Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420
- 439)
WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2000
LORD FALCONER
OF THOROTON,
MR BRIAN
LEONARD AND
MS CLARE
PILLMAN OBE
420. You are happy about that decision?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Yes, I am happy about
that decision.
421. Lastly, since on the doorstep of the Dome
is London and the millions of people that reside in London, I
wonder if I could just mention to you that we had a memorandum
from Dr Peter Brierley who lives in South London. He was saying
that it is all right for people coming from my constituency, from
the Forest of Dean; you can get public transport and you can go
on the Jubilee Line now that it is open to all of us. However,
he says, for him he had to catch a bus to Lewisham, then the Docklands
Light Railway to Canary Wharf and then change on to the tube.
"The cost of travel was much greater than if I had gone by
private transport. While I understand the need to ensure that
public transport is used more ... "—he is saying, effectively,
that for those millions of people on the doorstep, that you would
like to be the repeats to the Dome, it is so difficult to get
there if you live locally. Was this problem ever thought about?
Was it ever addressed how we might get people to come again and
again on the doorstep, but that the transport network was terrible,
unless you were coming from a distance and going on the Jubilee
Line?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It was thought about,
and there was, for example, a fixed link connecting Charlton to
the Dome put in, increased bus services were there and the Jubilee
Line extension is there, which helps to some extent. It was certainly
thought about and I am very disappointed to hear the gentleman
describe the difficulties he has had. I think if one goes down
there one discovers the transport links have been improved.
Miss Kirkbride
422. I would like to take up a few things on
what has been said already. I am fascinated by the idea that you
wholly inherited the idea of the Millennium Dome from the last
Conservative Government. I have to say that, for my part, a lot
of the New Labour sloganising of the Dome was viewed as anathema
to anyone in my party. I also think probably your suggestion is
an anathema to Peter Mandelson, who, of course, was the first
architect of the Dome. Would he be terribly pleased to hear that
he inherited the idea?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) The question Mrs Organ
asked was about the overall vision, about what should be in the
Dome, and I answered that by reference to it being educational,
inspirational and, above all, a good day out. I did not think
that there was either political sloganising in relation to the
vision in March 1997, just as there has not been political sloganising
since then.
423. You quite rightly said that the last Tory
Government had difficulty in raising sponsors. Of course, the
reason was because the new Labour Government threatened they would
not proceed with the Dome. Were you ever involved in discussions
about not proceeding with the Dome when you first started out
in this job?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) No.
424. Can we also clarify something else about
the actual numbers, which lie at the heart of the problem of the
Dome, as we have been discussing? When Mr Quarmby was here last
week, he was drilled in detail on the numbers and he told us that
in early 1997 the figures for people coming were 10 million, and
that in a later part of 1997 they had been revised to 11 million.
Could you confirm that?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) In January 1997 it is
10 million, on 12 May 1997 the figure goes up to 12 million.
425. Thank you. Obviously, the number of visitors
lies at the heart of whether or not the project is going to be
successful. You said earlier that you are now up to 2.2 something
million paying visitors and still looking towards a figure of
6 million by the end of the year. We are seven months into the
year. Are you completely satisfied you are going to reach that
target?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I am confident it is an
utterly reasonable target, because you would expect more visitors
to come in the second half of the year rather than the first half
of the year. Obviously, the first part of the year—January,
February, March—is notorious as being bad for visitor attractions.
The second half of the year contains the long summer holidays,
and, also, there may be an effect towards the end of the year
where people come because they believe they will be losing their
chance to see the exhibition, because it will close on 31 December
2000. I think it is a reasonable assumption to say that you would
expect more in the second six months than the first six months.
We have had 2.7 million up to the middle of July and that balance
of 3.4 looks a reasonable balance.
426. If it is clearly not going to be reached
by, say, October time, is anyone going to revise it?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) The decision about the
numbers of visitors we get will be determined by the market. Why
they do not come we will see when we get there.
427. So no one will have any responsibility
if the figures do not come about?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) I think we all have responsibility—the
people who have been involved in running the Dome.
428. Who will take that responsibility—
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) When people do things
like the Dome and they, as it were, say "This is what I think
the visitor figures are going to be", I do not think it is
right to keep saying "If you do not get them you are going
to have to resign". People have just got to try their best
to achieve the targets that they set. Otherwise you make everybody
ludicrously risk-averse. I think the people who have been engaged
in running the Dome on a day-to-day basis have been brave, have
been, in very large measure, sensible and reasonable, and I think
it is wrong and unfair always with the benefit of hindsight to
start saying "You got that wrong, and you got that wrong".
429. Some people have introduced that matter,
of course, and that is another story. Again, at the heart of the
problem is the actual amount of public money that goes into the
Dome. Can we just clarify where the money has come from recently?
The £29 million that was handed over by the Millennium Commission
to keep the Dome afloat earlier this year. What pot did that come
out of? At what expense has it been drawn?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) That came from the Millennium
Commission. It has not cost any existing project anything at all.
It was there from the money diverted—not diverted, it comes
from the proceeds of the Lottery, and that is where it came from.
430. What is the opportunity cost? Where would
it have gone had it not gone on the Dome? What was that earmarked
for?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It was not earmarked for
anything.
431. Was it not for the New Opportunities Fund?
Is it not the fact that by the end of the year the Millennium
Commission is not likely to get any more money because the Millennium
is over, and that all that money will be diverted into a fund
for projects which, I think, is called the New Opportunities Fund?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) No, that is not right.
The position is that the Government went ahead on the basis that
any money that went to the Dome would not damage any existing
programme, including any existing programme of the New Opportunities
Fund. When the announcement was made about the £29 million
that was given in May, the New Opportunities Fund also made a
statement to the effect that there was no project that was affected
by the £29 million going to the Dome.
432. That would have been put into some other
project, surely?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) Insofar as there were
projects that had not yet been thought of, yes.
433. So £29 million came out of the New
Opportunities Fund, which whilst not having been given to an existing
funding opportunity, would have been given to a future funding
opportunity in health and education but then it went to the Dome.
That, surely, has to be logical.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It has not come from the
New Opportunities Fund. What has happened is that money continues
to go from the Lottery to the Millennium Commission. The Millennium
Commission give money to the Dome. All of the New Opportunities
Fund projects that are earmarked are completely unaffected. The
New Opportunities Fund is going to go on, as it were, indefinitely.
It is impossible to think of a project that might have been financed
that would not be financed, because in a sense all that is happening
is that one continues to give money to the Millennium Commission
for a bit longer than one otherwise would. There is no project,
either now or in future, that will be affected by it.
434. That is a curious way of looking at it.
Nevertheless, £29 million that would have gone to the New
Opportunities Fund has not gone because it has gone to the Dome.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It is money continuing
to go to the Millennium Commission. That means that that £29
million does not go to the New Opportunities Fund, but it does
not affect any of the Opportunities Fund's projects because they
have all been given money, and money will continue to go to the
New Opportunities Fund indefinitely from the Lottery. If there
is a project down the line that has not yet been thought of, there
will be money for that because they will get their money from
the Lottery for that project. It is a timing issue, rather than—
435. But it is £29 million of jam today
that my constituents do not have now because it is going to the
Dome. I think that is, perhaps, a fair summary. Can we ask about
the response to Mr Wyatt? You spoke about the legacy and what
is going to happen to the bidders that actually succeed in taking
over the Dome at the end of the year. Can we clarify: is it definitely
the end of the year? There is no question that the person who
takes over the Dome will do so before 1 January 2001?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It is definitely the end
of the year. NMEC, the Dome company, will continue to run it until
31 December. Thereafter, on 1 January, the successful bidder will
take over.
436. Then, in relation to the money that either
bidder is going to pay for taking over the Dome, it seemed to
me that what you said was that that money will, in fact, be used
to keep the Dome afloat between now and the end of the year, if
your cost projections go awry.
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) No, I did not say that.
The budget of the Dome has always had in it a sum for legacy proceeds—initially
£15 million but it has gone up to £30 million in the
latest budget—and like any organisation like this, in determining
where its sources of money are it includes the legacy proceeds.
They have always been envisaged as being something that will contribute
to the running of the Dome.
437. Is not some of the legacy proceeds money
from the taxpayer? If so, how much of that is—
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) What is being sold to
the bidder is the Dome, the land upon which it stands
and the land around it. It is impossible to unbundle
that, because anybody who is buying it is buying it as a complete
venture. There will have to be a division of the proceeds within
Government in that joint venture. You have got to decide which
bit should then be given to English Partnerships, which own the
land, which bit to the Dome—though it is very difficult
to distinguish the two. All that we get in the Dome company is
that bit of the proceeds which are attributable to the Dome.
438. So can we have, on behalf of taxpayers,
a guarantee as to which bit goes to English Partnerships? In Government
accounting, that which belongs to English Partnerships is quite
clearly taxpayers' money; that bit which belongs to the Dome is,
of course, a very grey area, where I would say it is taxpayers'
money but it is public money under a different guise. Can we be
quite clear that when it comes to the sale, as a percentage—because
we do not know how much it is going to be sold for—how much
will go to English Partnerships and, therefore, returned to the
taxpayer?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) You can have an absolute
assurance that the amount that will go to English Partnerships
and the amount that goes to NMEC is based upon a reasonable division
between the two.
439. Can I know what "reasonable"
is?
(Lord Falconer of Thoroton) It is a difficult issue
to work out precisely how you divide it until (a) you know what
the deal is and (b) what the right process is to go through to
reach a conclusion on division.
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