PUBLIC ART COLLECTIONS: CONSERVATION

HL Deb 04 May 1977 vol 382 cc1060-104

6.13 p.m.

Lord COTTESLOE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress is being made on the problems of ensuring the adequate conservation of objects in public collections. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. Not long ago we were discussing, in the context of Mcntmore, the control over the export of our national heritage of works of art, the danger that the excessively high levels of taxation that in this country we labour under will force private owners of prime works of art —many of which are already on loan in public galleries or otherwise accessible to the public—to put them on the market. The tip of that iceberg was seen last year when five highly important pictures from the Sutherland Collection, all of them on loan to public galleries, were sold at auction.

Certainly if the threat of a wealth tax again rears its ugly head—mercifully, it seems at the present time to be dormant —that iceberg will, so to speak, surface in a flood of sales with which the export control is quite unable to compete. Even if it were able to compete, our public galleries could not begin to find the space to display these things, let alone to look after their conservation. They are for the most part, as I shall explain to your Lordships, quite unable properly to display or look after much of what they already have. There is not much sense in bursting ourselves to keep things here if we cannot look after them when we do succeed in keeping them.

I do not want to go over the ground of our last debate again, except to deplore very deeply the great dispersal from Mentmore that is to take place this month. Although I am delighted to read that the Treasury will be accepting four particular items of the greatest importance in satisfaction of duties, that dispersal will inevitably place severe strains on the whole mechanism for maintaining our national heritage, strains that it is quite unable to bear. That dispersal is, I am bound to say, in my view, totally unnecessary. The National Land Fund, which is said to be either a mythical fund or a mere book entry, is of course, nothing of the sort, The £60 million that Hugh Dalton set aside from the sale of surplus war stores specifically for the preservation of our heritage was not a myth; it was hard cash. Successive Governments of different complexions have been too weak-kneed, and too half-hearted in any real desire to preserve the heritage, to stand up to the Treasury. They have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and have allowed the Treasury effectively to stultify Hugh Dalton's admirable purpose. However, I will not pursue that further today.

No less important than the control over the export from our heritage of works of art, though much less publicised and much less generally known and understood, are the inadequacies of the facilities for the display and for the care and conservation of what is already in public hands or available to public access. It is, I think, common ground that the space for display is quite inadequate, that any great influx into public hands of works of art, thrown on the market as a result of taxation, retained in this country by the provision of adequate funds to hack the export control and enable it to function effectively, would create for our galleries and museums, more particularly in the provinces, immense problems of space for display, let alone care and conservation.

It is, at any rate, healthy that in the last few years a great deal of searching thought has been applied to these problems. We have had, in 1972, a report by the Gulbenkian Foundation, a report of the Committee on Training in the Conservation of Paintings, with proposals for the establishment of an institute for that purpose; then in the following year, 1973, a report of the Paymaster General's Committee on Provincial Museums and Galleries—the Wright Report as it is generally called; in 1974 there was a survey of great importance and value on the facilities for conservation in museums and galleries in this country by the United Kingdom Group of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works; and last year, in 1976, a paper by Dr. Cannon Brookes, the Director of the Birmingham City Museums and Art Gallery, on the training of conservators and curators—it is called after Gulbenkian. We have had these, and others, too.

If I may quote from the Foreword, by the Director of the Tate Gallery, Sir Norman Reid, to the last of these documents, he says: Nothing so far published has convinced any of the five or more Ministers with special responsibility for the arts who have held office during this period that here was a need which could be put to rights with comparatively small expenditure of Government money and which could save many works of art for the enjoyment of future generations".

I should like very strongly to endorse what he said.

The deplorable state of affairs existing in the field of conservation is admirably analysed in the survey by the United Kingdom Group of the International Institute. I shall return to that in a moment. First, I want to refer to the inadequate facilities for display—the acute shortage of space—especially in the provincial museums and galleries. Indeed, that shortage of space is not confined to the provincial museums. The British Museum suffers from some limitations of space and conditions that prevent it from showing parts of its collections, but I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, the chairman of the trustees of the British Museum, is due to speak. I hope that he will be able to tell us some more about the Museum's problems.

The National Gallery has recently opened extensions that have done much to relieve its problems of space for display. The Tate Gallery notoriously has a great deal in store that it cannot show, although much is on loan in Government buildings at home and abroad and in provincial galleries. However, it is even now extending its space by its long-overdue completion of the building on its existing site, and we hope that at some future time there will be a major enlargement in the form of a new building on the site of the Military Hospital next door. In his reply I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will be able to tell us when that long-awaited building is likely to materialise.

The National Portrait Gallery is necessarily and inevitably bursting at the seams. It has eased its problems a little by an excellent additional gallery in one of the houses in Carlton House Terrace and by such loans as the portraits that embellish Montacute and indeed the many portraits that now hang in this building. In particular I commend to your Lordships the row of portraits by G. F. Watts that have recently appeared in the corridor on the north side of the Dining Room. All that is excellent but the National Portrait Gallery needs its new gallery on the Hampton site in Cockspur Street which will, in its turn, enable the National Gallery to obtain further space from the existing National Portrait Gallery site. Perhaps the Minister can give us some information about that prospect.

Then there is the prospect, which we await with anxious impatience, of the South rooms in Somerset House—which, if I am not mistaken, housed the Royal Academy in the time of Reynolds—being used to display some 60 or 70 paintings by Turner that are for the most part otherwise not available to the public. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us how soon that prospect is likely to materialise. There are, of course, such matters as the grossly inadequate arrangements in Leighton House for the National Theatre Museum. When is that likely to go to Covent Garden? There are the deplorable inadequacies of the National Musical Museum which is most unsuitably housed in an old church in Brentford and prevented by a monstrous breach of trust—I am told that it is perfectly legal but it is none the less monstrous—from occupying its natural habitat in the David Salomons Theatre at Broomhill. Your Lordships will recollect discussing that some little time ago.

Of course, there is the appalling scandal of the Burrell collection in Glasgow—an unrivalled collection covering a wide field of pictures, textiles, silver, wood carvings and much else, left by Sir William Burrell to the City of Glasgow more than 30 years ago, with an endowment of about £500,000 to provide a gallery for its display—the gallery to be more than ten miles from the centre of the city to avoid the dirt and murk of the Glasgow atmosphere. That gallery has not yet been built and nor has the whole collection ever yet been exhibited, though parts of it have sometimes been shown. I believe that there are at last some plans for building a gallery in the grounds of Pollock House—not indeed more than 10 miles from the centre of Glasgow as directed by Sir William Burrell's will, but I shall let that pass. I recognise that the Minister is not in any way guilty of the sins of the City Fathers of Glasgow, which are quite unforgivable, but perhaps he can give us some information about the prospects there, for I have a nasty feeling that the Glasgow Corporation will even now take advantage of inflation to defer indefinitely any action in building the gallery.

Those are only a small sample of the deficiencies of space for display which in general in the municipal and provincial galleries and museums are so extreme that they have at times to refuse highly desirable gifts which are offered to them. Those deficiencies are, of course, aggravated by financial stringencies that in some cities necessitate the closing of rooms in municipal galleries owing to staff shortages and so on. For example, in Birmingham I am told that since 1919 the closure of galleries for various reasons has reduced the space available for the display of paintings by nearly 50 per cent.

I need not tell your Lordships that these matters are very relevant to the problems of conservation, not only because lack of space for display is accompanied by lack of space needed for conservation services, and the shortage of staff for invigilation accompanied by a quite inadequate establishment for conservation, but also because when works of arts of many kinds have to be kept in store they are in general kept under conditions that increase the risks of deterioration and lack the constant supervision that brings promptly to light the need for urgent conservation of works that are always on view.

I should now like to turn to the particular problems of care and conservation. The report of the United Kingdom Group of the International Institute reveals a very serious position indeed. I am advised that the position has not materially improved since the publication of the report in 1974. The report tells us that about one-third of the 461 museums and galleries included in the Group's survey have a growing backlog of material awaiting conservation treatment; and that after allowing for the material that might never need treatment, more than half the contents of present collections still await conservation treatment. It tells us that a significant proportion of potential acquisitions are being turned away because of recognition of the shortcomings of the conservation facilities. It also tells us that the most urgent need is for more trained conservatorial staff in the fields of fine art, archaeology and ethnography, industrial archaeology, science and technology and natural history.

The report tells us that only about one-half—in fact, 51 per cent.—of the museums and galleries have any conservation facilities at all; that in the provincial institutions there is an almost complete lack of trained conservatorial staff and that 60 per cent. of them do not have enough equipment for the work that they have to undertake. It tells us—glimpses of the obvious—that the most effective way in which to reduce the load on conservation services is to improve environmental control in storage and display areas; but that monitoring of environmental conditions is carried out in only 13 per cent. of the institutions; that only 9 per cent. of exhibition areas and 2 per cent. of showcases throughout the country have any relative humidity control; and that, respectively, only 10 per cent. and 2 per cent. have any air filtration control. I need not tell your Lordships that it is variations of relative humidity and insufficiency or absence of air filtration that do the worst damage. It tells us that there is a national shortage of trained conservators, and also of facilities for training, so that out of some 200 practising conservators at the time of the report only 80 had received proper training, and that a high proportion of those 80 have to spend a good deal of their time on non-conservation duties.

Such is the nakedness of the land, and although the number of galleries that are air conditioned has increased in recent years, air conditioning is almost confined to the national collections, and is still not by any means universal even in them. The result is of course a progressive deterioration in the condition of the material held in public collections. And, after all, there is not much sense in exerting ourselves to keep things in this country if we cannot look after them properly.

I hope profoundly that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, when he comes to reply may be able to assure us that the Government have a programme for steadily improving all these matters, and to give us some particulars of that programme. The great efforts that are made by our museums and galleries, and by private individuals and also through the medium of export control, to prevent the dispersal of our heritage of works of art and of history, must be largely stultified unless they are matched by the facilities for display and the care and conservation of items of that heritage that are retained in this country.

6.32 p.m.

Lord HALE

My Lords, I find myself, as I nearly always do, in a slightly embarrassing situation even for one who at one time never gave way to embarrassment. I put my name on the list of speakers largely because I had taken up this question with the noble Lord on the Front Bench, who is always extremely courteous to me and who sent me what information he could, and because he also said that further steps were being taken and he would be able to report a little later. Therefore, it seemed to me, as I had not spoken for a long time, that it would give me an opportunity of speaking briefly on a subject about which, of course, I know nothing at all except that I make extensive use of museums and libraries, and so on.

I also anticipated that I should have the privilege of hearing the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, speaking with great learning and authority about the British Library and its reorganisation, and as still, I think, a trustee of the British Museum. This, unhappily, put me in some great difficulty when the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, opened his extremely informative, knowledgeable, and useful speech, because my interpretation of the words on the Order Paper is not quite the same as his.

When we started with Mentmore, for which I have some sympathy, I was rather afraid that when I got round to the problems of Oldham I should seem rather a long way away from the subject. Oldham, after all, is one of the centres of civilisation, and I am able, with the utmost courtesy, at once to score a devastating point against the last speaker, by saying that, once again, so far as I know, in having surveyed the progress, he has omitted Lancashire altogether: that great centre of the arts, great home of poetry, and indeed the industrial town which, at the moment, has as living members, Sir William Walton, Mr. James Fitton, one of the best known of the Royal Academicians, and Miss Eva Turner. So Lancashire makes no little contribution.

I do not want to trespass at all on theology, but it was said recently in this House that the Lord is responsible for the meteorological conditions, and so on; and the grant which a beneficent Providence gave Oldham as a foundation of its prosperity, and which enabled us to spin cotton in conditions and on terms which no other country could match for many years, is also responsible for the fact that we have a severe burden of bronchitis and of buildings suffering from dry rot and every form of wood infestation, and so on, the normal accompaniment of damp. I have personal experience of that. I only mentioned Oldham as representative of the urban conurbation because Oldham has not got too bad a problem, as I understand it, but it is a serious difficulty which is affecting the maintenance of collections in Lancashire.

When Members opposite went amok and indulged in the most astonishing series of local government measures, we reached the stage that for one thing, Oldham is now part of Manchester, yet is nothing to do with Manchester for another; and that there is no means of finding out without much more research than I am capable of at 75, as to who is responsible to whom and for what. What we do know is that, entirely to its credit, Oldham embarked on a literary and museum development in the quite recent past. It acquired a director of museums and libraries of considerable ability and great enthusiasm. With a very old and almost unusable building and some modest developments it was enabled to open a new, what they call, social history museum.

Although, historically, I know nothing about it, and indeed being colour blind—I believe most art critics are, but it is a very common complaint—I would merely say, on recent information, that it would be a great mistake to think that Mr. Keating would be available to replace all the masterpieces that are destroyed by damp or by any other means. Indeed, last night half-way through the programme on television I went to bed.

My only acquired piece of information was that the art racket has become really something of a public disgrace everywhere, that fraud is rampant in almost every part of it, and of course that the preservation of works of art is not going to be a matter either of the reproduction of that delightful word "pastiche"—how I wish I had had that at my disposal in some of my own cases, where defending persons charged with forging shares and so on—but that the gangland criminal is making the transport of art treasures a matter of the very greatest difficulty, and that the cost of insurance has now reached the position of being almost wholly prohibitive.

I do not want to upset noble Lords who are about to have their dinner, but from personal experience I know that one gets a letter from one's insurance company asking one to double the amount of insurance cover to match inflation, and when that has been done they promptly double the rates they charge for that insurance. I do not blame them for that because where I live people just walk in and take things out; I do not have much and most of the stuff of the slightest value that I have is bulky. The amount of housebreaking that goes on in the area of Dulwich is really something of a tragedy and something almost of a burlesque. Having got one to increase the insurance cover to match inflation they promptly double the rates of insurance because they say one lives in a dangerous area from the insurance point of view. Then one is advised to keep up the increased insurance figure because, now that one has valued the objects for them, they warn that they will reimburse only a proportion of the amount under claim.

Dulwich College Museum and Art Gallery, which is one of the loveliest of the smaller museums in the metropolis with a valuable and diverse collection including some remarkable examples of British art of the early 19th Century, faces a quite special problem in view of two recent and well-publicised experiences. In one, priceless pictures were removed and, in the other, by one of those mistakes which seem to occur in the best run institutions—and this is a very well-run institution beyond peradventure—a gentleman was seem riding off on a bicycle with a very valuable picture, but fortunately the picture was recovered with the slightest possible damage.

The problem of preservation has greatly increased. It is no doubt a very good thing that the British public do not take the advice of Degas—that pictures are not painted to be seen—and are acquiring the habit of wanting to see good pictures, and they have had ample encouragement to do so from that brilliant organisation, the British Museum, and of course from the Royal Academy, which seems to me to be one of the most civilised organisations on earth. It almost destroys my theory that civilisation begins North of the Trent. There is a unique demand by the public; the Turner exhibition, which I believe called attention to some very natural and obvious deterioration in some examples of that vast collection, much of which had never been put on view, was a spiritual experience of the greatest possible value.

Of course in Paris, which I have not been able to visit for a good many years, they have recently had that famous exhibition from the time of Francis I—from the time when Leonardo was in the Castle of Amboise to the time, 50 years later, when Benvenuto Cellini was there under Henry III. That showed pictures in a quite miraculous state of preservation, including many pastels—not of course technically pastels because the term had not been used; chalks perhaps—such as "Dust Upon A Bee's Wing".

We in Oldham have our problems in this respect. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said that we were getting assistance over a large area out of a £770,000 fund. I do not know how many museums that includes. Of course, a 100 year old building in the North is something that frequently cannot be repaired; the Castle of Amboise endures but not the building on the Seven Hills of Oldham or elsewhere in the North. I know that these things have been considered before. Nothing I can say can add to human knowledge about them, but perhaps my words can add to human urgency. We spend a great deal of time opening charming branch libraries and developing the book service; the present Government had spent quite a lot of time closing them down on the ground of financial stringency, and we must satisfy our artistic aspirations with a view of an £80 million ship of considerable beauty which was launched yesterday.

Tastes, we are told, are changing. They are changing to such an extent that pre-Raphaelites have to be kept in the cellar almost permanently, and I have no doubt that the general taste of many people would support that. However, tastes are apt to change very rapidly indeed and noble Lords will notice that the man who is an expressionist one day is an impressionist the next, and a year or two later he is something else. Let us remember that down in the bowels of the museums is a good deal of the social history of the people. There is a good deal of local history in painting and a good deal of the things one's parents loved and one's children and grandchildren may love again. They are not really there to be kept, at considerable expense, without being shown.

I hope Lord Donaldson will be able to tell us that something has been achieved, at least to see that we can be sure of the safety and future of these treasures. Perhaps, by the amalgamation of the general organisation of the many museums and art galleries in the conurbations of the North, we can make use of the common services of all in the location, distribution, exhibition and preservation of these immensely valuable resources.

6.49 p.m.

Lord TREVELYAN

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, both for raising a very im- portant practical Question and for making it unnecessary for me to declare my interests. Among the main objectives of museums are, of course, the acquisition of significant objects and the exhibition of a fair proportion of them. I feel that the noble Lord has virtually challenged me to say why we do not exhibit more of the objects that we possess in the British Museum. There are many reasons: on one or two occasions, it is a question of the fact that we cannot get the right conditions for exhibition. For instance, we have had to take the Chinese lacquer out of the King Edward VIIth Gallery because we cannot assure the proper temperature and humidity. In the same way, we cannot put out many of the objects destined for our new Japanese Gallery because we have not yet achieved the correct temperature and humidity. I am not blaming anybody for that and I believe that we shall get it right. Of course, it is perfectly true that we have not enough space, but it is no good our acquiring large buildings elsewhere at the moment because, as soon as the British Library has taken away its books, we shall have a great deal of space. We are starting to plan for that.

There are many other reasons for not exhibiting particular items. For instance, prints and old drawings cannot be exposed to light for more than a certain period and therefore we cannot exhibit more than a few at a time. Then again, there is the question of modern methods of exhibition which demand less objects on view. This is to be seen in the new presentation of the Graeco-Roman objects in the British Museum and, to see what should not be done, one has only to look upstairs in the Vase Room and see rows and rows of vases, which are rather shattering except for the real expert.

Then again, objects must be generously lent. We do that. We have in fact started a new programme of lending objects to provincial museums for indefinite periods. Then we have to make the objects available to scholars on the Museum's staff and to scholars and students from outside and to use the objects as an aid to general education. In each case, the focus is on the objects. A primary responsibility of the trustees and staff is to preserve the condition of those objects while they are exhibited, stored, handled or moved about. Conservation is an essential part of museum work, including the need to control the conditions of exhibition, the handling of objects and their preservation from the ravages of time.

The problem of conservation in museums has been made more urgent by the large quantity of material newly found by excavation in this country and abroad and by the belated recognition that the environment of storage and display in many musuems is detrimental to the objects. In the British Museum, which is the largest conservation centre in the United Kingdom, we have many experienced conservators working to good effect, but we were not wholly satisfied with either our organisation or our achievements. On the initiative of the late Director. Sir John Pope-Hennessey, we instituted measures of reform. The keepers of the departments must retain full responsibility for the condition of the objects in their charge but the conservators working in the departments have been organised into a self-contained service under its own keeper. By this means we have begun to rationalise conservation work by materials so that all important work on a specific material can be concentrated in one place in charge of experts in that material. Though each department still has its conservation officers working in it, some of our staff have found it a little difficult to get used to the new system, but I believe that they have now begun to recognise its advantages, among which will, I hope, be improvement in the status and career prospects of the members of the conservation service.

As yet, we have not been able to put the new system fully into effect because our main difficulty lies in finding enough centrally located space for workshops or experiments. We are very fortunate in having the advantage of the facilities of our laboratory which, having been built up by Dr. Werner, we regard, with justification, as one of the finest museum laboratories in existence. However, we still have to extend our experiments in conservation methods.

I believe that the proper training of conservators is only in its infancy. We hold very strongly to the belief that the prime requisite for conservation officers is skill with the hands. That must never be forgotten, since a man given only an academic training course will not by that means be made a successful conservation officer. Of course, some knowledge of elementary chemistry from 0-level up to a degree is desirable, and we give special facilities to our conservators to acquire the requisite theoretical background. On the other hand, we do not lose sight of the need to emphasise that conservation is, in essence, a practical job.

We run an in-service training course of two years, which, with a further three years of intensive supervision, makes a versatile and competent worker in this field. We should like to extend this service to outsiders when our own immediate needs are satisfied, but that depends on our having the space and money to do it. I also hope that, in due course, we shall be able to provide training for museum staffs in the developing world as part of a system of general co-operation which we are now trying to start with its museums and archaeologists.

I do not wish to use this opportunity to criticise in detail the Report of the International Institute for Conservation, though I think it in some respects unsatisfactory. In particular, I suggest that the proposal to establish a national conservation centre is impractical. Surely, the right way to develop a body of expert conservators is to enable the museums and libraries, which have a vast quantity of objects needing expert treatment and a trained body of conservators, to extend their knowledge and skills to external students.

Emphasis has recently been given to the serious situation arising from the fact that the Department of the Environment provides adequate funds for rescue archaeology in this country but not for the conservation of the resulting finds. I trust that both the central Departments and the local authorities responsible for the excavations concerned will take on some financial responsibility for the treatment of the objects found.

Finally, may I repeat that the problem of conservation is urgent and important. Acquisition of objects for public collections is not the end of the problem. The authorities concerned—Government, local authorities and museums—have the absolute responsibility for the objects in their charge. I should like to end by giving one or two instances of present conditions in the British Museum. The first is a field in which that responsibility has been admirably carried out by cooperation between the Department of the Environment and the British Museum. It is the storage and study centre for ethnographic objects in Orsman Road, where the most favourable conditions have been realised for the preservation of the notoriously delicate objects of ethnographic interest. Another very good job of conservation which has been done has been the stabilisation of the Amaravati sculptures which are now in a specially air-conditioned and properly treated room in the basement. Unfortunately, it is impossible to put them on public show, though people who ask can always see them. They were in a dangerous condition, having originally been cut the wrong way. They were very friable and extremely liable to damage. However, I believe that they arc now stabilised and in good condition. On the other hand, we have one part of the museum where everything has been put ready for the air-conditioning, including removal of all the natural sources of ventilation, but the air-conditioning machines are not there. The need is not only for treatment of an object by a skilled man but also for the provision of suitable conditions for the display of delicate objects.

Much has been done and we are most grateful to the Department of the Environment and for the personal interest that has been shown in our affairs by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. We look forward to their further co-operation and, when funds are available, to receiving the money which we so badly need for this very important purpose.

7 p.m.

Viscount ECCLES

My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Cottesloe for raising the topic of conservation. It is a subject in which I have been interested for a long time, and from time to time I have had some opportunity to forward action in this field. I should like to say that I agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, has said about the British Museum. I think that the work done there is splendid and is going forward every year with more success. I want to call your Lordships' attention to the conservation of only one particular class of objects; namely, books and manuscripts. Your Lordships have a direct interest in this problem. In our Library, as has happened in almost all collections open to constant use, the number of books requiring attention has been allowed to increase year by year. We are not exceptional. The aggregate of arrears awaiting treatment in all British public libraries must run into millions, and each volume will, if it is not cared for, deteriorate still further.

The life of a book is unpredictable. It depends on the quality of the paper and the binding, on the conditions in which the book is kept, on the frequency and care with which it is handled, and on the regular procedures, if there are any, for refurbishing minor defects as they appear. Books are like people: they develop serious complaints when the first signs of wear and tear are neglected.

Out of the 70,000 books in your Lordships' Library, some 5,000 require skilled attention, and many of those 5,000 would not have become "hospital patients" if there had been a vigorous programme of refurbishing. The position is much worse in the British Library, in which I must declare my interest as chairman of the hoard. There, out of approximately 9 million books, almost 1 million volumes require a repair of some kind; and your Lordships would be given equally horrifying figures if you consulted any old, established library in this country and abroad. I suppose that the decay has been so gradual that those responsible did not notice what was happening.

So the conservation of books is a large national problem. It will always be with us. Nothing can stop the accumulation of the fruit of man's intellect, so much of which will always be made available in printed form. I want to confine my remarks to two areas in which there is much to be done if the results of' past neglect are to be reversed. These areas are research into the methods of conservation, and, secondly, the recruitment, training, and organisation of many more skilled bookbinders and repairers than we have at present. I think that this is a typical case and could be applied to other crafts.

Books have always been made out of a small group of materials: paper, vellum. leather, cloth, and so on; and the chemistry of these materials has been well researched. We know why they deteriorate, and in what conditions deterioration can be slowed down. The first necessity is an air-conditioned building—something very different from the National Library of India in Calcutta, which has no air-conditioning, and where the books are exposed to extremes of heat and humidity, and dreadful damage is done to the books. But here, even in London, nobody thinks —and we have just heard an excellent discourse on this point from the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan—that the old British Museum building was satisfactory for the conservation of books. Fortunately the Government have at last agreed to a new building where the conditions can be scientifically controlled. Until we can transfer all the books from Bloomsbury to this new building we have to go on fighting against dust, draughts, damp and fluctuating temperatures.

There is also the question of how often the books are handled, and under what conditions. Careless handling is certainly the book's greatest enemy, and each library has to make its own rules about that, and the rules ought to be very strict. On the other hand, research into the materials that go to the making of a book and into the methods of using the result of that research benefits everyone. So such research should be organised between libraries, and internationally. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, speak of Dr. Werner and the laboratory at the British Museum. The work which was done on leather bindings attracted worldwide attention. I know that several of your Lordships make use of the British Museum's techniques in your own libraries. I have myself given to three or four noble Lords the magic liquid in two bottles, and the printed instructions. I hope that they use them.

The British Library, as a successor to the British Museum Library, carries on with, and is developing, this research. We are hoping, for example, to collaborate with the Association of Leather Manufacturers in the preparation of leathers likely to have much longer lives, and we are devoting particular attention to the processes by which the knowledge of book materials can be translated into the effective treatment of the books themselves.

I should like to give your Lordships just one example. The paper on which books have been printed differs very much in quality. Some papers remain white and robust for centuries; others very quickly go brown and brittle as a dead leaf. Over time the quality of paper used in books has fluctuated up, and down again, and, sad to say, today publishers are rapidly reducing the quality of the paper that they are using because they are trying to cut costs by every possible means. As your Lordships know, quality is a certain casualty in an egalitarian and inflationary age. It does not matter how clever the scientists and technologists may be—all around you, you will see that the quality of goods and services is deteriorating.

Therefore research is very important, and research has told us how to take the acid from paper, but we can do it only page by page. That is too expensive. I was asked £35 for the washing of a small book—admittedly it was foxed throughout —which describes a raid on Quebec in 1775 by a band of United States guerrillas. They were thoroughly defeated. We cannot afford sums like £35 a book when we have hundreds of thousands of books that need to be washed. Therefore, we must discover a process for treating a book in one operation, not page by page. The chemical research having been excellently done by the Library of Congress, the British Library are commissioning research into the process by which this chemistry is applied to the books. That, I think, is a good example of the international co-operation which will have to grow in this sector.

Now I turn to the training, recruitment and organisation of the skilled labour needed to expand the facilities for the conservation of books and manuscripts, and I think that the story that I am going to tell your Lordships is matched by similar experiences in other conservation crafts. It is right, as the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, said, that we must have more skilled curators, but they have to be backed up by technicians, and the fact of the matter is that in many of the conservation sectors there are not enough skilled craftsmen to do the job.

Lord TREVELYAN

My Lords, if the noble Viscount will forgive my interrupting him, I meant to say that we must have more skilled conservationists, otherwise, the technicians.

Viscount ECCLES

I beg the noble Lord's pardon. It is because of my connection with books, where we want so many more, that technicians bulk very large in my mind. Your Lordships will see that there are practical steps which we should be taking, but which will be difficult to take unless old restrictions and prejudices have been swept away. In the field of books, we can distinguish three types of demand for which adequate facilities do not exist at present—and, for two of them, the facilities are very far from adequate. There is, first, the straightforward binding of books, journals and papers as they come into a library. The Official Report of your Lordships' proceedings or the Commons Hansard are good examples. Also, we must rebind run-of-the-mill books which are falling to pieces through age and use. This is a routine operation, fairly mechanical and well performed by Her Majesty's Stationery Office binderies; and when the capacity of those binderies is not sufficient the Stationery Office is co-operative in helping us to contract out to private binders. What we do not yet know is whether the capacity of the private binderies is adequate to take all the orders with which the Stationery Office itself cannot deal.

Secondly, because after a time use always shows up in wear and tear, a regular system of refurbishing is essential. In most libraries known to me the amount of refurbishing has never been satisfactory, or, I may say, even nearly satisfactory. Yet the training of a refurbisher is not difficult; it does not take much time. But there can be obstacles placed in the way of recruitment by those whose interest is in rebinding and major repairs. This would he like doctors rationing vaccinations for fear that there would be empty beds in fever hospitals. It makes no sense at all when the volume of work on major repairs so vastly exceeds present facilities. Thirdly come the major repairs. This is by far the most difficult category to deal with because a book may have to be taken apart, the pages washed or laminated one by one and the precious binding restored with utmost skill. This is handwork which cannot be mechanised. The skills take some time to learn, but, in these days of a vigorous revival in the crafts, men and women wishing to learn, and young people coming from school or college, are not now difficult to find.

So we have to ask some questions. How many skilled craftsmen are there capable of doing this work? How many more are needed, and what are the obstacles to their recruitment and training? Are the binderies, big and small, well equipped and well organised; and is the pay structure attractive? We do not yet know all he answers to these questions. The Stationery Office bindery, which does this special work for the British Library, is situated on the British Museum site. There is another at Colindale; and another upstairs in your Lordships' House, which does as much as it can, but the arrears continue to grow, of this quality of work for your Lordships' Library. The quality of work they do is first-class, and we are very proud of it, but their output is far below what we need. I have taken some trouble to find out: other big libraries are in the same critical difficulty, unable to cope with their growing backlog of major repairs. We must therefore ask the help of everybody—Government, employers and unions—to achieve a large expansion in this essential conservation craft. I should add, my Lords, that there are very important export orders, especially from the United States, which now have to be turned down because the delivery dates are so uncertain. Just to check this I rang up what I consider to be the best binder in London, and he said, "I cannot take anything in under 15 months. "For an American library which has, in the past, constantly used our facilities, that, of course, is rather a long time to wait; and we are losing good export orders.

Now let me have a look at the trade. First of all there are the smallest units. In Britain today we lead the world in individual artist bookbinders. I cannot remember a time when that was so—at least, not over the last hundred years—but it is so today. Work on this craft can be done at home. It has a great appeal, especially to women; and there could be a large increase in the number of self-employed binders and repairers if the flow of work was well organised—it would need someone like the British Library to organise it and if the powers that be were more sympathetic to the self-employed. Either to become self-employed in this craft or to work in a bindery, a boy or girl often needs financial help for a year or two before they are capable of earning their living by this skilled trade. They have to learn alongside a skilled craftsman. The Government are offering training grants, but the offer will not do much good unless the pay structure is attractive to trained craftsmen, and unless the unions put no restrictions on new recruitment.

I have to say that up to quite recently the restrictions imposed by the unions did great harm to this trade. The number of apprentices was severely limited—one to four craftsmen. Parents brought a boy, eager to start and with a good report on his talents from his school, and the bindery wanted to take him, but they were not allowed to take him because their quota was full; or, if their quota had allowed them to take him, they would have been permitted only to pay him less money than he could earn if he went delivering newspapers. Then, my Lords, there was a severe discrimination against girls. The men allowed girls to repair books; the men refused to allow girls to bind books. We have 1.4 million unemployed, and when the demand for bookbinders and repairers so vastly exceeds the capacity of the trade, let us hope that all those restrictions can be over and done with.

As a matter of fact, things are now better than they were, and I am very glad to be able to report that. But the damage has been done because the number of craftsmen has decreased. Your Lordships will remember, perhaps, that I told your Lordships on another occasion that we lost one of our best craftsmen from our bindery when he went to Fleet Street to earn 50 per cent. more in tying up newspapers with string. It is that which has done the damage, and it is going to he very difficult to expand this craft when those in it now are too few and, on the whole, rather old. The right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Employment must come and help us here.

I must end by reminding your Lordships of three basic facts. The backlog of books requiring skilled attention is enormous, and is growing all the time. Many millions of pounds will be required to get rid of it. The number of skilled craftsmen in the binding business is far below the demand for their services; and the organisation of research into methods by which books can be conserved is a major aim of the British Library, to be developed in co-operation with other libraries.

I want to add a word of gratitude to Her Majesty's Government for understanding the urgency of the requirement in the British Library and for giving us a grant which has enabled us to allocate in our budget the sum which I think we can usefully spend on the programme of conservation while it is getting under way. But the British Library is exceptionally fortunate. What the nation needs is a new attitude towards the conservation crafts and wholehearted co-operation between employers, unions and Government to expand their numbers and to ensure a good living for those who take up such satisfying work.

7.20 p.m.

Lord VAIZEY

My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for raising this important and interesting Unstarred Question. Twenty years ago the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, started the drive to technical education and I am pleased that he is maintaining his interest and enthusiasm in this particularly important sphere. I am chiefly interested in the preservation of pictures, drawings and paintings, and I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to certain developments which are taking place in that field and to certain needs which I hope my noble friend will take into account in his reply.

I was fortunate enough to be a member of the advisory committee of the Gulbenkian Foundation which received the report presented by Sir Colin Anderson and his colleagues on training and the conservation of paintings. This important and valuable document, which the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, referred to, takes its part in years of interesting and important study of this very complex and difficult question. Broadly speaking, as I understand it, at the moment there is a good course for practical people at Gateshead Technical College in the North of England and I hope this work will be encouraged and stimulated. The Courtauld Institute also produces important people who will work in the conservation of paintings and drawings; and the national collections themselves are very essential parts of the training process of people engaged in this fundamental work of conservation.

There are, as has already been pointed out, remarkably few people in this business. There are, all told, something like 200 people in this country doing the conservation of art objects on a professional basis and, as has already been mentioned, some of them are not employed full-time and have to do other jobs as well. Consequently the number of people trained each year is relatively small and there is not much point in training many more because the jobs are not there for them to take up. The reason why the jobs ate not there is that the museums and galleries, public and private, do not have the funds to pay the salaries of large numbers of people; and this is why so many of the galleries which should be available to the public are, in fact, closed—because nobody is there to open them.

Sir Colin Anderson and his colleagues on this committee, who worked very hard, proposed an "Institution of Conservation" in London, in a building which would be well equipped and would serve not only the national collections but also the great private collections, such as those of Her Majesty the Queen, the National Trust, and others which are scattered up and down the land.

My Lords, conservation in this country is a remarkably recent thing. I think that only just over 30 paintings were treated in the National Gallery between 1900 and the time when the noble Lord, Lord Clark, took office as Director of the National Gallery. The noble Lord, Lord Clark, was one of the people who gave a great push to the nation on conservation. Up to then, unless I am mistaken—and the point which the noble Lord, Lord Hale, made is important—conservation was rather subsumed under the heading of restoration which, in certain stages, had gone almost to the point of repainting or imagining what the painter might have done originally had he been wishing to sell to certain rich clients in the late 19th century.

The number of people engaged in conservation, therefore, is exceedingly small. It is very difficult work. It requires craftsmanship, it requires a deep knowledge of the arts and, increasingly, a knowledge of the sciences. I particularly strongly support the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in his plea for the development of technological research in the whole field of the preservation of art objects and books. Interestingly enough, because the Secretary of State has been most interested in that particular aspect, as was the noble Viscount, Mrs. Thatcher, who was trained as a chemist, took a particular interest in the work of the national museums in this particular field. As has been pointed out, the obligations for restoration are extraordinarily large. Rather than the couple of hundred people who are already working here, many thousands of people could be employed in conserving what we have already got. There really is an enormous difficulty.

When this report was published by the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1972, while their work was, broadly speaking, greatly welcomed, their recommendation for a large institute was not generally acceptable to the people who were chiefly concerned with the preservation of our national collections. What the Foundation did, wisely, I think, was to give some support to the valuable work being done by the Courtauld Institute in this field, and also to come to the help of the University of Cambridge, which had been fortunate enough to receive a handsome benefaction from Sir Hamilton Kerr, the late Member of Parliament for the City of Cambridge, who on his death left his beautiful house, South of the city, and half a million pounds to the university. Together with the grant made by the Gulbenkian Foundation, the university have now started, under the auspices of its magnificent museum, a very small, nevertheless potentially important, process of producing people who will be able to take part in the work of conservation.

In my view, looking at all the work done by the various committees and talking to people interested in this particular field, we need now a consistent view which goes right across the public sector (those galleries and museums which fall within the responsibility of my noble friend on the Front Bench and of my noble friend Lady Birk and other Ministers,) and also the private collections. I was glad to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, had to say about the generous intentions of the trustees of the British Museum in this respect who are going to play such an important part ultimately in helping generally to train people in this field. That is exceedingly sensible and helpful and I am sure that other noble Lords will be grateful for that news.

There are two levels of the problem. One is that the job of taking part in conservation is, on the whole, not very well paid and is not one which leads to great careers. I echo strongly the words of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in this particular field. It is something where in the long run we must look at some kind of upgrading of the salaries and conditions of work. It is interesting work; and people who are prepared to undertake interesting work often get very badly paid in consequence. It is also the kind of work which is ideally suited to people who work part-time, to people who have. perhaps, some disability and who want to work at home, and to people who are elderly and so on; for it requires time and skill but it does not require an eight hours' stint as does work in a factory.

The other problem is not just, I think, the question of paying the rate to those engaged in the work but the question of whether or not the nation as a whole can afford to pay for the conservation of the works of art we have in our possession. I must honestly say that in my view the country does not so much need more art objects, as to look after the ones that we have. I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Hale, said about the problems of the provincial museums, echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe. Candidly, it would be a pity if a lot of the objects likely to be exported as a result of various auctions that are to take place were exported, but we can hardly complain if that happens when we are not really looking after or displaying much of what we already have.

It would be very unfair indeed to the public service not to draw attention to how much is already being done. Most of your Lordships will have seen the great Montagnas at Hampton Court which have been so beautifully restored. Near where I live, Chiswick House is in the process of being magnificently restored by the Department of the Environment. The grounds are being restored to their original 18th century plan. It would greatly help if the citizens of Chiswick would give up taking dogs into those beautiful grounds. One place which excludes dogs is Kew Gardens, which is why, generally speaking, it is much nicer to walk in Kew Gardens rather than other parks. Kew Palace has been restored in a splendid way by the Department of the Environment. We can honestly say that the last 20-odd years have seen some of the most remarkable rehabilitation work that the country has ever seen. We should pay tribute to the people who have done the work and organised it under Governments of different complexions.

The real difficulty which faces any Government who are going to be responsible for this is that there is pressure to spend money on objects which we think are good, while, in general, we all want to cut public expenditure. On the whole, what we would argue for is a slight switch of emphasis to conserving what we have rather than acquiring too much more. Unless I am greatly mistaken that has, generally, been the policy of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in this particular respect.

If I may venture a slight way outside the terms of the Question which the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, asked, I would also like to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that the two committees of the Gulbenkian Foundation I have had the privilege of chairing—the committee on training for drama, and the committee on training for music—not only do not propose any increase in public expenditure, but in one case propose a substantial reduction. I hope that that very welcome and unusual series of recommendations will commend the two reports to the noble Lord on the Front Bench.

7.23 p.m.

Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON

My Lords, I must apologise for not having put down my name to speak. I have told the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and he kindly said that he did not mind my speaking. I intervene simply because my noble friend Lord Cottesloe was a member of a committee of which I was made chairman by my right honourable friend Mr. Geoffrey Rippon, who was then Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment. This committee bought pictures for British collections in Embassies, Legations, Ministries, Consulates, and so on. It was a Government collection for public purposes. I was very proud to serve in this office and my noble friend Lord Cottesloe was one of the more distinguished people on that committee.

I became interested in the way that what had been the Public Building and Works Department operated. One forgets that palaces like Hampton Court, where the Montagnas are on view in the Orangery, have been splendidly restored by what is now the Department of the Environment. This work has been going on the whole time. When in office, I also had the great honour on occasions to deputise and speak for the Minister of State for Scotland. The Department of Public Building and Works in Edinburgh (it is now in Argyll House, and owes half allegiance to the Secretary of State for the Environment and half allegiance to the Secretary of State for Scotland) runs a splendid late-16th/early-17th century building in South West Edinburgh, where it has 60 or 70 people repairing and lending works of art-everything in the charge of that Department; it may be a fresco on a wall, a painting on a ceiling or a Viking tomb.

This development started with the Scottish National Trust, but they found themselves unable financially to continue a few years ago. The Public Building and Works Department took that over. I should like to pay tribute to the Department for its work which has not been publicised. The work going on in the great banqueting hall at Stirling Castle is encouraging more stonemasons. This does not involve a collection, but nevertheless it is one of the more historic buildings in Scotland. That building is being restored and is the means of training more stonemasons.

This sub-department of the Scottish Office and the Department of the Environment is doing so much good. Those concerned do not say, "This is not within our permit"; they tackle nearly everything. I congratulate the Government on having such people and pay tribute to the Departments concerned for the work they are doing. The Department of the Environment has under its control many buildings which are not normally considered as part of public collections. This work is going on so well. The Montagnas at Hampton Court are perhaps the greatest example of what has been done. in Scotland there are many others. My Lords, I should like to apologise for intervening.

7.38 p.m.

The Earl of PERTH

My Lords, I, too, apologise for not having put down my name to speak. I will be brief. I thought it would be of use to your Lordships to know more about what is happening in Scotland. The noble Lord who has just sat down referred to the work done at Stenhouse—and very fine it is too. It extends to all types of objects, not only for public works but it also gives advice to private organisations. Last winter I was asked to chair a seminar which we had at Hopetoun House. Its terms of reference were to discuss a national conservation centre and the form which it should take. The interesting aspect was who was present at the seminar. We had all the various museums and galleries represented, some from Scotland and some from England. As secretary to the seminar we had a representative of the Scottish Civic Trust. There were also representatives from the Scottish Tourist Board, the Lothian Regional Council; local authorities were involved. There was the small business department of the Scottish Development Agency, the National Trust for Scotland, and so on.

The point I am trying to make is that for us in Scotland there is an awareness of all public bodies, which is not restricted to museums and galleries, that this question of conservation is one which affects many and is also something which might be described as a useful small business, a useful place of employment for all the various craftsmen about whom we have heard so much from the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who himself did a great deal when he set up a Craftsmen's Advisory Committee in 1971.

It is not for me to anticipate the outcome of the report which is being drawn up as a result of our seminar by two young ladies who were specially charged to do the research with an endowment from a private trust. But I think one point came out clearly from our discussions; namely, that one cannot isolate the public collections from the private ones. One cannot isolate the work done by public restorers from that done by the trade; nor should you, my Lords. There should be an interchange of experience and work. That is a vital point. It is my guess that one of the points which will be developed as a result of the study I have mentioned is the recognition that very often what is needed is a kind of information centre to which anybody can go to find out where they may have their particular object best preserved and who are the right type of craftsmen to do the work which is required. So, although we are deeply indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for asking this Question and enabling us to talk about public collections, I do not think we should forget the inter-relationship between private and public, and we should do all that we can to encourage it on all sides.

7.42 p.m.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, when I first saw that this Question was down on the Order Paper, I wondered whether the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, was going to discuss the reorganisation of the House of Lords under the heading of "The Conservation of Objects in Public Collections"! There was also a moment during the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hale, when I thought he said he was going to be kept in a cellar. Then I also remembered that the last Conservative Government passed a Bill which I believe covered the preservation of ancient wrecks, or something of that kind. Clearly, this has been a subject of some interest to us over the years.

My particular interest in the conservation of objects in public collections has been confined to 3,000 tons of iron sitting in a dock in Bristol, in the shape of the steamship "Great Britain". I also have to declare an interest, in that I sit on the Maritime Trust, which is interested in old ships. I was, of course, very grateful for the mention made by the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, to the matter of housing the piano museum in that splendid building, the Science Theatre, in Kent. Last year, the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, turned about as deaf an ear as I have ever heard the Government turn to the monstrous behaviour, as I would term it, of his Department and others, who have totally disregarded the wishes of the Salomons family, who gave the Theatre to the nation, and continued to use it for the training of cooks instead of for the preservation of music in this country. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, could save the Department of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, a little money if he could persuade him to allow the museum to be sent down there. It now seems that I have declared another interest I had no thought of when I started this afternoon.

As usual, we have produced the predictable number of experts in this House in a debate which I am sure has been very well worth while, even if this appears to be an inappropriate time for us to be discussing services which inevitably demand more money, when we have to spend so much of our time bewailing our impecunious plight as a nation and exhorting everybody except ourselves personally to tighten the belt. I think we can confidently predict it will not always be so, and indeed I have to say that some of us feel we could possibly accelerate the process towards recovery in this country if we could only get on with advancing the date of a General Election—but perhaps that is not the kind of point one should be making in this House at this hour of the night. Let me say that it in no way detracts from the personal regard we all have for the present Minister for the Arts who is to reply to this debate.

I believe that, in spite of our present financial constraints, we should not fall into the kind of Catch 22 situation which always seems to bedevil road construction for example. When money is scarce, all development stops. Then, when money becomes a little more available, there seems to be endless delay before anything can be done because of all the planning procedures we have to go through. So perhaps it will be useful for us at this time to get on with sorting out our priorities and making plans, in the hope that they will not be bedevilled by a total sense of unreality. And, of course, a tight money situation puts particular emphasis on the effective use of such money as is available.

I was very interested in talking to somebody in the National Trust the other day, who made the point that on occasion too much money has damaged almost as many works of art as too little. He put it this way, that many over-cleaned and restored paintings might perhaps have been better still left on the walls of the house of a banker or Peer. The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and it surely emphasises the need for proper training of conservators and the dissemination of the techniques which are presumably continually evolving and being improved. That is certainly true of the problem of ship preservation; and the point has been made a number of times this evening, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, of the need for a research unit, with particular reference to the need for chemical expertise.

I am happy to say that it was our Government which, under the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in 1972 made a rapid advance in providing money for the Area Museum Councils. It was founded half by the Department of Education and Science, and half by the local authorities, and much of that money was specifically intended for conservation. Here, again, I thought it was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, referred to Mrs. Thatcher's part in that. Perhaps that gives us a little reassurance for what might happen one day.

I find some difficulty about the word, "conservation", which is one of my "un-favourite" words because it is used by about four different groups of people in totally different connections. For example, to an oil man it means something totally different from what it means to an environmentalist. My understanding of what we are talking about here is that it is mainly the consolidation of what is there. Possibly in the case of paintings we are talking about restoration, but I believe that current thinking is very frequently not in favour of over-restoration of archaeological and other objects. Here, too, perhaps one could refer to the curious anomaly that I believe was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, that the Department of the Environment backs the excavation, but neither it nor the Department of Education and Science gives equivalent backing to the preservation of the objects once they have been found. So perhaps I may ask the Minister: could he dig something out of his fellow Department in this connection?

Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON

With great respect, my Lords, may I ask whether my noble friend Lord Strathcona heard my noble friend Lord Perth or myself say that at Stenhouse a lot of people are completely occupied in restoring things like Viking tombs which have been found, and not in just looking for them?

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, I am not going to engage in an argument with my noble friend, and of course I am delighted to hear that; but it was not the information which I was given when I was preparing for this debate. It will be interesting if the Minister can put us right as to exactly what is the situation. What has been said time and again this evening is that the greatest lack still lies in proper training facilities. I believe that the Institute of Archaeology takes, principally, students from abroad. I have also heard an alarming report that there is a very severe brain drain to Canada of those few conservationists who are being trained in this country. This points up the need that was referred to by several noble Lords, to make sure that if there is a training course there are adequately paid jobs waiting for the people whom you train; otherwise, you will not get the entry, and if you do get the entry then, once they have trained, they will all go off to work somewhere else. Perhaps the answer lies principally in the encouragement of the national museums to help with training for the Provinces.

It was encouraging to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, said about What is going on in the British Museum; he mentioned that many experienced conservationists are being produced. But the question is: Will these conservationists be made available to the Provinces and, indeed, to other outside organisations; and, again, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said, to the private collections which, as the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, mentioned, are available to the public and to that extent can be considered public collections so far as this argument is concerned? But this also raises something which I know used to worry the Arts Council very much in the days of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman; that is, the strong centripetal force which we have in all these areas—everything tends to come to London.

I hear that those who have been trained in Gateshead all come to London; and one of the great problems, unquestionably, is to try to fan out some of the expertise and make sure that it ends up in the Provinces. I do not believe that the problem is very serious for the great central national collections, in the way that it is for the smaller collections and museums out in the Provinces. It is a w hole philosophical area on which I will not expand, because I think that the point is generally accepted. May I ask the noble Lord one specific question: Am I right in understanding that it is not considered that this kind of training is suitable to give under the job creation scheme? If that is so, can he tell us why, because it seems rather a pity. In a modest way, the job creation scheme has been one of the recent success stories for which the Government should be given proper credit.

There is one other point which puts me in some difficulty, as I shall explain. There seems to be something of a disparity between the money made available through the Arts Council, and the money made available through the Department of Education and Science to the area museum councils. For example, I gather that in the North-West something like 15 times as much money is being distributed through the Arts Council as is being distributed through the area museum council grants.

The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge)

My Lords, may I deal with this question now? The sum of approximately £770,000 which goes to the area museums is paid by the Standing Commission, and it is their decision as to where they think it can best be used. There is no connection at all with the Arts Council.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, I suppose that the connection ultimately comes back to the Department of Education and Science, which decides how much the Arts Council and the area museum councils will get. Is that not true?

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

Yes, my Lords.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

But in any case, my Lords, as an erstwhile chairman of an arts festival, it ill becomes me to suggest that the under-nourished arts should be starved more than they are. However, it seems fair to make the point that there appears to be something of a disparity in the grants being made to the rather evanescent performing arts, whereas we must remember that we are dealing with the irreversible nature of the decay of works of arts and of archaeologial objects and treasures.

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but there is some confusion here. The responsibility for all these non-national museums is local authority or private, so there is no question of the Department of Education and Science dealing with them direct. All that the Department of Education and Science does, which is quite new and has multiplied by about seven times in the past four or five years, is to give some money to the Standing Commission to use where they like. But this is at least half a local authority problem.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, that goes some way to clearing up a certain amount of confusion in my mind. I am fully aware that if you are giving this much to the performing arts through the Arts Council, there is obviously a pressing case to do the same thing through the Standing Commission and the area museum grants for the other activities. But the point I am making is that we are dealing with an irreversible process, in many cases, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said. Once an object deteriorates beyond a certain point, then very often much of its interest and value cannot be recovered. Furthermore, to try to catch up again is a much more expensive operation than preventing it happening in the first place. It is genuinely a case of saying that prevention is better than cure. We should be in the business of prophylaxis. But, of course, the effort is very tiny, and I think that that merely tends to emphasise how great a value we can obtain by comparatively modest injections of money in this area.

One further and final point is that lively museums and collections, where cherished objects are imaginatively displayed, are subject to increasing public interest and esteem and they can, indeed, be made to pay. Also, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said, there is a good spin-off in terms of the demand for the craftsmanship which we create. I believe that this is a good investment, as well as an act of faith and a demonstration of our belief in the future, and that it would be showing a sense of responsibility towards those who come after us. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to tell us that some of our aspirations are not daydreams, and that we can usefully be employed in setting out guidelines for the more prosperous years which we hope are not too far away.

8 p.m.

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

My Lords, I am very pleased with the course this debate has taken. I hoped that we would focus public attention, in so far as anything said in this House is respected by the public, on the difficulties which confront the country relating to conservation. I wanted the difficulties to be clearly stated. I do not have a great deal of comfort to give, but I think I have some. After spending about 13 months in this position and paying between 35 and 40 visits to places outside London, I have become aware that there are very serious problems. However, I must say—and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, will not mind my saying so—that the impression I have gained from these tours is very different from that which he gave to your Lordships' House. There are great problems and disappointments, but I have been enormously struck by the quality of objects, the skill of display, the dedication of the people concerned in the museums and galleries and the excitement which is generated among them by the treasures which they have. Quite honestly, if we allow the noble Lord's picture to stand, including some adjectives which I rather wish he had not used, we get a very false impression. This is not to say that there are not very serious worries. There are, and this is why I was so pleased to have the subject ventilated.

The noble Lord, and other noble Lords —it is not an absolutely unknown precedent here—have spoken about a number of matters other than conservation. I want to speak about conservation, so I shall deal only very briefly and peremptorily with the points which were made, most of which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, in his most interesting opening speech. The noble Lord spent 14 out of his 18 minutes on the capital programme, a matter which I have not come here prepared to discuss. It is absolutely no use discussing the capital programme at the moment. However keen anybody in this House may be to take off the brake, it is not coming off at the moment and it is probably not coming off for several months, if then. Therefore, it is not very helpful to say too much in defence of what has been stopped.

There are one or two pieces of information which I can give the noble Lord. The Burrell Gallery is nothing to do with me; it is to do with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. I am informed that he has offered the Glasgow City District Council a grant of up to half the net cost of the proposed gallery. The City District Council have been asked to reply by 30th June and they are now considering the matter, in consultation with the Strathclyde Region. Discussions on various aspects of the project are taking place between officials of the Scottish Office and the Glasgow City District Council. Therefore, whether it is 9, 10 or 11 miles away for which they are planning it is not a dead duck, as so many projects are.

Turning to the National Theatre Museum, I announced in this House that the museum would go ahead in the basement of the Flower Market at Covent Garden as soon as designs were complete. The money required from the various people concerned, including my own Department, is now available, and, unless anything goes wrong, the National Theatre Museum should go ahead. When I went around the National Railway Museum a couple of days ago I was pleased to find that they have bought a very large extension, which it will take them a couple of years to use properly. This was very encouraging. The Musical Instruments Museum is a private collection belonging to a private individual. Although I know a certain amount about it, and there have been difficulties, I am not going to say that this private individual has or has not been properly treated by somebody who is in no way connected with me. It is not a matter about which I should be asked to answer in today's debate.

The National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery are different matters. The Tate extension is "on", but undated. The National Portrait Gallery is uncertain as yet as to exactly what it wants to do. When the National Portrait Gallery is certain, it does not mean that it will get the money to do what it wants to do immediately. It means that a plan will then be accepted, and in due course it will get the money. However, as the noble Lord knows, there are two plans and there is some doubt as to which will be accepted. I have very clear views about it, but I shall not disclose to the House which plan I think ought to be accepted.

I cannot help my noble friend Lord Hale very much about Oldham. It is not one of the places that I visited. However. I shall certainly do so and make the most intense inquiries about it. I was glad that my noble friend referred to Dulwich. I suppose that that Soane building is one of the most beautiful in London. Indeed, it is one of the most perfect galleries to be found anywhere. It is a private gallery and its chairman and trustees are perfectly prepared to discuss anything, but it is more difficult to tell them anything than it is a local district council. I cannot say more than that! They are doing what they think they ought to do. Their suggestion of making certain sales is before the Charity Commissioners, and I do not know what the result will be. However, it is a situation which it is very difficult for any Minister to interfere with.

I think we were all fascinated by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan. It was tremendously reassuring —not that I needed to be reassured, but other noble Lords will be reassured—to hear how well our major institutions are being run, despite the difficulties. I am particularly pleased about two matters. I am pleased, first, by the noble Lord's modest—not refutation but feeling that we should not accept the whole of the 1974 report as absolute gospel; namely, the report of the United Kingdom group of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Many people in the museum world were very annoyed about the report. Also, it is three years old and many things like Whittlesford and Courtauld have happened since then. I am all for making a case. On the other hand, I think that one noble Lord overmade that case. Secondly, I am delighted with the promise made by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan—perhaps it was not quite a promise but the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, referred to it—that in due course he may be able to train conservators for outside as well as inside his institution.

The question of books, about which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, spoke, is absolutely terrifying. It is so large. The suggestion of doing work at home seems to me to be absolutely sound. If there is any way in which I can help or get my colleagues in the Department of Employment to help, under the aegis of the British Library, we shall he absolutely delighted to do so.

I should like to point out two matters about which I do not suppose noble Lords know. First, an admirable small bindery is attached to the Exeter Public Library. It is doing really beautiful work and is getting ready to accept orders from London, if necessary! Secondly—this is only a very small matter, but it will interest the noble Lord because it is supported by the Crafts Advisory Centre—the late Dick Crossman's widow is starting a binding system down at his farm, which I am going to open in about a fortnight's time. It is very interesting. Things are happening.

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, however welcome all these matters are, my noble friend Lord Eccles referred especially to the situation in which the self-employed find themselves. Any pressure which the noble Lord could bring to bear on the Treasury regarding the self-employed would be particularly welcome.

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

My Lords, I have said that if the noble Viscount likes to consult me I will do what I can to help. My pressures on the Treasury are not always very effective, but they are easily available.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, praised us, which is always nice, and so did the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, about what has been done; and I think Chiswick, Osterley, Kew, Somerset House, Temple Newsom—which I saw the other day, done not by us but in Leeds — Hampton Court and the rest of it is something which again does not ring absolutely the same note as the noble Lord's opening speech. A good deal has been extremely well done and some of it is brand new. I think we should remember that. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and the noble Earl, Lord Perth, both said how splendid is the situation in Scotland and I am very glad to hear it. That is not my responsibility so I can rejoice with your Lordships.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, said one thing which I think no longer applies, namely, that as many objects are spoilt by too much money as by too little. This has been true, but I do not think it is now. I believe there is enough information easily available about how to do things properly to prevent that.

With regard to job creation, I am informed that trainees in conservation would not normally be eligible for assistance under the job creation programme, as the object is to assist employers to create new jobs and not to provide support for trainees or facilities for training. It is expected that persons taking up the newly created jobs will have sufficient skills or experience to carry them out with a minimum of training. But I must confess that, having been round the country, I have seen quite a number of job creation people working in museums. At the Railway Museum the other day, they had a group clearing an area, and I should have thought that a little deft work could produce a good deal of training as well. This is something which might be worth taking up, to see whether or not it could be extended; but of course job creation is not really concerned with training.

So much for the various points raised. There are a number of things I want to say and I will say them as quickly as I can. I want to begin by saying that conservation is not about finding or collecting or restoring; nor is it about displaying, hanging or even cataloguing. It is concerned with the prevention of deterioration in objects which have been found and collected so that they can be catalogued and displayed. It involves many different techniques for the many categories of objects involved. This point has not been brought out this evening. Modern science has helped to make some of these techniques very complicated indeed: easel paintings, watercolours, prints, statuary, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, woodwork, metalwork, books, papers, manuscripts, musical instruments, clocks, industrial and agricultural machinery, the findings of archaeology and, in a different category, of marine archaeology. The list really is almost endless and each category requires a different technique. So we are speaking about a very elaborate and difficult subject.

Lord TREVELYAN

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will remember that I spoke to him about the rationalisation of conservation in the British Museum on precisely those lines, by specific materials.

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

My Lords, I do remember and I am most grateful for the reminder. But as the field of human endeavour and knowledge extends, so will the list of objects to be conserved extend and new techniques will be required. For example, the Science Museum is now faced with the problem of conserving the new alloys and metals used in thin sheets in various space applications —rockets, satellites and so on. This is a new, difficult and entirely different area from what has been going on before in metal preservation. But human curiosity continues to find, to unearth, to collect and to deposit, by sale or by gift, its treasure trove with museums for safe keeping.

In this debate we are being asked to estimate to what extent our arrangements for carrying out these tasks are adequate. I suppose the difficulties really are twofold, and this has been brought out in the debate. Many museums and galleries have a vast backlog of material awaiting treatment and this is coupled with a shortage of trained conservators. What ought we to do about this? The Government's immediate responsibilities are to the national museums and galleries. So far as these institutions are concerned, it has been Government policy over a number of years to give priority to meeting their needs for the conservation of their collections and for their security. In the last financial year, out of a total Government expenditure of £18 million on the national institutions more than 5 per cent., or £900,000 was being spent by those institutions.

A recent survey by the Museums Association has shown that in 1975 about 5 per cent. of the local museum salaries bill went to conservators. This sounds not very different from the national figure; but is it enough—not in percentage, but in absolute terms? What may be adequate for the national institutions, which in general have kept up their expenditure through the years, may not be adequate for other institutions, where in some cases very serious backlogs have accumulated. I think we must take a long look at this whole question. It is not at all certain that the owners, whether private—and, after all, I suppose the greatest part of the national heritage in this country is still privately owned—or local authority, or university or Government directed, or any of us are paying enough attention to this or spending enough money on it. The difficulty is to provide the money. But having done so, it is also very difficult to find the highly skilled conservators. That is why such things as the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, has told us as regards what he is doing in the British Museum, are so encouraging. My noble friend Lord Vaizey referred to Whittlesford and the Courtauld Institute, and I believe to Gateshead; but there are a good many other university courses and such things, although these are the most important ones. However, we have to be very careful not to train a lot of people when there is no money to employ them. This is a double problem.

At the moment my feeling is that the training of experts in the fine arts—that is to say, in easel pictures and possibly even in watercolours—is adequate for the number of posts that this nation is going to be able to afford for the moment, which is not to say that it ought not to be able to afford more, and that is something. In some of the other disciplines, and particularly archaeology, that is not the case and we want to do more. We asked 15 institutions to look at this. The answer came back that there was a shortage in ideal conditions of something like 50 posts in all disciplines over the 15 institutions, but particularly in archaeology. To show how difficult it is to make sense here, the list included nine additional posts in archaeology alone at one museum where there is no space for them at present even if their salaries could be paid.

So these calculations are very difficult. In fact, for a long time I have been convinced that the way to meet the present needs for training is to develop an employer-based system, and I think in general that that has been the verdict of noble Lords who have spoken today. This means that the prospective employers—that is, the public collections—must have a hand in planning the training and education involved, and there must be an arrangement under which the training part of the course is carried out in close collaboration with the collections. There is a wide variety of ways in which this can be done. Clearly, a field exists for the training of those who are already in employment by secondment, by day release, by leisure-time courses, or by private study. Then there is the arrangement arrived at between an educational institution and the collection, or a professional body and the collection, to provide a course of education and training jointly. There are "sandwiches" of education and training of many kinds.

I think this is developing and it has developed a good deal since the report which the noble Lord particularly quoted was made. But we have all the time to have regard to the capacity of the public collections as a whole to provide subsequent employment. We have already seen that courses for museum curators can produce candidates in excess of the numbers likely to gain employment here. It is all too easy for training and educa tional institutions to diverge from what the employing organisations think is needed. We have to match the supply to the demand both in terms of quality and of quantity.

If I may turn from this question of training, I referred earlier to the Government's part in financing help to the local collections. It has been possible to substantially increase help for the conservation of local collections through the services of the area museum councils, which I spoke about earlier. Their resources in England have risen from £241,000 in 1973–4 to an estimated £1.8 million in the current year, one-half of which is paid for by Government grants; the rest is put up by local authorities. The estimated expenditure by the councils on conservation in 1976–77 was £600,000. This is a notable contribution to the care of the objects themselves and to raising standards generally. The area councils also make a significant contribution to the training of conservators through joint arrangements whereby the cost of training is shared with local museums or local authorities.

I have drawn the attention of interested bodies to the report by the Crafts Advisory Committee, which was not one of the reports mentioned by other noble Lords but which is an extremely interesting one; we have circulated it and drawn the attention of interested bodies to it. The Crafts Advisory Committee is very active in this field. Grants to £3,000 per annum for each of two years towards the setting up of pilot schemes for conservation training in local museums have been made to Brighton and Lincoln to encourage particular craft conservation skills. The Committee also assists conservation activities generally over a wide field. Notable examples are £16,000 towards the equipment of the textile conservation centre at Hampton Court run by Karen Finch, which most noble Lords will have visited, and other significant amounts towards several textile seminars; workshop training grants towards a wide variety of activities in the conservation of textiles, books and bindings, clocks, music boxes and musical instruments, et cetera. In addition, a new textile conservation workshop, which seemed to me quite excellent, has recently been opened as part of the museum building programme in converted premises belonging to the V and A at Osterley. Again, if noble Lords have not seen it, it is well worth looking at. So there is a good deal going on here.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, who raised the question about ways in which more help can be given towards the conservation of archaeological finds, the suggestion being, not entirely inaccurate, that money is provided for digging up the material and then not enough money is provided for keeping it safe. The Department of the Environment is responsible for digging it up, and, broadly, for stabilising the condition of the material uncovered so that it can be accurately reported on. I am fully aware of the need to conserve objects brought to light in this way. In fact, a couple of days ago in York I saw those digging on the Viking site there, and I saw the level of conservation undertaken so that what they found could be passed on. This is happening to some extent. We are aware of the problem and my Department is having discussions with the Department of the Environment to see whether we cannot work out something to bring together resources available to the two of us or to that department and the area museum councils to whom some of the material was going with a view to conservation of these objects. It is early days, but we are working along those lines.

My Lords, the Government have been criticised in the past for not encouraging a centralised institute for conservation, but I think every noble Lord—certainly the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey—who has spoken, has concluded that the recommendation in the Gulbenkian Report is not suitable to our conditions, and that the way we are going ahead now is probably the better way. We agree with my noble friend that concentration of the very varied arrangements needed for conservation is not the best course for us to pursue. We have a decentralised system, where conservation is carried out, as we think it should be, under the control of those who are responsible for our great collections. It would make no sense to take the experts away from those collections and set them up, at some consider- able cost, in a new institution. In fact, the money which the Gulbenkian Foundation were prepared to give to a new institution has been admirably spent with the Courtauld and at Whittlesford.

We believe that the present dispersed arrangements at the national institutions are right and that, so far as our restricted resources permit, we must go on giving priority to the present arrangements. We welcome similar arrangements made for local and private collections and believe that all other owners of works of art should ask themselves whether they are giving conservation the priority it deserves. This is in their own interests as much as the nation's; the value of a work of art must depend on the extent to which, and the skill with which, it has been conserved. We have shown the way with our own collections and others should follow.

My Lords, I am only nervous that what I have said may sound a little complacent. I can assure your Lordships that neither I, nor my Department, nor my noble friend Lady Birk and her Department, are at all complacent. We are fully aware of the very serious problems which confront us and we are quite determined to make some progress in dealing with them. I think that what I have said shows that rather more than nothing has been done since that report in 1974. I repeat my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for raising this matter tonight.

Lord COTTESLOE

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I thank him very much for the reply that he has given to a number of well-known key questions. I think we all appreciate the difficulties of this subject from the point of view of the noble Lord and his Department, and we appreciate the work that he is doing. May I also say that, if he feels that I used language that was too strong at times, I was not speaking in any way as a reflection on the enthusiasm and ability of individuals concerned or of the quality of the work that they do, for which I have the highest admiration. I was speaking of quantity rather than quality. Perhaps I may also thank all noble Lords who have taken part in what I think has been a very useful discussion of a subject on which public attention is perhaps not sufficiently focussed.