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Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that her failure to answer my question about the £900 per year reduction in the funding of school sixth-form places is because she intends to answer it more fully next Monday, when a Starred Question of mine is on the Order Paper on the matter? If so, I shall try to be patient for five days.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I intend to answer that Question properly. I want to ensure that I provide a detailed Answer. The noble Baroness raises an important point. It is not lost on me. I shall answer it correctly, I hope.
8.37 p.m.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. All the nasty issues of post-16 education have been raised: standards, vocational education, AS-levels, turning to the Continent for examples, and funding. I thank the Minister for her reply; she covered all the issues courteously and in detail. I am afraid that we shall all be back, gnawing at the carcass. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
National Heritage Bill [HL]
8.38 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: 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.—(Baroness Anelay of St Johns.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Baroness Nicol) in the Chair.]
Clause 3 [Exercise of certain ministerial functions]:
Lord Redesdale moved Amendment No. A1:
- Page 2, line 44, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is simple: it is to question the ability of English Heritage to meet the onerous commitments of the new responsibilities under the Bill to deal with underwater archaeology.
I thank the Minister for her kind letter after the previous stage of the Bill, explaining the financial position of English Heritage. However, the money allocated—£200,000 a year—which is to be ring-fenced for underwater archaeology, will come from the increases that English Heritage was promised before the Bill was drafted. Therefore, the money had already been ear-marked. So it could be argued that the £200,000, which English Heritage could have spent several times over because it is strapped for cash at present, is in effect a reduction in the increase that it is getting—although I am sure that the Minister will not consider it as such.
The purpose of the amendment is to bring forward the case that has been put forward by the underwater archaeological lobby that the amount needed will be above £250,000. In fact it is estimated to be around £1 million or £1.2 million to meet the commitments for underwater archaeology. I hope therefore that the point will be taken on board that the funding of underwater archaeology will have to be re-examined. I beg to move.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: In a general sense it must be that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is correct and that it will be desirable that significant funding is attributed to underwater archaeology on the English Heritage account when this Bill is enacted, as I hope that it will be. That is a point which I am sure the Government have fully in mind since their proposals were very close to those in the Bill as set down by my noble friend Lady Anelay.
I cannot wholeheartedly support the amendment because one would not wish the Government, or indeed anybody else, to take fright at this stage at the financial commitments that ought to follow. Rather, I express the hope that when the Bill is enacted not only will consideration will be given to furnishing the sums which the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, says he has reason to believe will be supplied, but constructive consideration will then also be given to the further sums which will undoubtedly be necessary.
However, I should be sorry to see this financial point, significant though it is and ultimately correct as I believe it to be, as an impediment to the passage of the Bill. For that reason I cannot entirely support the amendment, although I support the spirit in which it is moved.
Lord Bridges: I rise to support Amendment No. A1 because it concerns Clause 3 of the Bill, which is at the heart of this proposed legislation. Let us be clear, the intention of this Bill is to authorise the transfer of responsibility for underwater archaeology from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to its affiliate body, English Heritage. Perceiving that, I have two consequential difficulties in mind.
The first anxiety is that the purpose of the Bill is not adequately reflected in the Bill's title. At present it is simply called the "National Heritage Bill". That is misleading and I give notice that I shall seek to introduce an amendment at the next stage. I supposed at first that a better title might be "Underwater Archaeology Bill", but there are provisions in the text relating to English Heritage alone. It might be better therefore to propose "National Heritage and Underwater Archaeology Bill". We can debate that later. But I suggest that it would simplify the task of those looking through the statutes at large to find the specific law if words relating to underwater archaeology were included in the title. We can be sure that this Bill will be the subject of future litigation and it is important that it should be readily accessible.
The second matter that I wish to raise concerns the wording of Amendment No. A1, which I am inclined to support, as I support the observations made on it by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew. I support the need to increase the level of resources likely to be available to English Heritage to carry out its responsibilities in the future. Those responsibilities are large and go well beyond the financing of the periodic meetings of the Advisory Committee of Historic Wreck Sites which take place at present. Incidentally, I am informed that the chairman of that committee has lately resigned and I hope that that will not further complicate the transition.
I hear that English Heritage has been making inquiries to discover what cash it can hope to receive to discharge its new mission. The results do not sound promising. This is not a case where the provision of a stool, desk and telephone in an attic room in Fortress House will be sufficient. Because of our long maritime history and our geographic position astride trade routes and strategic battle grounds in the past, we have large areas of seabed to protect and investigate—an area increased by the extension of our territorial waters to 12 miles. All that will require additional effort in cash, people and time.
From my knowledge of the work of English Heritage in East Anglia, it is already suffering from a shortage of those resources. So in one sense it is not surprising, although deeply regrettable, that we were not able to vote in favour of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Heritage on 29th October. Although it was not explicitly acknowledged by our delegate there, the underlying reason for our abstention from the vote in favour of a convention appears to have been that we are almost alone in Europe in not having an effective protection and management regime for historic wrecks. That is disgraceful. In this area of activity we should be in the van, not in the rear rank in company only with Belgium.
My fear is that this clause exemplifies the weakness of the Bill as a whole. It merely authorises the transfer of functions and says little or nothing about the discharge of responsibility. Perhaps that is a result of the Bill being presented in this form by a Member of the Opposition rather than by the Government. But at
I have been in correspondence with the Minister about the forcible removal of a cannon by officials in her department. Her letter of reply arrived, surely not by chance, on Monday morning last and I shall reply to that shortly. Her letter is evidence, if it were needed, of the inability of those concerned in the department to understand the extent of the challenging issues which we face in the world of marine archaeology. I trust that that large responsibility will fare better under its new custodians. But that will require the commitment of additional resources and personnel skills. If the noble Baroness can reassure us on that point, it will greatly ease the passage of this Bill and give encouragement to those seeking to identify and protect our underwater heritage. That encouragement is sorely needed at present.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I agree that the title of the Bill is a little peculiar. It is difficult to know what the title should be. Although it relates to matters that are devolved to Scotland and, as I pointed out last time, touches on a devolved matter in Scotland, it is largely an English affair. It is somewhat insulting nowadays to talk about a "National" Heritage Bill when "National" usually means the whole country. I do not know whether or not the noble Baroness will be able to sort that out, or whether my noble friend will. It is an important issue.
If the Committee will allow me, I should like to use the discussion of this matter of funding to thank the Minister for what she has done as a result of a matter I raised at Second Reading. It actually related to Clause 1, but one could say that it relates to the whole Bill. I raised several points about the order which the Secretary of State may make to delineate waters that are adjacent to England and waters that are not adjacent to England; in other words, the waters of other parts of the United Kingdom. I was worried whether there had been adequate consultation. I found that my colleagues who were Members of the Scots Parliament had never heard of the issue, and that seemed to me to be rather strange.
I also asked the Minister about the bottom of estuaries, particularly the Solway Firth, where a wreck might roll from being in waters adjacent to England to being in waters adjacent to Scotland, thus bringing great riches to Scotland or the reverse. The noble Baroness very kindly wrote to me a very full letter on Monday. She had taken a great deal of trouble and I appreciate that enormously. She points out that there is a concordat, by which the different Parliaments together discuss such matters. That does not involve Members of the Scottish Parliament, only officials and the Executive. It may be that the issue will be raised in the Scottish Parliament. If so, how they deal with it will be a matter for them.
Such issues need to be examined at Westminster when they crop up so that we can be sure that devolution is operating well. It will operate well only if we ensure that relationships between the different
"( ) The Secretary of State shall provide the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England with such additional funds as are necessary for the Commission to exercise any functions specified by a direction under subsection (2)."
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