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Police Bill [H.L.]
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Police Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
Clause 1,
Clause 46,
Schedules 1 and 2,
Clauses 2 to 17,
Clauses 18 to 43,
Schedule 4,
Clauses 44 and 45,
Clauses 47 to 61,
Schedule 5,
Clauses 62 to 86,
Schedule 6,
Clauses 87 to 94,
Schedule 7,
Clauses 95 to 97,
Schedule 8,
Clauses 98 to 122,
Schedules 9 and 10.--(Baroness Blatch.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Merchant Shipping and Maritime Security Bill [H.L.]
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend the Minister on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Merchant Shipping and Maritime Security Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 9,
Schedule 1,
Clauses 10 to 12,
Schedule 2,
Clause 13,
Schedule 3,
Clauses 14 to 23,
Schedule 4,
Clause 24,
Schedule 5,
Clauses 25 to 27,
Schedules 6 and 7,
Clauses 28 and 29.--(The Earl of Courtown.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
National Heritage Bill [H.L.]
3.33 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of National Heritage (Lord Inglewood): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.--(Lord Inglewood.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Financial assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund]:
Lord Howie of Troon moved Amendment No. 1:
The noble Lord said: I must apologise for tabling this group of amendments but, as older Members of the Committee will know, I have raised this matter from time to time, at least since the copyright Bill in 1988. I had thought that I had clawed my way at least partly up the north face of the Eiger when a year or two ago amendments such as mine were accepted on the British Waterways Bill. I should say at this point that I speak to Amendments Nos. 1, 3, 9, 10 and 11. Amendments Nos. 1, 9, 10 and 11 are virtually the same; Amendment No. 3 is slightly different and I shall come to it later.
As I said, I thought that I had achieved something when the British Waterways legislation accepted my approach to this matter, and I was even more heartened when last year in the Environment Bill the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, accepted Amendment No. 1. I assumed that that ended the long saga and that I should not be required to return to it again. The phraseology used in the Environment Act 1995 asks the Environment Agency:
The noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, accepted in February last year the word "engineering" and surprisingly it is left out of this National Heritage Bill, which merely mentions having regard to matters:
The question that arises in my mind is why engineering was brought into the Environment Act but was left out in this Bill. I should have thought that exactly the same considerations that applied in the Environment Act would apply in the National Heritage Bill. It all hinges on the attitude that people have to engineering and especially to the word "engineering", which seems to be very difficult to get into Acts of Parliament either in this House or the other place.
I refer very briefly to what the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, said last year when dealing with the Environment Bill. He said that the noble Lord--that is me--
He then tabled amendments to the Bill (which are now included in the Act) of which he said that:
What was good enough for Clause 7 of the Environment Act in March 1995 should at least be good enough for the National Heritage Bill in 1996. I know that a year is a long time in politics but it does not mean that changes of such a vast nature should take place in
In his reply the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said that the trustees of the National Heritage Memorial Fund were to look at things of,
That is correct. He was quoting from the Bill. He went on to say that that was sufficient to encompass objects of interest in respect of the history of engineering. The next part is the part that caught my fancy:
I should have thought that adding another word to the Bill, even in four different places, does not lengthen the Bill unduly. It does not make an immense Bill. It is only one word longer, but four times. That is not a powerful argument and I imagine that the man who dredged that one up was at his wit's end. The Minister went on to say that the provisions of the Environment Act 1995, which I mentioned earlier, were not relevant as a precedent,
Incidentally, the Environment Act made no reference to an aesthetic interest either. The Minister dealt with that by merely adding the word "aesthetic" to the definition in the Bill; he could easily have added scientific in exactly the same way and we would all have been happy.
What we are dealing with is a substantial misunderstanding of science and engineering. Engineering is not science. Engineering uses science in order to make things. We had a debate a week or so ago in which my noble friend Lord Diamond went on at some length about the value of the classics, especially Latin, as an educational matter. I know very little Latin and even less Greek. I am sure that Whitehall knows all about it. But I remind the Minister of this.
The word "science" derives from a Latin word meaning "knowledge". It does not mean anything other than that. It means knowledge, and science is a body of knowledge. The word "engineering" derives from a quite different Latin word meaning "ingenious". The difference is that the scientist is involved in the pursuit of knowledge which others then use for some purpose. In the case of the engineer or the architect, that purpose is to make things. They are not interested in knowledge by itself; they apply knowledge to make things. The things an engineer makes in this case are bridges, roads, buildings and so forth. That misunderstanding is rife in Whitehall and should be rectified. I hope that that paragraph of my speech is distributed throughout Whitehall for the information of civil servants who are unaware of these matters.
What is at the back of this amendment to add a single word two or three times into the Bill? It is a simple matter of identifying engineering as a professional discipline of no less status or importance than architecture. "Architectural interest" is used in the Bill as though there were certain architectural qualities which were distinct from the other qualities--historic, aesthetic and so forth. It is assumed that the engineering qualities are subsumed in those other qualities and that, although there are architectural qualities which are distinct, there are no engineering qualities which are distinct. That is wholly wrong and shows a complete misunderstanding of what engineering is about.
I could give the Committee many examples but I am sure that they would not be welcome. I want the Committee to compare two well-known buildings which are quite close to each other. The first is St. Paul's Cathedral and the other is Tower Bridge. St. Paul's Cathedral is noted for its historical connections. It is noted for its aesthetic values and it is especially noted for its architectural qualities--though I have some doubts about that. The dome is not really a dome at all; it is a false dome. It looks like a dome but it is not a dome. But I shall not go into that. The architectural qualities of St. Paul's Cathedral are lauded everywhere.
Let me now turn to Tower Bridge. Nobody in this Chamber or elsewhere could claim that Tower Bridge has any aesthetic qualities whatever. It is a monstrosity. Every man of sensitivity realises that that is so. The only people who do not think it is a monstrosity are those who do not look at it. It is also architecturally unsound, for this reason. If we look at the quasi-Gothic towers at each side of the lifting spans, it might be imagined, if one were naive and young and not up to the mark on these matters, that they were solid structures supporting the bridge. They are not. They are mere cladding. They are supported on brackets off the main steel structure of the bridge. The reason that we quite properly nurture and preserve Tower Bridge is not for its quasi-architectural qualities, should we be misled into believing that it had any; it is because it is a bascule-bridge. We preserve it because of its engineering characteristics. That is what makes it important; not the fake cladding around it.
I can give the Committee another example. Let us consider St. Pancras Station, which we are likely to debate later today in another Bill. There are two parts to the station. First, there is the front, which is a marvellous Victorian Gothic structure by Gilbert Scott; secondly, there is the train shed, which is a wonderful engineering structure by William Burrell. We would keep the hotel, as it has been and may be again one day, for its architectural qualities and we would keep the train shed for its engineering qualities--not the architectural qualities, because it does not have any. Those are the distinctions I am trying to make. I could take other examples; for instance, the canals.
Page 1, line 10, after ("architectural,") insert ("engineering,").
"to have regard to the desirability of protecting and conserving buildings, sites and objects of archaeological, architectural, engineering or historic interest".
"which are of scenic, historic, archaeological, aesthetic, architectural, artistic or scientific interest, including [this, that and the other]".
"spoke about these amendments in respect of engineering structures so eloquently at Committee stage that both I and my noble friend Lord Lindsay agreed to consider the issue further".--[Official Report, 2/3/95; col. 1663]
"objects of engineering interest are treated in the same way as those of archaeological, architectural or historic interest".
"We were persuaded at Committee stage that the issues raised by the noble Lord were valid concerns and therefore we propose that the word 'engineering' should be included in Clause 7".
"scenic, historic, archaeological, aesthetic, architectural, artistic or scientific interest".
"Given that the list of adjectives specified in the provision is already rather long, I would be reluctant to add another one when there is no substantive need to do so".
"since those provisions, unlike the current Bill, made no reference to scientific interest".
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