HC Deb 27 July 1971 vol 822 cc434-54

3.35 a.m.

Mr. Ernie Money (Ipswich)

I am glad of the opportunity to raise this vitally important subject, but I am sorry that, particularly after his courtesy to me on other occasions, the Minister has had to be kept here until the early hours, although I am glad to see him in his usual ebullient form.

In this matter, which affects the House and the nation immediately, time is not on our side. We are a great collecting nation. Ruskin suggested that this was because we did not have many major artists of our own, but that is not altogether true. What is transparently evident—one has only to bear in mind the Claude Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery last year or the current exhibition of Her Majesty's Dutch pictures, or the Dulwich Gallery or the catholic nature of the collections at the National Gallery—is that for centuries we have been a major example of intelligent connoisseurship.

In any of the great houses of Britain which are on view—whether supported by the State, in the shape of Apsley House and Audley End, or by the National Trust or in private hands—one can see enough to realise just how rich this heritage still is. Above all it is a heritage which has been freely available to the public for many years. It has been built up over the years by those who have loved the fine arts for their own sake. As the current report of the National Gallery Trustees points out: Out of a total of some two thousand pictures owned by the Gallery, nearly two-thirds have been given, bequeathed or purchased wholly from funds given or bequeathed. Only one-third of the pictures in the collection has been bought wholly out of Gallery funds; excluding the sums paid out of the land fund for a handful of great pictures ceded in lieu of estate duty under the Finance Act of 1956, the whole collection in Trafalgar Square has cost the nation less than £4½ million. This is not to say that mistakes have not been made. One has only to point to three events to show how bitter some errors of judgment have been—the dispersal of a major part of the collection of Charles I under the Commonwealth, the loss of the Walpole pictures from Houghton Hall, which now form so important a part of the Hermitage Collection of Leningrad, and the break-up of the great collection of Old Master drawings formed by Sir Thomas Lawrence in the middle of the last century. These are all occasions which I believe we would now do anything to reverse.

It was that last episode which led Sir Charles Eastlake, then the Keeper of the National Gallery, to wait upon Lord Chancellor Brougham with regard to the possibility of saving the works of the Lawrence Collection for the country in 1831. The French Ambassador of the day, Talleyrand, was present at that meeting. When told the purpose of the visit, his comment—which, knowing my hon. Friend's erudition, I am sure I will not have to translate—was: Si vous n'âchetez pas ces choses-là, vous êtes des barbares." Nevertheless, the then Prime Minister, Lord Grey, did not make the purchase—a decision which proved calamitous for collecting in this country in that field.

I hope that this is not the sort of criticism which can be levelled against this present enlightened Administration by a future age. It is not one which could always be levelled against British Governments—to their great credit. The foundation of the National Gallery itself in 1824, when this House voted the not inconsiderable sum in those days of £60,000 for the purchase of the Angerstien collection, was an act of faith on the part of Lord Liverpool's Administration at a time when the nation was struggling with the effects of a long and exhausting war, the temporary collapse of British trade, and a situation of serious unemployment throughout the country.

To take another example, in 1918, when the Lloyd George Government were faced with the gravest crisis of the whole First World War, a special grant was made for the purchase of major works by Ingres, Delacroix and Manet from the sale in Paris of the collection of the great painter Degas, who had died in the previous year.

I quote one further instance. In 1906 the National Gallery acquired—not by any means in the most propitious circumstances for our affairs—a painting which is now one of its major assets, the Rokeby Venus of Velasquez. The National Gallery purchase grant at that time—and these facts are worth noting—was £5,000, and the price of the picture was £50,000. The efforts of the National Art-Collections Fund made its acquisition possible. Incidentally, I am glad that my noble Friend the Paymaster-General has been able to make a season ticket concession for gallery admissions to members of that fund as a token of its extreme importance. Through the efforts of the National Art-Collections Fund, the whole of the balance of £45,000 was raised in order to stop that masterpiece then leaving the country.

The present Government are spending more money on the arts than any previous Administration has done, and I pay tribute to them for that. We have a Minister with special responsibility for the arts who has been an enlightened collector for years, with a great love for both pictures and objects. In this House we have as his representative a most sympathetic and intelligent spokesman.

Nevertheless, we are in real danger of falling into a serious dichotomy on the question of acquisitions for the nation. At the risk of trespassing on the time of the House at this hour, I shall briefly outline one or two aspects of this situation.

It seems to me that there exists a quite unnecessary contradiction in the Government's policy on capital works and their policy on preserving major works of art. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) pointed out in the Chamber only the other day, the proper criterion was made abundantly clear only a few weeks ago by no less an authority than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who, when opening the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair, said: On the question of keeping works of art in this country, there are some who say that whatever is here ought to remain here. This is not a philosophy with which I find myself entirely in agreement. We have benefited much in the past with treasures from other lands. It seems a narrow view that they should never leave our shores. Nevertheless"— these are the significant words— there are some things which we would wish to keep here, and it behoves the Government to look to the future to see what we want to keep in our own land, and we should make the utmost efforts to retain those here". I am sure that no sane person who is concerned with this matter will disagree with that philosophy. No one among those who are involved with this subject has ever suggested a policy of universal retention, even in the case of major works of art. Of course, we have suffered grievous losses. The Oscott lectern and the Radnor Velasquez are examples. But the case really turns on what my right hon. Friend, than whom there was never a first Minister who cared more for these matters, meant in the passage which I have quoted—here I paraphrase a little— Nevertheless there are some things which we would wish to keep, and it behoves the Government to look to the future and see what we should make the utmost efforts to retain". We are meeting tonight under the shadow of the position regarding the Titian. It is not for me to pass judgment about this picture. I remind the House what has been said by the Chairman of the Standing Committee, Lord Rosse, that this is indeed a very great work of art. I do not think that anyone, least of all my hon. Friend, with his public utterances would deny that the loss of this painting would be incalcul- able. If we accept that a gallery can be a work of art, in the sense that I believe the Frick Gallery is, or the Rijksmuseum, or the Louvre, or the exquisite Musée Unter Den Linden at Colmar, which I visited the other day with the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds), are, then the presence of this picture at Trafalgar Square has a real significance of its own.

To see in the Venetian Gallery there the work of this major master, ranging from the Ariadne and Bacchus of his early manhood to the Diana and Actaeon of his consummate age, must be one of the richest experiences of the human spirit.

How, then, is this great picture to be saved for us? I am well aware that only this morning the Review Committee will meet to consider this question. To that extent my hon. Friend may feel, as he has said earlier, that his hands are tied. It would be idle to suggest that the decision made by that distinguished body can be other than a recommendation that we should attempt to secure this painting for our successors and if this recommendation is made, as I believe it must be, how are we to put this into effect on behalf of the nation?

First and foremost, it is right that we should go on record at this stage as saying that the price involved is, despite what has been said about speculative prices, a containable one. Of the sum of £1.68 million the National Gallery has already gone on record as saying that from its existing endowments and grants it could put forward £400,000 and the National Art Collections Fund has said it would give the bulk of its assets, in the form of £100,000. The Gallery has gone further and put forward to the Government the suggestion that it should mortgage, if that is the word, £100,000 a year from its purchases grant over the next six years. The feasibility of this idea must be borne out by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on 23rd July when he said: We must recall that the present rate of £2 million per year from 1970–71 allows for forward planning up to 1974–75."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd July 1971; Vol. 821. c. 1839.] If this is so it would leave a residue, allowing for a commission estimated at £50,000, of only £630,000 to be dealt with. It is right to consider at this point that the Treasury gained no less than £344,000 from the residue bequeathed to the Gallery of Sir Robert Hart in the form of money or moneys worth. It is right to consider that if this bequest had been left in the form of works of art no such sum would have gone to the Treasury. One hopes that the Government will look sympathetically at that sum as being morally something which they can advance, certainly in the light of their previous generosity towards the Gallery over the Leonardo Cartoon.

If this attitude were taken, it would leave a comparatively small sum only to be raised by public subscription and by organisations which have been generous in the past to these appeals, such as the Pilgrim Trust and the Gulbenkian Foundation, which no doubt would be happy to approach this on the basis which has been taken by previous Administrations—on a £ for £ subscription with regard to the assistance that could be given by the Government.

I want to deal with two falacies which have been of considerable concern to those involved with these affairs. The first is the suggestion, which has been made more than once, that it is the policy or intention of the National Gallery to try to keep every major work of art in this country. I recall what was said by my hon. Friend in reply to me on 26th March last. Not specifically in relation to the National Gallery but in a rather broader conclusion on the subject he said: … I recognise that there will always be those who cannot bear to see any treasure ever leave this country for any reason at all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1971; Vol. 814, c. 1080.] He was more specific to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock on 23rd July, when he said: The problem therefore relates to particular works of art and to particular institutions. For my own part, I much admire the trustees of the National Gallery in their determination to acquire or to keep here virtually every masterpiece which past good fortune has enabled us to enjoy, and so doing, I say it respectively, nothing less than their duty. But the Government have a wider responsibility. They have to ask themselves, the brutal question of what could be done even in the field of the arts with the sums of money which would have to be found for massive purchases of this kind. So I look at certain other possible ways forward."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd July, 1971; Vol. 821, c. 1840.] It is right to stress that that has never been the policy of the National Gallery, nor has it ever tried to achieve it. What it has sought to do is to meet the criterion considered by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he says that there are some works which are so important that it behoves the Government, acting on behalf of the nation, to keep them here for future generations to enjoy.

The second matter is a suggestion which has also been made more than once and had even been given certain credence by some remarks of my hon. Friend the Paymaster-General—that there are a large number of masterpieces in the possession of the National Gallery which are not on show to the public. In reply to this, I quote the report of the trustees for the current year: All too many people are still under the delusion that there are unexhibited treasures in what are sometimes described as 'the cellars of the National Gallery'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Except for over a hundred pictures which are on long term loan to provincial galleries, and a few pictures on loan for Government purposes"— which includes pictures on loan to Lancaster House or to No. 10 and No. 11 Downing Street—— or for temporary exhibition or withdrawn for conservation, the whole collection is on view to the public at Trafalgar Square. Some pictures in the Reserve Collection, which is open to the public, are too closely hung. This will be remedied when our new building to which we refer later is completed. But we have long held it to be our duty to exhibit virtually everything that we possess. It is right to stress that although it is a matter of great public concern that the public should be given the best possible opportunity of seeing not only these pictures but pictures in museums generally, the circumstances in which this major national collection was built up were those in which the first importance went to the collection rather than to its exhibition. When one considers the pictures in the National Gallery in the mid or late 19th century, one sees that the emphasis then is on the pictures rather than on the conditions in which they are being shown. I have dealt with the immediate problem and I should like now to repeat some of the suggestions for long-term answers which I have put to my hon. Friend before and to add one or two more. On 26th March my hon. Friend was good enough to say that he would consider with his noble Friend the Paymaster-General the questions of what we referred to on that occasion as the hire-purchase scheme and that of a public lottery, and he may have some news tonight about those matters. However, I should like to refer to another suggestion in the form of a quotation which may have been forgotten over the years. I quote from a report of the Committee of the Trustees of the National Gallery in 1915: The suggestion has been made that the proceeds of the existing death duties on works of art should be earmarked for the purchase of pictures. There does not seem to be, either in principle or in practice, any valid objection to such an appropriation of the proceeds of taxation. The difficulty is that owing to the way in which death duties are levied and collected, the revenue rising from works of art has not hitherto been kept separate from that provided by other objects. We are advised, however, that it would be quite feasible for the Treasury to direct that the account should be kept in such a form in future as to show separate amounts. Indeed, it may be contended that as the State is thus already in possession of an annual revenue from works of art, it ought to know, and the country ought to know, the extent to which art is thereby penalised, and the preparation of a separate account should be accepted as a duty of the Government. It is right to stress for the record that that was not merely a report put forward by a committee of do-gooders or well-wishers; it was a report prepared by the Trustees of the National Gallery under the chairmanship of no less a figure than that of Marquess Curzon, and it would be hard to find a more practical approach to the arts than is connected with that notable statesman.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock sought to raise, but was not able to raise in an Adjournment debate, although, happily, I hope I am in a position to do so, the whole question of a tourist tax, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to look carefully at that, particularly the interesting figure——

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I may have misheard the hon. Member, but if I did not, it would be out of order to refer to taxation in this debate.

Mr. Money

I thought I was within the terms of the debate by mentioning fiscal means of assisting the arts, but I will leave that.

Another means immediately open to the Minister for assisting the arts is the use of the Land Fund. I should be grateful for his comments on that and on the extent to which that fund has been used to subsidise estate duty transactions of this sort and whether it could be used effectively to subsidise acquisitions of the sort for which a special contingency fund is necessary.

I stress that this is not a matter of a basic contradiction between faith and works. It is not an instance when the Government can say that they are doing the works in the shape of developments to gallery extensions and gallery improvements and when all acquisitions may be shrugged off on to the galleries under their current purchase grants.

At this hour, I certainly do not trespass on the House to go into the subject in detail, but I ask my hon. Friend to consider carefully particularly the saddening story of the Domenichino, which led to a position where a work which had been enjoyed in a particular atmosphere in a certain gallery for well over 150 years was transferred to another gallery in a different part of the country. All that happened in those circumstances was that almost the entire purchase grant of a major national collection was taken up for a year. A Government subsidy of £30,000 only was produced for that purpose, and the total loss of that transaction was a break in the tradition of the Dulwich Gallery. I hope that this will lead my hon. Friend to make long-term plans concerning the future of Dulwich and that he can give us further news beyond the earlier Adjournment debate on that matter. There are many other public or semi-private galleries, like the Coram Foundation or Kenwood, which could possibly some day be in the same circumstances.

It is no use having the elaborate safeguards which exist under the Waverley criteria and the Waverley procedure with regard to the control of export of works of art if no teeth can be brought in to give effect to them.

I hope also that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend will be able to give the House assurance concerning the position and powers of trustees, a matter which has given great concern to those involved in this matter during the last few months, and that encouragement will be given to prospective donors to feel that here is an opportunity for them to present works to the nation in circumstances in which their wishes with regard to these will be permanently complied with.

This is not the moment to consider the whole question of regional museums, but I ask my hon. Friend to stress to his right hon. Friend that when the time comes to consider the report which is now being prepared by a distinguished committee in this matter, one aspect that simply cannot be put back too long is the matter of the Victoria and Albert grant for helping purchases by provincial museums, because clearly a figure of £150,000 will not now assist much effective purchase by local museums. I ask my hon. Friend to stress to his right hon. Friend the urgency of having a body—I respectfully suggest the Area Museums Service as being suitable, in comparison with the University Grants Committee—to act as a source through which to channel capital works.

One other pressing major matter with regard to the position of museums and galleries is the vitally urgent position concerning staffing. There is a real risk, both on the conservation side and on the curator side, that if the present situation continues we shall lose many of the better people who are working in our museums, particularly our provincial museums, because of both the situation which arises with regard to their remuneration and the wide differences which exist between the civil servant position of the staffs of the national collections and the local government position of most provincial curators.

It is most unfortunate that there is not ease of transfer between these two sides of the profession. It is doubly unfortunate in the circumstances that the privileges which are so important for people who do this work and which exist in the national museums regarding adequate sabbatical leave, and with regard to at least one day a week for cataloguing and scholarship purposes, are not available in the case of most regional museums.

In the long run, how we shall be judged on the matter depends above all, I believe, not just on the way in which we can present the existing collections to the public but on the balance that can be struck between that and the equally important matter of safeguarding the remainder of the nation's treasures for succeeding generations.

This is the Government which will go down in history as having taken great steps forward in many fields of education and welfare; in help to the mentally handicapped and the disabled; in producing for those who need it most assistance in making their lives more acceptable. I hope at the same time that a Government which are doing so much and have such a wide basis of talent on this subject will not go down to future generations as the Government which have lost some of the things that they would have wished most to see kept in this country. I hope, above all, that they will not go down to history as the Government which let the Titian go and so put us on the same level as the Government which lost the collection of Charles the First.

4.7 a.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke (Bristol, West)

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) has raised this subject. He has been frustrated on a number of occasions owing to the vagaries of our procedure, and I feel a little guilty myself because in another debate I took some time—nearly as much time as he has now taken—and other hon. Members who might have spoken did not get into that debate. I should like to support one or two things that he has said, and perhaps explore one or two other aspects which would come under this particular part of the Estimates.

We must recognise that particularly in this field of the arts passions run high, and I know that my hon. Friend feels passionately about many of the things of which he has spoken. We must also recognise that there are those who will never be shaken in their view that the members of the Conservative Party are a pack of hard-fisted philistines, insensitive to the arts. Whatever the Government do, they will not be shifted in that view. The fact is quite the opposite. My noble Friend will take his place in history as the Minister who first put the arts on a firm footing, in sharp contrast to the financial irresponsibility of the previous Government, whose errors were exposed recently by the all-party Select Committee.

I was very glad that my hon. Friend referred to the great national treasures distributed about the country which he described as being so freely available in the great houses, palaces and other historic buildings of which we are so proud. He said "freely available", but I make it clear that most of them are available at a modest charge. Therefore, some of the fuss about museum charges is a little unrealistic.

My hon. Friend complained, and rightly, about the inadequacies of the museums and galleries whose financies we are now discussing. Museums as we now know them are, in the view of many distinguished people, quite out of date, and it is a matter of choice whether one tries to bring them up to date or looks at the problem in a different way. I put it to the House that much that is torn from its original home should be returned to the great houses and churches which have been despoiled by taxation or its effects. The treasures which are now gathered inexorably into galleries which cannot contain them might be more happily displayed in the places for which those treasures were made or the works of art created or, in some cases, the buildings which were created to house the treasures when they had been acquired. We cannot go on and on until everything is in institutions. Just as with buildings, the National Trust cannot do it all, nor can the other institutions which are the subject of these discussions. I am backed up in that contention by a learned article in the journal of the Museums Association.

Acquisitions must be looked at in the context of the vastly improved capital programme to which my hon. Friend referred. If there is not the ability to house acquisitions, many people will question the propriety of making further acquisitions, though my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the need to make sure that those things which the nation really should retain here are retained. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has spoken about this, too. It means providing the necessary resources.

The idea of a list of key pictures or objects which should be retained at all costs has been canvassed. If such a list were to be produced, presumably by those who have the charge of the collections we are discussing, it should be kept private. It would greatly assist the Govern- ment in planning the future resources which the institutions might need in order to acquire the objects, but it would be wrong to make the list public, because the Government would be at the mercy of those who would seek to drive up the prices. Conversely, if the Government made clear that those objects were never to leave the country, and were to be acquired by a gallery and not to be allowed to be sold at auction, it might have a very unfair effect on the prospects of the owners. We must reflect that the reason why many people have been selling recently is the penal taxation. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will have at the back of his mind the possibility that if taxation were not so fierce we might not find ourselves having to rescue quite so many objects of importance.

The key-list policy should be fairly fluid, because what is key in one respect might not be in another. The Titian which has been referred to, The Death of Actæon, would be a key picture if we had to face the situation that all the other Titians in the country in private hands were to go and nothing could be done to stop them. Obviously, in those circumstances, The Death of Actæon should be retained at all costs, but there are other Titians in private hands on public view in this country. It is well known where they are. If we take the view that these pictures, perhaps even more important than the one that has been discussed, are likely——

Mr. Money

There can be no doubt that my hon. Friend is referring to Sutherland Titians on view in Edinburgh. Has he borne in mind the comparison between the condition of those pictures and the extremely fine condition of the former Harewood Diana and Actæon?

Mr. Cooke

I am sure that I should be out of order if I were to comment on that. However, I am glad that my hon. Friend has put the point, and I am sure it will be noted. The essence of what I am saying about the key list is not altered by what my hon. Friend said—that something could be key if one thought it was the only example available in the field in question, but if it transpired that it was not obviously the key list would have to be altered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Nicholas Edwards) the other day referred to the necessity to provide funds for the rounding off of collections. There might be a contrary view about this matter. I should like to see much more interchange and exchange between museums and galleries. Exchanges are made and they should continue, but it might be better to discontinue collecting in a particular field by a national or local institution as part of an exchange with another institution when the present result is that two people have half a collection. Each should perhaps specialise in another field and so have a more complete picture to present to those who come to see the museum or gallery. Therefore, although the key list is available, it has its limitations.

My hon. Friend deplored the prospect of works of art going abroad. So do I. But works of art come back to our shores, and we should do nothing to interfere with the freedom of the art world, which in recent years has centred on London. Some of those who seek to conserve the nation's treasures do not go far enough in considering the possible effects on our international position of some of their suggestions. There has been considerable movement in works of art in times gone by. My hon. Friend's distinguished speech began with references to some of the losses. But there have been enormous gains. Art is international, and, although we have our views about what we should like to retain here, we are unlikely to get anything major back from abroad if we are too close with what we possess.

The National Gallery has been mentioned. The suggestion has been made about mortgaging its future in order to acquire the Titian which has been discussed in this debate, The Death of Actæon. This would be a very dangerous road to go along if the Government were to allow it. How are we to know that the National Galley will not come to us in any one of the following six years and say, "We spent £600,000 in advance on the Titian, but something else has turned up and what we have in our resources is nothing like adequate."? This would be a very dangerous course, and I hope that the Government will find other ways to meet the current problems.

Various tax reliefs have been suggested, and it would be out of order to pursue this matter in detail. I do not believe that the American system by which works of art are purchased by means of tax concessions and presented to galleries is an ideal solution. It can result in the most fearful junk being collected in galleries, and I have seen some of it in the United States. I cannot in this debate suggest the imposition of new taxes, but I can leave my hon. Friend with this thought. The solution lies in arousing the interest of hundreds of thousands of people in the arts and in obtaining their financial interest.

If in the next Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer allowed the top £25 of a person's income to be dedicated to charitable purposes before tax was levied on the remainder, that would not only help the arts but would help sport, social services, education and the quality of life in general. It would revive the voluntary spirit. I hope this suggestion will not fall on deaf ears. This is where all of us together can achieve what we seek to do. It is a simple and intelligible way of going about the problem. It would involve the widest possible number of people and would not be just the preserve of the rich.

We must seek to avoid putting the arts in a privileged position, because when privilege is granted it can be taken away in times of stress or disrepute. There might be a reaction if any special concessions were granted to the arts through the years. The arts must stand or fall against competition from all the other things of interest to be found in this country.

I hope that, even if we do not agree on points of detail, we shall collaborate in many other ways. Those who wish to do lasting good for the arts should sink their prejudices, whether political, personal or purely pedantic. I notice little interest in this matter on the Opposition benches, which are empty, but some personal comments have come from that side of the House about my noble Friend the Paymaster-General. I hope that all who are interested in the future of the arts will pull their weight behind the noble Lord, because the cause of art needs more friends. Those who already dedicate themselves to the cause will do a greater service if they speak with an intelligible and more united voice.

4.22 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William van Straubenzee)

The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) for raising this subject and will agree that this has been a valuable debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) had a fair point to make when he drew attention to the empty Opposition benches. Since my two hon. Friends have sat up until this hour to take part in this debate, I am surprised that the Opposition Front Bench is not manned, as it normally would have been for an important matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich began with an erudite and apposite reference to Talleyrand and assumed that none of us needed a translation. It happens that I have a particular interest in Talleyrand because I was born in the house in which he spent his first exile in this country. It is a curious reflection that, so far as I know, so great a man has no known place of burial in Paris. I put that point to my right hon. Friend for reflection at a later stage.

The first theme in my hon. Friend's speech was a specific plan in regard to the Titian which is in our minds at the moment. I cannot give my hon. Friend an answer which he will think satisfactory. The reason is a perfectly proper one. The Reviewing Committee has not yet met. It would be improper—indeed, discourteous—for the Government to give a view before the committee had met and tendered advice. I notice that the Trustees of the National Gallery have expressed the hope that there will be an appropriate period of time for everyone to consider the advice which is tendered.

A number of related matters will have to be gone into carefully. There is, for example, the pertinent point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West concerning the position of other works in this country by that great artist. In that connection, I am afraid that I cannot accept the more than implied criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich of the state of the Sutherland Titians at Edinburgh. On a private occa- sion my hon. Friend made the same point to me. So great was my concern that I caused inquiries to be made. I understand that in former years there were grounds for criticising the state of and the method of display of those works. Whatever may have been the case in the past, however, there is no room for criticism on those grounds now—either about their present habitat or about their state.

That is one matter which would have to be considered carefully. Another is the wisdom or otherwise of what is loosely called "the Getty offer". I am aware of the trustees' comments on that. These are the sorts of matters which would have to be considered.

I do not altogether accept my hon. Friend's fairly light reference to the cost involved as "containable". By anyone's standards, it is a very large sum. The problem is well illustrated when one considers the conflicting demands. My hon. Friend himself was pressing certain additional expenditures upon me. He said that the present disproportionate grants to the regional museums and to the national institutions are not supportable, and he hopes that more will come from the committee which my noble Friend has appointed. But my hon. Friend is pressing for increased expenditures, and this illustrates the sort of problem confronting the Government when we have to consider the matter of resources.

Mr. Money

I am sorry that my hon. Friend thought any reference that I made to the price of the Titian being "containable" was meant to be light. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider the figures that I put to him as the basis of a practicable scheme for costing this operation, should it become feasible.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I have my reservations, and they are largely the reservations which were brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West. It is, after all, within the recollection of the House that a representative of the gallery was questioned in a radio interview very recently. He was asked the same pertinent question that my hon. Friend asked; namely, what would happen if, in the six-year mortgage period, another great work came on the market? The reply, as nearly as I can recall it—I hope that I do it no injustice—was, "In that case, we shall clearly have to come to the Government for more." It was an honest and fair answer. Therefore, I am not sure whether juggling with figures in this way is the most direct and appropriate way of going about a problem of this kind.

I assure my hon. Friend that when we have the advice of the Reviewing Committee—I realise that its distinguished chairman has already expressed a personal view—the most careful consideration will be given to it.

That was the first theme of my hon. Friend's speech which related particularly to this great picture. No one questions that it is a great picture.

The second wider theme was that something more by way of a policy to cover this matter was necessary. My hon. Friend made a courteous reference to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. He made the same quotation as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) on 22nd July, but significantly left out the last sentence. It may be that he has not got the last sentence. In order to keep the record straight, I must put it in. The Prime Minister was talking about our having benefited very much in the past with treasures from other lands. It seems a narrow view that they should never leave our shores. My hon. Friend accurately quoted the Prime Minister when he said: it behoves the Government to look to the future to see what we want to keep in our own land". He was there referring to great works which had particular relevance to our history, and so on. But in the same sequence of that speech the Prime Minister added: The Government, and the taxpayers represented by the Government, cannot afford to keep everything. It becomes a question of priorities. This is the key to the matter. It is a question of priorities. I felt that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock in his Adjournment debate on 22nd July had slightly begged the question. He said, at column 1835, that there were three things which he wanted the Government to do: Third and most important, they must see how means can be found to meet the need without creating enormous or unreasonable demands on the public purse."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd July, 1971; Vol. 821, c. 1835.]

Mr. Money

I was present when the Prime Minister made his speech at Grosvenor House. I accept the accuracy of the quotation which my hon. Friend has made and the basis on which my right hon. Friend was speaking. My point in this regard is that, concerning priorities, there are some works which are so important that every effort must be made to save them.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I must intervene. It seems strange to me how selfish hon. Members get in the middle of the night. The last three back-bench speeches before I came back to the Chair have taken, respectively, 49, 37 and 32 minutes, the hon. Member's own speech. The hon. Member has also intervened three times since I have been back. Many hon. Members have been waiting a long time to raise other topics.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I will do my best to be short, in view of what you have understandably said, Mr. Speaker.

I repeat that this is a matter of priorities. Frankly, there is a genuine, and honest difference of view about priority relating to any one picture.

I remind my hon. Friend that the combined effect of the forecast of public expenditure in Command 4578—he will know that the relevant section on the Arts is to be found on page 35—and the policy outlined in Command 4676, "Future Policy for Museums and Galleries", indicates a growth of 10 per cent. anually when allowances has been made for receipts for entrance charges for museums and galleries. Therefore, I am able to show that they are receiving public funds at an unprecendented rate. I am glad that it should be so. My hon. Friend made a courteous reference to this. The growth rate of 10 per cent. annually is much higher than is possible for any major sector of public expenditure. I am entitled to defend the Government's record by reference to the figures, which can easily be extracted from the two documents to which I have referred. It becomes a matter of priority.

The cellars at the National Gallery have been referred to. I accept that all the pictures can be displayed. I doubt that the trustees would say that they were displayed as well as they would wish them to be displayed. Indeed, there was the very reasonable reference to the additional building. In that respect they are extraordinarly fortunate, much more fortunate than most of the other museums and galleries with which we are concerned.

The background to that statement is that the number of visitors in 1970 was 10 per cent. above the 1969 figure. This is the sort of growth rate with which we are dealing. This is the justification for saying that one must have in mind when talking about these figures the uses to which such expenditure could otherwise be directed. This is not a philistine point of view.

There are at least three factors which will increase this pressure. There is, first, the immense growth of secondary education and all that that has meant and will increasingly mean with a greater section of younger people being interested in museums and galleries. There is, second, the greater growth of tourism. There is, third, the increasing use of leisure and the ability to enjoy leisure with increasing living standards.

I do not think that anybody has understood properly, though my noble Friend has—not for the first time—blazed a trail here, the pressures which will be placed upon the museums and galleries, particularly if increasingly we use them to everybody's greater benefit.

I end by a reference to what was implied in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and was was specifically referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West. It is suggested that there should be something in the way of a list of the most important treasures which in no circumstances should be permitted to leave the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock developed this theme with great skill in the short time available to him in his Adjournment debate.

In this respect I accept entirely the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West. If there were to be such a list, it would be essential that it remained an absolutely private one. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which my hon. Friend gave very persuasively. First, the very existence of such a list, publicly known, would at once expose a number of owners who might not otherwise be in the least disposed to sell their treasures to considerable pressure from those in whose interests it lay to achieve the sales. I am not being critical of these people but we all know the silver-tongued gentlemen who would descend upon the owners. This would be particularly true in the case of pictures which were not in the most obvious top-bracket list of those we were anxious to retain. It might turn out to be a positive cue to exploitation.

It could easily be that such a list, made public, would produce such a mammoth demand for public funds that no Government, however well-intentioned towards the arts, could, at least in public, do anything but reject such a commitment when resources are scarce. This could actually be self-defeating.

I can now tell my hon. Friend what I implied only a few days ago to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock. My noble Friend Viscount Eccles is in consultation with the galleries to see whether such a list could be compiled and what it would imply in terms of financial commitment to the nation. I am not in a position to go further because consultation is at this moment taking place. But I think it unlikely that my noble Friend would ever want to make the result of these consultations public for the reasons I have stated.

I hope that this, taken in conjunction with the encouraging figures that I was able to give at the beginning of the debate, may make my hon. Friend feel that he does not support a philistine Government, though he did not say they were. But they must be deeply concerned with priorities, each of which must argue a case effectively against other claims for competing expenditure.