THE ARTS

HL Deb 23 June 1965 vol 267 cc504-24

2.35 p.m.

LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS rose to call attention to the White Paper, A Policy for the Arts: the First Steps (Cmnd. 2601); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should like to say at the beginning how delighted I am to find that so many noble Lords, with such a wide range of interests, wish to take part in this debate. Since your Lordships' House has inevitably been so much engaged in recent months with serious issues of economics and technology and the state of the country, I had felt, after putting down the Motion, that perhaps the question of the Arts, and the importance of the Arts, in our lives would attract but little attention. On the contrary, it has attracted a long, representative and, I think, most impressive list of speakers. Indeed, although I do not think that the Arts can perhaps compete with homosexuality as a draw on your Lordships' attention, it looks as if it might be moving in that direction, though I hope that it will neither arouse such deep passions nor keep us up so late.

I should like to begin by giving a hearty welcome to the White Paper on the Arts. It seems to me to be a most lively and imaginative document, and one which shows that the Government is well aware of the importance of the Arts, of the creative Arts, of cultural activities of all kinds in the life of this nation, and is determined, within the unavoidable confines of our present economic situation, to do what it can to assist them and to help them on. But in welcoming the White Paper, I welcome it with the proviso that the sub-title, First Steps is important. This is a valuable White Paper so long as it is accepted that it represents only the first steps—only a beginning, and not a comprehensive programme for action which will meet all that is required. The first steps are good steps, and they are steps in the right direction. But nobody, with the best will in the world, could pretend that they are giant steps.

I am concerned particularly with the position of the living artist. As your Lordships know, there is somewhat of a tradition, or perhaps a habit of mind, in England not to care much for the artist or the writer until he is dead. But it is, I think, a sign of the value of this White Paper that it recognises how important the living artist is, and what needs to be done to seek to encourage him. In the main, encouragement of the living artist—the living artist of all kinds—depends, under our present system, upon the instrument or medium of the Arts Council. Anybody who knows anything of its work will agree that the Arts Council, within its means, does work of great value and importance, often work of great imagination. Its grant is now to be raised from £2,150,000 to £2,815,000, including £250,000 for commitments to regional and local authorities in helping to house the Arts.

As a first step, this is all right, but consider how small a sum it is when one looks at the size of the problem. It represents, so far as my calculations are viable, about the cost of building three or perhaps four miles of a motorway. Or, put another way, somewhat less, indeed quite considerably less, than is spent in this country each year on advertising the three main detergents. Indeed, we sometimes seem as if we are prepared moneywise (as the Americans would say) to take as our motto, "We will wash the Arts right out of our hair"—in fact, right out of our clothes, and everything else. It is valuable and praiseworthy that the grant has been increased, but consider what the Arts Council is supposed to do with this small amount. It is supposed to encourage opera, the ballet, music, theatre; art, by painting, by exhibitions, and so on; poetry, art festivals and art associations. When one looks at the job it is supposed to do and then at the funds which are provided to do it, one is compelled to say that we are sending a boy to do a man's work—an energetic, enthusiastic, bright-eyed boy, but, nevertheless, in terms of the actual size of what needs to be done, still very much a boy.

I would not for one moment suggest that the stimulation and encouragement of the Arts in this country depends entirely, or indeed necessarily in a major degree, upon the support of central funds or central administration. The real function of the Government in this respect, and of the Arts Council as an administrative instrument for encouraging the Arts, is to stimulate local and regional activity, not only by the provision of such funds—usually comparatively small—as are required, but even more by seeing that a body of experience and understanding gained over a period of years is available to deal with the problem. It is enormously encouraging, and something of which this nation can be proud, when one considers what an immense flowering of regional activity is now taking place in many artistic directions.

Three weeks ago I had the immense pleasure of attending the opening of the newest theatre in this country, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, a most elegant and delightful theatre, built almost entirely by local private subscriptions. The theatre, with an admirable stage, an excellent restaurant and other facilities, and commanding a most delightful situation in an are of the River Wey, will provide a great focal point for artistic and community life, not only in Guildford itself but over a wide area. The important thing about the theatre—as about other theatres which have recently come to fruition or which are in process of being planned—is the extent to which it has represented a great surge of local interest in the Arts and in a cultural life. The building of this new theatre in Guildford, the raising of the necessary money over a period of three years, has been very largely due—although I am sure he would modestly deny it—to the initiative and vision of one man, Alderman Graham Brown of Guildford. But even the initiative and vision of one man, an enthusiasm which nothing could set back, would not have been sufficient unless the will and the desire had been there.

I asked Alderman Graham Brown to give me some idea of how the money for the new theatre had been raised. It is anticipated that its final cost will be in the neighbourhood of £375,000, but already in three and a half years over £250,000 has been raised. It is interesting to see by what means and from what sources it has come. The Arts Council provided a very acceptable and useful grant of £25,000. As Alderman Graham Brown pointed out to me, financial assistance is only one aspect of the work of the Arts Council, and their knowledge of the theatre has been of immense value and inspiration in every respect. It is the sort of work which the Arts Council can do so well. Then there was a grant of £22,000 from local authorities; another of £17,500 from various trust funds; £22,000 from trade and industries of various kinds. But over £140,000 came from private individuals, often in quite small sums, thus representing a clear desire and urge for this kind of development. This desire does not exist in Surrey alone, but is to be found all over the country if we can find the means to tap it.

I was unfortunately unable to attend the recent conference on the development of regional theatres, but my noble friend Lord Willis (who had hoped to take part in this debate but is at present abroad) has written me to tell me that that conference was packed to the doors with representatives of local authorities ail eager to know about theatre-building. This is a very interesting and important revival in the life of this country. It is important in terms of the Arts, but also important in terms of social values if we are to attempt to counter the immense attraction of the great wen of London which for so long has tended to pull talent of all kinds to the centre. It is also of great importance to the industrial and economic development of this country, since it is manifestly of the highest importance that industry which is developing in the regional areas shall be able to feel that those who go to work in industries a long way out of London, whether they be at managerial, executive or workshop level, can look to a life as full, interesting and entertaining as they would enjoy if they were in or near a large capital city. I believe that there is a great deal that local industry, local regional television centres and local interests of all kinds can do to help forward that movement.

Here I should like to ask a question which I hope my noble friend Lord Bowden or my noble friend Lord Snow will be able to answer when they speak later in the debate. I should like to ask whether Clause 48, subsections (1) and (4), of the Finance Bill now means that seven-year covenanting donations to charity, including trust funds for artistic and literary purposes, will from 1966–67 be deductible from corporations' income before computing corporation tax. If as some accountants, at any rate, believe this is the case, I hope that it will mean that many great industrial corporations with regional activities will feel that they have a green light to donate funds for regional cultural developments of this kind.

There is no way, I suggest, that an industry, drawing as it must upon the human wealth and skill of the area in which it operates, can better put back some of its contribution to society into the local society where it lives than by helping to foster regional developments of this kind. I hope, too, that those of your Lordships who may be, as many of you are, engaged or linked with industries of this kind, or even, I suppose, the reducing number now possessed of substantial private wealth of your own, will feel that this is a purpose and an objective which you or the industries with which you are concerned should seek to support.

I hope very much, also, that it will be possible under our fiscal system to give more encouragement than has sometimes been given in the past to assist the development of trusts and foundations. These come often as a result of legacies by wealthy men or wealthy families when they die, and can, on the American model, provide a great river from which many rivulets of artistic endeavour may be watered and made rich. I take just one example of such a foundation in America—the Guggenheim Foundation, established to assist scholars and artists by helping them in research in any field of knowledge and artistic creation in any of the Arts, which last year alone made grants totalling 1,882,000 dollars to some 312 writers, artists and others. This is a way in which those still fortunate enough to possess private means, or industries, can help to make the community of which they are a part a living and developing civilisation.

My Lords, as I said, I am primarily concerned in this matter with the position of the living artist, and since there are so many others of your Lordships who are taking part in this debate, many of you with much greater knowledge and experience than I can command in particular aspects of artistic development, I shall not endeavour to give anything like a comprehensive survey of the whole field, but shall rather concentrate particularly on the needs, as it seems to me, of one particular but very important group of artistic creators.

The White Paper states in its introduction—and I am sure that everybody in your Lordships' House will agree with this sentiment—that this is a difficult problem because State patronage must not in any way dictate taste or … restrict the liberty of even the most unorthodox and experimental of artists.

There is nothing we want less than the kind of support that is given to the artist and to the author in many Communist and similar countries, where authors and artists—as I know, having travelled there—are provided with immense grants, often with great houses in the country to which they can retire to carry on their work in peace, with a guaranteed assurance of a return to their old jobs, at the former pay, when their particular artistic work is done. But, of course, that is done in return for the understanding, if not always nowadays the absolute guarantee, that they will write nothing which is likely to be unsympathetic to the philosophy of the régime. State aid for any kind of art on such terms is, and must always be, wholly unacceptable to the writers, the artists and, as I believe, the public of a democratic country.

We have therefore to consider what, if anything, can be done to assist the writer, the author, the writer of books—with whom I am particularly concerned in this part of my speech—without any suggestion of any attempt at State dictation of the way he shall write and what he shall say. I say at once to your Lordships that in this respect, the White Paper marks a great advance, because it does devote four paragraphs to the author. It is true that these are the most tentative of all the paragraphs in the White Paper, but at least it is an advance that the existence of the author is actually recognised; very often it is not.

I was interested, for example, looking just recently at what I gather is that immensely popular reference book and interpretation of British society, The Anatomy of Britain, to find that there authors do not even rate an index reference. They have no part, apparently, in the anatomy of Britain or in any of the attributes of our society. But the White Paper does, as I say, tentatively at any rate, recognise the existence of the author and the desirability of doing something to enable him to go on writing books. Here, I should like to say at once that I hope none of your Lordships will be misled by the stories we often read—true, no doubt, in particular cases—of the great wealth and fortunes made by individual authors, perhaps mainly in the romantic and thriller fields. Nor, I hope, will your Lordships be misled by the comparatively well-nurtured appearance of myself, or even of my noble friend Lord Snow, who is to wind up for the Government in this debate. Although we are both authors—and I should here perhaps declare my interest, not only as an author but also as the chairman of the management committee of the Society of Authors—there are a great many authors in this country who certainly write better than I would claim to do myself but who live very near the edges of penury.

Recently the Society of Authors had a survey made to try to find out what writers are worth. It is now embarking on a much more comprehensive survey in order to try to get at the facts, but the initial survey did throw up some very interesting information. Your Lordships will remember that Dr. Johnson once remarked that nobody but a blockhead ever wrote for anything but money. I have to tell your Lordships that, in the light of that, one can only say that the I.Q. of the majority of authors in this country must be very low indeed, because they do not seem to write for money—or, if they do, they are not very successful in getting it. This survey that we made—and I will quote from it if I may—showed that, out of a representative sample of some 600 authors, three-quarters of whom had published three or more books and half of whom had published over six (so that they may be regarded as professional authors in the full sense), only 82 earned more than £1,500 a year from their writing and only 1 in 10 earned between £20 and £30 a week. My Lords, 18 per cent. of them earned only between £5 and £10 a week.

I do not necessarily think that authors should be, or should expect to be, rich men. They are for the most part doing something which they want to do, and from which they get enormous pleasure, and that in itself is a great recompense. There is something to say for the remark by Cyril Connolly, that Of all the enemies of literature, success is the most insidious"— although I can only say that, on the facts that are available, this seems to be an enemy to which the majority of British authors are in no danger whatever of capitulating. Although I would by no means suggest that authors should be rich, or have any right to expect that in the great majority they should be rich, yet it seems to me essential to appreciate that, if we are going to have a living Art, we must having living artists, and that if the great literary tradition of Britain is to be sustained and is to continue, then authors must be able to live to carry it on. One of the first necessities is to find means by which the author may hope for some modest recompense without having to fall into the embrace of the State or any other patron who will seek to dictate what he should write and how he should write it.

This brings me at once to a subject which has been raised on other occasions in this House—the question of the free public libraries. It is now a fact, with the social changes that have taken place in our country, that whereas in earlier days an author, if he had any public at all, could expect a reasonable recompense from the sale of his books, initially from the first edition and later (and probably for most of his life) from cheaper, hardback editions and from sales to the great commercial libraries like Mudie's, The Times Book Club, Boots, and so on—most of which had guaranteed subscription arrangements whereby they obligated themselves to supply on demand, within a matter of a few days, to borrowers who took out those subscriptions, the books they wanted, so that they were required to buy and did buy substantial numbers of new books as they came out in order to be able to meet these commitments—to-day most of the great commercial lending libraries have either had to close down or are in danger of so doing, and book-reading in this country stems more and more from the free public libraries.

The free public libraries, from being, in the last century, founded as a means of assisting forward the education of the poor and of the working classes, have to-day become one of the great middle-class institutions of our time. It is estimated that the total number of book issues by the public libraries is getting on for 500 million a year, to all classes of the community. One book, on which the author receives one royalty, may well be lent between 150 or 200 times, and sometimes even more, because the libraries rebind. In fact, some of them have adopted what I think is the extremely unfortunate habit of buying paper-backs, on which the author receives a very tiny royalty indeed, and then binding those in hard covers. My friend Sir Alan Herbert—and I only wish he were here; I cannot conceive what successive Conservative Prime Ministers were doing, not to make sure that he came to your Lordships' House, where I cannot help but feel he would have been ideally at home—some time ago made a sort of snap survey of the fate of two of his own books in his own public library in Hammersmith. He found that two of his books had been borrowed more then 3,600 times from that one branch library alone over a period of twenty years, and that, over that period of twenty years, from those books which had given an immense amount of entertainment to so many people, he received in royalties 3s. a year.

One may not wish to put authors in a position of growing rich, but I am sure that none of us will feel that a system which pays a man 3s. a year for providing entertainment and enlightenment to a great many readers, out of books which have taken him a considerable time and much experience to write, can be a satisfactory system. I well understand and appreciate the feeling that exists against making any charge on books borrowed from free libraries. It may be that it is right and proper, even in our present middle-class, or becoming-middleclass, society, to accept the free provision of books through public libraries as just as essential a social service as the free Health Service or any of the other great social services.

But I suggest that in this matter there is an analogy that can properly be made between the position of the author and the position of the hospital consultant in the Health Service. In former days, it used to be accepted, quite properly and quite understandably, I think, that consultants who could make incomes and live satisfactorily from the fees of private patients would also expect, and be expected, to give their services freely to the great hospitals. But when the National Health Service was established it was at once recognised as fair and reasonable that consultants whose services had previously been free in those hospitals should in future be paid for them, because, inevitably, the new structure of the social services would mean a reduction in their income from private patients. It was therefore recognised as right and proper that, while the social service was regarded as essential, its burden should not in the main be carried by any one section of the community.

I suggest that exactly the same case, in equity, exists for the authors. It should be recognised, if we want a free library service, that it is wrong that the main burden of it should fall upon one class of the community: a class, moreover, that is in this respect the most basic and fundamental of all, because they are the creators. The author should be regarded as having as of right a claim to pecuniary compensation for his books when lent to borrowers from what I may term the public library. This is, of course, done in a number of other countries. Let me quote briefly a recent report which appeared in the Daily Telegraph from its correspondent in Stockholm. It begins: Scandinavian authors will receive about £210,000 in library royalities this year. This is the equivalent, if one takes into account the comparative populations of the two countries, of £700,000 in Great Britain. The report goes on to state that, in the Scandinavian view: Libraries which lend books to whole towns cannot … be equated with private purchasers who lend them only to their family or friends. Failure to remunerate an author for library loans would therefore be equivalent to appropriating his property.

I believe that we could well adopt a system comparable to that which operates in the Scandinavian countries, and, also, in some form, elsewhere, which would mean, not a tremendous but a reasonable and adequate return to writers whose books give entertainment, enrichment and understanding to so many people. I believe that in part the funds for so doing could be secured by accepting the idea that when the copyright of a book ends, fifty years after the author's death, it should remain in the public domain, in a different form than at present, and that a very small royalty, which should go into a central literary fund for library and other purposes, should be payable.

In view of the many other excellent speakers to whom I hope to listen, I do not want to hold your Lordships' attention for much longer. I hope that those who are speaking for the Government in this debate will be able to give some indication whether the Government contemplate any review of the Civil List. At the present time the Civil List distributes no more than £20,000 a year. It is perhaps an assessment of the value placed on authors by our society that no aged author is regarded as falling within the realms of those whom the Civil List can help if he has an income in excess of £600 a year. That amount is regarded as more than adequate for him. It would appear that there has been a considerable change in the practice of the Civil List over recent years. Once it used to make available funds for authors like W. H. Davies, Walter de la Mare and Joseph Conrad, while they were still in their creative period, in order to enable them to go on writing books which contributed to the literary heritage of this country. Now it seems to be operated only as a pension scheme for the indigent, and to be operated in such a curious way as to depend entirely on the decision of one of the Prime Minister's Secretaries. He is, I think, a most admirable person; but it seems to me that the administration of the Civil List ought to be brought more into the open and more carefully and publicly considered.

All I want to say, in conclusion, is that I believe that in every way the literary and artistic tradition of this country is one of our greatest heritages. It is perhaps more important to-day than at any time, since much of our material wealth and power is smaller than it used to be, though the creative talent and genius which has long been at the heart of the British character can show the world that British culture still survives and has a great deal to offer to civilisation. I hope that the fact that your Lordships are debating to-day this question of the place of the Arts in our society may do something, even in small measure, to help and to show that, however difficult economically and in other ways times may often be for this country, we maintain our adherence to the great standards which make a truly civilised community. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.20 p.m.

LORD COTTESLOE

My Lords, before I say anything else, I must express my apologies to those who are to speak later in this important debate because, to my extreme regret, duties elsewhere will prevent my hearing them. The matters with which the White Paper concerns itself are of intense interest to me, and I shall read every word of this debate. Meanwhile, I am grateful to those who arrange these things that they have given me an opportunity to say what I have to say early in the debate; and particularly to my noble friend Lord Jellicoe who has allowed me to take his place in the "batting order". I should make clear that I am not in any sense an Opposition spokesman. Indeed, in matters of the Arts, although there must be a Government, there should be no Opposition.

We must all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams, for having initiated this debate on the Arts White Paper. Public interest in the Arts and public appreciation of the Arts is far more widespread and far better informed in this country than it was, even a very few years ago. It has grown—it is still growing—until we can no longer be regarded as a nation of Philistines. We must see to it that it continues to grow, as it is one of the best of all the answers to the problems of leisure that we are already facing and will face with more alarming suddenness as automation brings shorter hours and higher standards of life.

There is, I think, general agreement that the Arts should not become a pawn of Party politics—we should all deplore that—but Governments, of whatever complexion, are beginning to realise the importance of the Arts to the well-being of the nation. No doubt they may also begin to realise that there may, after all, be some votes to be won from an increasingly enlightened electorate by an enlightened policy of helping to encourage the Arts, and that is all to the good. I think we should all welcome very warmly the intention of the Government, expressed in this White Paper, to give more help and encouragement to the Arts. While we think its proposals are, for the most part, pretty nebulous, it does breathe a spirit of enthusiasm for the Arts that is, to anyone who reads very many White Papers, a breathe of fresh air. It is an expression of good will and good intentions that we should recognise with pleasure, even though we may have doubts about some of its particular provisions.

My Lords, on more than one previous occasion in this House I have expressed doubts about the wisdom of transferring the responsibility for the Arts away from the Treasury to one of the spending Departments. That transfer has now taken place. The responsibility now rests on the Department of Education and Science, and in particular on the shoulders of a Joint Under-Secretary of State whose main business it is to look after the Arts. That transfer is, of course, perfectly logical. But logic is not always the best guide in matters of the Arts. In logic, it is certainly not very reasonable that the Department whose business it is to control expenditure, and to ensure that it is kept to the minimum necessary, should have responsibility for the direct provision of the moneys made available for the Arts Council and for other bodies concerned with the Arts; but in practice there were virtues in that anomalous system.

In the first place, it worked. While the flow of money was not as free as might have been desired—I do not suppose it will ever be that—it was administered with a sympathetic understanding of the needs and with a warm desire to help. I should like to say how much those of us on the receiving end appreciated the help of the Treasury team, which is now dispersed, which was particularly concerned with the Arts. It worked, probably because the sums involved were insignificant, as they are still insignificant, truly insignificant, in the context of the national budget. What is it: £13 million for the Arts and £800 million for Science? Something like that. One had access direct to a Treasury Cabinet Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Chief Secretary, who could give one decisions quickly and decisively, instead of having to make one's case to a junior Minister who might have to pass it on, perhaps through two or three subsidiary stages, a far slower and less effective process. It worked, secondly, because it ensured the expenditure of the bodies concerned, the Arts Council, the trustees of the national collections and so on, which is, in my view and in that of most of those concerned with the Arts, absolutely vital if the subventions provided for them are to be applied with the greatest possible effect.

The transfer that has now been made has the effect that the Arts, championed with a wholly admirable enthusiasm and energy by a Joint Under-Secretary, are liable to be elbowed out by the vastly greater requirements of the Secretary of State for the purposes of Education and Science. That is the first danger in an economy hard pressed, as our national economy is at the present time, notwithstanding the desire, which is amply shown in the White Paper, for extending Government help for the Arts. The second danger is that the Joint Under-Secretary, with her great energy and enthusiasm, and with little else on her plate, may be driven by political pressures, and by her natural inclinations, to interfere with the policies and priorities of the Arts Council. The White Paper says that the independence of the Council will be maintained. The Joint Under-Secretary says that she will maintain it, and I am quite sure that she means it, but how long will she be able to reply to criticisms of the Arts Council priorities? The Treasury Ministers could always safely reply, "This is a matter not for me, but for the Arts Council".

Let us make no mistake, this change has been made in the name of logic. The logical conclusion of this exercise is that the Arts Council should become a minor Government Department, with the Council itself no more than an advisory body. This would destroy the independent, balanced administration of the living Arts that has been nurtured with such loving care over two decades and which has secured, though always starved of money, the admiration and confidence of the public in a quite remarkable degree.

Of course there is criticism of the Arts Council and its policies. The Arts are matters of subjective judgment in which everyone knows better. But there can be no question, on any dispassionate consideration, of the value of the Council's influence and work. To take only its recent history, five years ago, Covent Garden was an international opera, one of many. Now, it leads the world. The Royal Ballet has reached new heights with its Marguerite and Armand and Romeo and Juliet and it is unsurpassed by any company in the world. Sadler's Wells takes as much opera to the Provinces as they have ever had, and of very high quality. Those who still think with nostalgia of the Carl Rosa—and the Carl Rosa did good work in their day; indeed, my first introduction to opera, if my recollection serves me, was a performance of Carmen by the Carl Rosa nearly fifty years ago—can have no conception of the change in standards.

Five years ago, the National Theatre Company did not exist. The Royal Shakespeare Company was only embarking on its London enterprises. There is no other city in the world to-day that has, not one, but two companies playing repertory to such brilliantly high standards. Provincial repertory all over the country was in a parlous condition, but though there is much progress still to be made, the general change from weekly to fortnightly rehearsals in the 54 companies (I believe that is the number) which the Arts Council supports has produced a remarkable change in quality. The Theatres at Chichester and Nottingham and the one at Guildford to which the noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams, has made reference, did not exist. The North-Eastern Association of the Arts and the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra had not been brought into existence. There is much that I could add to that list—and, of course, there is very much more to come in the future—but that list by itself adds up to a good deal. And, although the Arts Council would never for a moment claim all the credit, without the Arts Council these changes could not have taken place.

The notable success of the Council has been due in the main to three factors: first, its freedom from political interference; secondly, its realism, which derives from the purposes defined in its Royal Charter, no vague, well-meaning, woolly phrases about "encouraging" artists, but to increase the accessibility to the public of the fine arts exclusively and to improve standards of execution"; and thirdly, its professionalism. No one reading the charges of amateurism sometimes put forward in the Press would imagine that, quite apart from the almost wholly professional panels that help the Council with advice on music, on drama, on art and on poetry, the membership of the Council itself, which is limited to eleven members, apart from the Scots and Welsh, includes a sculptor and a painter, a poet and an actress and a professor of music, all of them professionals of the highest distinction. I hope that, under the new arrangement, the realism, the professionalism and, above all, the independence of the Arts Council will be most zealously maintained by the Government, for without them its value will quickly evaporate.

I should like now to turn to two other matters with which I have been, and still am, closely concerned: the control over the export of works of art and the development of the National Theatre and the new Opera House on the South Bank. The control over the export of works of art rests on principles that have stood up well to the test of time. Different people, of course, have different views about the lengths to which control should be carried. Some of them would prefer free trade; some of them would prefer that no important work of art should be allowed to leave the country at all. But the present system has in general the co-operation of the trade and the owners of works of art, and, I think, of the public generally. It is, of course, far from perfect, but the conceptions that the most important and valuable items of our national heritage of works of art should be subjected to a licensing control, that owners of works of art who are prevented from exporting them should be offered a fair market value for them and that the great corpus of minor and less valuable items should depend on an adequate scale of funds available for purchase by our public galleries and museums—these conceptions meet with general assent. And the facts that the control exists and that it operates with every attempt at fairness to the owners and to the trade have in themselves been important factors in enabling the most important and valuable works to come into the hands of our public galleries without ever coming into the export market, and also in enabling London to retain its pre-eminence in the fine art markets of the world.

But the system is not perfect. Its greatest weakness is that for the purchase of the most valuable items, from the Leonardo Cartoon down, special Treasury grants and Supplementary Estimates are needed in every case, and these are subject to the hazards of the economic climate and to the chance incidence on the market of a number of important works in quick succession. Our national heritage of such things can only be precarious so long as the control is not insulated against these hazards by a fund set aside and available to be drawn upon by the Treasury to finance such special grants when they are needed.

The Reviewing Committee on the export of works of art have repeatedly asked that such a fund should be established, perhaps by setting aside for the purpose some part of the Land Fund, and the Trustees of the National Gallery, in their recent report, have made the same recommendation. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Snow, when he comes to reply for the Government, may be able to tell us that he will look at these recommendations again, for there is no other way of providing that our national heritage is secure against the economic hazards of which I have spoken. At the request of the last Government, the Reviewing Committee carried out, after the affair of the Leonardo Cartoon, an examination of the position of works of art and antiques in the possession of public and semi-public bodies.

Its Report on those matters was published last year. For this purpose the Committee was augmented by the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, Mr. Noel Annan (who will shortly be with us as a Member of your Lordships' House), Professor Sir Anthony Blunt and the Dean of Gloucester—and a very strong Committee it was! It recommended that works of art in the possession of public and semi-public bodies are already, in some sense, public possessions, and that where they are held to be of national importance they should not be allowed to leave the country. Those recommendations have not been accepted, but I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, may be able to tell us that they will be re-examined by the present Government, for the Committee's belief in their desirability is quite unshaken.

The second matter to which I wish to draw your Lordships' particular attention is the provision of a proper home for the National Theatre Company, which is now well established and doing such brilliant work, and also a new Opera House for the Sadler's Wells Company. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1962 appointed the South Bank Theatre and Opera House Board to design and build a National Theatre and a new Opera House on the South Bank, the funds for which were to be provided by the Government (under the National Theatre Act, 1949) and by the London County Council jointly. This development is to provide a home for the National Theatre Company and is intended as the essential corollary to the formation of that Company under Government auspices. That took place at the same time. It is also to complete the project that owes so much to Sir Isaac Hayward's vision and drive, of a comprehensive centre for the Arts on the South Bank between Waterloo Bridge and County Hall.

That centre, when it is completed, will provide the National Theatre with two auditoriums, an open stage auditorium to seat 1,100 and a proscenium auditorium to seat 750; the new Opera House with a capacity of 1,650; the Royal Festival Hall, together with the smaller recital hall, to be called the Elizabeth Hall, that is now being built, and the great set of exhibition galleries, that will bear Sir Issac Hayward's name, with 20,000 square feet of space, on which work has lately begun. This comprehensive development will provide something worthy of the Metropolis and unrivalled in its scale and its facilities anywhere in the world. The Lincoln Centre in New York, the Sydney Opera House and the Melbourne Cultural Centre cannot at all compare, either in scale or in quality, with this splendid concept. It will be one of the greatest glories of London and of the nation.

The whole of this Centre for the Arts is now already built, or is in process of building, by the London County Council (now the Greater London Council) with the exception only of the National Theatre and the new Opera House. The first designs of the architect, Mr. Denys Lasdun, for the development of the Theatre and the Opera House on the site between Hungerford Bridge and County Hall, with the Shell Centre at the back, have been approved, in principle, by the South Bank Board, and submitted to the Government and to the Greater London Council, who will have to find the money if the project is to take shape on the ground. We have also asked for the approval of Shell. who have interests in the area between their main building and the river frontage.

I hope your Lordships will have a look at Mr. Lasdun's proposals as they are embodied in the very beautiful model which is now on view in the Royal Gallery. If you do, I feel sure that you will think, as I do, and, I may say, as all the members of the South Bank Board do, that the architect has provided a most distinguished solution—a solution both realistic and imaginative—of a difficult and, indeed, an almost impossible architectural problem. This complex of buildings, with its cascades of terraces and a central valley of lower terraces to which the public will have free access, will be the finest architectural group in London, the Royal Naval College and Queen's House at Greenwich always excepted. It is a superb piece of urban design and of neighbourliness. The Shell Centre and the County Hall have never looked so good. Future generations will bless us for giving it to them—as I am quite sure we must.

The financial requirement is necessarily substantial. We are advised that the Theatre and Opera House buildings will cost £9½ million, and that the subterranean works, which will include parking on three levels, will require another £5 million, some part of which is applicable to the general requirements for the whole South Bank area and will fall to be met by the Greater London Council. The requirement is substantial, but it is mercifully and necessarily spread in time. If we were to ask for these large sums to be provided in this financial year, in the economic climate that afflicts us to-day, we could hardly expect the necessary financial approvals. But for two years from now the architect will be working out the details of his scheme and preparing the working drawings that are necessary before tenders can be sought, and no very substantial sums, having regard to the scale of the development—no sums beyond the architect's fees and the expenses involved in design work—will be required during the next two years.

It is only after those two years have elapsed and the contracts have been let that work on the site can be begun, and it will take at least six years thereafter. The work cannot be carried through at any greater pace because there is a limit to the number of men and machines that can work on the site without getting in each other's way. The expenses of excavation and building will thus not arise until the latter part of 1967, and will continue until 1973, and the greatest expense in any one year will then not exceed £3 million. It would, indeed, be possible to extend the construction over a longer period in order that the maximum requirement in any one year should not exceed £2 million, but that would have the effect that the total cost would be more. It is reasonable to expect that by the time the building contracts are let and the construction work begins the economic climate will have changed. I hope, therefore, that the Government and the Greater London Council, when they have considered and discussed these proposals, may approve them and agree together to finance these buildings.

Those discussions, I suppose, must take some little time. The sums involved are in themselves substantial, but in the context of the national Budget they are insignificant and there is no doubt whatever that the money would be laid out to great advantage for the nation and for London. I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, will be able to tell us, not that this will be approved—it would not be reasonable to ask him to do that at this moment—but that there will be no delay in the Government's consideration of these proposals; and approval in due course will, of course, be in some sense the acid test of the sincerity with which the Government put forward their desire to give greater encouragement and more money to the Arts in the future.

There is, however, one aspect of this scheme on which I hope that the Minister may be able to give us an answer to-day. Pending the decision of the Government and the Greater London Council on the financial provision of the buildings, it is most urgently necessary, unless the whole project is to founder, that the South Bank Board should be authorised to commission the architect to go on with working out his designs. This would not commit the Government, even by implication, to providing the finance for the buildings themselves, but only to such architects' and consultants' fees and incidental expenses as may accrue up to the time when the main decision—the decision whether or not a project is to take shape on the ground—is made. If the architect and his team are to go on with their preparatory work, this authorisation must be given very quickly indeed as a matter of urgency. I hope that the Minister, even if he is not able to give us this limited authorisation to-day, will assure us that it will not be delayed beyond a very few days. Before I sit down, I should like once again to apologise to the Minister because I shall not be in the House to hear his reply; but I shall await it with the most anxious and hopeful interest.