Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200 - 206)

TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2006

THE REV'D CANON MICHAEL AINSWORTH, MS PAULA GRIFFITHS, THE VERY REV'D DAVID BRINDLEY, THE VERY REV'D COLIN SLEE AND MR TREVOR COOPER

  Q200  Mr Sanders: From your answers English Heritage is a good thing, but are you concerned about the future of English Heritage perhaps not having the same level of resources available?

  Ms Griffiths: Yes.

  Q201  Mr Sanders: Is that something that you would want to get across to us?

  Ms Griffiths: Absolutely, very much so.

  Mr Brindley: While we do feel they are a good thing—they are sensitive towards the cathedrals and the churches and we have good dialogue with them—they are under-resourced and that is putting them under stress and therefore there is a danger their quality of work will decline because they feel stressed because their resources are declining.

  Canon Ainsworth: Or it is easiest to say no.

  Mr Cooper: My estimate is that their income has dropped by 7% in real terms since the year 2000. It also makes it difficult for them to be creative. Whilst they feel constrained to continue with the current grant scheme because it is obviously doing good work, there is little spare money to try out new schemes we can all think of which need piloting and a certain amount of cash to get going.

  Q202  Chairman: It is encouraging to hear your praise for English Heritage. Not all of our evidence has taken the same view. We have received a memorandum from the Archdeacon of Suffolk which is very critical and he cites two examples of churches which need adaptation to facilitate wider community use, but English Heritage have stopped that on the basis that it is changing the nature of the building and they need to preserve the historic nature. His finishes his evidence by saying that: "Unless the Amenity Societies and English Heritage are sympathetic and facilitate wider community use, we shall reach a point where people will simply walk away from these buildings in despair."

  Mr Slee: That sentence says something very interesting because it mentions the Amenity Societies and certainly from the work we did on Southwark Cathedral for the Millennium I had no difficulty with English Heritage and I do believe that the key to that is the very early consultation and working it through, but I had significant difficulty with the Amenity Societies, who are voluntary, and have one particular axe to grind usually. I would not be at all surprised if one examined that sentence to find that both those things could be unpacked with early consultation but presumably the parish clergy was probably a bit awe-inspiring for them and therefore was put to one side and the Amenity Societies have a particular axe to grind.

  Canon Ainsworth: English Heritage is arranged regionally so one might well find different responses in different regions coming across.

  Ms Griffiths: That is very fair. The early consultation is important. There will be a few cases where English Heritage, even after early consultation, after a long discussion may feel "This particular change really is not sympathetic to the building and we do not want to support it, but it is important to realise that English Heritage are not the body which grants permission. Under the Church's system those alterations to the church will ultimately be authorised or not authorised under the faculty system by the Chancellor. English Heritage and the other societies are consultees, that is fine; their views have to be taken seriously, that is fine, but they are not the final decision-maker.

  Canon Ainsworth: But they do understand the agenda in force.

  Q203  Mr Hall: The Heritage Lottery Fund and priorities: is there a dilemma or a dichotomy in the church for accepting money derived from gambling to improve churches?

  Mr Slee: That is easily answered with what happened after Judas hanged himself.

  Q204  Mr Hall: What happened before when Jesus threw the gamblers out of the synagogue?

  Mr Slee: They drew lots and chose Matthias. Whenever anybody asks me about taking Lottery funding for Southwark I simply respond by saying "The replacement disciple was chosen by drawing lots, what is the problem?"

  Q205  Mr Hall: That is an excellent answer!

  Mr Brindley: If I could give a slightly different answer: yes, there are some churches who would find difficulties with that but the majority do not.

  Q206  Mr Hall: I am on the side of the majority by the way.

  Mr Brindley: I have just accepted a fairly large donation from Vosper Thornycroft. Should one accept money created by those who build boats? There are lots of grey areas to accepting money.

  Canon Ainsworth: Some feel that it is a lottery at both ends.

  Chairman: This takes us into a whole new debate and perhaps we should draw a line under it there. Thank you very much indeed.





 
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