HL Deb 28 November 1978 vol 396 cc1154-75

Second Reading debate continued.

3.56 p.m.

Lord GIBSON

My Lords, I think we are very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Reigate. I support the Bill which he is reintroducing. I admire his perseverance; and I trust that this Bill will prove less controversial than the subject we have just been discussing. Perhaps I might be allowed to add that the noble Earl, Lord Perth, who is prevented from attending your Lordships' House this afternoon because he has just come out of hospital, telephoned me last night and asked me to associate him in the strongest terms with Lord Reigate's Bill. It is a month since the committee in the other place reported—and, incidentally, if your Lordships want to know precisely what Lord Perth thinks, his evidence is there, and very well given and very comprehensive it was—and if this afternoon's debate on this Bill elicits from the Government some indication of support for the principle behind this Bill, then we will be reassured.

My Lords, the Government are on record as saying that they want to preserve what we have all now come to call, for the want of any other phrase, the national heritage, and that they want to increase its accessibility to the public. As chairman of the National Trust, I should like to say how much I share that objective, and I hope to keep them up to the mark. If the principle of this Bill is adopted, that will be a pretty good step forward in the direction they have, they say, at heart.

The Government have, I think, three weapons in the pursuit of this objective, and one of those is the Land Fund; but to put the Land Fund in context I should like, if I may, for a moment, to refer to the other two. The first is the fiscal weapon—concessions to private owners of historically interesting property to encourage them to maintain that property for public enjoyment; and, of course, inducements to sell works of art and objects of historic interest to the State, where the State wants them, rather than to another buyer. The Government have already begun a policy of that kind, of giving inducements and making concessions. For myself, I think that that weapon needs further refinement and improvement before the owners of historic houses, at any rate, are likely to take much advantage of it; but the Government have begun that policy—that should be acknowledged—and the process may continue. That is a question for another day.

The second weapon they have is the system of grants to the owners of historic properties, whether they are private owners or public—trustee owners, like the National Trust. The National Trust has been a major beneficiary of the system of grants from, of course, the Historic Buildings Council and the Countryside Commission. It is wrong to associate the National Trust exclusively with buildings. It tends to be so in the minds of some noble Lords. The emphasis is also strongly on the countryside and we have had a great deal of help from the Countryside Commission. I might for the record correct the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, about the Historic Buildings Council. It is not a point germane to her argument but, for the record, the Historic Buildings Council does not get its money from the Arts Council; so that it does not compete, at that level, with Covent Garden. It gets it from a different Department. But that is a minor point. The National Trust has been a major beneficiary of grants from Government bodies. It is eligible only like any private owner of historic property, but I am sure that we must be much the largest beneficiary. There are the first two weapons.

The third, my Lords, is the Land Fund. Here, again, the National Trust has been a great beneficiary of the Land Fund and we are grateful. Many famous houses and large stretches of countryside have come to us through the Land Fund. In proposing that the status of the Land Fund can be changed—and, as I think, improved—I do not want it to be thought that the Land Fund has not done any good. It has done a great deal of good; but it could have done more; and times are changing. It is worth mentioning that we have had Hardwicke, Ickworth, Saltram and, lately, Cragside, and many others which I will not mention. Therefore, I am not being purely critical of the Land Fund. It has operated not wholly without benefit. Perhaps I could also take the opportunity of saying that the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has shown herself to be—how shall I put it? I want it to sound like homage—a great friend to the conservation movement and her heart is in the right place. She cannot always do what she would like. We must continue to press her; but her heart is in the right place on this matter.

But the situation is changing. The National Land Fund perhaps was not so necessary in the 1950s and 1960s and, although I share the objection of the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, to what happened when it was stripped of its funds, one must admit that there was a different climate of opinion at that time because it was an entirely different situation. The threat is now upon us to a much more serious degree than before because of the twin pressures of inflation and taxation. Those two together are posing a threat to country houses large and small and to our heritage in all its aspects. And just at the moment when the threat is greatest comes the revelation—as I think it is to most people—that this national fund is not a contingency fund at all. I will not weary your Lordships with this point. It is one that has been made before but it is the principal point. Here we do not have a reserve which can be used when there are other pressures on public expenditure. It competes with other forms of public expenditure. It can only be a reserve and a genuine contingency fund if it can be easily used when it is most needed; and that is not the situation at the moment. In the memorandum to the committee of the House of Commons the Historic Buildings Council put it well when it said that the resources of the Fund are simply not available in a form appropriate for the expenses of unforeseen rescues. Since that is one of the purposes for which it was set up, the argument for changing its status and handing it over to independent trustees is, to me. unassailable.

The recommendations of the committee are admirable and I spent part of last week-end reading the evidence. There is a lot of evidence and one cannot help but be impressed by the scope of it, the detailed and expert nature of it and the representative character of it. To me, it was always an added sterile and barren argument whether it constituted an addition to public expenditure or not. Of course, it almost certainly did so, because of the way it was arranged by the Treasury. But it should not have done so; and from now on, we ought to see that it does not. The committee relegated that added argument to its proper place and brought out the point in its principal recommendation that the Fund must be a genuine reserve. What is in it should be able to be spent without competing with other forms of public expenditure. That is the case for the independent trustees.

My Lords, there are two specific recommendations which I may mention in that report to which I hope the Government will give sympathy, encouragement and support and have embodied in any change that they may make. These are very important to the National Trust. One recommendation is that the Government should implement that section of the 1953 Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act which relates to the power to give endowments. We have taken from the Government properties with deficit grants and this does not work well. I do not want to lead your Lordships to think that we do not work well with Government Departments. We do so extremely well; but we do not always have the same priorities; and I am resolved (and so is the council of the Trust) that we will not take properties without endowments in future. Once we have taken them with endowments, we will stand by the endowments and we will find any deficit, if it then arises, by public appeal or from our general funds. But, I am afraid that we shall be rather demanding in the endowments that we ask for because our past experience is that we have not asked for enough. I do not think that we ought to rely any more on annual deficits.

The second recommendation which is important to us is that the Government should allow works of art taken in lieu of taxation to remain on the walls or on the tables of the houses or places with which they are historically associated unless there is some special reason for removing them. We shall be told that all this solves nothing since the Fund will run out and will have to be topped up. That is true. Of course, it does not solve the basic problem at all; but it does provide the means of solving it. In the end, only the Government can judge what proportion of our national resources to devote to the preservation and conservation of our heritage and, in my view, it is neither more nor less likely that they will take a sensible view of the relative value to a civilised, and, incidentally, very tourist-dependent country. The more our productivity declines in relation to that of other countries, the more important it is that we have good things that people can come to see so that we can earn some money in that way. But it is neither more nor less likely that they will take the view that I should like them to take of the relative importance of our heritage—whether you have an independent fund or not. The independent fund simply gives a better means of implementing the basic decision which one hopes they will take about the amount of resources that they are prepared to devote to this matter.

I can only hope in making their final judgment over the years about the resources that they will take note that this is no longer an elitist interest, if ever it was. There were 20 million visitors last year to open houses, 5 million of them to National Trust houses. This is some indication of the proportion which went to private houses and of the importance of sustaining those houses. The National Trust cannot manage all those houses. The National Trust has 750,000 members and I cannot believe that for each one who got around to joining there are not at least another nine or 10 who have the same general approach to life and who will join—when we catch them. So that we shall have 7 or 8 million in a few years' time. It is not an elitist thing at all. It is a great national pleasure and an international pleasure.

My Lords, these are hard times but this morning I went to the Historic Buildings Council's 25th Anniversary exhibition, a little party before lunch in the banqueting hall. There I saw a picture of the Staunton Harold church. I have not been there for many years. Above the door outside the church there is an inscription to the builder, Sir Richard (or Sir Robin) Shirley. It says: A singular praise it was to have done ye best things in ye worst times and hoped them in the most calamitous". I commend that to the Government as a motto.

4.10 p.m.

Lord SANDFORD

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend in the main purpose that he has set himself in introducing this Bill for a second time, and to welcome his second initiative. I should also like to join with him in acclaiming and applauding the report of the Public Expenditure Committee of another place, which we now have available and did not have available when the Bill was first introduced to us. I speak as one who was the Minister responsible for a number of these aspects for three or four years and I confirm from my first-hand experience both the need for and the value of this measure.

I should like briefly to deal with four points. The first is the purpose of this Bill. When Dr. Dalton introduced the National Land Fund, he described his purpose as being that of increasing the national estate. I think I am right in saying that he would not carry the members of my own Party with him in that objective. There is no strong evidence that the mere nationalisation of our heritage does very much to improve it. I hope, on the other hand, that we are agreed among all Parties to rephrase our objective now as being that of safeguarding the national heritage without worrying too much about the ownership. If we can address our minds to that and consider the national heritage as being made up of things belonging to the Crown and to the trusts—the National Trust in particular—and things in the care of local authorities and in private ownership, we shall get on very much better. Without necessarily renouncing Dr. Dalton—that would be too much to ask—I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that she joins with us in the objective of safeguarding the national heritage. I hope that would be the purpose about which we would agree, whatever Dr. Dalton may have said 32 years ago.

Secondly, I should like to refer to the name of the scheme we are setting up, I do not think it is consistent with Clause 2 of the Bill itself to continue to call this the National Land Fund Bill. I want to say a word or two in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, in a moment. The fact of the matter is that we are dealing with the entire national heritage; it is more than land, and the Public Expenditure Committee has recommended a change of title to National Heritage Bill. On the whole, I think that is better. On the other hand, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, that we certainly want to see land continuing to be one of the main items which this fund is used to acquire. Although, as the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, has said, there is immense public support for saving works of art and other chattels, I suggest that it is land such as the cliffs of Pembrokeshire and the Chilterns, and some of the prize parts of the National Parks, which is on the whole enjoyed by a larger part of the population than any of the other things that we are talking about.

The third point is not one I need spend very long on: it is the main point made by other speakers; namely, we must do whatever is necessary to make sure that expenditure from the Land Fund—or the National Heritage Fund, as I hope it will be called—is not in future to be regarded as public expenditure. When this Fund is used, it must be used completely independently of contemporary economic considerations, quite distinctly from the economic climate which must govern other things in our national life at any one particular moment. There must be a flexibility for opportunity purchases, and, if that is to be so, I am in no doubt at all that independent trustees are much more appropriate than civil servants and Ministers in charge of the Treasury.

I must spend a little bit longer on the fourth point. It is small but has not so far been mentioned. I ask the Minister to comment on this in reply or, if not, to write to me afterwards. Would it be possible to design the Fund so that it could be used not merely to acquire land, chattels or other bits of the heritage, but also to secure and support appropriate patterns of management? That would indeed dedicate the heritage as Dr. Dalton decreed. It would safeguard the heritage and make it available for the public to enjoy; but it would leave it in the ownership in which it happens to be at the time—that is to say, we would use the National Heritage Fund to support management agreements in the public interest. I hope that the Minister and my noble friend will look sympathetically at an Amendment of that sort. Better still, I hope the Minister, when she replies to the debate, will indicate that she would be willing to introduce something of that nature. I know that her Department is much concerned to make it quite clear that management agreements can have the full force of the law.

4.17 p.m.

Lord O'NEILL of the MAINE

My Lords, I apologise for intervening—with the full approval of certainly my Front Bench—and I should like to assure the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that I do not have her in mind in saying what I am going to. This Land Fund business has been a very long saga right from its inception, and nobody has delineated it better than the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe. Therefore, I will not go into it. When we had the Mentmore debate I made rather a startling remark: I said that if Mentmore had been in Northern Ireland it would not have collapsed. A lot of people did not believe that to be true. We all know what has happened to it recently.

When Dr. Dalton set up the Land Fund consisting of £50 million that tiny little place called Northern Ireland received £1 million. In Northern Ireland we started immediately to use that Land Fund almost entirely—and this was long before I was a member of the Government of Northern Ireland—for the Northern Ireland Committee of the National Trust. We were thereby able to save many beautiful places and, what is more, to endow those places so that they could continue. At a later stage we were able to top up their endowments. I think particularly of the beautiful garden at Rowallane which did not have a large enough endowment. It was later topped up so that it could continue to be kept at its previous level.

That shows what could have been done if Dr. Dalton's idea had been carried out in Britain. Instead of raiding the nonexistent Land Fund of £50 million—which was regretfully done at the time when a noble Lord of this House, Lord Thorneycroft, was Chancellor of the Exchequer—-we found that £1 million was insufficient and we topped it up. I inter- vene—especially when we have such terrible news every day from Northern Ireland—to explain to your Lordships how the Land Fund in Britain could have been used if a different attitude had been taken by the Treasury.

I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, in believing that we must not think the whole time of country houses. The Giant's Causeway (which I am sure some of your Lordships must have heard of) was saved by the Land Fund and put under the charge of the National Trust. A very long section of the coastline was also dealt with in the same way. Admittedly—I say this in deference to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson—we had considerable help from Operation Neptune at the time. Be that as it may, I do congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, on his tenacity in continuing with this measure. I wish him all success and I make this plea to the Government: if a tiny little place like Northern Ireland could have made such good use of their land fund down the years, is it not time that the British Government faced up to their responsibilities today and accepted the all-Party advice of people who take an interest in these affairs?

4.21 p.m.

The Earl of GOWRIE

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow my noble friend Lord O'Neill of the Maine in believing that tenacity and persistence are among the most valuable political virtues. I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Reigate on his persistence in bringing this Bill back before us for the second time. This time he may have a very long and erudite report by an all-Party Select Committee at his back. Nevertheless, it was he himself who, before that Committee reported, brought a Bill before us over a year ago; and of course he is quite right to bring it back now with all that extra ammunition to back him up.

That said, of course, we should not really need a national land fund, and we would not need one if taxation were allowed to fulfil its proper role of raising revenue rather than engaging in social engineering. I am passionate for liberty and I honour fraternity, but I have always been somewhat sceptical of equality because it seems to me that egalitarian philosophies take the responsibilities for the future—and what else is a heritage?—away from individuals and devolve them upon other bodies. They also tend to confuse the interests of a community, which are of course paramount over the interests of an individual, with the interests of a State. A State, however virtuous, is subject in a democracy to short-term and constantly shifting political pressures and I would argue, with my noble friend and others on this side, that indeed these matters of heritage are too important to be subject to the day-to-day pressures on democratic states.

Egalitarian measures such as capital transfer tax will surely do more damage to the national heritage in the future than anything dreamed of by Christie's, Sotherby's or some of my own professional colleagues in Bond Street. As my noble friend acknowledged when he reintroduced it, I do not think, therefore, that this Bill will by itself solve all the problems of conservation and of keeping important works of art and the like in this country. However, it will certainly help.

In addition to admiring tenacity and persistence as political virtues, one must also admire courage; but I am not sure whether I am courageous enough this afternoon, having heard the speeches coming from behind me, to make too passionate a defence of the Treasury in regard to its record over the National Land Fund. I would, however, make, even to my noble friend Lord Cottesloe, this partial mitigation of the Treasury: that it seems to me that the Treasury position, in so far as I understand it, is that Ministers are perfectly entitled to come to Parliament and ask for any amount of money to be spent on the arts, on conservation, on the Giant's Causeway or whatever they like, but that it is more questionable and perhaps a dangerous precedent for them to take tax monies and invest them against some forward and future use which they are not coming before Parliament to ask for. But, while I think the Treasury are not wholly wrong in such sound Conservative principles—as the behaviour of my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft and my then right honourable friend Mr. Enoch Powell showed in 1957—we all know that it is important not to be too stubborn, and to know when to yield and when to make exceptions.

It is, for instance, true that when Mr. Dalton set up the National Land Fund there was a special feeling of responsibility for the heritage engendered by the experience of the last War. I certainly derived a certain wry pleasure from listening this afternoon to all the praise being heaped on the late right honourable gentleman from the Benches behind me. His name, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, were almost the first words that I heard in my political consciousness—usually as the lights went out in 1946 or 1947—and I cannot remember my own rather Conservative household being as complimentary as my noble friends this afternoon.

It is also a difficult political problem, in that great houses, great works of art and magnificent holdings of land have been long associated in the popular mind with great wealth. Indeed, it is true that they represent great wealth, but only when they come to be sold. While they are being conserved they are not in fact wealth; they are very often a drain on the expenditure of those who own them. The essence of our policy is to try to combat this problem of the national heritage on a number of levels and to relate taxation to revenue requirements. We want to reduce rates of income tax, particularly at the high and marginal levels, and we want to re-think capital transfer tax. We believe, for instance, that donations to galleries and museums, and indeed to the National Land Fund, should be legitimate offsets against taxable income. The owners of works of art and of great houses in the main spend a lot of time and money trying to keep up our national heritage in this country and, in my view, have in the overwhelming majority of cases shown great public-spiritedness. We plan to recognise this by helping them in return. We wish to encourage them to keep their property, and our heritage, in good order; and so we would like to see special listed building allowances built into the tax system for expenditure on approved works.

The noble Lord, Lord Gibson, made the point also that one cannot live by a national land fund alone. If stately homes are not to become mere museums they must not be cut off from their supporting estates, and safeguards for owners are surely needed against the capital taxes which have been imposed on them in recent years. We want to make the idea of a maintenance fund—which is a sort of national land fund in minature—attractive to owners, so that transfers to such a fund out of an owner's own resources should be recoverable after a period of time.

We also want losses on the professional opening of houses to be allowed to be offset against the owner's other income. I think that would do a great deal to help those who are performing this valuable service. We want to see that objects and pictures surrendered in lieu of taxes should be allowed to stay in the historic houses with which they are associated, because we have the lesson of France before us, where the architecture is as magnificent as ever and as magnificently kept as ever, but where many of the great houses are sadly bare of their contents.

I recognise, with my noble friend Lord Sandford, that land is as important here as objects of art or buildings; and, of course, when one thinks of land in England, one thinks of the great gardens and we should like to see gardens enjoying the same status for conservation as works of art and architecture.

In the modern world, as I know very well through my own commercial work, works of art and the prices they fetch at sales attract a very great deal of publicity. But, in fact, against other forms of expenditure, against the activity of private markets in general and Government expenditure in particular, the amounts of money involved are really minute. Your Lordships will be aware that the largest new entrant into the art market in recent years has been the British Rail pension fund—a sad comment on our inflationary times. Nevertheless, in spite of the enormous amounts of money being spent in art market terms by the British Rail pension fund, the sum adds up to well under 3 per cent. of their annual expenditure. And so, as my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, we believe that candle-end economies on the arts are valueless in terms of general savings achieved, but can cause quite disproportionate damage to the arts themselves. It is, therefore, Conservative policy to follow the lead of my noble friend. We are concerned about the flow of works of art out of this country. We believe that improvements to the income and capital tax systems will help to stem the flow.

However, we also acknowledge that a Government safety-net, or fire brigade, as I think another noble Lord called it, may be necessary for the foreseeable future. We therefore accept the main recommendations of the Select Committee on the National Land Fund, that the Fund should be revitalised as a national heritage fund under the control of independent trustees. It could act as a contingency fund to assist with grants or loans to non-profit-making organisations seeking to preserve exceptional examples of the national heritage, whether they be buildings, landscapes, gardens or works of art. It gives me great pleasure to be able to make this commitment, and I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Reigate for giving me the opportunity to do so.

Lord DAVIES of LEEK

My Lords, I was interested in the speech of the noble Earl and I am glad that I have had the opportunity of listening to it, but surely a problem arises. I knew an old collier who was one of Britain's best orchid growers. People would travel miles to see his little greenhouse in a garden that was not a quarter of an acre. I, too, should like to have subsidies when I render my entire house to make it last a little longer, but I am not in that echelon of wealth. I do not want to be nasty about this, and I want to support the idea that these beautiful homes should exist. But once we enter into that sphere, where do we stop? My little collier is now, I hope, growing orchids in the Kingdom of Heaven, but would people like him get help with their extraordinary flowers and gardens? Do people with beautiful country cottages in the Pennines and in Wales, which people come from miles around to see, come into this category? That is the point that I want to pose.

The Earl of GOWRIE

Why not, my Lords?

Lord DAVIES of LEEK

That is fine, my Lords. I thank the noble Earl.

4.34 p.m.

Baroness BIRK

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, pointed out, we debated this Bill more than a year ago. I cannot say that I looked forward with any great delight to the prospect of its coming up again. The only thing that it did for me this afternoon was to save me from making the Statement on Fords, so maybe every cloud has a silver lining. But I can assure the noble Lord who introduced his Bill in a very felicitous and extremely brief way, that the Government have been far from inactive in the meantime. Nothing could have given me greater pleasure, greater relief, greater joy and a sense of being first in the field, than to have been able to announce a Government decision on the future of the National Land Fund which would have made everyone happy. I should have loved to do that today. I should have liked to be the bearer of such tidings but, alas!, it was not to be. However, this is an important and complex matter with heavy wide-ranging issues. It is not just a matter of principle. It is a matter of dealing with very practical problems at the same time.

The Government have accepted that there is a need to have a very good hard look at our current arrangements for preserving the national heritage and, in particular—this has been pointed out by nearly all noble Lords—at how the National Land Fund fits into this context. I think it would be fair to say that over the past decades neither Party in Government has had a particularly good record in this field. In many ways, both artistically and in regard to our heritage, we have been almost illiterate in our approach, and it is a happy situation that, generally, the position has changed and is still changing today.

So after the Mentmore trauma an interdepartmental working group of officials was established in July last year. Then, in November last year, the Environmental Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee began their own inquiry into the National Land Fund. Clearly, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, accepted, the Government did not want to take any decisions on the future of the National Land Fund before the report of the Environmental Sub-Committee had been received. Their report was published in June this year, not March. It is just a small point, but it was three months later than the noble Lord said. The report was important and fascinating reading, and extremely thorough. As we all know, it made 18 separate recommendations which covered a range much wider than those covered by the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, as he pointed out. Several noble Lords have mentioned specific recommendations. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, said that he would like to see the whole 18 implemented, but I shall mention just some of the areas covered to show their extent.

There was the question of the provision of endowments for historic houses owned by the National Trust and other bodies. My noble friend Lord Gibson, whom I should like to thank for his very kind remarks and for his very pleasant comment, was quite emphatic that endowments needed in future by the National Trust for their houses will have to be very much larger. Then there were the questions of the size of the Fund; whether or not the £50 million removed in 1957 should be restored; whether or not the public expenditure principles employed by the Treasury were rightly applied; the arrangements for the acceptance of property in lieu of tax; the public access conditions attached to the exemption of heritage property from tax, and the very large question of the reconstitution of the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries. As well as being the concern of the Treasury, a number of those items are the concern of my noble friend the Minister for the Arts, Lord Donaldson.

Many of these points found both in this Bill and in the Environmental Sub-Committee's Report need very careful consideration by a number of Government Departments. For instance, how would the new body, whether on the lines suggested in the Bill or as recommended by the Environmental Sub-Committee, relate to existing bodies such as the national museums and galleries and the Historic Buildings Council? As my noble friend Lord Gibson pointed out to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, as I was going to do, the grant here is from my Department, the Department of the Environment, and not from the Arts Council. These already have functions with which this new body might overlap. This is just an indication of the complexity of the issues.

Then there is the very vexed and difficult question of resources, in particular the restoration of the £50 million which was removed in 1957. As the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, explained—he explained the valid constitutional reason—this Bill does not provide for such a restoration. Nevertheless, it was one of the recommendations made by the Environment Sub-Committee. I think it is worth pointing out that the money was removed, as several noble Lords have mentioned, as the result of a recommendation from the Public Accounts Committee in the 1953–54 Session. It was not a Treasury recommendation. It was the Public Accounts Committee which recommended that the Government should consider legislating to return to the Exchequer some part of the large and growing balance of the Fund. (I was delighted, incidentally, that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, had a pleasant word to say about the Treasury, which takes a lot of knocks from many people, including myself.) This was on the principle that it was undesirable that substantial amounts of public money should be outside the direct control of Parliament. Nevertheless, the Fund has continued to grow in size, and in April of this year stood at about £17 million.

I do not want to try to deal with the past—in fact, I do not think I could stand it again—and go through the maze of the National Land Fund and the way that it works in terms of public expenditure. I should have to start right from the beginning, otherwise I should lose track of it, it would take a long time, and it would be very boring for noble Lords who know better than I about the way it works.

If that £50 million were to be restored to the Fund, or if any resources were to be provided for the new Fund, as they would have to be, they would still constitute public expenditure. I do not intend to go into the difficult question of whether public expenditure occurs when resources are paid into the Fund or when they are paid out. Nevertheless, restoration of the £50 million would constitute public expenditure. The Environment Sub-Committee itself specifically recognised—and I should like to point this out to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe—in paragraph 41 of their report that restoration would involve public expenditure. The recent Conservative Party publication on the arts recommended the restoration of the £50 million—which, incidentally, they themselves removed—but only as resources permit. It is generally recognised that resources are needed. Nevertheless, the other demands upon our resources have to be taken into account. This is common ground in the case of both political Parties, and indeed all political Parties.

We come next to the point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Gibson: the question of priorities. I firmly believe that one of the problems with which we are faced—it is also one of the points of optimism with which we are faced today—is that whereas in the past (the history of the National Land Fund shows this) interest in our heritage and in the arts was high among a certain number of people, it was not so widespread and did not go through all strata of our society in the way that it does now. We are now in a situation, therefore, where there is a greater demand for the heritage side as well as for the visual arts and the performing arts—for all the arts. I include our heritage under this umbrella.

This interest in and demand to enjoy the arts, which is glorious to behold and which is why it is so fascinating to be working in this field, has grown at a time when economically we have been in very grave straits and when we have had to face great financial difficulties. We are in a situation where, whatever the method that is used, our resources are not infinite. Therefore, it is a question of priorities. Also, we have to face the practical problem of how best to deal with those priorities. I would only say to noble Lords who, including myself, feel impatient about this—because we all want to reach a conclusion—that I, as a member of the Government, want with my colleagues to reach a conclusion. I believe that there is a certain amount of optimism and hope to be derived from the fact that discussions are taking place. I can promise noble Lords that this is not a subject which has been put into a pigeon-hole, not to be brought out for some years.

The Earl of GOWRIE

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. She mentioned the sentence in the Conservative Party document which contains the phrase "but only as resources permit". My understanding is that the next Conservative Government will restore the £50 million.

Baroness BIRK

My Lords, that is a very nice point for the noble Earl to make. I can only go by the written word. Without being unkind, it is one thing to make this point while in Opposition but quite another to make it when, as a Government, one is faced with the problem. I accept the intention, but this is one of the facts of governmental life which I know that the noble Earl appreciates.

The noble Earl referred to the CTT problem and the whole question of taxation. Those of us who are concerned with our heritage and the arts are in constant communication with our colleagues in the Treasury in order to try to see whether this question can be worked out equitably all around so as to give more mileage to the arts and our heritage. Nevertheless, I must point out that, certainly so far as our heritage is concerned, those people who own large houses which are expensive to maintain—for instance, the members of the Historic Houses Association—are among the first to say that although, quite naturally, they would like more tax concessions, this Government have done more to help them through tax exemptions than any previous Government. I could bring witnesses to prove that; they would be quite prepared to say so. They are extremely realistic about this matter.

The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, also suggested—and I believe other noble Lords did so, too, including the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine—deducting for income tax purposes expenditure on maintaining heritage property. Government assistance is already given through grants. Although there is always a case and an argument for trying to do better in that field, it would be unfair for anybody to go away with the feeling that exemption from taxation—and a considerable amount of taxation—is not used for this purpose.

However, the important point is that the Government accept that there is a need for change. Some of us know what we want, but it is a question that still has to be discussed and worked out. I is not true that the National Land Fund has done nothing for the last 30 years I was delighted when my noble friend Lord Gibson mentioned a number o things which the National Land Fund has done. I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who mentioned that Hugh Dalton increased the national estate. May I put it to him that it was extraordinary of him to equate that with nationalisation. When he was speaking of increasing the national estate in that context (I am not speaking about other areas of Government) what he was really talking about was exactly what we have al been talking about today—the beauties of this country. As the noble Baroness Lady Robson of Kiddington, stressed sc well, he was talking largely about the countryside itself and also our urban heritage, but to a great extent about our rural heritage, too. It would be quite wrong for anybody to go away with the idea that increasing the national estate in that sense is equated with nationalisation.

In my speech last year I drew attention to the vast range of properties which have been acquired for the nation through the Fund. I will not go over that again but just to bring it up to date, only last week my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland announced the acquisition of Hamilton High Parks, which includes a number of outstanding historic buildings. Earlier this year he also announced the acquisition of Haddo House and its contents, near Aberdeen, My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales also announced this year the acquisition of Chirk Castle. It is lucky that we have got something from Wales and Scotland, and we in England recently acquired Cragside Hall, its contents and some adjoining land. There have been major acquisitions of works of art as well as buildings and land; paintings by Turner, Rubens and Breughel and I know that a number of other significant acquisitions are in the mind of my noble friend Lord Donaldson.

I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, said that he does not intend to commit this Bill to a Select Committee.

I am sure that he is absolutely right since the evidence heard by the Committee in another place was so very deep and thorough. Very considerable work has been done at official and ministerial level by Government Departments in their response to this report. It is also true that several Departments are involved in this. I have listened carefully to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, and to those of all the noble Lords who have spoken in this short but interesting debate. I shall with great pleasure pass on to my ministerial colleagues all the ideas and the points that have been raised. I know that a number of the points that were made have already been taken into account in the various discussions but there is nothing like adding reminders, which I think was the purpose of the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, in initiating this debate on the National Land Fund and its future.

Finally, I would assure noble Lords that I certainly take this matter very seriously and without any complacency and certainly with a great feeling of urgency. I am sure that my concern is shared by my colleagues both in this House and in another place. At this very moment complex exchanges are in process, and we shall respond as quickly as is possible and as quickly as the importance of the subject permits. I hope that noble Lords may be able to expect a response in the very near future. I am afraid that all I can add at this stage is: Watch this space.

4.54 p.m.

Lord REIGATE

My Lords, I am most grateful to all the noble Lords who have given such warm support to my Bill. The debate has gone rather wider than I had expected and in some respects it has gone outside the contents of the Bill. I should like to comment on one or two of the points that have been raised, in that they may be raised again at later stages of the Bill. First, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Cottlesloe for his support. I entirely agree with him that it would be my intention to table an Amendment to the Bill so that the trustees were appointed by the Prime Minister and not by the Secretary of State, but I was rather anxious to have my Bill in the same form as last time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Robson, gave the Bill her support and also raised the matter of the appointment of trustees and the qualifications which I suggested for them. One could go on debating this for ever, and certainly the fund could and should be used for the purchase of land on certain occasions. That was its original purpose, but we must recognise that a great many things have changed since 1946. We have had National Parks legislation and town planning legislation which has made the situation slightly easier and less dangerous than it was. On the other hand, we have to recognise our priorities in this matter. I would say that it is the works of art and the historic buildings of our heritage which are in the greatest danger at the present moment. We could go on arguing about that indefinitely; but, if I may put it in very simple terms, we cannot shift the Giant's Causeway to America and we are not likely to want to pull it down, whereas historic houses can be pulled down and our works of art can be sold abroad. That is why I have stressed those two things in the appointment of trustees; it was for that reason alone. I hope we may debate this; I am open-minded about it, but I hope the House will continue to support it.

I am grateful also to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson and to my noble friend Lord Sandford and my noble friend Lord O'Neill of the Maine. It is valuable support from those who are far more expert in these matters than myself. My noble friend Lord Gowrie quite rightly gave perhaps more generous praise to Lord Dalton than he thought I felt. I will say one thing about Lord Dalton: I think it was unfortunate that he did not take my advice and incorporate the independent trustees in his original proposals. We would not have had this trouble then and it would have been a very different scene today. I am afraid that the trustees would not give very high priority to the quarter acre of orchids mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. I could suggest to his friend that he opens his quarter acre to the public and charges them handsomely for entry.

Lastly, I should like to say how much I appreciate what the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has said. The difficulty in dealing with the noble Baroness is that we all know that her heart is in the right place, even though she is sitting on the wrong side of the House. Unfortunately, it is not her heart but her head with whom we have to argue, and I am not surprised that she could not make any announcement today. I do not know whether any of your Lordships read that in another place on 23rd November in a Written Answer Mr. Joel Barnett replied: The recommendations … are being given the most careful consideration by myself and my ministerial colleagues in all the interested Departments. This is a complex matter to which we attach great importance. It needs careful evaluation of the options open and we have not yet reached a decision".—[Official Report, Commons; col. 710). In short, every avenue is being explored, no stone is being left unturned—and I have no doubt that dozens and dozens of departmental logs are being rolled for all they are worth. But still I think we have made some progress. May I say also that the report was ordered to be printed on 2nd March and I was quoting from the cover of the report.

As to the overlap question mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, I see no reason why this should prove any more difficult in practice than the overlap between the Government bodies concerned. Different people will be negotiating, but negotiations will have to take place. Not only for constitutional reasons but for reasons of practicality I did not include any reference to the sum of £50 million referred to. Of course, in the Bill we could say that it would not come into operation until an appointed day, by which time it would have gone through another place and the £50 million could or could not be added. The important thing is to get the principle of the contingency fund and of the independent trustees established. I hope that by the time the later stages come we shall have at least some support from the Government.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.