Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400
- 419)
WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2000
LORD FALCONER
OF THOROTON,
MR BRIAN
LEONARD AND
MS CLARE
PILLMAN OBE
400. But who decided that there should be one
chief executive to run the whole show?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Well, that was a decision
taken by the board of the Dome company in January 1997.
401. Why did you not come to the decision that
there should have been two chief executives, one to get everybody
ready by 31 December—which Jennie Page did extremely well
and everybody accepts that—but another chief executive for
the content and from the artistic and the customer attraction
point of view? Lots of people are beginning to say that should
have happened. It is easy after the event but do you agree that
it would have been better? I think everybody was exhausted. A
target date like 31 December was a tremendous date to meet with
the whole of the world looking at it so naturally people were
going to be exhausted even if there had not been problems. Would
it not have been better if there had been another team already
up and running and having started?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I think there are two
separate points there. First of all, should we have had some sort
of creative director to deal with the creative aspects?
402. In fact, somebody like and alongside Jennie
Page with certain responsibilities, 12 months before the opening.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) We had people who were
experienced in running visitor attractions who were part of the
team. It became obvious in the early part of this year that the
skills you need for running, as it were, a big construction project
were totally different from the skills needed to run a visitor
attraction. I think it would have been, with the benefit of hindsight,
much better if one could have, as it were, transited to that position
with effect from 1 January in the year 2000, and with the benefit
of hindsight I think you might be right in relation to that.
403. It is easy with hindsight, but we did have
a witness who said that what it lacked was somebody who was experienced
in visitor attractions. The Chairman has outlined very well that
Disney Paris failed anyway, with all the experts, but, nevertheless,
we did have a witness at the beginning who said that there was
a lack there.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) During the year 1999 there
was an operations director who had experience of being the operations
director of a visitor attraction, but I think what was needed
was that the leadership at the executive level of the company
from the moment the visitor attraction opened should be led by
somebody who had that experience and who had that focus. What
PY has done—and you can form your own view about this having
met him—is focused on running the business with a focus
on making sure that it runs to help the visitor. In a sense, that
is what the focus should have moved from, from the end of the
construction site to the first opening, and that is what happened
when PY came in February.
404. Probably 12 months too late, many people
would say. In a way, because the decision was taken much too early,
it looked as if Jennie Page is being blamed for something that—
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) She is one of the major
architects of the success of building the Dome and getting it
there and on budget.
405. Can I move on to the legacy, before we
run out of time. Over the period of the different inquiries we
have had we have duly made reference to the value of your share,
asking you when you came if you had an added increase and added
value in the four or five weeks since you had taken over. I asked
Peter Mandelson at the beginning, because I reckoned (and, again,
it was a joke) that the Stock Exchange would have stopped the
company trading ... but then it got to the point where it seemed
to be fine. If I come back to the value of the share—again,
in joke terms—really, the value of the share now is what—putting
aside the trading to the end of this fiscal year, which is almost
decided for us and nobody is going to change it too much—the
value of the share is what the successor company pays for it.
It seems so plain to me that the value of the Dome is not the
roof and the structure, it is the advertising value; most of its
value is because of the amount of publicity there has been. I
cannot see that one of the companies who is going to try and attract
high-tech business into the Dome can get any more than one-twenty-fifth
of the value that a company using the Dome again as an icon to
attract customers to come could. I would have thought that one
company would have been willing to pay 25 times as much as the
other. Is it not true that a commercial company will come and
operate—they are only drawn in by the prospect of good business,
but I cannot see what difference it makes to-high-tech companies
whether they are under a dome or in a factory unit north of Wembley,
whereas the other company relies completely on the worldwide knowledge
of the Dome. I would have put the value at 25 times different.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I obviously cannot comment
on what the particular bids are, at the moment. I agree with your
basic proposition that the value of the Dome is, at least in very
substantial part, determined by how the commercial market views
it as being a commercial draw. One bid, as you know, is a visitor
attraction and, inevitably, if there is an existing visitor attraction
there that is attracting 5 or 6 million visitors in a year, that
means there is an already established market that they will be
attracted by. However, the other bid which is for, as it were,
a 24-hour city, with high-tech businesses and offices there, they
are also very influenced by the fact that the Dome is a place
that people have shown that they are prepared to come to; they
have shown they are prepared to come to it because they are attracted
to the idea of the Dome and because of the good transport infrastructure,
and because it is a famous, iconic building. That, as has been
seen from the bids (I cannot give you the detail of it, for obvious
reasons) has been shown to have real commercial value. Because
of what has been achieved so far, in terms of visitor numbers,
the market believes that the Dome is something that is an attractive
commercial proposition—whether it be as a high-tech business,
24-hour city, or whether it be a visitor attraction.
406. You are going to get a lot of money for
the shareholding.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I would not like to speculate
about that, but I can tell you that the bids are good, strong
bids. I notice that there is another person trying to get on to
the short-list, and I take that as an indication that the market
out there is keen for commercial reasons to get hold of the Dome.
Could I make it clear that I get no money, by the way, personally,
from the share. As I am not personally liable. When I last came
before this Committee I said that when I first became a shareholder
I was asked to sign a document transferring the share out of my
possession. This was on the day I got it. I asked why that was
and they said "Oh, well, if you were killed you would not
want your wife to inherit the share of the Millennium Dome".
The next day in The Daily Telegraph there was a headline
which said "Dome Minister in death duties dodge".
Chairman
407. On the other hand, it would be quite nice
to have the Dome in the family.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) My family would agree
with that.
Mrs Organ
408. You said that you do not believe that the
public are clear about "What do they get when they get there",
and that that has been one of the problems. When you were first
appointed as Minister to oversee the Dome, did you have a vision
about what it was that people—the public—were going
to get when they got there? What was this visitor attraction,
this experience—apart from the iconic building—that
they are actually getting?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) The vision was of an experience
that was going to be both educational and inspirational but, above
all, fun. It was going to express, and does express, what the
country could achieve in the 21st Century, and it would do it
by a vast range of things like the Show and the various Zones
that would focus on the various aspects of life, like Journey—which
is travel—or Self-Portrait—which is looking at Britain
today.
409. You had in your mind a clear vision of
what the public were going to get?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Yes, because it was described
to me. The comparison I was making was that if you compare it
with Disneyland, people when they think of Disneyland think of,
as it were, white knuckle rides. We are not offering a theme park
like that. Nor are we offering a static museum. It is something
innovative, new and unique, and it is because it is new and different
from a museum or a theme park that it is difficult to create a
picture in people's minds of what it is.
410. Are you satisfied that what we have ended
up with is very close to that vision?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Yes, yes.
411. Did you have any influence, then, on the
design? In earlier questioning you said you had views but you
did not veto anything. How could youdeliver your vision if you
did not have an influence and an input on the content of the Dome?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) The contents of the Dome
and what the vision was had been set, indeed, before this Government
came to power. It was there in the plans for the Dome, which were,
as it were, finally put down in detail by March 1997. Theywere
taken up by this Government, and what Ihave described—namely,
something that is inspirational—
412. So it was not your vision; you inherited
it because it was already in place?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Yes. You asked me what
I thought was going to be in the Dome, and what my understanding
of it was, and that was what I thought.
413. You took the inherited vision and that
sort of fitted what your vision was, and you believe that that
is what we have.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I became a shareholder
in a process that was going on, as it were.
414. You say you did not veto anything, but
you did express some views. Did you ever express any view about
the cost of the Body Zone at £21.24 million? Let us go back
to what Guy Hands said in evidence to us when he said the cost
of the Body Zone was £30 million? Did you ever express anything
about the cost of some of the exhibits in the Zones?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) My responsibility in relation
to it was to ensure that the budget was kept; that the costs were
kept within a reasonable budget. Precisely how much was spent
on one thing or another was a matter for the company to decide.
The Body is one of the most significant—in terms of public
knowledge—Zones in the Dome, and I can see that more money
would be spent on something like that which is, both in its external
appearance and in its internal appearance, one of the things that
draw people to the Dome. It is not surprising that it was, perhaps,
more expensive than other Zones.
415. I would say to you, would you not agree,
it is very large and very obvious when you go into the Dome, but
the experience of walking through takes you 2, 3 or 4 minutes,
if there are not many queues, and I do not know if it made the
earth move for me or if I learned a huge amount about how my body
works. Would you agree?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I do not know about what
you learned about how your body works, but I think the whole conception
is very spectacular. I think what you get when you go into the
Body Zone is an experience which is both educational but, also,
exciting, amusing—unique. There are different views about
it. Some people absolutely love it, some people are really terrified
when they see that huge heart above them.
416. Are all the Zones good value for money?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) They appeal, very many
of them, to different people who come to the Dome. I think they
are good value for money because, when you look at the whole grouping
of the Zones, they are something that has provided the vast majority
of people who come with a very good day out.
417. Just two other small questions. You said
that you wanted to give the million free school tickets to reach
out to those who otherwise would not have gone. Was it your decision,
then, that the million school tickets should also be issued to
children from independent schools?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It was a decision made
by the Dome that that was the position, and it was done on the
basis that it would not be either possible or lawful to discriminate
between independent and non-independent schools.
418. Do you think that was the right decision,
when we are talking about access?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Yes, I think it was.
419. Children that have gone from my constituency
and have taken free tickets tend to be children that, for one
reason or another, would not have been able to afford to travel
all the way from the Forest of Dean. Do you think it was right
that children from independent schools in Wimbledon, for instance,
would get free tickets?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I think your experience
in your constituency is similar to the experience in most of the
country where it is schools that would not otherwise have thought
of going because there was a charge, but which, as a result of
the free school offer, decided to consider it and then decided
to go.
|
