WORKS OF ART (EXPORT) (Hansard, 14 December 1966)

§ Mr. Robert Cooke (Bristol, West)
The House can now turn to higher and more interesting matters than those which it has been discussing and this is also perhaps a less contentious subject than this day's debate. I want to raise a subject of considerable public interest and of importance—the export of works of art. I am grateful for the messages which the right hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State has sent me and I hope that we shall be able to have a fruitful discussion.
While the work of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art under Lord Cottesloe deserves high praise, there are some aspects of the subject where improvement is certainly possible. There have been a number of cases recently which have given cause 618 for concern. I am glad that the right hon. Lady is showing some concern. We have had a number of Parliamentary exchanges, and on the first occasion, when I asked her what she proposed to do about preventing the export of national treasures of no monetary value, she looked at me in a puzzled way, and the House dissolved into laughter, because at that moment the Foreign Secretary entered the Chamber.
I can assure the House that I was not making a joke about the Foreign Secretary being a national treasure of no monetary value, although a great many hon. Members seemed to think that I was. I made my position clear to the right hon. Lady and put down a Question at a later stage. In her reply, the right hon. Lady said that she was, by and large, satisfied with the existing arrangements, but that she was prepared to look at particular cases.
While the right hon. Lady is no doubt anxious to help in this matter, it would be more satisfactory if the machinery was such that the cases did not have to go to her for special consideration. Her policy has been to tell the House that there are various bodies looking after the various aspects, and that they must be free to deal with the matter as they see it. We want from the right hon. Lady either an assurance that she has methods by which the Committee can do its work more efficiently, or if she cannot do that, then we want to hear that she has some proposals of her own.
It is out of this series of exchanges in the House that the request for the debate arose. I am authorised to say the Opposition feel much concerned, and think that a much clearer picture is needed. No doubt as a result of this debate, this will be obtained. Many factors, organisations, public bodies, and private individuals, are concerned. Originally, the Reviewing Committee examined all articles worth £500 or more. In the original report the figure of £1,000 was set, but the Government of the day, in 1952, thought it right that the level should be £500 in order to catch and scrutinise more objects of interest. The limit was raised to £1,000 in 1960 and now there is this more controversial measure, accepted by the Government, to raise the limit to £2,000.
619 We believe that this is a somewhat arbitrary figure, although it is allegedly based on inflated art prices. An increase in value of works of art from £500 in 1952 to £2,000 in 1966, might apply in some areas, but certainly does not apply right across the board. There must be many objects of national and or historic interest of less than £2,000 in money value. The £2,000 limit would not at present have caught the bugle which sounded the charge of the Light Brigade, and which fetched £1,600 in 1964. It might be argued that the value had gone up, but here is a case of something that fetched £1,600 then, and were it to fetch the same today it would not be caught.
It is now in the custody of a famous regiment, but it would be within its power to negotiate a change of ownership, and the position is entirely unsatisfactory with regard to such objects, which are of enormous national interest, although of little monetary value. One can think of medals and decorations, won by particular people, Victoria Crosses awarded in particularly celebrated actions, which might be of great interest to collectors abroad and which we could not prevent going because of this limit.
There are personal relics and association items of one kind or another, associated with famous people, other than manuscripts, which come into a different category and with which I will deal later. These items are often unknown until they appear in the sale-room. It is quite possible that they may be sold privately to dealers and find their way out of the country without drawing any public attention at all.
The reason for this is that many of these objects are given at the time, or are handed down through families once closely associated with the person, whose present connection is a distant one, and whose public position is perhaps somewhat obscure. Generally, the public, the Government, and any other interested body, do not know of the existence of such things, let alone where they are.
We have had a rather more well known example in the case of the Drake collection. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) has been eloquent on this 620 matter, and so has the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen), both West Country members who are much concerned. I understand that Drake's drum, the principal and most important item, is being offered to the Inland Revenue in exchange for payment of Estate Duty. That may, of course, result in that particularly important article being saved for the nation, but I gather that there are other articles in this collection whose future is somewhat uncertain and which would be unlikely to be worth £2,000 and, therefore, could not be even looked at by the Reviewing Committee.
Clearly, this is an example, and there would no doubt be many others if one looked carefully, which might well be brought to the attention of the right hon. Lady, and to which the Reviewing Committee procedure ought to apply.
While on the question of collections, the regulation should not be such as to encourage the breaking up of collections and their dissemination abroad as individual items, because even in these difficult times we do not want to see the destruction of important collections and sets which should be kept together.
The question of the Drake collection was a much publicised one. More recently the procedure of the Reviewing Committee has obviously been misunderstood in an attack which was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) on the Royal College of Surgeons of England for selling two paintings by Wright of Derby to the Mellon Collection in Washington, a distinguished American collection of English paintings. The right hon. Gentleman deplored the action of the Royal College for selling these paintings, and I believe I am right that in saying that he now realises that his quarrel is with the Reviewing Committee which did, of course, examine this case and let them go. I think that I am right in interpreting his views in what I say.
I should also make it clear, because I have taken the trouble to find out, that the reason for the sale of these paintings was because money was urgently needed to maintain the rest of the Darwin collection, from which collection those paintings came, and all the moneys got from the sale were spent on the improvement and restoration of the Darwin collection and the buildings in which it is housed.
621 Of course, these collections are saved for the continuing public benefit. The Royal College of Surgeons, by doing what it did, was acting well within the rules. If there is any quarrel, it is with the Reviewing Committee.
London is the centre of the international art market, and long may it remain so. For that reason, we are not seeking an iron control which will prevent the export of the vast majority of works of art and other objects of interest which come up for sale in London. Far from it. The art market, on the other hand, is a delicate affair, and one must make sure that the Reviewing Committee is the best possible procedure. We do not take the view that we should keep it all here. Art should be universal and international, but we want to make sure that objects which are of national significance and importance are kept here and that we have the procedures for so doing.
There may be an occasion when the nation says, "We must have this work of art"—perhaps a painting—" because it is the best possible example we know of of a particular artist's work". It is decided, under the existing procedures, to keep it here. Obviously, this will disappoint the man from abroad who hoped to get it. Some of the great Americans building up their collection have been greatly disappointed at times. While I do not suggest that they should be fobbed off with second best, there may be occasions when say that we must keep a certain painting in the United Kingdom and, at the same time, there are other examples in the same national collection which, perhaps, we might think of allowing to leave our shores to fill the gaps in collections abroad.
As I have said, we do not take the view that we want to keep it all here, but we may well take the view that, while a particular painting is the one we want, we are rich in this field and we should do more to share it with others, even on indefinite loans if not going so far as disposal of paintings.
Disposal is always very dangerous. I have sat on a committee of the Bristol Art Gallery selling 50 pictures at a time. I am sure that we did not sell anything of value, yet, looking back, I think that there must have been one sold which somebody thought was worth more than the £5 or £10 we got for the frame. Most 622 of them were of vases of flowers and that sort of thing, painted by indifferent artists.
I have mentioned the Americans. They are a rich and powerful nation busy forming collections. Not only do they have favourable conditions for housing works of art, but they' produce lavish publications and have great facilities for research and the exchange of information. We would not wish to suggest anything to prevent this sort of activity going on, the exchange of material and the greater understanding of art across the frontiers.
When wondering whether a particular work of art should go abroad, we might consider where it is to go. If it is to go to a collection which will thus be made complete, there might be a case for its going. If, on the other hand, it is to go merely to gratify the whim of some collector who has a miscellaneous collection, we might take the view that it was better remaining here to complete one of our own collections. I hope that all these matters will be taken into consideration.
I come now to the subject of manuscripts, which are covered by different rules of the Reviewing Committee. The rule is that anything, whatever its value, which is over 100 years old should be scrutinised. More important, perhaps, if it is of national interest, it should be recorded. I am not satisfied that recording takes place as it should, and I would like the right hon. Lady to tell us about this.
I have in mind, for example, the Red Books of Humphry Repton, the gardener. A number of these have been sold, several each year. Have they been recorded? The best authority on the subject tells me that they have not. They come up in the sale room, they are not photographed, off they go, and the information is lost, perhaps for good. At a time when the Foreign Office cannot find the original of the Zinoviev letter, perhaps something more by way of recording should be done.
Why do some of the sales take place? Most of them are, virtually, forced sales, sales by people who are faced with heavy Estate Duty or the mounting cost of the historic building in which the art treasure is housed. I hope that the right hon. Lady, for all her political views, which are rather different from mine, will consider this matter and see whether we can 623 make it possible for some of these works of art which we are losing or in danger of losing to remain in their proper homes, many of them in private homes, but publicly accessible, rather than have them institutionalised.
The "institutionalisation"—I think that that is the term of art—is a deplorable trend. Art is described in the White Paper as a "social service". We have so much art, so much medicine, so much free milk, so much of a pension. We cannot cut up the national treasures and share them out. The individual cannot often be a patron, everything is against him and the situation is getting worse. The Government are determined to ferret out the last rich man and cut him down to their size.
The State is to take over. Although the State is slow to make up its mind in this respect, the Reviewing Committee has been doing good work, but it still lacks the machinery to deal with many smaller matters which are, nevertheless, of great public concern. My hon. Friends and I are not at all happy about the arbitrary raising of the limit, and I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to deal with that matter. Without increasing her budget for the arts at this difficult time, she might be able to find some special fund which could be set aside for the special cases.
We have heard of the case of the Caxton manuscript. In this case, the art trade has every right to complain, because the Reviewing Committee set a six-months' limit for finding the money and then sudden and unexpectedly extended it by a month. The result was considerable uncertainty and loss to the buyer of the manuscript. Surely this is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. If the right hon. Lady is not prepared to provide public money to buy this important work, perhaps the Committee could have given a longer time to find the money, instead of a six-months' limit and then a small extension. The man who bought it did not know where he stood. Will the Committee extend the time again, if the money is not found?
The right hon. Lady has plenty of time left to give us her ideas. She has scattered a lot of money about the arts.
624 She must make a success of this job. Much more can be done. In a Parliamentary Answer, the right hon. Lady turned down the idea of a special fund for the Reviewing Committee. Perhaps she could look at the purchase grants for museums and galleries. My right hon. and hon. Friends increased this by £300,000 in 1964, an increase of 70 per cent. I am not asking the Government to spend more on the arts at this difficult time but perhaps to redeploy the substantial sum which is now being spent.
Perhaps more private people could be brought into the rescue of these treasures. Perhaps people who did a particular public service in rescuing a work of art and keeping it on public exhibition in this country could receive some tax benefit.
The right hon. Lady is enthusiastic to do service for the arts, but her party's approach has been Government control and patronage. If so be it, the Government have a responsibility in this respect. I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to give us a satisfactory answer tonight.

§ Mr. G. R. Strauss (Vauxhall)
I wish to refer to an incident of some importance. This is a recent lamentable breakdown of the Reviewing Committee, which gave export permits for two pictures when it ought not to have done. I want my right hon. Friend to take steps to stop the same thing happening in future. Two of the finest pictures of Joseph Wright, one of our best painters of the eighteenth century, were sold to an American. Both the Derby Municipal Gallery and the Tate Gallery were anxious to buy these pictures at their full value.
The question went to the Reviewing Committee, which gave export permits for the pictures to go to America, on the grounds that they were going to a public collection and that there were similar pictures in collections in this country. Both grounds were completely untrue. We do not know whether the pictures going to America will go to a public or private gallery; and there are no similar pictures in private galleries in this country, but only rather bad copies of them.
625 Therefore, I say that it was lamentable that these two pictures, particularly the one required by the Derby museum, should have gone to the United States. Could my hon. Friend who is to reply propose to the Reviewing Committee that it should in future take account of the new terms of reference that have been suggested to her so that this should not happen again?

§ The Joint Under Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) for having raised this subject.
Both the hon. Member and my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) raised the question of Joseph Wright paintings, and I would like to say straight away that four permanent members of the Reviewing Committee, together with the three experts who joined them, individually and collectively, decided that an export licence should be granted in this specific case. They said that there were comparable quality pictures in this country, and I must emphasise that this was the view of experts; it was the view of each of them, and the view of all of them.
They added that they were in private collections, but I ought to say that, while the Tate and the Derby Museum did not get these pictures, it would be quite improper for a political Minister to set aside the view of seven distinguished experts.
I do not know of any better method of handling this, but in interpreting their responsibility on behalf of us all, it may be that they had not given sufficient weight to the fact that it is our responsibility as a Government, and our responsibility as a House, to decide on policy. It is the policy of the Government to support the best of the arts, and to make the best of the arts more generally available. At the same time, I certainly could not reject the decision which was made by a very distinguished committee of experts. We can only hope that in future experts will keep in mind that we are anxious to maintain the high points of excellence in the regions; and perhaps 626 they would give this more weight in their future deliberations.
I think that the hon. Member can take some comfort from the fact that, inevitably, there would be objects of great value leaving this country occasionally, but this need not put any great expense upon our museums. Our museums and galleries have more money than before, and in the last two years they received by way of special grant from the Treasury, £63,950. In addition, the amount given to our galleries and museums increased from £428,400 to £823,000, so that, at one and the same time, both the limit has been raised and the amount granted to allow for change in the value of money.
Our galleries now have more money with which to go into the market and to hold those treasures which we want to have. The other point which the hon. Member raised was the recording of manuscripts, and I can tell him that we are developing micro-films for this purpose. If a manuscript is sold abroad, the purchaser may well want the exclusive use of it for a certain time, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are keeping manuscript microfilms wherever we can, seeing that a strict time limit is kept on these items.
I do not know whether there is any particular question which I have failed to cover, but I want to assure hon. Members on both sides of the House that we are trying very hard to keep a fair balance between the fact that London is now a great international art centre and world market, and the desire to retain what should be retained. I am glad that the hon. Member for Bristol, West said that there is a strong case for letting some of our treasures go abroad where we have other examples which we would want to keep.
I do not feel that it would be proper for me to censure our expert committees. They have a very hard job. We have got as good a system as, or a better system than, any other country in the world. We as a House of Commons lay down general lines of policy. We decide the priorities. The Government have decided to give higher priorities to the arts than ever before. Even in a period of difficult financial circumstances, we 627 have agreed to spend a bit more in this field. Naturally, I should like to see that sum increased.
May I add that I think it is very important that we should not only hold on to our greatest treasures, but that we should be prepared, as a Government and as a House of Commons, to spend more money on making the treasures that we have more generally available. I should like to have a bigger building fund, for instance. I should like the British Museum to have more space, not only to enable it to display its own treasures but so that it can display treasures from other parts of the country.

§ Mr. Robert Cooke
Would the right hon. Lady address herself to the financial problems caused by taxation? The kernel of half the difficulties that we have discussed tonight is the penal taxation and the fact that no relief is given to people who would like to help.

§ Miss Lee
As the hon. Member knows, that is not a matter for my Department. But we would always be willing to look at ways of easing the taxation laws.
I have been immensely encouraged by the extent to which private industry—and there is now the same development in the public sector—has been contribut- 628 ing to the support of the arts. Many industries which formerly made contributions exclusively for the benefit of their own work-people are now considering making their contributions to the community as a whole. We are getting contributions from the public and private sectors. This tendency is developing.
In a mixed economy, the arts ought to be financed from the central Government, from local government and from private patrons—from the public and private sectors. All that is happening. I would always be prepared to convey to the Chancellor of the Exchequer any reasonable views and suggestions expressed from any part of the House for the amendment of our taxation laws. But I am bound to say that there is no case at all for us to imitate completely, as some people advocate, the American system of taxation, for I believe that it is far better that everyone should pay his proper taxes according to his income. Then, in a private or public capacity, there is no reason why people should not make their contributions to the support of the arts, as is now happening.