Draft Commission for Architecture
and the Built Environment
(Dissolution) Order 2012
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Adams, Nigel (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
† Banks, Gordon (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Campbell, Mr Gregory (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Doran, Mr Frank (Aberdeen North) (Lab)
Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds North East) (Lab)
† Holloway, Mr Adam (Gravesham) (Con)
† Jarvis, Dan (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
† Jones, Graham (Hyndburn) (Lab)
† Mills, Nigel (Amber Valley) (Con)
† Murphy, Paul (Torfaen) (Lab)
† Nokes, Caroline (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
† Penrose, John (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport)
Percy, Andrew (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
† Vara, Mr Shailesh (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)
† Williams, Stephen (Bristol West) (LD)
† Wilson, Mr Rob (Reading East) (Con)
Judith Boyce, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Second Delegated Legislation Committee
Tuesday 17 January 2012
[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair]
Draft Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Dissolution) Order 2012
10.30 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Dissolution) Order 2012.
It is a pleasure to have you guiding and shepherding us through this morning’s procedures, Mr Walker.
Through being a wake for the passing of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, this is a slightly sad day. However, it is also an opportunity to reassure hon. Members on both sides of the Committee that much of what CABE was originally set up to do will continue in a different guise or format. I am sure that design and the public sector’s commitment to it will continue to be an important part of ongoing operations for this and future Governments.
The order provides for the dissolution of CABE. It will transfer the remaining property, rights and liabilities of CABE, immediately before the date of dissolution, to the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. It also makes provision for the final report and accounts for CABE, and it contains consequential repeals and revocations.
I am sure that everyone here appreciates that individual institutions and organisations have their time and cannot necessarily expect to last for ever. In fact, it would be wrong for any of us to assume that any public organisation has an indefinite lease on life. However, CABE had some important functions that will need to be exercised through some other mechanism. It is important to mention that one of CABE’s achievements during its work was to popularise—certainly, to professionalise and to legitimise—the principles behind design review, and to raise the importance of design in public sector architecture to a new level. We want to ensure that that is not only understood and honoured, but continued.
I want to reassure hon. Members about three of CABE’s functions that will still happen in future. Design review, which was perhaps the major part of CABE’s work, will continue. CABE was a non-statutory consultee, which means that we did not have to ask for its opinion. However, if we did ask for its opinion, we received the views of high-quality professional architects and others on whether the design of a proposed building scheme was good or bad and on how it might be improved, and then had a series of constructive conversations. The legacy of CABE’s work is all around us, most notably at present in the Olympic park, where CABE was heavily involved at the design phase. The results are plain for everyone to see: the park has been finished early and on
budget and, equally importantly, to a very high quality of design. It is already attracting plaudits, and there are many other such examples. The design review process that CABE effectively put in motion and industrialised—or popularised—will continue under Design Council CABE. That is where that part of CABE’s operations will come to rest—a process that is already under way.Equally, CABE produced some important and useful intellectual property, most noticeably in a series of design principles and recommendations, of which Building for Life was the best known. Those design principles established ideas about what a good building looks like and how such principles can be applied to residential properties or anything else. They help and guide people to understand how buildings are not just creations of architects but a living part of the community in which they sit and with which they interact. That relates not only to when they are first built, occupied by those who commissioned them and used for their original purpose, but also how, where necessary, they can have a life beyond that. The vast majority of Britain’s buildings are no longer used for the purpose for which they were originally designed and built; as many of them are centuries old, they have had to adapt to changing circumstances and to live with whatever service they are now pressed into, which they do successfully. It is clearly important that we continue to design buildings that can be used flexibly, because who knows what service they may need to provide in 50 or 100 years’ time.
Perhaps less well known, but equally importantly, CABE was responsible for an education programme, Engaging Places, which was aimed at getting schoolchildren to understand the importance of design in our built environment and the importance of the buildings that they walk past every day. The programme proved popular and will continue.
Finally, CABE also produced a piece of software called Spaceshaper, which will persist and be available for use by people in educational establishments and the profession.
CABE did a lot of good work and much of it will continue in different places. The organisation may be coming to an end under the order, but its work and the principles that it embodied will continue. I hope and expect that the public sector’s commitment to good design in our built environment will continue, too.
10.36 am
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I am grateful for this opportunity to address Members on standards of architectural and building design in the UK, of which we should all be rightly proud, and more specifically on the dissolution of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
CABE confirmed that it would merge into the Design Council from 1 April 2011, creating Design Council CABE, to which the Minister referred. CABE was established in 1999 to provide inspiration to our local communities by advising on best practice and facilitating shared ideas to produce some of the most well designed and inspirational buildings of our generation.
We believe that the built environment is vital to us all. Whether we live in a town, a city or our capital city, our surroundings have an effect on our social behaviour,
leisure time and work. In my constituency of Barnsley Central, Barnsley council used CABE to help to set up a design panel to advise on the Barnsley markets project, a key project at the heart of our town centre. The built environment is also important for tourism throughout the UK, and, especially for towns such as Barnsley, I believe it is vital for aspiration.Up the road from my constituency is Wakefield, home to the Hepworth Wakefield gallery, which is only one of the buildings for which CABE provided independent design advice. The contemporary gallery provides the residents of Wakefield and its visitors with a showcase of the area’s unique artistic identity. The gallery won the British design award in 2011 and has transformed the landscape in which it sits. Additionally, the gallery is at the heart of Wakefield’s regeneration and is the jewel in the crown for investment, helping to drive growth and potential future jobs in the area.
Mirroring the success of the Hepworth, iconic buildings are paving the way for further investment across the country. From the millennium centre in Cardiff to the Turner Contemporary in Margate, Britain has a design legacy to be proud of and one which I am certain will serve us well. As the Minister said, that legacy needs to be protected.
Since 1997, Labour has been a staunch and consistent supporter of urban design and architecture. We ensured that standards in design were encouraged and built on across the UK, not only through CABE, but through initiatives such as the Prime Minister’s better public building award from 2001. Since April 2011, however, CABE has been merged with the Design Council, and it
therefore makes sense for CABE’s property rights and liabilities to transfer to the Secretary of State. Upon that transfer, I find it necessary further to impress on the Minister the continued importance of upholding the standards created under the previous Government and ensuring that our towns and cities continue to aspire to the best in architectural design. The Opposition therefore support the order.The Chair: Before I ask the Minister to respond, do any colleagues wish to make a contribution? Mr Foster?
Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD): Very kind of you, Mr Walker, but no.
10.39 am
John Penrose: Before I respond, I want briefly to take the opportunity to congratulate the shadow Minister on receiving an MBE in the recent honours list.
Clearly, there is agreement on both sides of the Committee that the provisions of the order are sensible. It is important, as the shadow Minister mentioned, to ensure that commitments to high quality and high standards of urban and built-environment design are maintained. We intend to do that, and I am sure that all parties would echo that sentiment.