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Baroness Miller of Hendon: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving the Motion, I suggest that we reconvene as a Committee no earlier than 8.20 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
Design
7.21 p.m.
Lord Palumbo rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage industry to recognise and make full use of the wealth of talent available in this country in matters of design; and what steps they are taking to discourage such talent from seeking employment abroad.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Design Museum, the brainchild of Sir Terence Conran, who has done as much as any man in this country to further design. Next, in putting this Question, I hoped that it might be helpful to the House to be able to consider the importance of design in shaping the environment we inhabit, the products we use, the communications we make, the national talent we encourage and the wealth we generate.
The fact is that design touches the lives of every man, woman and child in this country, and indeed the world, every single day of their lives. There are many definitions of design. One I particularly enjoy is that of Le Corbusier, "Intelligence made visible", counterpointed by one I equally enjoy of Jimmy Knapp,
- "Design is the creative force by which we realise our hopes for a better environment".
Design is about the planning of man-made things, the reconciliation of practical needs and aesthetic taste. Where it is recognised and understood, the benefits are striking.
My purpose in raising this Question is to concentrate upon the necessity to encourage good design and open up a debate about it. My Question seeks both to ask Her Majesty's Government how industry and every aspect of our society is encouraged to make full use of the talent available, and what steps are being taken to be sure that such talent flourishes here. That is in no way to discourage our designers from seeking experience and spreading their influence elsewhere, but let us aim to be sure that the fulfilment of that talent takes place here. Once done, that talent can in its maturity, spread the excellence of our talented designers world-wide.
Your Lordships will be familiar with the successes of the last century: the railways in South America; shipping in Japan. Invariably it was a Scottish engineer who was responsible. British designers nowadays are like the itinerant philosopher-soldiers of the Middle Ages, ranging the globe from court to court. Two of Paris's oldest established fashion houses now star young Englishmen. Volvo's chief designer is not a Swede, but a Briton. We have more expertise in advertising and graphics than any other country anywhere. Like the Scottish engineers of yore, British designers are fundamental to international industry and commerce. Britain once led the world in promoting design. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was a highly profitable showcase for British manufacturers demonstrating their astonishing attainments; demonstrating, too, the powerful confidence of our Victorian forebears, to which, incidentally, this magnificent Chamber bears witness. I should like to think that we could, in the year 2001, create a like exhibition to celebrate our contemporary achievements.
In analysing the Question that is put in this debate, perhaps I may now urge upon your Lordships the following matters. First, design is a global industry in which the United Kingdom is a world leader. Secondly, the design consultancy market in the United Kingdom is larger than in any other European country. There are around 3,000 British companies employing 40,000 to 50,000 designers. Much of the growth in the United Kingdom is fuelled by the expansion in corporate identity, packaging, publishing, retail and leisure design. We should be proud that the United Kingdom design industry makes an enormous contribution to invisible exports. The design consultancies in the United Kingdom are increasingly developing interests abroad. The response is a demand for that British design which has established so high a reputation.
However, I would suggest that businesses in this country can make much greater use of our country's design resource, and every effort must be made to focus that aim. The effective use of design is fundamental to the creation of innovative projects, processes and services. It is amply demonstrated that good design adds significantly to the value of projects, leads to growth in sales and enables both the exploitation of new markets and the consolidation of existing ones.
The Design Council has created a voluntary network of designers under the title "Designer Links" to ensure that design counsellors can bring their special skills to the companies open to the effect of good design. Above all it is essential to have the designer involved in the early stages.
What of Britain's image abroad? That image is critical to the long-term success and promotion of exports, tourism, and the attraction of inward investment. The overwhelming majority of companies in the United Kingdom assert that national image directly influences their purchasing decision. "Made in the UK", is still a significant badge in the purchasing decisions of the vast majority of the world's leading companies. However, almost six out of 10 companies in the UK say they are not influenced by that label. It is evident that industry in this country fails to communicate success to the world. There is the national tendency to talk down success which only reduces the attraction of the United Kingdom as a place for investment, joint ventures or partnerships. There is an urgent need for Britain to communicate its strengths and successes more positively.
We must do everything to promote, both here and abroad, our national strengths in design and innovation. It is not a party political matter and assertions of support are to be found in the leadership of all major parties. But we must show that design makes a difference; that where that is applied, where excellence in design is insisted upon, the results are visible. There is a measurable effect upon profitability where companies differentiate themselves on the basis of three design matters: the quality of the product; superiority of service; and the product's appearance.
The Design Council, created by the Board of Trade in 1934 as a Council for Art and Industry, promoted the Design in Business Week, which last year held events in 22 different cities throughout the United Kingdom involving 39 separate organisations. This month, the Council is promoting Design in Education Week in order to raise the profile of design across the United Kingdom and focus upon all the issues to which I have alluded.
There is no doubt that we have both great opportunities and an obligation to exploit those opportunities in the shape of the astonishing resource of talent in design in this country. We should apply that talent in order to improve every aspect of the environment we inhabit--street furniture, signage, public buildings. Why should not we have the most beautiful and the most useful railway stations? Why should not items of everyday function--chairs, tables, cups--be a delight? Why should we be obliged to accept
the proliferation of ghastly telephone booths and boxes that have supplanted the magnificent architect-designed red telephone box of 1924 which became a veritable symbol of Great Britain? Why should the liveries of privatised rail services be a rash of kitsch? And why should a visit to a motorway service area be such a lowering experience?Perhaps I may suggest some practical ways in which we can grasp the opportunities that I have attempted to describe. In the public sector, the estimate of central government spending on goods and services--all of which must be designed--is around £40 billion each year. There are moves afoot to train Civil Service purchasers in how to apply good design in central government commissioning processes. That is welcome. Imagine the opportunities if there was that concentration on the imaginative possibilities in the excellence of design and equipment in every public building. Our crowded environment would be transformed; our international reputation boosted; our attraction to inward investors enhanced.
Should there not be a Minister in each department of government championing design and responsible for its application? Should not industrial and commercial companies ensure that there is upon their board a design director? I commend for your Lordships' consideration, as I have suggested already, an exhibition in the year 2001, 150 years after the Great Exhibition and 50 years after the Festival of Britain. Let us forswear our tendency to play down our talents, display our confidence in the talent that is ours in such abundance and show ourselves confident in the approaching millennium.
In putting this Question before your Lordships' House, I hope that a debate can be ignited, with a firm focus upon the effectiveness of good design, the benefits of which can be fully assessed, understood and promoted. Something as apparently slight as a single five-minute daily slot in prime-time television, describing the quality of a single design object, may do more to create awareness and promote confidence than many a debate.
I hope that your Lordships will agree that this is a subject which is not only worthy of our attention but is of calculable importance in the shaping of the world around us; in how we see ourselves; in how we promote ourselves; and as regards the natural talent we have the privilege to enjoy.
7.31 p.m.
Lord Currie of Marylebone: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, on introducing the debate this evening. As he has rightly argued, Britain has an international pre-eminence in the field of design, appreciably ahead of its standing in other areas of industry and commerce. That pre-eminence is a source of strength and competitive advantage to other sectors which draw on that expertise.
The significance of the design industry to wealth creation in the British economy is greater than is widely appreciated and its importance for innovation and new product development is often under-estimated.
I feel that I should explain how it is that a partially colour-blind, business school economist, devoid of design sense feels able to contribute to the debate. There are two reasons, one personal and one professional. The personal reason is that I am linked to the design business through marriage and, despite my best efforts, some knowledge has rubbed off. The professional reason is that two of my colleagues at the London Business School, Andrew Sentence and James Clark, of the Centre for Economic Forecasting, have recently completed a major and, I think, path-breaking research report commissioned by the Design Council on the contribution of design to the UK economy. It is based on a new and comprehensive survey of some 800 companies, undertaken through the CBI, of design activity in British manufacturing industry.
The noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, mentioned two definitions of design. Perhaps I may mention another from an OECD report which suggests that:
- "design is the very core of innovation, the moment when a new object is imagined, devised and shaped into prototype form".
That definition emphasises that design involves not just designers and not just those working for design consultancies but also engineers, scientists and all those including senior management and--dare I mention it?--finance directors and accountants who contribute and influence the process of innovation and new product development. It is a multi-skilled, multi-disciplinary function which is easy to get wrong but can be the key to business success.
The London Business School report which I mentioned estimates that British manufacturing industry spends about £10 billion on product development and design, rather more than 2.5 per cent. of its turnover and employing about 4.5 per cent. of the workforce. A little more than half of that takes the form of bought-in services, but nearly as much is provided by in-house design activities. Expenditure on design by manufacturing companies exceeds its R&D spend. Design makes a direct contribution to the balance of payments: about one-quarter of export earnings from consultancy activities come from design consultancies. But the indirect contribution to exports is much more significant than the direct contribution. Design-intensive industries and firms are much more active than others in export markets. Sectors which invest heavily in product development and design are those in which the UK enjoys a trade surplus.
A very important finding of the London Business School report is that design has a positive and significant impact on growth. It states that,
- "devoting an additional 1% of turnover to product development and design appears to raise turnover and profits by 3-4% over 5 years".
On the whole, that impact is larger for product development and design activities carried out in-house than from bought-in design. That is possibly because good management is better able to integrate the multi-functional aspects to which I referred before of the process of new product development when it is all carried out within the firm.
The estimated impact of in-house design on growth is found to be similar to that of R&D expenditure, emphasising the importance of design alongside
fundamental research and development in the process of innovation and new product development. But because of the difficulties of managing the multi-functional, multi-skill process of new product development, the effectiveness of design varies appreciably across companies. That suggests a need for management training in our business schools--and here I must declare an interest--to put much greater emphasis on the development of skills for managing the process of new product development.So far, I have said little about the second part of the Motion to ensure that the best design skills remain here in the UK. The best way to do that is not through artificial aids or subsidies for the design sector but by the rest of industry appreciating the importance of design to new product development and innovation and to find better ways of harnessing design capabilities to those ends. The Government can help by raising awareness, perhaps by benchmarking best management practice in that area and by placing greater emphasis on the value of design spending by encouraging companies to publicise that.
However, fundamentally, it is the effective use of design capabilities which will retain the skill base here. The best outcome is for design skills to be used here so that there is no need to seek employment overseas. As I have suggested, there is a lot more that British management can do to improve its use of design skills for the benefit of the design industry, the rest of British industry and the growth performance of the economy as a whole.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Freyberg: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, for his initiative in asking this Question about the dynamic field of British design and how it can best be encouraged in industry.
First, it may be relevant to examine how the Government can do their bit to promote British design. The Design Council tells me, as has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, that central government alone spend around £40 billion per year on goods and services, all of which have to be designed by someone. It points out that, wisely spent, that purchasing power can have an enormous impact on the quality of goods and services produced by companies competing for government contracts, which are also the companies competing in international markets.
Excellence of design can make an enormous difference to the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a product. For example, until a few years ago, a huge 87 per cent. of Royal Mail redirection forms were filled out incorrectly, costing more than £10,000 per week to rectify. Also, the poor service reflected badly on the image of the Royal Mail. When in 1994 a new form was designed professionally, the design fee of £30,000 was recouped in only 17 days. Some £500,000 was saved in the first six months alone, with a projected saving of £3.5 million over five years. Further, the completion error rate fell to a manageable 3 per cent. It would be
interesting to hear from the Minister what steps Her Majesty's Government take to monitor and continually streamline the way that they go about their own business.The Government should be setting an example in the effective use of design, demonstrating the benefits of innovation, and encouraging the private sector to follow that example. I was encouraged to hear that 14 government departments met representatives of the Design Council on 29th January of this year and agreed on a programme of training and design championing in large organisations. I hope that that will lead to a real change in the way that design is used in central government, though that can only be achieved if the initiative has active political support from the highest levels in government and in all departments. It should perhaps be stated that design is also about improving well-being and not just prosperity. The public sector finances many things which directly affect UK citizens--such as hospitals and old people's homes. Effective design can help provide services and environments which are pleasant for the users as well as cost-effective.
What then are the benefits for industry in encouraging design? A 1991 Open University study of more than 220 manufacturing companies which undertook product, engineering or graphic design showed that 90 per cent. of implemented projects made a profit, the average pay-back period being 15 months from launch. Sales increased by an average of 41 per cent.
The term "design" includes a wide range of disciplines, from engineering, product and industrial design to fashion, textiles, graphics, interiors, exhibitions and architecture. These should not be underestimated. For example, the textile and fashion industries employ 410,000 people, and their output represents 6.1 per cent. of all manufacturing in the UK. It is exceeded in Europe only by Italy.
It should also be remembered that our skill at designing is one of the UK's greatest assets. As Sir Terence Conran put it:
- "We won't make things cheaper than the Far Eastern nations, but we can make things better through design and innovation".
It is astonishing how little Britain values its own contribution in design compared to other European countries. A 1991 survey of attitudes to design among senior managers from 200 British, French and German companies showed that, by their own admission, the majority of British companies place a lower value on design than do their French or German competitors.
What is needed now is to educate industry; to see design as the all-embracing subject that it is. Every business is involved in design at some level: even the most non-design-oriented will benefit from services that designers and design consultants offer, from the best logos and presentation to the most creative ways of maximising office layout and creating a work-friendly environment.
If we are to create the right climate for designers to flourish in, there does, however, need to be a greater awareness of the benefits that good design can bring. That will only happen if it is implemented at the most
fundamental level; if there is a drive to increase children's visual awareness at an early age. The benefits--pleasures--of such an education will be enormous: if people are taught to respond to design in a positive way, they will be able to take an active role in its implementation and promotion.The Government, too, must be educated in the importance of the arts, not just culturally but also practically. No doubt the Minister will tell us how highly the arts are valued, but over the past decade or so his Government have been responsible for running down art colleges--the powerhouses of design training--and allowing the teaching of art in schools to decline.
Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, there has been a wilful policy of downgrading the visual arts at a tertiary level, as I myself witnessed when a student at Camberwell College of Art. In my specialisation--ceramics--there was a significant decrease in the funding over several years and a forced increase of students by more than a third. As a result, we worked in a seriously cramped space, with inadequate facilities. That created a depressing and discouraging, rather than positive and productive, climate. The Government have made it quite plain that they do not rate art and design. For their own and for the country's sake, they must reverse this policy and attitude. If they do not, we will continue to create a vacuum of people who might otherwise have been tempted into taking a career in the arts and making a useful contribution to design in industry.
7.44 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Currie, I, too, am an economist. I may not be colour-blind but I am sure that I do not have very great taste in these matters. I rise to speak only because when I read the Question on the Order Paper tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo--to whom we are most grateful--I had but two complaints. I should say, first, that I do not like the second half of the Question; namely,
- "what steps [the Government] are taking to discourage such talent from seeking employment abroad".
I shall return to that in a moment. The only other regret that I have is that this is not a full debate. Indeed, we could have done this on Wednesday instead of the futile debate that we are to have on the subject of the economy.
I return now to the Question. Perhaps I may quote what my honourable friend the MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Mark Fisher, the Shadow Minister, said in a Social Market Foundation pamphlet called, Design Decisions: Improving the Effectiveness of Public Purchasing:
- "It is a credit to British design training that other countries poach the best of our products. In itself this is not a matter for great concern. Many young designers come back later, and an international flow of ideas is important; but Britain has to encourage them to come back and bring with them the knowledge and excitement they have gained from their international experience. However, if people are going to work internationally, it should be through choice rather than just because they are not being picked up in Britain. There should be policies to promote British design
- abroad, using the Foreign Office and the British Council more positively to promote a more radical and innovative image. There is too much concentrating on heritage, rather than the creativity of British design".
I quoted that because I believe that design should be a global concept; in other words, there should be no national boundaries. It is quite true to say that we have some of the best designers. Design is not just the beautiful; it is also cost-effective. If a product is designed first, it will save a lot of money later when it will prove to be something that works.
I turn now to the case of the British Library. This matter arose in another Social Market Foundation memorandum which I read. It seems that the British Library had not been properly designed beforehand. If it had, the cost overrun would have been much less than it finally turned out to be. I do not know whether that is true, but it seems to make sense to me that by not investing properly in design beforehand, you not only get things which are ugly; you also get things which do not work. For example, much public housing is badly designed.
As I said, design is not really expensive; indeed, it is quite the most cost-efficient measure that we have. I welcome the debate sponsored by the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo. However, the other day we had a debate on the possibility of having a strategic authority for London. I pointed out then that we must not forget the contribution that the Inner London Education Authority made by establishing the London Institute which brought together many art schools--and I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, said in that respect from his experience as a student at the Camberwell School of Art. I believe that it is British design education which has created the stars who are right now in Paris and elsewhere. Porsche apparently has a designer team of 10, out of which six are British. That is the kind of thing of which we should be proud.
We used to be known as "the workshop of the world" but today we are "the design studio of the world". That is a good change. I say that because these are the products that are now selling; and, indeed, these are the products which bring greater advantages. They are abstract, not solid, concrete products. It is not only the question of metal bashing that we should be worried about; we should be worried about things like design which involve a lot of expertise and skills. It is not concrete and it is not something that we can actually see. As I said, it is abstract, beautiful and very profitable.
Perhaps I may conclude by adding just one more definition of design. As I said before, this comes from a Social Market Foundation memorandum written by Katharine Raymond and Marc Shaw and it quotes an Open University Study, The Benefits and Costs of Investment in Design. It says that design involves,
- "creating concepts, plans and instructions, usually in response to a brief provided by a firm or client, that enable a two or three-dimensional object that did not exist previously to be made. Everything from an aircraft to wallpaper has to be designed and the design of the object is the specific configuration of elements, materials and components that give it its particular attributes of function, looks, etc., and determine how it is to be made. Design therefore affects not just non-price factors such as the product's
- performance, reliability, appearance, safety, ease of use etc., but if affects price factors also, through its influence on how easy the product is to manufacture and its life cycle cost to the user".
I end by posing an examination question to the Minister. Who said,
- "Design is important; it is unavoidable. Everything that is made has to be designed first and the way in which it is made has to be designed too, in the process as well as the product. Many world-class British companies will well understand the benefits of using good design. Such companies should be an inspiration to us all"?
I expect an answer from the Minister.
7.50 p.m.
Lord Lawrence: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, for comprehensively introducing this Question. I should like to ask a question about three interrelated points. The first is about fashion schools; the second is about designing for industry; and the third is about the need for help and encouragement for high fashion in the home and overseas market.
First, British fashion schools are the most successful in the world. Foreign students know that with a British fashion degree they can go home and get a job easily. But for the British student life is different and hard. Whether it was a good idea to have made art and design schools universities is a moot point. The introduction of American modular and unit schemes tends to make the student a jack of all trades rather than a specialist.
The untimely demise of the CNAA has certainly had an effect as regards lowering overall standards and the overall supervision of academic standards in design education. The second point concerning young designers is that British fashion is dominated by the retailer. This has the effect that the high street shop buyer tells the designer what he wants. What is even worse, the central buyer tells the designer what he wants. That has the effect of producing goods for the largest and lowest market.
My third point concerns high fashion. This end of the market is left to designer brand names; I refer on the Continent to Armani, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. In order to pick up the most lucrative worldwide sales these designer names are pushed in a way that is no longer possible with high street names. In England we have a number of good, struggling high fashion designers who do exceedingly well. They receive little help from the Government but they endeavour to survive with virtually no help from the City. The fashion industry was Britain's second largest industry and is now its fifth. It seems a shame that our talented designers in the high fashion end of the industry receive so little help.
My question boils down to this: instead of designers being dominated by a nation of shopkeepers, should not the world market be offered the products of a talented group of British trained designers, with all the help, expertise and investment that the City and the Government can muster?
7.54 p.m.
Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, I find this an almost unique debate in my experience in that I believe
the first three speakers all referred to engineering. Usually it is only myself who does that, to the annoyance of everyone else. It is important to mention engineering because it is a part of design that is often overlooked.I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, has initiated this debate because I was one of those who were extremely disappointed and grieved when he was unable to get his skyscraper built in the City of London. I was a little surprised that his design sensitivities permitted him to change fairly abruptly from the austere classicism of Mies van der Rohe to the exuberance--I shall not say exhibitionism--of Sir James Stirling. I am glad he is getting something built and I hope he will derive pleasure from that.
I support this Question with the same reservation that my noble friend Lord Desai has expressed; namely, that I do not believe we should discourage people from going abroad. I suppose one might consider that they would go abroad as neo-colonialists, as it were, in the design world to bring civilisation to the under-civilised world. We should not discourage them. However, that is not, of course, what the noble Lord meant. We know what he meant and we support what he meant rather than what he said.
I wish to say a few words about the nature of design because I think that is largely misunderstood in the media and even in this Chamber in the sense that the media in particular think of design in the sense of appearance and of style. We all know that that is not the whole of it. Appearance and style are part of design but they are by no means the most important part. Some designers think that they are the most important part and some of the critics of design are of the same opinion, but they are mistaken.
Industrial designers do not make that mistake; they understand quite clearly what they are about. I am not sure about graphic designers and people of that kind who are a shade on the "arty" side, but industrial designers know what they are about. They are not indifferent to style of course, and nor should they be, but they realise that the essence of design is to produce an ultimately usable product. The usable bit is the target at which they aim. A good design works and it conserves materials. It is economical and it also looks good, which is part, but only part, of the total package.
There is another point which I believe my noble friend Lord Desai mentioned; namely, there is a life cycle cost element. A good design has the qualities I have just mentioned, it looks good and lasts. The Pompidou Centre has most of those characteristics but has lasted only moderately well. No doubt it will be pulled together and it will last for a long time. I sincerely hope that it does.
What I liked about the introductory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, is that he mentioned two matters close to my heart. He mentioned railway engineers and Scottish railway engineers. They were not
all Scottish of course; there were English ones too. The English ones comprised a fairly small number but they were good in their own way.
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