HL Deb 21 March 1973 vol 340 cc728-47

2.45 p.m.

THE EARL OF DROGHEDA rose to draw attention to the progress of the performing Arts in this country and matters relating thereto; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It is almost exactly a year to the day since your Lordships debated the Arts. Several noble Lords have felt that the time was right for further discussion, and therefore I, bad attender though I am and even worse speaker, have ventured to put down this Motion. It is difficult nowadays to get a consensus of opinion about many subjects, but I like to think that in relation to State aid for the Arts there is no argument. Without State aid many of the Arts would wither and die; and that is not the sort of prospect that we should welcome. I do not think we need to argue the case. It is a sobering thought that before the war there was absolutely no State aid for the performing Arts in this country, and that is virtually untrue, I think, of every other European country. The attitude here was that those who wanted the Arts should pay for them, and as a result far too little was done and the appeal was to a tiny minority. The suggestion that today's subsidies help a small élite is really the reverse of the truth: it is because of the subsidies that the Arts are being made available to all and audiences are growing.

Many people deserve credit for what has been achieved, but none more so, I have to say (and she has heard it before now), than the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge—"Jennie" to so many of us—who was the first Minister specifically charged with responsibility for the Arts. The noble Baroness did an absolutely splendid job. She moved everything into a higher gear. She appointed the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which was a great service to the nation, without question—alas!, he is not with us to-day. Above all, the noble Baroness insisted that there must be a handful of institutions which were upheld as centres of excellence and as setters of high standards, and her Policy for the Arts (Cmnd. 2601), published in February, 1965, is still very good reading.

Among the institutions which were regarded as centres of excellence was the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in which I must declare an interest, since I am its chairman. Jennie Lee has my eternal gratitude for the support which she gave to Covent Garden at a time when we were receiving 40 per cent. of the total Arts Council Grant. The proportion to-day is down to 12 per cent., and it will fall lower, not because Covent Garden is getting less money but quite the reverse: it is because so much more is being contributed. I think we should all praise the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for what he has done in this regard since he succeeded the noble Baroness, and also for what he has announced he intends to do over the next three years. The promised Government spending is a significant increase in real terms. I know that the grants which have been paid out to the various houses and to the orchestras have resulted in a tremendous improvement in standards, as well as in a far greater supply of serious entertainment. What we have done here has, without question, received international acclaim.

My present concern is particularly with opera and ballet. Other noble Lords will, I hope, be speaking about the theatre. I should like to have seen the noble Lord, Lord Olivier, here so that I could tell him directly what a superlative job he has done as Director of the National Theatre. He is the universally acclaimed head of the theatrical profession, and no praise for his achievements can be too high.

As to opera and ballet, I am quite firmly convinced that these are very high art forms and they are truly international. Interest in them is growing all the time and it seems to me that in the modern jargon we could call ourselves "growth industries". We have just received the accolade from the Evening Standard: they have decided to add to their drama award awards for opera and ballet, and the editor of the Evening Standard certainly knows what he is about. But these two are very costly to present and the greatest enemy we have to contend with is inflation. At Covent Garden, 75 per cent. of the outgoings represent direct labour and salary costs, and the fees paid to artists are very largely determined by the international market. Here the fall in the value of the pound has not exactly helped. It is pretty depressing to reflect that six years ago one got more than 11 marks to the pound and to-day one gets less than seven. This is true of most of the other leading currencies in which the singers want to be paid. Any organisation employing artists of international standing is going to be hit by this factor, and at the same time we feel we have a duty to present these great international artists here—and of course many of them are by now themselves British.

For the corning year, Covent Garden will be receiving aid in the region of £2 million: that is, for the year beginning April 1, 1973. Sadler's Wells, including what it receives from the G.L.C., will get about £1¼ million. These are hefty sums but I believe they might be put into perspective if I tell your Lordships that for this year the Paris Opera alone is going to receive £5 million—that is the provision for their subsidy—and on top of that there are 12 provincial opera houses in France. In Germany, several cities such as Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and so on, receive aid of one kind or another and they each receive sums which compare not too unfavourably with the total amount of money spent here by the Arts Council. In Italy, special State subsidies for opera, theatre and ballet equal £23½ million, and on top of that the various local authorities give subsidising aid to theatres such as La Scala, Milan. In addition, such places are able to use their buildings rent free and they are given great help in other ways. Furthermore, Italy gives aid to the cinema industry to the extent of more than £14 million a year, so I do not think we should feel that we are overdoing it. If anything, the reverse is true.

At the same time, we are not complacent about the level of our expenditure. The Arts Council commissioned Messrs. Peat, Marwick to produce a report on the spending of the four main State-aided institutions: Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. They handed in their report just over a year ago and said that, on a turnover of £7½ million a year for the four institutions, savings of £200,000 might be possible. This report was valuable. It was helpful to us and also reassuring. We are introducing a number of the suggestions for cost control which they recommended to us. One of the suggestions was that we should make a greater effort to raise money from private sources. We are doing something about that as well; and only the other day the American business community in this country were good enough to raise something like the sum of £40,000 towards the cost of a new production at Covent Garden. This was extremely good of them, and we are most grateful to the American Ambassador and his wife for the help they have given us here. But I feel that if Her Majesty's Government would do what they said was essential when they were in Opposition, namely, to assist with the tax deductibility of charitable donations—because they were very hot about this, and now you have to die before any benefit is given—this would, I am sure, give us a greater possibility of raising money from private sources than any other single concession.

I believe that they could also help if they would have another think about V.A.T. To have to add 10 per cent. to our seat prices (which is what it amounts to) is a serious blow, and we get no countervailing saving at all. The Chancellor has given a rather complex undertaking to compensate the State-aided enterprises for a fall arising from the imposition of V.A.T., but that is not the way to help attendances. And of course it is of no value at all to the commercial theatre or to the cinema, whose artistic importance cannot be brushed aside. On the Continent, V.A.T. is charged but the average rate there, I am told, is about 5 per cent. I believe that figure to be accurate. For the Chancellor to bring back what amounts to an intertainment tax of 10 per cent. is sad and bad. I would urge the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, to have another talk to his colleague about this, though of course I know how difficult it is to get anything changed once it has been announced.

Our concern must surely be to maximise attendances, and here the signs have been very, very good. The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company have played to capacity houses all the time, and at Covent Garden our average level of attendance, except when we put on very modern pieces, is 90 per cent. Many of these are visitors from abroad and we are used quite a lot for official entertaining. So I think that on the whole these figures suggest, though we certainly have our tragedies, our disasters and our disappointments, that we are giving quite good value for money. Sadler's Wells at the Coliseum are coming up all the time. They are playing now to 85 per cent. houses and their work is closely co-ordinated with ours. There is a committee which is presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, who is on the boards of both Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells, and we work together to the best of our ability. Finally, I should mention the Festival Ballet, which is an important company and plays an important role. They seem to be sold out wherever they go; so I do not think we are doing too badly as regards attendances and I believe that London is extremely well provided for.

What we want to see, of course, is a greater dissemination of our work. Obviously, there are two main channels for this: first, television and radio and, secondly, our old friend the touring company. The B.B.C., on the radio side of things, do marvellously. Over this last year they have broadcast no less than 151 opera performances: some of them being repeats. The number of our own home products may be a quarter of that, but they do a great many relays from abroad, and it is of tremendous help in broadening the interest. The television side is not quite so good. They televised seven operas in 1972, and fewer ballets, unfortunately. But they have the spirit to do a little more, and it is tremendously important for us, since when they say that this is of minority appeal they probably mean that more people see the single transmission than come to Covent Garden or the Coliseum in the course of a year. Furthermore, they are dispersed throughout the length and breadth of the land; so it is tremendously important.

I should like to urge upon the B.B.C.—if my noble friend Lord Eccles could send them a message it would be good of him—to consider a Kenneth Clark or Alastair Cooke series type of programme. Kenneth Clark did a marvellous thing for the Arts. To do something which is accessible to ordinary people in terms not too obscure or recondite would be tremendously valuable. It would make people interested, and I can certainly suggest one or two people who could do this programme extremely well, including Lord Clark himself. It would be well worth while for the B.B.C. to consider this idea, and it would help us all.

As to touring, on the opera side this is in the hands of the Coliseum, together with Scottish Opera, the Welsh National Opera and the Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Ballet touring is undertaken by the Festival Ballet and the Royal Ballet, plus a number of smaller groups. Our touring problems, as your Lordships no doubt have heard, have recently been the subject of a little misunderstanding. This stems from the fact that Covent Garden operates two companies. One of these (the old Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet Company) was reduced in size two years ago for artistic reasons, and also, I am afraid, because of financial reasons at that time. The smaller group which emerged from this reconstruction continues to tour extensively, but it does not include in its repertoire the handful of large scale classics. Following the reorganisation the main company, the large company, undertook a provincial tour in 1971, visiting Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Southampton with virtually no support from the local authorities concerned.

Some of the ballets that were shown were given in productions taken over from the old touring company which had been contracted in size. Considerable compromises had to be made to these, both in the number of dancers and in the settings, since, with one exception, the stage dimensions of the various provincial theatres were considerably smaller than those at Covent Garden. The company was not satisfied or happy with the way their productions looked. They felt that they were not showing the regions the real strength of the Royal Ballet. Nor was the tour all that successful from the audience point of view, with an average attendance of only 70 per cent., which compares with 90 per cent. at Covent Garden. The prices we charged were less than half what we were charging at that time at Covent Garden. We did not have a tour last year, and we are not going to have one this year.

The future is important. I want to tell your Lordships that, first of all, Covent Garden recognises that it has a duty to get out in the regions so far as it can, compatible with its other duties and responsibilities. We are having active discussions at this very moment with the Arts Council, and we are working out with them a constructive plan which will concentrate upon certain of the key theatres which are geographically and otherwise most suitable for use, possibly helped by modifications to some of the buildings (which are not always what they should be) so that the need for artistic compromise is reduced to a minimum, and people in the Provinces do not feel that they are getting second best. But we have to solve these problems; we fully accept that. The noble Lord, Lord Feversham, who initiated last year's debate—and I am very happy to see him in the House—will be telling us, I am sure, something about what has happened in the regions. He presides over the Regional Arts Associations with a powerful hand.

I feel that in the final analysis touring from London is no substitute for the development of local talent and local initiative. The impressive evolution of the Scottish Opera and the Welsh National Opera companies is setting an extremely encouraging example to others. The noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, also, I am happy to see, is to say a few words to us. He has been working extremely hard to make the North-Western Opera Company, based on Manchester, a reality before the end of next year. Attitudes are constantly improving, but much effort is still needed to persuade the local authorities to do more. The G.L.C. admittedly contribute quite a lot of money to the performing Arts—about £1 million a year, excluding a notional figure for interest on the cost of the Festival Hall complex of buildings. This is a small proportion of London's total revenue from rates. Think, too, of the tremendous advantage to London from the point of view of tourism of the presence of so much artistic activity. The G.L.C. should stop patting themselves on the back about this; they ought to try to do more to relieve the Arts Council of some of their burdens in relation to London.

Before I sit down I want to refer to one further subject; namely, the sending of British cultural attractions overseas. Touring does not end with the regions, it does not end with the United Kingdom. I believe that far more should be being done overseas. A visit by one of our leading companies, by one of our leading orchestras such as the L.P.O., who were in Peking yesterday, does a fantastic amount of good. We should be engaged in promoting interest in our cultural achievements; other countries are not bashful in this regard. We can do so much more.

Last March, Mr. Geoffrey Rippon, who was the Minister for Europe at that moment, said that the Government had a plan for spending a sum not exceeding £6 million over a four-year period to improve our cultural relations with Europe. That figure was the absolute top limit of what might be spent. This sum was not simply to send the ballet abroad or the London Symphony Orchestra abroad, but included the sum of £600,000 for the new building for the British Council and British Institute in Paris, and a whole lot of other things as well. This money is not just to show off to the Continent what we can do in the performing Arts movement.

At present the responsibility for overseas touring, except when it is undertaken on a purely commercial basis, rests with the British Council. In 1971–72 out of their total budget of £15½ million, they spent a quarter of a million pounds on sending the performing Arts abroad. In 1972–73 they had another £2 million added to that total grant, but what they are spending on performing Arts going abroad is just about the same quarter of a million pounds. Knowing what it costs to send one company on an extended tour, a quarter of a million pounds does not go all that far. I suggest that with the British Council having so many important tasks to perform, consideration should be given to transferring to the Arts Council responsibility for sending the performing Arts overseas. I have no idea whether they would welcome this but I believe it makes sense. They are, after all, the body which has regular contact with the various organisations that they support, and they should therefore be in the best position to judge which companies can, and should go.

Following Britain's entry into the E.E.C. the Arts Council are surely going to have to broaden their horizon quite considerably in any event. I think they ought to be given a more specific duty to assist visits to this country of some of the famous foreign companies and foreign orchestras which come here. At present no one really has this responsibility on a continuing basis. The only person who does anything about it is Peter Daubeny, who has done marvellous work with his World Theatre Season. But he has done that for ten years, and he says that this year is the last, so after this goodness knows! what happens, unless he relents. I think the Arts Council should be asked to step in here. Their charter would of course have to be amended, but charters can be changed and the important thing is to assist in the cultural exchanges between the countries because we want to project the best manifestations of our country to the world at large. What I think about this is of no importance whatsoever, but what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has to say about it is very important, so I sincerely hope that he will he willing to express a view in relation to the possibility of the Arts Council taking over from the British Council and to say generally how he sees the development of our cultural exchanges in foreign countries.

I am grateful to all your Lordships for listening so patiently without an interruption. It is like making a maiden speech—it is marvellous. I hope you will forgive me if I have spoken for too long, but I should like to point out that I have been very careful to refrain from any reference to the redevelopment of the Covent Garden Market area. This does not mean that I do not think it is tremendously important, and I am delighted that Her Majesty's Government have earmarked the funds to acquire the land for redevelopment round the Opera House. It is still a long way from getting our dreadful amenities improved, and I am getting so old that I do not think that shall live to see this happen. But somebody will, let us hope, before the century is out. I do not think it would be a good thing if concentration on the regions meant that this golden opportunity were to he missed. We could do so much if we had a lottery. I beg to move for Papers.

3.14 p.m.

BARONESS LEE or ASHERIDGE

My Lords, when the noble Earl addresses this House on the subject of the Arts we all know that he speaks with a lifetime's knowledge and a lifetime's profound caring and therefore everything that he says is worth extremely careful consideration. I was delighted to find that I agreed with practically everything he said. It is most important that he should have reminded us early on that the Paris opera receives £5 million a year. We get better value from our opera companies than any other country in the world. I know, because when I was—I will not say "attacking" the Treasury, but when I was broaching the Treasury in the early pioneer days on this matter, I was careful to have comparative studies made of the cost; but it is so hard for many of our people to accept that opera and ballet must be highly subsidised. It is nonsense to think that we can have the standards which we insist on having unless a civilised Government are prepared adequately to subsidise. Far from Covent Garden or Sadler's Wells having too much money, if you went behind the scenes in the Opera House I. think your Lordships would be shocked. No well-run factory would put up with sonic of the conditions. So let us get that point settled straight away: we are not spending too much on our great national companies.

The noble Earl also touched on this point and I should like to complete what he said. If we go back to 1965–66, when we started the pioneer experiment of having a Minister responsible for the Arts, the four national institutions, the Royal Opera House, Sadler's Wells, the Coliseum, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company received 46.8 per cent. of the Arts grant. By 1969–70 their proportional share was reduced to 32.5 per cent. I have been informed that next year, 1973–74, their proportional share will be less than a quarter; it will be 22.8 per cent.

You may wonder, my Lords, why there is so much criticism and so much discontent in the regions. I try to keep to the word "regions", but we all go hack to using the words "Provinces" and "provincials", which I know they do not like. The reason why there is so much discontent in the regions is a great success story. In 1965 there were only three Arts associations and only one of them, the North-East, had any real content. I can remember the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, putting on his priestly robes and travelling over every inch of this country as a dedicated missionary to try to wake up areas in which practically nothing of a high standard was happening. So we could not give money at that time to Arts associations that did not exist.

The success story is that the entire country is now covered by Arts associations. They are getting more money each year but they are not getting any-think like as much as they need. If I may now go to what I think is the "guts" of the situation, it is not that the Arts Council have not had their allocation of money increased year by year—we are grateful for that—and it is not that a higher proportion is not now being given outside the four great London institutions. What is wrong is that there is an absolute famine of decent concert halls in this country. This is what we ought to concentrate on. It is part of our history, because in earlier times it was always said, "Where there's muck there's money", and the money was made in the mucky parts—in the Black Country, in the coalfields, in the steel works and in the factory towns. But the great landowners, coal owners, steel owners and a great many more liked to spend their money in London and the Home Counties and therefore for historical reasons we have practically no decent concert hall outside London. That is why I consider that the most important departure during the period of the last Government was establishing the Housing the Arts Fund. I must make this clear: some people think that the Arts Council can allocate whatever proportion they choose of the total sum, whether it be £10 million, £14 million or £17 million, to the Housing of the Arts Fund. I think that there would be much less misunderstanding over the whole field if it were more generally realised that this Housing of the Arts Fund is kept by the Treasury under very strict control. The Arts Council have no power to decide the amount they can allocate: the Treasury decide it. Why the Treasury decide it is because it is felt that every time a new project is brought into existence, that is another mouth to feed. So they keep it under tight control.

We were able to start in 1965–66 with a quarter of a million pounds. That quarter of a million pounds had to be used in order to encourage projects over the entire country—sometimes helping new theatres, sometimes concert halls; there were adjustments and variations. But imagine!, a quarter of a million pounds over the whole country. However, we started. The following year, instead of a quarter of a million pounds we were able to commit half a million pounds. That was in 1966–67. There has been a great deal to be thankful for in the sense of the continuity between the last Parliament and the present one in the stepping up gradually of the money available for the Arts. There is now a great network of Arts associations in touch with one another. The great orchestras have associations, the repertory theatres have associations. All that is going forward splendidly. But the Achilles heel, as I see it, is the Housing the Arts Fund, which was kept at half a million pounds for six long, discouraging years. For this reason, there is an almost frantic atmosphere in some parts of the country, a feeling that they were not fairly treated. We must think in terms of the fact that this Fund did not even stand still; because, as the noble Earl has said, there have been rising prices every year and galloping inflation recently. Therefore in fact there was less available to be spread over a hundred and one projects.

What was so important about this Housing the Arts Fund was that it was our first real breakthrough to the local councils; because the local councils were afraid to spend money on the Arts. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, I did my missionary work. No one can say that we did not attend to the regions. We went everywhere. I was received by the civic heads, be they Lord Mayors or chairmen of urban councils, with the utmost courtesy and splendid hospitality. All that I could not get out of them was cash. And this was true whether they were Labour-controlled or Conservativecontrolled—because they thought it was bad business politically and were afraid to touch it. I used to say that my ambition was to make it politically more dangerous to refuse help to the Arts than to give help to the Arts.

My Lords, we have not got there yet, but we are on our way. We have roused the rest of the country and they are determined that they are not going to be second-rate citizens; that they are going to have the best and not the second best. Of course we are proud of the Scottish Opera Company and the Welsh Opera Company and proud of a great deal that is taking place all over; but we have still not solved this problem of buildings. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, is not here to-day. I remember that in 1964, when he was chairman of the London County Council, I went to see him and, to his dismay, suggested that instead of going ahead with plans for a second opera house on the South Bank, that scheme should be modified; that we should go ahead with a national theatre but that the first great purpose-built opera house ought to be outside London. He did not like that proposal. I think I broke the heart of Mr. Denis Lasdun, the architect; but Lord Fiske accepted that it was fair and so we went ahead with the National Theatre.

At that time I was in close co-operation with the late Sir Maurice Pariser of Manchester, who had persuaded me that Manchester was just about ready to provide its share, roughly on a fifty-fifty basis, in order to have a great opera house in Manchester. If that wonderful man had lived, would he have been able to get there? I do not know; but we must accept the fact that it has been tough dealing with our councils. The Paymaster General will correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is true that we have still not had a firm offer from Manchester. I should like to get that point cleared.

LORD RHODES

My Lords, perhaps in the course of my remarks I may say what is the position with regard to Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire and Cheshire. I will reply to that.

BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord is doing a wonderful job; but it is the fact that we were waiting year after year. Let me take the case of my own Edinburgh. I played bat and ball with the Lord Provosts for six successive years, trying to get a commitment. One said. "What about the Government?". I answered: "First, you must be able to persuade us that you will carry half the capital cost." It is a long journey. At the end of the last Parliament and at the changeover we had reached a point where at last Edinburgh was also willing to pay its share and the Government were willing to pay their share. I think it was in June, 1971, that the statement was made that the Government were willing to pay (I think, at that time) £2½ million. I should like to ask the Paymaster General why it is, since the money was made available all that time ago, that we still, as I understand it. have hardly a single stone laid. We do not seem to have got off the ground. That is another thing which is making us impatient.

The idea in 1965–66 was that the number of great opera houses and concert halls must be limited because they are immensely expensive. But I did not think it was too ambitious to think in terms of an opera house in Edinburgh, another in Manchester or somewhere in the Midlands and another in Wales, perhaps at Cardiff. No Government can make up for the shortcomings of the past. For historical reasons there was an absolute dearth of buildings and on this, the most sensitive area, I am deeply disappointed that more money has not been made available for housing the Arts. I know that next year, beginning on April I, we can have three-quarters of a million pounds. I think that is the sum, but I may as well be exact. A Question was asked in the House of Commons the other day, on March 13, about the position in regard to the Housing the Arts Fund. The answer that was given is that when it was introduced the Council were authorised to enter into a commitment for a quarter of a million pounds. In the following and each subsequent year the sum was to be raised to half a million pounds. Then the Arts Council were informed that the sum for 1973–74 would be increased by 50 per cent. to three-quarters of a million pounds. In addition there has been a special allocation of £670,000, to be spent by the end of 1973 for projects in the assisted areas.

We do not look a gift horse in the mouth and we are glad of any additional sums but I want to put it to your Lordships that since this sum was not even standing still for six years, since it was diminished because of inflation, we are only playing with the problem by thinking in terms of upgrading it next year to the still relatively trifling sum of three-quarters of a million pounds. It is about time that we got our priorities right. It seems to me that with some of our Treasury officials, when they are asked to do something for Defence services, for Rolls-Royce or for Concorde, their vision becomes blurred, and the larger the sum that is to be paid from the public purse the more blurred the vision seems to be. You can get away with murder! But when you ask for a modest extra £10 million, £20 million, £30 million or £40 million (because we ought to be thinking of a sum of around £50 million at the very least) for the Arts, what happens to you? You have the Public Accounts Committee put on your tail and are given the kind of examination which the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and Sir Hugh Willett had to undergo, at the end of which it was found that they had a perfect record. The money had been spent perfectly. But part of the trouble was that they were always trying to promise more than they had. Therefore, my Lords, although I have to miss out a great many other issues because we have a distinguished list of speakers who will be talking about films, repertory theatres, and all manner of subjects which I am not going to cover myself, I believe that the Housing the Arts Fund is the very guts of it, and if I can get a promise from the Minister to-day that he will look at this matter seriously I shall be very grateful.

I should also like him to tell me a bit more about the Special Fund that we have, this extra £675,000 for projects in the assisted areas, to be spent by the end of 1973. So far as I can gather, when the Government turned an economic somersault and from being deflationary became inflationary, there was a perfectly proper desire to spend more money in the under-privileged areas in order to promote employment and improve the environment. We have the Home Secretary, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for the Arts getting together, and the Arts Council are told, "This money will be available if you spend it before the end of 1973, so get on with it". I am not sure that that is the best way to go about the job. I am not such a great admirer of the French system: a great deal of central control. Of course, when Andre Malraux was their Minister for the Arts there was a magnificent Press in this country for their Arts centres, the great Maisons des Cultures, but it would be well worth while to find out what happened to most of those great French Art centres. Where they had genuine local roots and were responding to what people wanted they flourished, but where they were imposed on a locality from a centre they have withered away; whereas we can claim that our efforts—quite big in scale in some places and modest in scale in others—because they were properly rooted and in response to what people wanted, instead of withering away are going from strength to strength. But the great cri de cœur is that they require more money.

I do not like the idea of the political Minister telling the Arts Council where it is going to put its varied projects. By all means let us clear away the derelict areas, beautify the old industrial areas, have more employment, and the rest, but what are we trying to do? Are we trying to have a scheme to reduce unemployment or genuinely to meet the needs? I know that the Minister will tell us about the various schemes that have been promoted from this Fund. As I say, we do not say "No" to the money, wherever it comes from, but I still feel that it would be much tidier and more effective if, with whatever sum is made available for housing the Arts, it is left to the joint consideration of the Arts Council and the Arts associations, because they now work conjointly and they would be able to advise how best the money could be spent.

There is another figure I should like to have from the Minister if he can get it in time; if not, I hope that I shall be able to get it later. He will probably know it. At I said, this Housing the Arts Fund was so useful because it was the breakthrough to the local councils and to private donors, charities and the rest. I was immensely encouraged when, after we had committed £2¼ million from this Fund, I found that we had 124 projects of various kinds going which had attracted £10½ million. The breakthrough was that the money was coming from local councils, from private sources and the rest. I have inquired what the present state of play is, and if I have not got it quite accurately I shall be glad to be corrected. I believe that at the present moment about £5 million has been committed from the Housing the Arts Fund and that that Fund's £5 million is helping to support 169 projects. I believe that is the figure. At any rate it is 53 more, so if you add 53 to 124 you have the figure. That is fine so far as it goes, but since there is a genuine desire that all parts of the country should be considered properly, my plea to your Lordships this afternoon is not to be modest in this field. It is not that the great central institutions are getting more than their share. They are getting each year proportionately less of the total, but the total is dismally inadequate.

Then I come to the Royal Opera House report for 1971–72. That caused some of the difficulties for the noble Earl because what he said in fact was, "If you want an Opera House, go and build it and train your own companies." It is rather unkind of me to put it like that and I should much rather put it in the words of the report, which says: There is no other theatre in existence outside London which compares in size"— with the Royal Opera House. This means that the majority of our productions cannot be seen effectively, and we believe that the degree of compromise in presenting them is such that we should not attempt to show them out of London until such time as theatres are built which will enable us to perform them in the way it was intended. You may imagine how you feel when you are told that you cannot expect a visit from the greatest of our opera and ballet companies until you build your own opera house or concert hall.

THE EARL OF DROGHEDA

My Lords, may I just say to the noble Baroness that it was very sloppy drafting. I can say no more.

BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE

My Lords, I know that the noble Earl is caught in an impossible position. I know that he wants to keep perfectionist standards; and he knows the difficulties in some of those old buildings. He says that there is to be no touring this year or next. But at the end of the day two things must happen: we must get ahead with modernising and with building, because there is the basic lack. I believe that the mood of the country now is such that they are just not going to put up with it if they think they are being "palmed off" with something that is second or third-best.

I leave the housing of the Arts. But what about housing the artists? In this field we have an absolutely disgraceful record. We have done nothing about it, and we are doing nothing about it in a situation where the days are over when a painter or sculptor was able to have an attic in which to carry on his work. At one time there was available the whole of Chelsea and the West End; then they went to Battersea and then they were pushed away from Battersea. My friend Bridget Riley and Mr. Henry Moore came to me at one time making a heroic effort to obtain warehouses in St. Katherine's Docks. How they worked in order to try to get a working place for a number of painters and sculptors! This position affects the theatres as well as other things. It is just not good enough. I hope that the Paymaster General will keep a weather eye on any new building. For instance, there is a great deal of talk these days about the development of the whole of dockland, to make there a new and lively environment, a place for people. If it is to be a place for people as well as business it will not be the kind of place people ought to have unless we make some provision for the artists.

I would say to the Paymaster General that we are all grateful for small mercies, but even allowing for the increases that there have been, the very valuable improvements in the grant to the Arts year by year, they do not operate in this field of land values and property values. That is where we are beaten. Therefore, that is the aspect that we should try our hardest to put right. As I said, I accept a good deal of what the noble Earl said about using television films, the cinema and all the rest. Of course, if people cannot have halls for live performances, let us help them in every way possible. But television, radio, film is no substitute for the real thing. I find that ballet is hopeless on television. Opera is better, because you get the essential music. But do not let us anger people a second time by saying, "We are not going to help you to get the halls where you can have the real thing, but we will give you the second best". That is how they will look at the situation. If they have films on the television and the cinema as well, they will be stimulated. Every time you produce things on television you are bringing in a larger audience.

Finally, again I agree with the noble Earl that the Arts are not an élitist minority privilege. The capacity to respond to great music, great art in every form, is to be found in people living in the least salubrious parts of the country as well as the others parts. I have never lent myself to this theory, because I grew up in a home where my father had a great passion for opera, a much greater passion than I had, he having a better musical sense and a better ear. I was used to the old touring companies. I was used to the old music halls with all the fun. We have done a good job on the repertory theatre front. But again, it is not just a case of providing space for the artists to work in or to live in: a great many of the salaries paid to artists are pretty disgraceful. Do not let us forget that if you have been a dedicated musician, the time eventually comes when you retire. For such people there is no pension scheme; even our great orchestras have no pension scheme. Our repertory companies have no pension scheme either. We have got a small toe in the door in that we have been told that next year about 200 dancers of the main companies are to have a pension scheme, they themselves contributing 5 per cent. of their inadequate salaries.

I know that the Paymaster General does not have an easy job. I know that it is important, in your Lordships' House and everywhere else, that we should not indulge in artificial hostilities and tensions between London and the regions; we are natural allies. If we can only get more suitable buildings and more money, there is no reason why we should not all have the pride and satisfaction of holding high the reputation of our capital city, holding its head higher than ever in the past in the field of the Arts, and at the same time get rid of a view very widely held at the present moment, that if you are not living in or near London you are condemned to a kind of second-class citizenship over all this wonderful field.