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The Committee will have seen from the recent notice that the group goes to exhibitions of quite extraordinary quality—Velasquez, Rodin, Holbein, Leonardo and Hockney. I do not believe that there is anywhere else in the world at this moment where one could put together such a programme. This is wonderful stuff, but it is a different story when it comes to museums and galleries adding to their collections, as we have heard. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, made a quite salutary speech. He explained that imposing an export stop does not mean that something is saved for the nation. It is sad to hear the 60 per cent failure rate that he described.

One of the main problems is the vast prices that pictures command. We read press headlines, such as “Mystery Russian pays £51 million for Picasso’s Mistress”. A few years ago no Russian would possibly have paid more than £5,000. There are so many more people now in this international market. No government can be expected to pick up the tab for keeping everything in the country that we would like to keep. However, I hope that there will be some additional help.

Another area which has been touched on, and where I feel that a more imaginative approach would be possible, is tax regimes. In America, private donors are encouraged to give, and it has a very effective tax regime. In this country, a little extra encouragement would mean that a lot more items are given to the country. I am not sure that the Goodison report has been taken on board. As various Members of the Committee have said, there were lots of very good things in that. Perhaps the Minister could look further at the Goodison report. We are talking about government support for museums and galleries. But on looking at galleries over the years and centuries and at how they obtained items, most have come from private donors—not from government at any point. I hope that the tax regime can be looked at further.

When private owners wish to sell high value items for the maximum that they can get, they are quite often depicted as being extremely greedy and it is suggested that they should donate them. When the Duke of Northumberland was criticised because he wanted to sell Raphael’s “Madonna of the Pinks”, his response was, “I am selling this painting to preserve our national heritage”. He meant that he was using the money to preserve a castle, two Grade I listed buildings, 200 Grade 2 listed buildings and a famous collection seen by 100,000 people a year. His outlay on all that is massive. In that case, the picture was saved for the nation by the lottery, but that will not happen very often.

The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned the 1922 list. Perhaps the Minister will comment on its status because there are very few items on it and it always seems that it should not be left to lie. In fact, the Halifax Titian is on it. It is not always easy to know with certainty what to keep for the country for future generations. I do not suppose that Damien Hirst’s “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” of 1991, otherwise known as the “Shark in Formaldehyde” would make the list. But that was bought in 1991 for £50,000 and sold

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14 years later to America for £6 million, which gives an indication of the problems that there are in keeping up with prices.

Recently, I was sent a card showing people in a contemporary art gallery where one person is scrutinising a red box on the gallery wall. The caption read:

None of us have that problem when looking at a Raphael or a Titian, but there are endless opinions about what should or should not be kept for the nation. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

6.40 pm

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for initiating the debate. It is always good to have a debate about the arts, a subject which is spoken on too rarely. As the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, mentioned, it comes hot on the heels of the announcement of a new £3 million fund to invest in acquisitions, training for curators and research; something else that is to be welcomed, but, to paraphrase Maev Kennedy of the Guardian, not worth one elegant leather glove of Titian’s “Portrait of a Young Man”, which was until recently on the walls of the National Gallery and is now in a sale room.

The arts, of which museums and galleries are so integral, are a central part of our civic and community life—as others have mentioned—not an optional extra. They give people a place in which they can exercise and enjoy their imagination. They define and bind communities, provide understanding of the world we inhabit and of what makes us human.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, who recently gave evidence to a House of Commons committee, spoke of how an exhibition at the museum, Building of Durga, has attracted large numbers of Bengalis, both Hindu and Muslim, from across the country. He said that the role of museums,

The opening of the new Islamic Gallery at the V&A is another example of that. The gallery embraces Islamic culture and welcomes it as important to us collectively. Across the country, through initiatives like these, our museums and galleries are contributing to social cohesion, which is so important in the troubled times in which we live. Thanks to the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, having introduced free admission to DCMS sponsored museums and galleries, many more people are able to benefit from the enlightenment as well as the pleasure that they offer.

Museums and galleries are also clearly an educational resource, and a resource with untapped potential in this area. According to the Museums Association, in areas where the very successful Renaissance in the Regions programme has been fully funded, there has been a 120 per cent increase in

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attendance by schoolchildren. In the areas where it has not been fully funded, there has been only a 20 per cent increase. Only three out of nine regions have at this time received full funding. Why, when the contribution made is so clear, is the funding not forthcoming for the other six?

Then, as the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Inglewood, mentioned, there is the contribution these wonderful collections make to the creative industries. The V&A calculates that 30 per cent of its visitors are directly involved in the creative arts. Real value nowadays is in design, not manufacture. Values lies in ideas and the creative industries are now a key economic driver, growing twice as fast as the overall economy. Gordon Brown seems to recognise this and has said:

But despite this it still feels that it is treated as exactly that—a sideshow. Core funding for our museums and galleries, as has been mentioned earlier, has not kept up with inflation, while costs have risen at a rate higher than inflation. The DCMS consultation document Understanding the Future says:

And yet, acquisition budgets have fallen dramatically. The Art Fund Museum Survey 2006 found that 60 per cent of museums,

Everyone agrees that collections need to remain dynamic, which means that acquisitions have to be,

The converse of the need to acquire is that there is not enough exhibition space for all that has been acquired over the centuries. Troves of treasure languish in basements, cupboards and behind locked safes.

We welcome the fact that the Museums Association is due to conduct a review of what is referred to as “disposals” and the consequent debate that this has opened up. It is a complicated area because of the risk of loss to the nation’s heritage, and one that should be treated with caution with the proper checks and balances. For decades, there has been a strong presumption in the museums and galleries sector rejecting disposal. However, against the backdrop of the realities of collecting in the 21st century, it is a debate that needs to be revisited.

There are fundamental questions to be asked: should collections be there forever? Is it the case that everything in a collection should necessarily have been collected in the first place? Should precious resources be used on conserving objects that are rarely seen? Then there is the question of sales. The recent decision of Bury Council to sell its Lowry, not to enhance the museum collection but to plug a £10 million shortfall in its budget is obviously wrong, but we should consider sales if the money is used to reinvest in collections. The Tate has started talking about selling things from its collection to raise money for future acquisition.

Then there is the question of partnership. The last major acquisition made by the British Museum was

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made jointly with the museums of Stoke-on-Trent and Carlisle, and is owned by the three collections. That seems extremely sensible. The national collections must also be willing to lend to their regional cousins, which have less power to acquire.

We welcome the increased funding that the arts have received under this Government. The money has proved well spent, but the future does not look so positive. National museums are nervous about the next Comprehensive Spending Review, and I support what the noble Lords, Lord Smith and Lord Howarth, said in their plea to the Chancellor not to impose cuts.

In the introduction to the consultation document that I mentioned earlier, Estelle Morris, then arts Minister, stated:

And yet that is not how they are treated. The contribution made by galleries and museums to our quality of life in both various and specific ways is not sufficiently taken into account when the question of what they are literally worth is calculated.

6.48 pm

Viscount Astor: I shall quote one important sentence from the Government’s recent manifesto:

That was a welcome statement. This debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is timely because it gives the Minister a chance to respond and tell your Lordships what progress is being made.

I add one word of congratulation—because one should always give the Government credit where it is due—on the introduction of free admission to national museums and galleries. It was an extremely important step, and we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Smith, for winkling the money out of the Treasury to enable it to be done. It has made an enormous difference, and the numbers of visitors have gone up. It has encouraged overall museum visits to other museums as well. It is a great achievement.

I add one word of caution, however. Under the original scheme, museums and galleries were given an amount of money to take into account what they lost from the admissions. That is now going to be all put in as the allocation of their DCMS funding. We will have to watch very carefully that there are no cuts so that those museums in that position are not penalised by going down that route. Not only have they lost admissions but, due to the increasing number of people, the cost of running the galleries is increasing, too.

The noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, asked the Minister a Question in July about funding, and the Minister gave an interesting answer to a question of my own. He said that the Government would,

He went on to say that there was a meeting. The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, did not mention that

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meeting, which rather concerned me. I worry that the fact that he did not mention it means that progress has not been made—because I am sure that if it had he would have said so. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that. He went on to say that,

I think that noble Lords would be interested in what progress has been made.

To be fair, the Minister acknowledged the concerns that exist on funding. He quoted a report from the National Art Collections Fund that argued that,

We all know of the concerns that they have.

I shall try to limit my remarks to what I regard as the collections and how we can ensure that acquisitions continue. There are two routes to go down: there is the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which is the fund of last resort for the nation’s heritage and comes to the rescue by making emergency acquisitions. Because of that it is always under a timetable problem. It is always in a mad panic to try to raise money to stop works of art that have gone through the reviewing committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, going abroad. That is not very satisfactory. An interesting idea was put forward this evening of acceptance in lieu being brought forward into people’s lifetime. It would make life much easier and give the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the museums much more ability to raise the money. That is certainly a sensible idea. I hope that the Government will look at it carefully. As we have heard, the amounts of money are increasing in the art world all the time. There is nothing we can do about that; I suspect that every time a museum has ever bought something over the years, everybody has always said that it has paid too much. That is always going to go on—and in 20 years’ time, if we are still around, we will look back and say how cheap things were at the time.

The other source of funding is the Heritage Lottery Fund, which has funded the National Heritage Memorial Fund and has given some money for acquisitions—but there seems to be a reluctance to do so on the part of that fund. Can the Minister explain that? The Heritage Lottery Fund seems fundamentally reluctant to give money for acquisitions. Is that because of the way it is set up? After all, the Government are responsible for it. The fund is, of course, getting less money as a result of the changes that the Government have made to the National Lottery, because more money is going to the Big Lottery Fund, and that is a concern. The Heritage Lottery Fund funding has come down—and that is something that we would do something about.

We are all concerned about the same things: we are all concerned about the collections in our country, how to add to them and what to do about it. We are all here to give the Minister support in the perpetual fight against the powers that be to improve funding for the arts.



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6.54 pm

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: I join all noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Howarth on securing the debate and on an extraordinarily interesting speech. My noble friend Lord Smith of Finsbury made an absolutely massive contribution to the arts when he was Secretary of State and determined how the arts landscape looks in Britain today.

I should like to start by trying to put our debate into some sort of context. The noble Lord, Lord Lee, made this point. The past 10 years—described by my noble friend Lord Smith as a huge success story—have been remarkable for our cultural life in this country, and for our museums and galleries and their collections in particular.

There is no denying the enormous, and growing, appetite—many noble Lords have made this point—for serious culture in the UK that has developed in recent years. Visitor numbers to our national museums have soared, but, alongside this, economic forces have been at work. We have seen a tremendous rise in the rate of inflation at the high end of the international art market—a point eloquently made by my noble friend Lord Bragg. The very finest pieces are now fetching well into the high millions. And, in the way that these things go, the soaring prices have encouraged a number of owners to place their works on the market. Who can blame them? There was a story in the Sunday Times yesterday—true or false—that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, is going to sell a Picasso in New York, which is expected to raise in the region of £10 million. This has led to very real concerns, which we have heard this evening, about the ability of museums and galleries to keep up with these movements in the marketplace. To compete with the deep coffers of the big international collectors and institutions will be a problem, and we all have to acknowledge that.

Against such a backdrop it will come as no surprise to noble Lords that the Treasury is unwilling simply to throw money at the problem, and, further, that there is no appetite in Government for a free-standing acquisitions fund. This evening we have heard figures like “only £25 million is needed” and “£90 million” for a picture. This sort of rhetoric—and I do not have a political background—is designed to drive Treasury officials crazy. Are noble Lords suggesting that any picture regarded as an important UK treasure that comes on the market should be purchased? I am afraid that we have to get real; that will not happen. It is absolutely essential that museums and galleries make the very most of existing Treasury tax concessions before they move on and try to persuade the Treasury on new ideas for tax relief.

It is a testimony to the self-confidence and sheer energy that surrounds our museums and galleries that this autumn sees what many believe to be the richest array of exhibitions ever seen in the capital—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne—of Hockney, Holbein, Velazquez, Michelangelo, Rodin and Cezanne. These riches are not just restricted to the capital; terrific things are happening in the regions. People all over the country have a genuine

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appetite for serious art. I refer to the huge success of, for example, the Bacon show in Norwich, or public art projects like Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North beside the A1, and the iron men on the sands at Crosby, which enjoy enormous public support and affection. Millions have enjoyed the angel and in just a year 600,000 people have walked across the sands to see the iron men.

So what can, and should, the Government do for the arts? Jennie Lee got it right, I think. In another phrase that has become a little shiny from overuse, but is nonetheless resoundingly true, she said:

Let us start with money, particularly for acquisitions, because this is the nub of the debate this evening. It is nearly 15 years since our national museums had ring-fenced acquisition funds. One of the most important principles underpinning this and previous Governments’ approach to museum funding is that one size does not fit all. The best placed people to decide spending priorities are in the museums themselves, not in Whitehall—a point that I believe we all acknowledge. But, as my noble friend knows from first-hand experience, and thanks to his own good campaigning and lobbying, there is a good story to tell on funding overall. DCMS spending on its sponsored museums has increased from £205 million in 1997 to £294 million today—about 16 per cent in real terms. This includes an increase of £28 million in the past four years.

Further afield, £150 million has been invested in the Renaissance in the Regions programme, as we have heard. This is the first-ever sustained programme of central government investment in the infrastructure of our regional museums and galleries. It is putting new life into institutions across the country, reversing generations of underinvestment, and helping to equip the museums’ workforce with the skills it needs to survive in the 21st century.

The National Heritage Memorial Fund has committed more than £135 million to acquiring cultural property, usually a true fund of last resort, since 1980. Its grant from the Government will double from £5 million to £10 million next year. Since its creation in 1994, the National Lottery, through the Heritage Lottery Fund, has awarded grants of more than £1 billion to museums, galleries, libraries and archives in the UK. This includes £141 million to museums and galleries for the acquisition of art and other objects. Only last week, it announced a ring-fenced acquisitions fund of £3 million, which will be targeted at our regional collections. At this point, I join my noble friend Lord Howarth in paying tribute to the Art Fund, under the guidance of David Barrie, for its excellent work in helping museums and galleries all over the country to acquire objects of all kinds. Since its inception in 1903, it has helped to save more than 850,000 works of art, and it manages to offer about £4 million in grants annually to museums and galleries around the UK. That is the first leg of Jennie Lee’s tripod—money.



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Lord Inglewood: The Minister has entirely fairly explained the amounts of money that the Government have made available. I believe that everyone who has participated in this debate supports that unequivocally. At the same time, however, it does not address the core problem; namely, the current crisis in acquisitions. It has been explained to us that going to museums is more and more popular. It follows that providing money for museums and acquisitions would be electorally popular. The Government are faced with the problem of this crisis in the museum sector. How do we resolve that in the future, rather than quite fairly commenting on the successes of the past?

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: When we talk about what we will do in the future, it is essential to establish where we are now. My point is that this Government—my Government—have done the most extraordinary things in the past 10 years to contribute to museums, galleries and many other art forms. It is essential that I lay the groundwork before going on to say what we should do about it. The question is, after all, what we should do about it. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, made a very important point when he said that this is not one political party’s problem but our problem. It is a national problem, and it must be dealt with in an overarching, intelligent and creative way. So that is money.

Policy, of course, is a more elusive creature. The Government believe in the arm’s-length principle, which means, as we have heard, that detailed decisions on individual art forms should be taken not by Government but in the field. The Government do what they can to create the conditions in which culture can flourish. For museums and galleries, this begins with appointing the very best directors, chairmen and trustees. Here we come to a positive point. As chairman of Resource, I spent some considerable time looking at museums and talking to museum directors.

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