HC Deb 16 November 1949 vol 469 cc2025-30
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison)

I would like, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, to make a statement on the Festival of Britain, 1951.

As I told the House in the Debate on 27th October, the projects originally proposed by the Council of the Festival of Britain, 1951, would have involved a gross cost to the Exchequer of about £14 million. I had already given instructions for a substantial reduction in this total, which was well in train when it was overtaken by the general programme of economies in public expenditure announced to the House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 24th October.

The final outcome is that the limit of gross expenditure from the Exchequer on Festival account has been set at £11,300,000. Possibilities of increasing the receipts to the Exchequer from the Festival have also been reviewed, and it is estimated that revenue will be forthcoming to bring the net expenditure, without taking account of receipts for the disposal of assets, down to £9 million. This compares with an estimated total net expenditure of £10 million immediately before the cuts. The expenditure will be spread over the current financial year and the two following ones.

These cuts have involved some curtailment of the programme which had been envisaged. The various exhibition projects will, however, go forward broadly as planned and there will be no reduction in the industrial content of the South Bank and Glasgow Exhibitions. I am satisfied that, with enterprise, ingenuity and care, the Festival organisation will be able to put on a first-rate effort for the money available.

Of the gross expenditure, some £10 million will fall on the Vote of the Festival of Britain Office and some £600,000 on that of the Ministry of Transport. The balance of some £700,000 is made up mainly of expenditure on account of the Festival by the Arts Council of Great Britain and by the Council of Industrial Design, with a small sum for the British Film Institute. The principal item of expenditure by the Festival of Britain Office will, of course, be the main 1951 Exhibition on the South Bank, which is estimated at £6 million. This sum will cover expenditure on site work, the construction and equipment of buildings, exhibition displays, operating and maintenance costs and all other services.

The other principal items in the estimate are £450,000 for the Science Exhibition at South Kensington; £380,000 for the Exhibition of Heavy Engineering at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow; £240,000 for the "Live" Architecture Exhibition at Poplar; and £850,000 for the two Travelling Exhibitions which will be visiting 14 centres in the United Kingdom. The remainder of the expenditure will be in respect of various supplementary services necessary to the success of these exhibitions, and also, of course, the salaries and overheads of the Festival Headquarters.

The Government will make loans to Festival Gardens Ltd., which will construct and operate the Pleasure Gardens in Battersea Park. As the House is aware, the total outlay has been estimated at £770,000. The Festival Office and the London County Council will advance sums as they are required in the ratio of 60:40, with a limit to the loan by the London County Council of £200,000. The total of £11,300,000, however, only includes a figure of £60,000 in respect of the Festival Gardens, which is an estimate of the loss the Government might have to bear.

These details are, I think, sufficient to give the House a clear picture of the distribution of expenditure between the various Festival projects. The Festival Office have already made public some account of their plans, and I understand that they are now issuing a fairly detailed account of the scope, character and content of the South Bank Exhibition. This will be followed in due course by detailed announcements about other parts of the programme as they mature.

Mr. Oliver Stanley

The right hon. Gentleman has made a long, detailed and important statement on this matter and, obviously, we should require time to consider it before we made any comments on it. I should, however, like to make our general position plain. My right hon. and hon. Friends and myself have supported the Festival of Britain in the past, but we have supported it on the grounds which we understood were, and hope will still remain, its principal objects. We do not look upon this as a sort of national jamboree. We feel that it would be quite inappropriate at this moment to determine beforehand that such a thing should be held within 18 months' time. We have supported it because it has been put forward as an opportunity of showing to the people of the world what Britain is capable of—showing them the best of our products, our industries and of our arts; and, on the secondary consideration, that it might induce a considerable tourist traffic to this country. On those grounds we shall continue to support the Exhibition, but it does mean that we shall scrutinise very carefully any items of expenditure which appear to be irrelevant to those main objectives, and on such items we cannot promise automatic support of the Government in this matter.

Mr. Morrison

I have no complaint whatever about anything the right hon. Gentleman has said. I gathered that this was to be a non-party effort and for the purposes which he has indicated, and those are the purposes which are in the Government's mind. Of course, that does not prejudice the right of anybody in the House to criticise particular matters, as the right hon. Gentleman has indicated. What I think is important and is welcome to me is that the right hon. Gentleman has indicated that fundamentally and on broad grounds this commands the assent of the Opposition as well as that of the Government side of the House.

Mr. Sydney Silverman

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, in spite of what has been said, there are a great many people on this side of the House and a great many people in the country who will welcome this occasion as one for demonstrating not merely what this country is capable of, but its remarkable achievements since 1945, for which we on this side of the House, at any rate, see no reason to apologise?

Mr. Morrison

I am bound to say that I understand very fully the point which my hon. Friend makes, but I must make it abundantly clear that this is a festival which indicates developments in our country not since 1945, but since 1851 and the last thing in the world I would wish would be that this should be turned into—or was ever contemplated as—a partisan venture.

Commander Noble

Will the right hon. Gentleman say what result the statement he has just made will have on the contributions to be paid by the London County Council and other London local authorities?

Mr. Morrison

I do not follow the point which the hon. and gallant Member makes.

Mr. Henry Usborne

Could my right hon. Friend say whether any plans are being considered for taking part of the Exhibition to other parts of the British Commonwealth, notably Canada—perhaps Toronto? Would Toronto not be rather a good place at which to exhibit some of our products?

Mr. Morrison

I will keep that point in mind, but at the moment I have enough problems in taking it over Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

Air-Commodore Harvey

Does the Lord President appreciate that some of us feel that this is a quite inappropriate time to spend such large sums of money unless we are going to get a real return for them? Will he cut out the frills, such as the amusement park, which are going to give a wrong impression as to how this country stands now?

Mr. Morrison

I follow the point of view and understand it, but, with great respect, I submit that it is mistaken. At this time it is more than ever important that Britain shall show itself to the world. That is the first point. Secondly, if we have a Festival of this kind, in which a high proportion of the functions must be of a fairly serious character, I beg the hon. and gallant Gentleman not to begrudge the participants in it a little bit of good cheer also, at Battersea Park.

Mr. Harold Davies

Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are under the impression that the 1851 Exhibition made over £1 million profit, and that the amount of accumulated interest from that Exhibition might be earmarked for this?

Mr. Morrison

I am much obliged to my hon. Friend, and I will go searching, but I am not sure that I am sufficiently high up in high finance to be able to guarantee that the result will be as he thinks.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay

Can my right hon. Friend assure us that the remarks of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) have really nothing to do with this Exhibition?

Mr. Morrison

I put it as nicely as I could. I do not want to quarrel with my hon. Friend, but, in fact, the idea in the mind of the Government, and, I am sure, in the mind of the Council of all parties—and it is most important that this should be stated—is that there is no partisan aspect or ambition about this effort at all.

Mr. H. D. Hughes

What financial assistance is available to local authorities for reasonable projects in connection with the Festival of Britain? Will such reasonable expenditure rank for grant?

Mr. Morrison

I understand that the local authorities are very familiar with the position.

Major Tufton Beamish

If it is, as the right hon. Gentleman says, the main object of the Festival to show ourselves to the world, and as he told me a fortnight ago that no money had been spent on advertising in the United States and that none will be spent in the next six months, will the right hon. Gentleman now indicate how he proposes to attract American visitors?

Mr. Morrison

The hon. and gallant Gentleman has two lines in his question. One is to stop us spending and the other is to incite us to spend in the United States. As regards the last point, inciting us to spend money on publicity in the United States, that is not being overlooked, but it would be premature to spend it at this point.

Mr. Gallacher

In reference to the necessity of criticism of expenditure on non-essentials, will that not have to come from a new Opposition, in view of the fact that there is going to be a National Government after the Election?

Mr. Keeling

Is the Lord President satisfied that the Exhibition will be ready by 1951, and that it will not have to be postponed for a year, in the same way that the Exhibition originally fixed for 1850 had to be postponed to 1851?

Mr. Morrison

Again, I am much obliged to the hon. Member. I did not know that. I will keep it in mind, and I hope very much that we shall be on time. As regards the point of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), I recall, of course, that he and his party were advocating a coalition in 1945.

Mr. Gallacher

No they were not. The Americans are advocating it now.

Mr. S. Silverman

In order to remove any possibility of misunderstanding, for which I recognise my own carelessness would be to blame, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that what I wished to make sure of was that there should be some emphasis in this matter on achievement and not merely on capacity, and that what I wanted to do was to rescue it from the atmosphere of denigration of achievement, of which we have already heard too much.