself.
There is a lot happening.
Chairman
232. Before I call Mr Keen, I would like to come
back to the question of transport, which has particularly preoccupied
me throughout these inquiries. The Underground station, the North
Greenwich Underground station, was not designed or planned as
a way of getting to the Dome, it was planned before it was ever
known that there was going to be a Dome, and it was planned as
part of the extension of the Jubilee Line, of particular advantage
to the people of Greenwich. Therefore, that line is going to
be used not only by visitors to the Dome, it is going to be used
as part of the normal transport arrangements on the Jubilee Line
to North Greenwich. That being so, there will be very, very substantial
numbers of people travelling on that who will not be going to
the Dome, people who are going home to North Greenwich, or going
away to work in the morning. There will be people also who will
be coming who will not have tickets but who will want to take
a look at the Dome and who will take advantage of what I guess
is going to be a very substantial fringe industry, including a
fringe catering, souvenir and merchandising industry, possibly
unofficial, which will spring up around the Dome, because, if
you walk out of that station, you are there, you see it instantly.
Has that factor been built in to dealing with the possibilities
of congestion?
(Mr Mandelson) I do not
think that the numbers, to begin with, will be huge, it may grow
as the Millennium Village takes off and gets under way; there
is not a huge local population in the immediate vicinity of that
Underground station. Now it will grow. I can think of various
future uses for the Millennium Dome after the year 2000 that would
generate a great deal of traffic, traffic of people, and, of course,
once the Millennium Village is fully inhabited that will generate
use too. But, I think, in the first instance, the travellers
using that station will be visitors to the Millennium Dome itself,
and they, of course, will not be arriving at the site unless they
have a ticket, because they simply will not get onto the site.
But it is a huge station, it is the biggest Underground station
of anywhere in Europe, it is spectacular. You have been there,
I think.
Mr Maxton
233. Yes, we have been there.
(Mr Mandelson) It is beautiful,
as well as being very, very practical in its design. It is state
of the art, not so state of the art that it will not work but,
nonetheless, right up to the mark. I am absolutely confident
that it will be able to handle the numbers of people travelling
through it.
Chairman
234. I suggest to you, Minister, that, since
there are going to be around nine months, assuming everything
goes on schedule, between the opening of the station and the opening
of the Dome, it would be a very good idea to monitor and take
censuses of the traffic, so as to see what use is going to be
made of that station, before the Dome opens, by people who are
not going to the Dome?
(Mr Mandelson) You do
put your finger on something which had not occurred to me, it
may have occurred to the Company and to London Underground, and
that is the sort of sheer fascination that people are going to
have for the Dome before it opens and before the ticket system
even gets going. I think that is a rather interesting point that
we might just draw to the attention of London Underground and
the Millennium Company.
Chairman: Because, in
addition to that, of course, and I agree with you about that,
there are lots of other things to see in Greenwich, and people
go to Greenwich, and have been going to Greenwich, quite apart
from the Dome.
Mr Keen
235. Mr Chairman, just a few questions
of simple detail really. First of all, triggered off from what
Claire Ward was asking, the design companies, obviously the content
is not completed yet; it must be a difficult job, must it not,
dealing with the designers, as to how much they are going to be
paid, because if the designs are being altered and looked at and
changed, as we go along, is it not difficult to keep within the
budget, when there are changes, week by week, presumably, and
I understand the reason, if they develop from ideas as they go
along? How are they paid?
(Mr Mandelson) I think
you can rely on Jennie Page to keep a pretty tight handle
on the costs, and the Finance Director, Steve Brown, they are
both pretty hard-nosed individuals. I do not want such a bearing
down on costs to be at the expense of quality and the character
of the content, but then nor do I want our budget to be exceeded,
and it will not be.
236. On pricing, it is commonsense not to set
the price until the last moment when it is necessary, but is it
likely that there will be concessionary prices, for older people,
for instance, and also is it likely to be different prices for
different times of the year and different days of the week, in
order to encourage people not to come only on Saturdays and Sundays?
(Mr Mandelson) I am not
sure that the discounts will operate between days of the week,
in particular seasons, but the principle of discounting is important
and, as I think you discussed in some detail yesterday, will be
operated by the Company and with the transport operators, and
certainly there will be discounts for children, for students,
for families and groups, and for old-age pensioners.
237. We have talked a number of times this morning
about the contributions made by individual towns and the children,
mainly, in those towns; has the programme been decided completely
yet, or should schools who want to take part, in various places
in the country, apply: how is it being decided?
(Mr Mandelson) The education
programme, the Learning Experience, which is associated, is going
to be rolled out shortly to local education authorities, and I
would, incidentally, at this stage, Chairman, like to record my
appreciation of and thanks to the Department for Education and
Employment and its Secretary of State, David Blunkett, who has
taken a very strong, personal interest in this dimension of the
Experience, of our millennium celebrations. There are local educational
managers in place, in every region of the country, and their job
will be to roll out the different ways in which schools can engage
in the Millennium Experience, and liaise with LEAs and individual
schools to make sure that the full educational benefit of the
Experience is gained. I am very excited about the educational
dimension to it. I think it is going to generate a lot of interest
and a lot of excitement amongst young people, and result in a
lot of people coming to the Dome itself, obviously. But we also
have, of course, as you know, the NMEC Junior Boards, there are
13 in all, 12 around the country, in different regions, and one
national Board, of school-children, who will be making their input
to the design and development of the Dome's contents. So it is
another way of engaging young people in it.
238. I was very pleased with the answer you gave
me when you first appeared before us, when I said would the Dome
give us a chance to look at ourselves as human beings and what
we are and where we are going, and you said yes and that will
be a major part of it, or a large part of it. But, as one who
has an aversion to history but regrets that I will not live through
the next century, where I am sure there is going to be space travel
and possibly some sort of time travel, as the scientists develop
that, is that going to be a major part of at least one of the
sections, space?
(Mr Mandelson) I think,
in a number of Zones, it is. The Zones that come to mind are
one that is concerned with mobility, how we move, how we travel,
how we get from one place to another and how those destinations
are going to be extended in the future; there is also the Global
Zone, how we live and travel across the planet, and that is conveniently
part sponsored by British Airways, so I think there will be a
travel dimension in that. But also in the Zone concerning the
Mind, science, creativity, what we do with our brains, what we
can invent and how we innovate. So I think that there should
be, in each of those Zones and others, enough to interest you
and to satisfy you. I personally do not feel that that should
be at the expense of or to the exclusion of events of the past.
I think our history is very important, it shapes us, it makes
us what we are. We are a very proud nation, we like our traditions,
we like the institutions and the values and the ways of living
that have grown in our country over many centuries, and I think
that those should be reflected, they make our national identity,
as much as anything else. So, whilst the future is important,
I do not think it should be an exclusive interest or emphasis
in the Dome.
Mr Wyatt
239. Mr Chairman, I am sorry I was late, and,
Minister, I may have missed this, but have you agreed that the
Experience can only happen for one year, is that a decision now?
(Mr Mandelson) It is the
existing policy of the Company to have the Experience run for
a year, yes.
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