The Arts: Government Support

HL Deb 26 November 1986 vol 482 cc547-84

3.1 p.m.

Lord Donoughue rose to call attention to the case for better government provision for the arts in the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an opportune time to discuss this subject, coming as it does so soon after the Government's disappointing decision on allocating funds to the arts. It is indeed satisfying to see such a large number of noble Lords scheduled to speak, reflecting the importance of this subject. If I stick to the broad sweep of arguments, I know I can rely on the great expertise that lies within this House among individual noble Lords to cover the many particular issues which I shall not have time to deal with.

Inevitably much of our discussion and some of what I shall say concerns economic arguments and financial statistics. However, I should like to begin by asserting the fundamental cultural case for supporting the arts. Indeed, I feel it is indicative of the sad stranglehold of the new dogma—a kind of philistine materialism—on our society that it appears that everything has to be justified and quantified in precise monetary terms, as if Bach and Beethoven, Shakespeare and Seamus Heaney are appropriate to accountants' audits.

I know that in Britain we have always been described as a nation of shopkeepers, and more recently as a nation of estate agents; but that does not mean we have to be governed wholly on their prejudices. Fortunately, noble Lords do not, on my observation, run their private lives in this way, or we would be a miserable lot. I believe, and I know many others also believe, that the health of our cultural life and the high respect and priority we give to artistic endeavour are fundamental to the quality of life in our society. Your Lordships may feel that is an obvious, banal point, but apparently it needs restating when those who govern us allocate resources giving such a low priority to support for the arts.

As an economist, I feel no inhibition whatsoever in saying that if the price of achieving and sustaining a more flourishing artistic culture is a slight deterioration in the public sector borrowing requirement (say, from £7 billion to £7.1 billion), so be it. I believe I can forecast, with more confidence than I can forecast the PSBR, that most speakers this afternoon will take that civilised view. Indeed, I suspect that the Minister who is to reply is secretly one of these "angels", though I fear we shall hear the same dreary dirge that we heard from the Minister in the other place. It is quite striking how isolated the Government are on this issue. The Minister, I may say, is so isolated as to be virtually invisible.

The Government have apparently concluded, so we are told, that there are no votes in the arts. Maybe; I am not sure. That view may underestimate the many tens of thousands who work in the arts and the millions who participate in and enjoy the arts. What I am sure of is that there are few votes against the arts and that any government who have resources to spend, as the Chancellor boasted only a few days ago, should have art and the artistic community as one of their highest priorities for investment. The case for the arts stands as a test of priorities in a civilised society, and if we cannot get better provision in a pre-election year, when there appears to be largesse for everyone, we have to ask: when will it be the case?

If I may now briefly turn to expenditure, I should like to say that during the debate I hope we shall not spend the whole of this afternoon arguing about fractions of numbers and about whether the nominal increase for next year is 5.4 per cent., 3.4 per cent., 2 per cent. or minus 2.4 per cent.—all of which I have read in the press—or whether since 1979 the marvellous real increase has been 7 per cent., as the Government argue, or there has been a terrible real decrease of X per cent. or Y per cent., as the National Campaign for the Arts argues in its excellent analysis.

However, I would comment, in that area of numbers, that it is unfair to include the provision for the British Museum extension at St. Pancras. That is a special case, rather like the Falklands in defence; and when the Government use the GDP deflator that is not perhaps the most appropriate indicator. Of course everybody uses the indicator most helpful to their case, but really the RPI—and the Peacock report four years ago said this—is more appropriate and shows a real decline of 3 per cent. since 1979. The earnings index, which is not inappropriate in view of the fact that in the arts something like three-quarters of the costs are for staffing, would indicate a decline of 20 per cent. in real expenditure.

However, the main point is not arguments about percentages. To me, it is that the absolute amount of public subsidy for the arts in this country is ludicrously small. It equals 0.003 per cent. of national expenditure. That is gross; and if you take the net figure after tax paybacks, it is probably more like 0.001 per cent. or zero.

A second point is that the amount of the proposed increase for next year, whatever we agree the percentage to be, is unforgivably small. I believe that it certainly indicates a real cut, because the rate of inflation next year—I state this with absolute confidence—will be at least 5 per cent. That is a common view in the City, where some go higher than that. So we have a real cut, and the absolute real cost is very small. On that point of the absolute real cost, if I may I should like to draw attention to the new Helm report from Oxford (not yet published but available to the department) which analyses the real cost to the Exchequer of the arts subsidy in this country. It is done on the most conservative assumptions, with academic rigour, estimating the returns to the Exchequer on investments in the arts.

There are three main categories of payback: VAT on ticket sales and on tourists; the unemployment offset (people who would have to receive unemployment benefit if they were not employed by arts subsidy); and the subsidy for education. The figure comes out at about £40 million, and that is a very conservative figure. It is calculated only on the areas receiving direct Arts Council grant. It excludes all those important spinoffs to the Treasury from related activities: television, radio, cinema, recording studios and so forth, and it omits all the multiplifier effects of the ancillary services such as restaurants, transport and printing, all of which are stimulated by arts activity. Taken together, they indicate that the actual net expenditure by the Treasury on the arts in this country is zero. Put another way, the return to the Treasury on arts investment is very high.

That is the basis of the economic case for greater public subsidy. In fact, our arts are now a booming growth industry of which we should be proud, and they are making significant contributions to our national economy. The facts and the arguments are fairly familiar to those within the arts and also probably familiar to those within this House, but I shall restate them.

The arts industry is a very significant employer, with directly some 200,000 and indirectly many tens of thousands more in ancillary services. Job creation in that area is very cheap at around £3,000 per head. But the arts industry is important by way of invisible earnings through tourists who are encouraged to come here. Some 30 per cent. of tourists say that our arts facilities are a major reason for their visiting Britain; and, also, there is the question of overseas royalties. The arts are also an essential component of our highly successful media industry, especially television and films; so the economic case is very strong.

There is also a social argument, which I support strongly, that the arts currently help to integrate our communities, especially in the inner cities. They have an important role in racial integration. Furthermore, they have a role, about which I know my noble friend Lord Murray agrees strongly, in helping the disabled.

Your Lordships should bear in mind the success of this industry. More people watch theatre, more people hear music and more people visit museums than watch football in this country. I do not myself think that that is, in itself, a good thing, because I love football, but it gives one an order of the priorities, with over 1 million people participating each year in drama. So maybe there are more votes in this than the chairman of the Conservative Party realises! That is the national and economic case for arts investment—the very good return.

I believe that the arts case, the case for doing it for the sake of the arts, is equally compelling. Artistic endeavours, especially in the performing arts, need up-front investment to get them off the gound—what my good friend Melvin Bragg has called the seedcorn. You have to be able to guarantee to pay to bring together the teams of highly skilled artistic professionals who are necessary. As an example, "Nicholas Nickleby" could only begin because they were able to guarantee the contracts to such a very large cast. So you need up-front money, you need public investment, to secure the highest quality in order to maintain drama from the Royal Shakespeare Company, opera at the Royal Opera Company and at the English National Opera, and concert music at the Barbican and on the South Bank. You need it to maintain the highest international standards—and it costs money.

It may mean an accounting loss. No country produces top quality artistic presentations at a commercial profit. It may at times mean financing failures, but that is a price we should be willing to pay. Anyway, it often means investing in a profit. The Royal Shakespeare Company, receiving about £4 million, certainly returns all of that to the Treasury in VAT, in income tax from those it employs, in royalties and so forth. But even at a loss it is a small price to pay for international quality.

I feel that that is also true of the Royal Opera Company, which is not currently a fashionable cause on some sides of this House, perhaps. I believe we get that very cheap at £7 million, however irritating at times its apparently élitist social views or its occasional extravagance. In fact, we get high quality opera at a price less than it costs in any other country, where the great opera companies of Vienna, of Venice and of Munich spend twice as much. The alternative to providing this money is to cease to be in the international league, to cease to have performers of an international calibre and to slip into the second division—and I do not think we should do that. So we need investment for quality.

We also need investment for the regions, where there has been something of a renaissance. We need that, but not at the expense of London. I support what the Arts Council has done for the regions, but they should not be seen as in conflict with London. There are different criteria. London must maintain national and international standards. Each requires proper provision.

I may say also that we need investment to encourage innovation and new frontiers in the arts, which are rarely commercially viable. Conversely, the price of restraining support to the arts is playing safe. I feel that the orchestral world is a prime example of that. London is privileged to have five fine orchestras—and I must declare an interest, being chairman of the executive of the greatest of those, the London Symphony Orchestra. One notes that the grants to those orchestras have been reduced by 8 per cent. in real terms since 1979. Those orchestras, I have observed, survive on low pay, on excessive work and on endless recording sessions, which are detrimental to their artistic quality. One result is programmes that have become too conservative and too safe. They dare not risk programmes at the frontiers of the public's familiarity. For example, there is now much too little modern music, especially modern British music, played.

I add on the National Theatre, that my own personal complaint about that institution is not the extravagances of its excessive cast lists or the over-elaborate productions, irritating though they are and impolitic as they are if they provide ammunition to the philistines, but the safe conventionality and parochialism of its programmes. Only public investment properly used makes possible artistic risk.

We are not discussing a terrible, immediate crisis in the arts, and I think that those from the artistic world who speak in that way do no service. It is exaggeration and is counter-productive. We are discussing a steady attrition, with small, real cuts in a ludicrously low absolute total. But it is not a gloom and doom story. The arts are absolutely booming with success; but that great success has been encouraged and stimulated by public and government financial help, in which many noble Members of this House have played a honourable part—Lord Wilson, Jenny Lee, the Earl of Stockton, Viscount Eccles and Lord Goodman. From all sides they have made possible this great renaissance, as has the Arts Council. I know that that is a controversial subject, and I hear ideas floated for its abolition. On that I am agnostic. But it is proven, it has a good record and some of its sins—such as its recent too close association with government—are subject to repentance and can be changed with people. So, altogether, we have produced an absolute success story, and the tragedy now is that momentum is being taken out of it. The declared plateau of the Government is actually a downward sloping plateau, and the consequences can be seen everywhere.

Time passes and many wish to speak, so I shall leave to others the mention of various other problems such as the metropolitan counties, the Cork Report and the sad case of copyright, on which the Government have disappointed. My conclusions are, I hope, clear: that both the cultural and economic arguments for higher support are overwhelming. Our real net Exchequer support is probably zero, and, at most, the equivalent of a few few metres of concrete in the Falklands runway. It is clear that the return on greater investment would be high. Greater public investment is absolutely essential, and I think it is a scandal that the Government are not providing it. I beg to move for Papers.

3.20 p.m.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, it is conventional to congratulate the noble Lord who introduces a subject, and I am particularly happy to do that since, as a former Minister for the Arts—a post which I held conjointly with that of Chief Secretary to the Treasury some years ago—I have followed the subject with great interest over the years.

However, I must say to the noble Lord that apart from the plainly party political slant of his speech, which I think was very noticeable to your Lordships, it seems to me a pity that we should be debating a subject of this importance in a short debate. It must have been quite obvious to all concerned that this is a subject upon which many of your Lordships speak with great authority and knowledge and upon which they would therefore wish to speak. To have this subject for a short debate seems, in the light of what we have seen, to have been a mistake. This subject merits a longer time and a more ample opportunity for debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, made a speech very similar to that which, year in and year out, has been made in respect of public provision for the arts. It is almost an annual wailing session. Yet the curious aspect is that he himself admitted that under this regime the arts have progressed and developed. They play a major and increasing part in our country's affairs and its cultural life. This is true despite the fact that we have been told every year that government provision is inadequate. Therefore in this year when government provision is up 10 per cent. in real terms on what it was when this Government came into power in 1979, I think one takes some of these wailings with the traditional pinch of salt. It is quite obvious that the policy of all governments (which has been reasonable and expanding but, in financial terms, modest support for the arts) has paid off and has worked.

I am bound to say that I was rather startled by the noble Lord's suggestion that the real cost of government provision for the arts was zero. Even for a noble Lord who in Who's Who lists his recreations as politics and economics, that was really a rather startling observation. The provision that the Government make for the arts is a substantial and growing one. The noble Lord himself acknowledged its effect when he referred to the progress which the arts have made under that regime.

However, your Lordships may have noticed that the noble Lord confined himself absolutely to government finance. He did not spare a moment to reflect on the flourishing state of the arts in the United States, where support by private individuals and companies is very widespread and widely effective. This kind of support is being very strongly encouraged by the present Government under their current schemes. Indeed, there is a remarkable growth in the government sponsorship scheme and there is a growth resulting from tax concessions which have been made in respect of charitable gifts. The Government's policy has been to encourage private and individual support for the arts, in addition to the substantial provision made from public funds.

I suggest to your Lordships that that should be welcomed, not merely from the point of view that we have a larger total provision for the arts as a result of it but also because the wider spread of patronage and support means that we are not so dependent on even such a sensible and wise body as the Arts Council. We are able to enlist differing opinions in an area in which there is no monopoly on wisdom or knowledge. Perhaps I may quickly refer to the generosity of the Sainsbury family and of John Paul Getty junior, both of whom have given very substantial support to the arts in this country.

It is quite wrong to suggest that there is a monopoly of concern for the arts on the other side of the House. We are just as concerned as noble Lords opposite, but I think we have a wider and more sensible view as to how they should best be supported.

3.24 p.m.

Lord Ritchie of Dundee

My Lords, your Lordships would have been treated to an impassioned harangue from me, but when I heard I had only five minutes in which to speak I did a drastic surgical operation on my speech. That may mean that what is left may have a slightly amputated appearance. However, I should like to try to make six points. If I have made only five by the time the clock says that I have spoken for five minutes, I shall stop.

I think it is essential to bear in mind that in talking about the arts we are not merely talking about the theatre, literature, music and the visual arts as leisure amusements. We are also talking about the industries which are dependent on those activities and closely connected with them. I refer to such things as broadcasting, publishing, fashion, arthitecture, advertising, tourism, interior decorating, industrial design, clothing and furniture. All those are dependent on the arts to an extent. By a further extension, many retail shops and restaurants in places such as Stratford and the West End of London are also dependent. Those industries with their enormous economic importance cannot flourish if the skills on which they are based are not nurtured.

My second point is that we should like to see an end to the system of annual grant funding. That system encourages poor housekeeping because if a company shows a profit it is likely to have its grant reduced the following year. Indeed, many grants are given as guarantees against loss and if there is no loss there will be no grant. There have been cases where a subsidised theatre with a success on its hands has been deterred from exploiting that success lest the ensuing profits should be an embarrassment on the balance sheet. For the sake of stability, security and the opportunity for forward planning, companies need the assurance of a steady income.

What is the alternative? We on these Benches feel that the various activities related to the arts should be in the hands of a central body which should handle, say, broadcasting, film, the development of information technology and such things as intellectual property rights, as well as funding the organisations which are presently clients of the Arts Council. We feel that a voice is needed in the Cabinet, backed by a new department of state, which could compete with more clout than the arts are able to at present for a fair deal from the Treasury. We should therefore be in favour of a ministry of arts, communications and heritage. This ministry could take responsibility for many concerns relating to our culture, some of which I have mentioned. It should also take over the role of the Arts Council as a funding organisation, though the Arts Council, with the immense expertise of its specialist panels, should continue to exist in an advisory capacity.

We should also like to see much more decentralisation and thus a strengthening of the role of regional associations. These organisations have done excellent work over the past two decades. They are in touch with grass-roots opinion, aware of local needs and quick to respond to promising ideas. It is suggested that they should be funded by the ministry on a per capita basis. We propose funding by a system of endowment trusts to be funded on a joint venture basis, partly by substantial one-off grants from the ministry through the regional arts associations, partly by local authorities and partly from tax deductible grants from corporate and individual donors. The funds would have to be of sufficient size to yield interest which would replace all or a substantial part of the present annual grant funding currently received from the Arts Council. Community arts trusts could also be established on the same principle to serve a particular interest or locality.

Perhaps I may say a word about balance between central and regional interests. Centres of excellence are fine. I may be slightly out of accord with the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, because to my mind taking theatre, song or dance to remoter regions, to schools, to people in need and to hospitals and prisons is even finer. I shall not bore the House at any length, but I remember a performance in a nissen hut in the north of Syria during the war. I remember going in half-way through and finding a gathering of rough soldiers, like myself, spellbound by a performance of Patrick Hamilton's "Gaslight".

To my mind, when magic like that can be performed at such an unfavourable time and in a remote region, that is true theatre. That must play an important part in any scheme. That is why I say let us think our way out to the highways and byways; let us reach out to the regions; and perhaps we may see a revival of this true theatrical experience.

3.31 p.m.

Lord Charteris of Amisfield

My Lords, as a trustee of the British Museum, and as chairman of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, I am well aware that the purchase grants available to museums and galleries make it difficult for them to operate successfully in the face of modern prices. As a trustee of the museum, I know that the great part of the purchase grant is spent before half the year is up; and as chairman of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, I know only too well how museums come to us for assistance where important heritage property is involved.

I must say, however, that the Government have been extremely generous and provident where the National Heritage Memorial Fund is concerned. Hitherto we have been given adequate funds to fulfil the task we were given by Parliament. That is demonstrated when I say that so far only on very rare occasions have we had to refuse assistance for any project because of lack of funds. We have also hitherto always had enough money to act swiftly in the defence of the heritage.

We were able to do that in the case of Fyvie Castle, and I know that some of your Lordships have seen the exhibition of its treasures now at Agnew's. In August 1982 the heritage world, particularly that part of it north of Tweed, was shaken to its foundations by the news that Fyvie Castle and its treasures were about to be put on sale. An emergency meeting was held in the offices of the National Trust for Scotland, and it was agreed that the sale would be postponed for six months. This happy result was achieved because the National Heritage Memorial Fund had adequate funds at its disposal to make immediate negotiations practicable.

Those negotiations succeeded. Fyvie Castle and its treasures are now secure for the nation for perpetuity in the safe hands of the National Trust for Scotland. To achieve that happy ending, the National Heritage Memorial Fund had to cough up £3 million. I believe it was jolly good value for money. Three million pounds is an interesting figure for two reasons. The first is that it is the sum which the fund has been given each year as its annual core grant; and the second is that it is £½ million less than was paid by an American lady in 1984 for just one of the Chatsworth drawings—a drawing by Raphael no larger than a good sized pocket handkerchief!

Three million pounds per year is very little in relation to the demands which have so far been made on the fund. Our expenditure has been averaged out at about £12½ million per year, and a recent report by Coopers and Lybrand, commissioned jointly by the Department of the Environment, the Office of Arts and Libraries and the fund, forecasts that if the fund is to fulfil its remit that kind of annual expenditure is likely to be incurred.

What has happened, of course, is that each year Her Majesty's Government, like a knight in shining armour, have come to the rescue of the maiden in distress with extra money. I take this opportunity of saying that in so far as the National Heritage Memorial Fund is concerned, they have in my opinion treated us quite splendidly. My gratitude is unbounded and undiminished by the consideration that not knowing how much you are going to get until you get it at the eleventh hour and not knowing either what demands are going to be made, frankly, makes budgeting more a matter of creative art than an exact science! Never mind, we have survived, and because of the Government's good sense, as well as Fyvie Castle, Canons Ashby, Belton, Calke Abbey, the Hill House Helensburgh, Kedleston, Nostell Priory, Thirlestane and their contents all have a secure future and a great deal else besides.

I need hardly say that I hope to see the knight trotting over the horizon some time next March. If he does not, and if the £3 million is to be all we get, I assure your Lordships that we shall do our best with it and what we have mossed up. I should be less than honest, however, if I did not say that if it is to be just £3 million we shall be lucky if we get away without trouble, by which I mean the loss to the heritage of land, buildings and objects which we all wish to preserve.

We reckon that with a grant of only £3 million we shall have just short of £10 million to commit on new projects between now and April 1988. However, I must tell your Lordships that this computation is based on an important consideration. As trustees of a memorial fund, we consider that it would not be proper for us to spend or commit all our resources without the absolute assurance that they would be restored. We were given £12.4 million in 1980, and we believe that we should retain at least £12 million, which, if you take inflation into consideration, is a good deal less than we started with. I remain fully confident that the Government will, as the Australians would say, see us right.

3.37 p.m.

Lord Murray of Epping Forest

My Lords, I am doubly indebted to my noble friend Lord Donoughue, first, for initiating this debate and, secondly, for referring in his introduction to the special needs of the disabled in relation to the arts.

I have the honour, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, is a member, I also have the pleasure, of serving on the Carnegie Council, which was established by the Carnegie UK Trust to give effect to the report by Sir Richard Attenborough and others on arts and the disabled. I hope that in the fullness of time there may be a more extended opportunity for your Lordships to consider activities in this field. Meanwhile, I intervene briefly today because it seems to me that improving the contribution of disabled people to artistic activities, and also improving the contribution that the arts can make to the well-being and the quality of life of the disabled, should be a natural part of any discussion of the arts.

We are not talking of some fringe group. We are talking of perhaps up to one-tenth of the population. The Attenborough Report, to which I have referred, emphasised that: Whether the arts are pursued primarily for their entertainment value or at a deeper level—and apart from their use specifically for therapeutic purposes—their importance can be even greater for people whose outlets are restricted by physical, mental or sensory impairment, than for other members of the community". That report illustrated the ways in which disabled people are already involved across the whole spectrum of artistic activity.

There are those who pursue literary and other activities which are not directly affected by their particular disablement but others are engaged in arts activities from which, on a superficial view, they might seem to he precluded: for example, actors who are confined to wheelchairs; painters or photographers who are totally blind; and musical performers who are profoundly deaf. By involvement in the arts, and sometimes indeed by developing their own art forms out of their own view and their own experience of life, people with very severe disablements have come to see themselves as comparable with ordinary, fully able people in living their lives and have come to recognise that they have their own contribution to make. I feel cautiously optimistic about progress being made in that field.

First of all, public consciousness of and public concern for disability have been growing in general terms. The right of the disabled to have access to artistic activities, and beyond that to participate in the arts, is more widely, though as yet not nearly widely enough, accepted. Secondly, there has been a major shift in thinking about the arts, and about the need to promote arts within the community. Many professionals are developing a more creative relationship with amateurs, children and students, and, in addition, as my noble friend mentioned, we are developing ways to foster indigenous folk and ethnic minority art forms.

All this is leading to a deeper understanding of the role of the arts in society, and hence of the need to extend public and private provision. The Carnegie Council, of which I am a member, is seeking to impress that not only on government departments but on local authorities, arts councils and indeed private funding organisations. In the public domain we are seeking to emphasise in particular the need for adequate funding in order to secure physical access by the disabled to buildings and events, and for more funds for education and training of the disabled, both young and old, with artistic talent.

I hope, if your Lordships agree, we shall in due time have the opportunity to consider this subject rather more fully, arid to consider at greater length what needs to be done in those and other respects. Meanwhile, I am indebted to my noble friend for the opportunity of reminding your Lordships—if any indeed should need it—of the importance of giving a measure of priority to the needs of disabled people when considering provision in the widest sense for the arts.

3.42 p.m.

Lord Wolfson

My Lords, I am not directly involved in the arts world, but as trustee of a charitable foundation I have had many associations with a wide variety of projects over the years. I know what a very important contribution the broad range of arts makes to our country's standing in the world, and I have considerable respect for those I have met who are engaged in this creative work.

The magnificent heritage which has been passed down to us comes from centuries of artistic genius and the good taste exercised by generations of private collectors. The superb national collection derives from the vision of individual collectors, a recent notable example being that of Sir William Burrell, whose splendid art collection is now displayed in its own setting in Glasgow. This has no doubt been one of the factors leading to the EC naming that city European City of Culture 1990.

Millions of our own people as well as overseas visitors, who, alas, do not come for the climate, derive special pleasure and enlightenment from visiting our museums, galleries, churches and historic buildings. The performing arts and music likewise have a similar appeal. The arts are not only good for our minds and aesthetic senses, as the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, has pointed out; they make an important contribution to the prosperity of the country. It is in this overall context that the Government have put forward their comprehensive proposals for 1987–88. Their programme adds up to a significent amount: £339 million in direct support, including a novel pilot marketing plan, active encouragement in the Chancellor's Budget for more business participation and sponsorship, with similar encouragement to private individuals, and as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has pointed out, there has been given an outstanding lead by the Sainsbury family, John Paul Getty and others.

All these measures testify to the importance attached by the Government and private donors to the maintenance and improvement of the arts. It is a comprehensive and well thought out programme, which I welcome. I feel strongly, however, as many of your Lordships do, that a reasoned case can be made for an increase in further capital investment, costed and financed in a responsible manner. It is clearly desirable also to invest in the great variety of talent that this country is fortunate enough to possess and which it needs to retain.

So how might this be achieved? It would be helpful if the arts budget was set out showing capital investment separately from revenue expenditure. I know it has not been Treasury practice to do so in the past, although it is standard commercial procedure. The Government should give serious thought to this method of accountancy. Were the capital investment programme, particularly in the case of the new British Library, to be amortized over an appropriate period, then the funds would clearly go much further. The present system inevitably penalises long-term projects. Using recognised conservative, not creative, methods of accountancy for capital programmes and establishing a capital fund to encourage private partnerships in matching grants could make a very worthwhile addition to the resources currently available.

Other resources might become available for capital formation from the sale of peripheral assets, from capital receipts arising from other transactions, or by any other acceptable method of raising capital from private sources. We all realise that funds are limited, and there are many priorities; but for selective cases in the arts, I submit, as many of your Lordships do, that a relatively modest increase in investment would produce a good return for the country, both in terms of culture and economic benefit.

As a final observation, I should like to see a larger allocation for selective projects in provincial cities and in development areas. There could be a strong possibility of EC grants for such purposes. The spin-off effects of such projects should be very worthwhile and would have a multiplier effect in value by encouraging local initiative, attracting visitors and tourists to other parts of the country where they do not go at present, and helping to provide new employment where it is most needed.

I recently visited Wigan Pier where, as part of a cultural and commercial complex, there is a museum recording the town's social and industrial history. This is a most imaginative venture undertaken by the local authority. It cost £3 million to build and was opened 18 months ago. I understand it has attracted some half a million paying visitors in that time. Substantial environmental improvement has been achieved in the immediate vicinity, and plans have been drawn up with a hotel group to add to the facilities available for the volume of visitors now attracted to the area. It is an interesting example of what can be done, and is one of a growing number of such projects, and more should be encouraged. The proposed Tate Gallery of the North will be a companion to the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. It is another imaginative initiative being undertaken. The much improved national road system and better standards of food and accommodation make this an opportune time for further expansion of this nature.

The old adage, "Where there's a will there's a way", may well help to stimulate the mind. The Government have shown they have the will by laying the groundwork for a more dynamic partnership in the future between themselves and responsible local authorities, on the one hand, and business, private individuals and trusts, on the other. The latter support is not necessarily confined to this country. The recent exhibition in Washington of art treasures from British stately homes is an indicator of great overseas interest.

If I may sum up, the broad range of arts which makes up the national heritage is one of this country's greatest assets, as well as a personal joy to millions of visitors from both home and overseas. These activities deserve the strongest support for both aesthetic and practical reasons. I feel confident that the Government will keep the overall level of investment under sympathetic review, for they have shown a positive approach to the important issues involved.

3.49 p.m.

Lord Hutchinson of Lullington

My Lords, perhaps the Minister will be able to reply to some of the facts to which I wish to refer in this race of a debate. This year the government grant to the Arts Council is £26 million less than its scrupulously costed budget requires. Last year it was £15 million short. Sir William Rees-Mogg describes this year's grant as another blow to the arts. Adopting the Australian vernacular of the moment, no weasel words or economy with the truth, no Civil Service figures or percentages, can hide those straight facts.

When this Government came to power they cut by £1 million the money already voted to the arts. From that wholly inadequate base line, year after year they have continued to proclaim small annual percentage increases, and no doubt will do so again today. It is the base line figure which flaws the whole of the Government's so-called arts policy.

Does the Minister remember the Government's Priestley and Rayner scrutinies into some of the important clients of the council? Each found the financial control of those enterprises wholly adequate, but in each case found that the funding was wholly inadequate for the job which they were asked to do. It was inadequate by a figure of 20 per cent., thus confirming independently the reiterated view of the Arts Council that all its clients were under-funded to the same extent. Does the Minister remember the Select Committee of the House of Commons on funding the arts which found that the arts were gravely and irresponsibly under-funded? Does he also remember the Peacock Report, to which the noble Lord who opened the debate has already referred?

This year's grant has been greeted with dismay by chairmen of enterprises all across the country. The Minister for the Arts derides these people as members of the arts lobby, who, he says, distort the figures and who put forward views of gloom and pessimism. Who are these people? They are the men and women of distinction, for the most part, in the world outside the arts, in business and in commerce, who mostly give their services free because they believe that the arts rank equally with freedom and justice in importance to the quality of life. They know the priceless asset which we have in this country in the artists, designers and craftsmen, who, if only they were financed properly, would bring back one-hundredfold in cash and kudos the investment made in them.

The message of arts funding must be that the level of funding of the arts must be one which makes entrepreneurial sense. That is the message, surely, that the Minister should take on board. Continual squeezing and cutting embedded in uncomprehending Civil Service control is, I suggest, slowly and remorselessly lowering the quality of the arts.

The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, referred to the situation of the orchestras in this country. Standards are falling throughout the arts, and frustration is driving people out of the industry, but all that the Government can say in reply is, "Go to the wealthy corporations to hail you out". In other words, the arts are a charity, not a necessity; something to be paid for by tax-allowable advertising when profits happen to be sufficiently high. The real subsidy for the arts today is the subsidy of the artists taking part in them who are working day in and day out for a return which is indefensibly low.

In the debate on the gracious Speech not one Minister mentioned the arts. No Minister ever does. The noble Lord, Lord Young, spoke of the achievements of this Government since 1979; six years, he said, of sustained growth. They are prepared, he said, to increase spending projects if the rate of return is good. Their strategy is, he added, to develop the skills and the abilities of all our people. Perhaps the time has come for the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to introduce the Secretary of State for Employment to the Minister for the Arts.

3.54 p.m.

The Earl of Bessborough

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Miles, who I was hoping to listen to in this debate, perhaps I should rise now. I must say at the outset that I generally agree very much with Her Majesty's Government's overall arts policy and in particular their increased funding; and I congratulate them on the 5.5 per cent. increase in next year's arts budget.

However, I should like to say a few words about the theatre, especially in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Miles. Theatres have a product which they can sell every evening and they can, if they organise themselves, gain commercial sponsorship for their work. However, I feel that the Government may have to some extent forgotten about those organisations which provide the back-up, the very infrastructure, of the arts, and which do not necessarily have a product in which they can interest commercial sponsors, and yet the very being of the arts depends upon their existence.

One organisation that comes to mind is the British Theatre Association (the BTA) in which I declare an interest—not financial—as its president. This organisation has one of the most extensive theatre libraries in the world. In my travels I have accepted compliments on its work from all round the globe and from, among many others, Harvard University, which has an enormous theatre collection of its own. The British Library, which is to receive £51 million in grant aid next year, uses the BTA's catalogue of plays as a definitive source. The same British Theatre Association provides information, research and training facilities to everyone involved in the theatre, from the village amateur group to the university drama department, from the national theatre and television companies to children in London who wish to use their Saturday mornings to explore drama. On one point I must say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, and that is in his very interesting introduction to this debate—there are votes in the arts.

The British Theatre Association's training department and its magazine Drama are run on a commercial basis and are self-financing, but it cannot fund the large theatre library housed by the association. Indeed, I think that Her Majesty's Government have admitted, by the extent of the grant aid they are giving to the British Library, that they do not expect a library to appeal to commercial sponsors.

Years of under-funding of the BTA have this year forced that organisation to sell its freehold premises in Fitzroy Square and move to rented accommodation in Regent's College, Regent's Park. The sale has afforded the BTA perhaps three more years of life; but what happens then? After the £25,000 it receives from its membership subscriptions and the £40,000 or so it receives from certain modest grants, its projected shortfall for next year will be some £95,000. The BTA has set up a fund-raising committee to look into opportunities for commercial sponsors; indeed, it launched a sponsors shopping list for its move which raised £21,000.

I must say that certain commercial companies have commented that it should be the Government's role to fund its activities and, therefore, have not taken up the remit. If the BTA could receive a capital sum amounting, say, to only 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of the grant aid to the British Library next year, it might live on its income for many years.

I know that the business sponsorship incentive scheme has been successful up to a point. Again, I congratulate the Government on that but commercial businesses wish to be associated with high profile activities and by its very nature a library is a low profile operation.

I believe in commercial sponsorship. Indeed, the Chichester Festival Theatre of which I am president, survives wholly on that type of income and I was most gratified to note that my right honourable friend Mr. Richard Luce, Minister for the Arts, paid a special tribute in another place to Chichester. It was a tribute which I hope that my noble friend Lord Belstead will be able to endorse. However, I feel that some money must be given to this country's—if not the world's—most accessible and valuable theatre archive; namely, the BTA's library.

4 p.m.

Lord Bonham-Carter

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, in this debate, but I hope that he will forgive me if I do not discuss libraries, of which I am singularly ignorant. I agree with almost every word spoken by my noble friend Lord Hutchinson in his measured attack on the Government's policy toward the arts, which fills me with incomprehension.

The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, commented on the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, concentrated on Government provision for the arts and not on the provision which has been made by industry and private individuals. This seems to me to be hardly surprising since it is the Government's provision for the arts which we are discussing in this debate today. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said that he believed that there has been a real increase in Government grants to the arts under the present Government. I must say that all I can advise him to do is to speak to Sir William Rees-Mogg, who is a well known Conservative and an economist who can add and subtract; even he finds this claim insupportable. Alternatively, if the noble Lord goes to one of the companies which is having its activities truncated as a result of the policies of the present Government, I think he will find that argument difficult to sustain.

I should like to address myself briefly to the history of music in this country as an example, in my view, of the way in which support from the Government can be essential to the survival of the arts. It seems to me to demonstrate the role that Government can play in creating assets—one that is intrinsically valuable, such as art, and one that has economic benefits, which are almost quantifiable in terms of its audience. One revolution that has occurred in the last 50 years is that this country has become one of the most musical countries in the world. Having ceased to be the capital of an empire, London has become the capital of music. More music is played in London every day and evening than in any other capital city of the world.

At the risk of simplifying history I suggest that there are three factors which have contributed to this remarkable situation. The first was Sir Henry Wood's "Proms", which were taken up by the BBC, made into and remain today by far the largest musical festival in the world. The second factor was the launching of the Third Programme, when Sir William Haley was director general of the BBC, which brought music into the houses of millions of people to whom it had never previously been available. The third factor was the product of the genius of Keynes who invented CEMA, which subsequently became the Arts Council. Whatever anyone may say about it, the Arts Council has been the main driving force and engine that has allowed the arts to grow, reach and sustain their present condition of excellence. In my view, each of those three elements has contributed profoundly and fundamentally to the musical revolution to which I referred, and each of them involved government investment in the arts. That is how it happened.

I am afraid that it is not without significance that neither of the institutions which contributed so signally to that achievement—namely, the BBC and the Arts Council—appear to stand in very high esteem in the eyes of the present Government. Yet both of them support activities in which this country excels and in which it is acknowledged universally to excel. I had always thought that the Conservative Party believed in excellence, whatever else it did not believe in. Supporting the arts is not "throwing money at a problem"; in fact it is following a very old military maxim which I hope that we shall follow in the future, and that is to support success.

4.5 p.m.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

My Lords, I go along with the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, and agree with him that indeed there are votes in the arts, but I strongly question whether his view and the view which has been expressed by other noble Lords on the Benches opposite—that the way forward is bigger and bigger funding by the Government—is the right way in the modern world. Indeed, the argument sounds to me like an argument from the 1960s and '70s, and not one from the 1980s and '90s.

The splendid thing, which is also the problem, is that in this country there is a vast, growing demand for the arts. In fact, the demand is totally insatiable. Enthusiasm is kindled by television, school music, community centre art and drama groups, visits to stately homes and travel abroad. Tourists come here to enjoy the arts. Above all, I believe that the arts are attractive because they help to raise our sights; they help us to share in what is first-rate and to enjoy high standards, when so often we have to put up with low standards and the second rate. In any case, the fact is that people want more and more of the arts at a price they can afford.

I believe that the problem that this presents has been put in a nutshell by the situation of an arts body that I know well; namely, the Scottish National Orchestra. The balance of that orchestra's funding means that at the present time it is heavily dependent on public money. This year it expects to raise 32 per cent. of its income from box office receipts; it receives 4 per cent. of its income from industrial and other sponsorship; 62 per cent. of its income will come from what might be called "political money" (54 per cent. from the Scottish Arts Council and 8 per cent. from local government), and it expects to be short of 2 per cent.

We have a Government who are strongly commited to the arts, and, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter has pointed out, the total arts budget has increased in real terms by 10 per cent. since 1979. The Scottish Arts council grant has also increased in real terms by 8 per cent. Despite this, the Scottish National Orchestra anticipates a deficit this year of £55,000. The reason for this is quite simple: although the Arts Council grant will increase by 3½ per cent., the Scottish National Orchestra's expenditure, for various unavoidable reasons, is going up by 6 per cent.

The constant difficulty is that whatever politicians decide in general about grant aid, and however great they make that grant aid, it does not necessarily coincide with the needs of a particular part of the arts world. If the politicians decided to put in far more money this year, who is to say that among all the competing and changing demands on that increased budget the £55,000 needed by the SNO would come its way in any case?

Besides this, the scene is changing in other ways. As taxation comes down, firms and individuals are left with more of the money that they have earned and they have more scope for doing something themselves to support the arts. That is having its effect. In the first two years, the Government's business sponsorship scheme attracted £10.7 million into the arts. It is expected that business will contribute some £25 million to the arts this year.

The Scottish National Orchestra must reduce its 62 per cent. dependence on the uncertainties of political money and seek to increase the 4 per cent. that it now enjoys of more secure sponsorship from business, trusts and individuals. That is the message for the arts world in general. Business, trusts and individuals must consider whether the money that they are not now paying in tax might enable them to respond by increasing their direct support for the arts.

The arts are far too important nowadays to be left to the mercy of politicians and to the vagaries of decision-making by any one group. The arts need public funding, but they also need a variety of sources of preferably long-term funding. The Government have begun to create the fiscal framework and the atmosphere to encourage that. I hope that they will move forward in developing a strategy in which it can flourish even better.

4.11 p.m.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, the noble Baroness will forgive me if I do not follow her along that Scottish path. However, I make this general comment on what she said. I think that noble Lords with experience of the matter on the other side of the House will agree with me, that one must take a little care about becoming over-dependent on the search for private support. There is a retraction from that in the United States of America. My American friends tell me that organisations were becoming primarily fund-seeking in nature and that the quality of their theatrical output has declined because they were spending all their time and energy in trying to raise funds from private sources. Private money is notoriously fickle. It cannot be relied upon. One may say that government funding cannot be relied upon, but it is less uncertain than private money. However, that is not to deprecate it.

I think that all concerned with private support for the arts will agree that it should be regarded as an additional resource and not as a replacement for public funding. That is the view taken by the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts. I am sure that it is the right view. It is an organisation for which I have much admiration.

My noble friend did us a service by introducing this debate. I am sure that he will agree with what has been said on the other side of the House, that it is a pity that we are not having a full-scale debate. I hope that we shall have a full-scale debate. I think my noble friend will agree that it would be a good idea if we had a full-scale debate organised by the Front Benches. It could perhaps take place in the new year. There is a great deal which cannot be said within the confines that we have set ourselves this afternoon.

Much has been published about arts funding. Your Lordships may have read the recent Cork Report. I must confess that I have not fully read it. I have looked through it. I think that on the whole it is a good report. It confines itself to the theatre. It draws attention to the fact that we in this country, although we are doing better than we did in direct support of the arts, fail to give our artistic endeavour the infrastructure which it sorely needs and which in other countries it has.

The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, has drawn attention to the needs of the British Theatre Association. I agree with him entirely about that. It is an excellent organisation which could do with a little more official money. I do not call it political money; I much prefer to call it official money or, as Chancellors of the Exchequer always say when talking about it, taxpayers' money. They say that when they want to reduce the amount; when they want to increase it, they say that it is government money. I had better not be diverted onto that subject or I shall overrun my time.

We are short of infrastructure. In the report, Sir Kenneth Cork and his committee recommend to the Arts Council that the Theatres Trust should be encouraged. I must declare an interest in that. I was until recently its director. I still have an interest in it. It is necessary to protect theatre buildings. They are extremely vulnerable. The Theatres Trust exists for that purpose. It is a small organisation which needs a little more help. With a little extra help the trust can ensure that theatres remain theatres. There is strong pressure upon theatres all the time to stop them being theatres and to allow the space to be occupied more profitably.

Any space can be occupied more profitably than as a theatre for a couple of hours a night. There is enormous pressure upon those spaces. The Government are looking into changing the use classes order. It is my sincere hope that when they come to amend that order they will do nothing to decrease protection for theatres.

When we consider theatre funding, we are inclined to ignore the structures through which that funding is made. When we consider arts funding generally, we tend to talk in rather general terms about money coming from various sources without discussing how it arrives and to what extent it comes directly from the Minister; to what extent it is siphoned through the Arts Council; to what extent it goes through regional arts associations; and to what extent it comes from local authorities. It is high time we studied that matter because institutions tend to become fossilised. They are established for a special purpose. That purpose is changed but the organisation remains the same.

Your Lordships know how difficult it is to improve our own House. The same applies to the Arts Council, which has a great deal in common with the House of Lords. It regards itself as entirely perfect and incapable of being changed. The instrument of patronage needs changing from time to time. The Arts Council is currently in need of change. The differences that exist in arts organisations, the development of entertainment and its relationship with the arts all need looking at.

There is a document of which I have seen the draft, which discusses all these matters. It is a draft Labour Party policy document. It ranges rather beyond the arts into entertainment and broadcasting. It will be published shortly. I hope that it will be widely read. I hope that it will come out in the form of a Green Paper rather than as a White Paper, so that we can discuss it and that everyone involved can talk about it. We can then make up our minds what needs to be done, because until we make some changes in the structure we shall always find ourselves complaining about the lack of money, without asking ourselves why that lack of money exists.

4.17 p.m.

Lord Raglan

My Lords, I do not have the time to argue with the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, but I should point out that Scotland receives more per capita than the English regions. I do not know why. My party would expand funding through the regional associations in England so that after five years the Government would be disbursing twice as much money as they do now.

Difficult judgments must be made when disbursing money for the arts. There is no divine right whereby anyone calling himself or herself an artist should be subsidised. There is no point in artists producing without at least one eye on public appreciation, or there will be more complaints that the more subsidised the arts, the more boring they become. That may be why it is often said that there are no votes in the arts. People say behind their hands what they are diffident of saying straight out. There are few votes in heaps of bricks or concerts from which people stay away. There are no votes in the view, for which in any case there is little historical evidence, that what the public admires in the long term it at first rejects.

The Government have not done nothing for the arts. They have encouraged private giving and made business sponsorship more fashionable. It is a good thing if their policy is to nudge the avant garde more towards pleasing the public and towards being more commercially minded. But it amounts to only half a policy.

I am not referring to the fact that, however far one goes along that road, there will always be many deserving causes that need subsidy. The Government, I believe, recognise that. I am talking about their very deliberate restrictiveness. While no Government will push money at the arts with both hands, it is wrong to chuck it about, as this Government are doing, like a man with no arms. To encourage the arts, there needs to be more money spent but spent judiciously. The ACGB has tried to reach this Government by pointing out that a large part of what they give, they get back in taxes and other benefits. But even that has not changed their minds. During a debate in March last year, the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, told us why they are not relenting. In an intervention, he declared that increasing government arts funding would send a signal to some sections of the community that the professional middle classes were looking after their own. There we have it! It is a matter of principle with the Government.

I know what the noble Earl meant. If you are in charge of public money, you do not dish it out to your friends. In this case, however, it is a worthy sentiment misplaced. It is rather like saying that this Government should have no roads programme in case the noble Lord, Lord McAlpine, makes a profit from it. I hope that he does, even if he sends none of it to the SDP. I look at the issue quite differently. It is a fact that most things in our civilisation which have improved the quality of life have been started by the wealthy. Education, health care, pioneering charities of all kinds, motor cars, central heating—you name it—almost certainly the wealthier section of society has begun it. Even representative democracy was until recently the preserve of the propertied classes.

Wealthy people have more independence, time to think where to spend their money and opportunities of wider horizons, one of which is appreciating the arts. I should like more people to have that opportunity. I say that not because I believe it is good for them. Perish that way of thinking! I say it because others, not so well off, will thereby be able to broaden their minds. "Accessibility" is the word, for Government as well as artists. Let us spread more of it around and allow another dimension to enter the lives of many more people.

4.22 p.m.

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, I came here this afternoon to make a special plea for increased funding for the Scottish National Orchestra, which, as your Lordships well know, enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence. Indeed, it is one of the brightest stars in the Scottish artistic firmament. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, who was its chairman for five years, would, I know, like to have been here to do that himself. Unfortunately, he was unable to come South. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for saying quite a lot of what I was going to say. That gives me time to say a little more.

Before doing so, I hope that the noble Baroness will forgive me and that we shall still be on speaking terms if I say that the figure of a deficit of 2 per cent.—that is, £55,000—mentioned by her is, I understand from the chairman, the expected deficit for the year 1987–88, and that this year the expected deficit is 1 per cent. That is a sum in excess of £20,000. By the end of 1988 the cumulative deficit will be £75,000 plus.

I should like to say a word about local authority funding of the orchestra. Prior to the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in the 1970s, local authority funding represented 33 per cent. of the SNO's income. Now, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, it is down to 8 per cent., and it is certainly not expected to increase. Some authorities are generous and some less so. It has to be remembered that for reasons of adequate premises and likely size of audience, the SNO performs mainly in the big cities—Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, etc.—with limited forays outside that circuit apart from engagements abroad. It is not perhaps surprising that district authorities in whose patches the orchestra is never likely to be able to perform are not always overenthusiastic about funding its upkeep, particularly where money is short and the number of potential patrons rather limited.

I recognise that the £600,000 added in the past two years to the Scottish Arts Council grant was a great help. But it has had to be shared with the opera, the ballet, the chamber orchestra and the baroque ensemble. It has, frankly, not been enough. The orchestra is doing all that it can to increase its income from box office receipts and sponsorship. But there comes a time when the law of diminished returns starts to apply.

An orchestra is labour intensive, very labour intensive. One cannot just sack a few violins and the odd trombone and make ends meet. It is not like the theatre, where one can cut costs in hard times by producing plays with smaller casts or by economising on the scenery. Moreover, the SNO's musicians are notoriously badly paid compared to some, both here and abroad, and particularly abroad. It is therefore in constant danger of losing players to other orchestras and of being unable to recruit new ones. The SNO is really in rather a desperate situation. In any case, living from hand to mouth from year to year is most unsatisfactory and demoralising since it precludes forward planning, which is most important. I implore the Government to make some permanent arrangement to rescue this superb orchestra from its present plight.

4.27 p.m.

Viscount Mersey

My Lords, the Arts Council has now been in existence for 40 years. I am wondering whether we can still see the wood for the trees. I am wondering whether we still know the nature of the beast that is called art, though perhaps beauty would be a better name in the circumstances.

I should like to start by saying what art is not. It is not an advertising medium—for instance, Rothmans sponsorship of a concert. It is not an instrument of foreign policy—for instance, a tour abroad by a ballet company. And it is not a competitive sport—for instance, the young musician of the year. Art may cause all these things to happen. But what art actually is is that which distinguishes us from animals. Both men and animals need to eat, drink and sleep, but only man needs to create and has to create. Children have to draw pictures and sing songs. It is their instinct. As evidence, a man who discovers fossils or old bones may not be certain whether they are animal or human. Then he discovers cave paintings above them and he is certain that he has discovered a human settlement.

It follows that whatever the nature of our society, art will happen. It happened by slave labour; hence the Pyramids and the Sphinx. It happened by the sale of passports to paradise; hence St. Peter's, Rome. It happened by court patronage; hence, Haydn's symphonies. It happened because of a mad king; hence Wagner's operas. It is because we now feel that courts and mad kings cannot pay for the arts that we decided in this country that the state or taxpayer must be the agent that allows the arts to happen. If there were no state funding of the arts, they would happen in some other way. It is important to bear in mind this central point while looking at the amount of state funding and going on to suggest that there are indeed other ways to let the arts happen and that a period of private sponsorship may even be returning.

According to the Arts Council's own table, the grant in 1956 was just under £4 million. In 1986, it is £56 million. I should explain that these are constant prices, using the 1978–79 retail price index as a baseline. In other words, everything is expressed in 1979 pounds. That represents, over 30 years, a fourteen-fold increase in funding. That is wonderful, but surely too it is unparalleled. What policeman today has 14 times the purchasing power that he had in 1956? He might have twice, or even three times, the purchasing power, but surely not 14 times. The same applies to nurses, teachers, pensioners, and indeed soliders, sailors and airmen.

The Government have been proud of their 3 per cent. annual increase in defence spending; and so they should be, for defence of the realm is the first duty of any government. But that is 3 per cent. a year, and in the Arts Council table I find figures of 7.8 per cent., 9.2 per cent., 10.5 per cent., 21.4 per cent., 12.3 per cent., 21.3 per cent., 22.8 per cent., 12.8 per cent., 16.4 per cent., 40.5 per cent. and 23.5 per cent. The result is that we have reached a great height of expense: £56 million in 1979 pounds, which is £136 million in 1986 pounds. This Government rightly regard that height as the edge of a plateau. They have levelled off expenditure. I should only turn that plateau into an even higher mountain by raising money from other sources. Partnership is, I believe, a government wish and it is also what the Arts Council itself wishes. It has a booklet called Partnership. The money should be raised in partnership within industry and private patrons.

Please, my Lords, consider the arts funding in America. I have fully taken aboard the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, but the fact is that it is £¼ billion from the state, £1 billion from industry and £8 billion from private patrons. Here, the Arts Council is proud of the £20 million already given by industry; and that figure is fast rising. There are the patrons. Some have already been mentioned by my noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Wolfson. There is Getty, who funded the new Barry rooms in the National Gallery. There is Clore, funding the new extension at the Tate. There is Sainsbury, backing the new west wing of the National Gallery. An entire workforce has sponsored what I would describe as the greatest piece of sculpture in Europe: Richard Rodgers' Lloyd's building in the City of London paid for by the members of Lloyd's.

To sum up, art is a part of human nature and will always happen somehow. For 40 years the taxpayer has been the instrument of its happening. That should continue at roughly the same level. But let us have more funding; and we are getting more from industry and from the patrons of the arts. Let us have partnership.

4.34 p.m.

Lord Gibson

My Lords, short debates are good for self-discipline but there is not much time for perspective. As a former chairman of the Arts Council for five years and of the National Trust for nine, I should have liked to pay tribute to this Government and to previous governments for what they have done through public funding in both those fields, the arts and our heritage, and I should like to elaborate on that. However, since there are only a few minutes one has to concentrate on one's brickbats rather than one's bouquets.

I should like to speak for a few moments about the Royal Opera House, of which I am a board member and currently chairman of its finance committee. I do so against the background, according to Arts Council reckoning, of a grant below inflation. I am perplexed by the difference between what the Government say about this and what the Arts Council says. I can only say that we get our money directly from the Arts Council and are very much concerned with its view.

Three years ago the then Arts Minister appointed a distinguished public official, Mr. Clive Priestley, to investigate the Royal Opera House in view of conflicting claims about underfunding on the one hand and extravagance on the other. He cleared it of extravagance, declared its funding inadequate in relation to its output and to the nation-wide activities expected of it and made recommendations, since implemented by the company, though sadly not after the first year by the Government. I hope that this will not be taken as what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, would call wailing. It is in fact a matter of accountancy; accountants are given to wailing. But I spent my life in a public company in which we have been very concerned about these matters, and this is the way it strikes me.

Had the Royal Opera House been level funded—which is what the Government say it is aiming for, and at the moment I certainly ask for no more—had its grant been indexed to the RPI over the three years since Mr. Priestley reported, it would have received £1.30 million extra. If indexed to the earnings index—which is more relevant to an opera house—it would have received £3 million extra. It would now be in the black. As it is, I cannot at the moment see how the Arts Council, unless it robs the regions—which heaven forbid!—can give to the opera house out of the grant which it is to receive from the Government enough to enter the next year with the prospect of solvency. That is a matter of fact. Of course the opera house could do less. It could truncate its activities. But if one wants an international opera house, a ballet house, and Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, there is a certain minimum cost and it would be irresponsible of the directors to enter next year on present prospects trading on that basis.

None of us, I am sure, wants to see the demise of a great national institution like the opera house. I do not know how many votes there are in the arts, but I know that the pleasure and benefit which the opera house, along with other national companies and the arts generally, bring to vast numbers of people—and in the case of the opera house by no means only in London or to the rich—are very great. Perhaps it would not be so much underestimated, as I think it is, if the house's wider activities were better noted in the press. These are activities such as performances in its travelling tent; its promenade performances, financed by the Midland Bank; its children's matinees; its Hamlyn Week, financed by Mr. Paul Hamlyn to ensure that at least in one week in the year the house can be full of people who never normally go; its educational work, probably the best anywhere and now being copied with our help by the Metropolitan Opera House in New York; its performances in the regions—166 of them last season; its triumphant tours abroad. There is no time to tell your Lordships where it has been but it has been all over the world and it is one of the finest ambassadors that Britain has ever had.

I think of all this and remember what the situation was 40 years ago when I was a young man. One could not have contemplated then that Great Britain would ever have one of the top five or six opera houses in the world, and all this for half the subsidy received by the other great houses of the world, and for giving twice as many performances as they do. Lately, it is true, the house has been under attack from a number of critics. Artistic success tends to go in cycles. The only thing that does not go in cycles is criticism. That has been going on as long as I can remember. It went on in exactly the same way even in what is now looked back upon as the golden age of Sir Georg Solti, and a golden age it was. But the fact is that in the last two years there have been at least six new opera productions of first class quality, and in the same period I can think of at least eight really top class revivals, with a similar number from the ballet. I am constantly astonished at what the house achieves on such a wide canvas for the subsidy it receives and so are all the foreigners who come here, whether to perform or to listen.

National assets of this kind must be kept in being and I simply do not believe that the Prime Minister, who cares for these matters, will want such a flagship to founder. She believes in self-help. The opera house raises some £2 million each year from the private sector, and it has raised £9 million for the first stage of its development scheme. It has shown exemplary self-help. It hopes to raise much more to complete that scheme when planning permission has been obtained.

I should have liked to say something about the regional companies but my time is up. I spent five years trying to help them. I know that many of them are in the same difficulties as the opera house. I can only say that these are facts. One can truncate these activities but one cannot give them less if one still wants to maintain them.

4.39 p.m.

Lord Butterworth

My Lords, I should like to say something briefly about the performing arts, but I must declare an interest. For some years I have been a member of the council and of the finance committee of the Royal Shakespeare Company. As with the Royal Opera House, we, too, were investigated by Mr. Clive Priestley—an investigation which resulted in the judgment that we had been inadequately funded. We were given an increased grant, with the similar experience that the grant has not kept pace with inflation.

I have also had the opportunity of seeing the performing arts, because in the University of Warwick we created an arts centre which I have been told is the biggest outside the Barbican. I should like to support today the main strategy of the Government. I think that the strategy and the balance are right. Of course patronage is vital, and a strong state core in that patronage is important. But it should also be a partnership—a partnership including private benefactors and industry through sponsorship.

Against that background I should like to make three points this evening. First—and I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said—we must support success. How do you decide in the performing arts what music, what drama, what dance you are going to support? You cannot leave it to a committee. You cannot leave it to an official in his office. There is only one test and that is the box office. Are people prepared to pay in order to see the performance? The test of the box office is vital. There is nothing more exciting than a full theatre or a full cinema, nothing more depressing than a cinema or theatre which has few patrons.

There is of course in patronage the important problem of encouraging new productions, new artists and new writers. It semed to me that the Cork Report had an excellent recommendation which is worthy of support. To raise money for the wider theatre of tomorrow it recommends a levy of 1 per cent. on the BBC licence fee and a similar levy on the independent television companies in recognition of the benefit which television receives from the live theatre. All the training for television is done in the live theatre, and indeed a considerable amount of dislocation to the live theatre is caused by the operation of television.

If the box office is to be the test, we still have to think a little more deeply about the kind of shows that are to be supported. Here I find myself in some disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue. We have to remember that almost everyone today has a television, and therefore people are accustomed to see in their own homes first-class performances be it in music, dance, drama or opera. It is therefore no good putting on in the provinces performances which are mediocre, or local, or provincial. The public will stay at home.

Again the Cork Committee was right in recommending that so far as drama is concerned a limited number of companies, probably six in the first place, should be recognised as national companies in the regions. There is no doubt that the provinces need more artistic activity of all kinds, but the public will stay at home and watch first-class performances on the box if what we produce in the live theatre in the Provinces is not first-class.

My final point is about the balance between London and the provinces; about the desperate political problem of the two nations, the North and the South. One recognises the necessity for an artistic emphasis in London, and especially the concentration of museums and libraries in London, but the political problems of the Midlands and the North are now so great that nothing less than a revolution in our thinking is needed not merely in the arts but in other fields as well, but we must start with the arts today.

Although I know that I shall not get universal support, I am bound to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that many artists wonder why there should be two major opera companies in London operating within a few hundred yards of each other. The Royal Shakespeare Company is unique in that it operates in the provinces in Stratford and Newcastle-upon-Tyne as well as in London. I should like to emphasise that there is something much more important than the arts itself. We have to have a revolution, in our view, to redress the whole balance between the Midlands and the North, on the one hand, and the south-east corner.

4.46 p.m.

Lord Davies

My Lords, perhaps I may first declare an interest in that I have the privilege of being chairman of Welsh National Opera, a company which is the principal provider of opera in Wales and in Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol. Southampton and Oxford, and receives the fifth largest of the Arts Council grants. During the past 10 years the development of opera outside London has been one of the major successes of the Arts Council policy and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, for the support of this cause during his chairmanship.

Total audience numbers have increased over that period by 20 per cent., and the average price paid for each ticket has increased in real terms by 16 per cent. The standard of performance achieved by the regional opera companies has developed to the extent that many productions compare favourably with those anywhere in Europe. I mention in that respect that this certainly applies to "The Trojans", recently produced in Leeds by Opera North, and the Welsh National Opera's Otello, described by a distinguished German critic as the opera event of the decade, and also the Ring Cycle, which is completing its present tour in Bristol during the next two weeks.

This development has been carefully and boldly brought about by the Arts Council in close cooperation with the opera companies and the local authorities. The latter have played a crucial part by putting very considerable resources into the major renovation of their large theatres, a process which is still continuing and which has, in some cases, involved substantial support from private enterprise.

In Southampton a major scheme is currently in progress, and in Swansea the farsighted city council are currently rebuilding much of their Grand Theatre. Sadly, Cardiff still desperately needs a modern, large theatre, and the only theatre in North Wales large enough for full-scale opera, the Astra in Llandudno, is to be closed, according to its present owners.

The opera companies have been bold both in the development of new production styles and in the broadening of the repertory of operas that the public are prepared to accept. Who, 12 years ago, would have thought it possible that two-and-a-half thousand people would pack the Empire Theatre in Liverpool to see a Janacek opera? Not all the new productions have pleased all the traditionalists, but they have generated an excitement that has brought in new audiences to opera, and also generated an enthusiasm within the companies which has enabled them to retain players, singers and staff at much lower salary levels than available elsewhere; which, in turn, has enabled them to achieve such excellence. Innovative marketing and a successful search for commercial sponsorship have also played an important role in this success.

However, the policies followed by the Government and the Arts Council during the past three years have not only halted this splendid development but are threatening the very existence of the regional companies. Arts Council total grant has remained static in real terms. The council has skimmed off money for its development fund, and spread the remaining funds between its existing clients at less than the rate of inflation. For part-time or ad hoc companies the effective reduction in output is approximately proportional to the reduction in grant. But the effect on the output of fully staffed permanent companies, which in regional opera means Scottish Opera, Opera North and Welsh National Opera, is devastating. Welsh National Opera is equipped to give, and has given, 130 performances of full-scale opera in a year. This year the number has had to be cut to just under 100. If the present policy continues, the result next year will be very much worse.

In 1985, the Arts Council recognised the problem and set up its own internal opera study group. This group produced an excellent, clearly argued report. It identified the success of regional opera, and the devastating effect that a continuing squeeze on grant would have on touring weeks in England. The figures showed that Welsh National Opera's touring in England would decline from 16 weeks in 1984–85 to four-and-a-half weeks in 1988–89 and that the total number of English touring weeks by all companies would be halved for the same period. The study group also identified the great disparity, even at 1985 levels, between opera provision in London and in the regions. Some 54 per cent. of the total United Kingdom grant to opera is spent in London. London has 250 opera performances a year; Birmingham has 20. Put another way, there are 37 performances per million inhabitants in London; four per million in the West Midlands.

The Opera Study Group also reached clear recommendations for action to avert a disaster in regional opera provision. It identified a need for further funds in 1985 of £550,000, plus grant increases thereafter following the rate of inflation for regional opera provision to be maintained at the 1984–85 level—a modest sum for what would be achieved.

The study group recommended that three courses of action be investigated: first, more funds from the Government; secondly, a transfer of moneys from London to the regions; and, thirdly and least satisfactory to the group, a curtailment of the ad hoc companies—that is, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Kent Opera, and Opera 80—so that the permanent companies can operate at maximum efficiency. To date, this report lies on the table at the Arts Council. Can the Minister say whether there is any sign that this report will be implemented?

If no action is taken, regional opera activity will decline to the extent that there will be little point in the major companies continuing to exist. I am not crying wolf or being alarmist, because I really am in a position to know about this matter. A success story of international significance will have been frittered away. The attempt to provide people outside London with artistic excellence will have been abandoned.

4.52 p.m.

Lord Birkett

My Lords, although I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, on introducing this debate, I must say that I agree with many noble Lords this afternoon who have suggested that the arts deserve more than a short debate. Frankly, two and a half hours are not enough. The arts deserve better than a series of headlines or paragraphs, which is mostly what they have received in spite of the achievement of several witty and well-argued speeches within the limit of five minutes.

For example, the new report by Sir Kenneth Cork, which was called for by the Arts Council and recently published, was mentioned by one of your Lordships. That alone had dozens of exceedingly important recommendations to make. Its recommendations add up to a total bill of some £14 million and it even goes into a long section on how that £14 million might be raised. That alone, I should have thought, was worth a debate in your Lordships' House, perhaps on the theatre alone.

One other question that arises is the one point that I shall content myself with making this afternoon, because it is the one aspect of post-abolition arts funding. One must remember that it is in the shadow of the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan counties that a great deal of this afternoon's financial argument has taken place.

Your Lordships will recall that during the dramatic debates that preceded abolition, a great number of people on both sides of the House predicted gloom and despair for the arts as a result of it. I candidly remember being a leading Jeremiah myself. I have to confess that in looking round the arts scene there are no spectacular deaths or collapses. Before we all become too relieved about that, however, I remind the House that in 1986 there are still trees dying from the drought of 1976. Therefore we should be very careful before we assume that all is well.

The one hole which has appeared is not perhaps something that could have been predicted, but it was inevitable. It is the lack of any serious capital fund for the arts in London. There was a time a couple of years ago when the Arts Council had a fund called Housing for the Arts, which is an exact description for it. At the same time two years ago the GLC decided that it would put up a fund of some £2 million, and call it Housing the Arts, especially to stand hand in hand with the Arts Council and declare itself wanting to help the whole policy of capital funding for the arts.

The Arts Council's Housing for the Arts fund disappeared, as the Arts Council candidly found that it did not have enough to do serious capital work. At the same time the GLC disappeared and suddenly from what looked to be a promising prospect a couple of years ago for capital funding for the arts there was nothing at all—absolute zero. In London alone—and the parallels within the regions must be considerable—the Almeida Theatre was for a long time supported and renewed to its present state of near magnificence with the help of local authority funds.

When I think of the prospect of a national jazz centre in London for the whole country; when I think of the repairs and refurbishments necessary at Sadler's Wells, which was one of the prime emphases in John Drummond's report on a dance house for London; and, above all, when I think of the Round House, perched now on the point of conversion but suddenly deprived of capital funds—that concerns me mostly because I am vice-chairman of it, I must confess—when I think of all those projects I do not believe one can look to the local authorities and say, "You must make it up". We can look to local authorities to keep the roof of the local repertory theatre in decent repair, but we cannot expect more of small local authorities where very large organisations of national importance reside.

I realise that the Minister will not be able to give a large and comprehensive answer on capital funding this afternoon, but I beg him to do two things in that direction. One is to listen very carefully, as I am sure he will—it is almost a cheeky suggestion of mine—to what the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, said about the British Theatre Library. It is of tremendous importance, as indeed is the infrastructure of the theatre. Secondly, I ask himto consider what can be done in the future to make a capital fund for the arts in London. The arts cannot live by bread alone, just as human beings cannot, and they certainly cannot live without bricks and mortar.

4.57 p.m.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, seldom if ever have so many speakers spoken in a mini-debate in this House. The breadth of concern which flows from the smallest organisations to the largest, from London to the regions, from theatre, opera, music, dance, films and video, from the visual arts to museums and galleries which we have heard from all sides of the House today is obviously a reaction to next year's budget which was announced at a most propitious time for this debate. Also since 1979 the Government have broken what was an all-Party consensus which ensured an increase in the Arts Council's budget in real terms every year. Like my noble friend Lord Donoughue, who made an excellent speech in introducing his Motion, I do not propose to go into percentages. There was an annual increase, and the arts budget of last Labour Government, in which I had the honour to be a Minister, went up even at times of most extreme economic difficulty. But in 1979 this stopped.

In order to achieve standstill this year for next year the Arts Council would have needed £2 million more. But to recover to the 1979 position it will require an extra £5½, million, which the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, did not seem quite to appreciate. The arts world has responded magnificently to this dismal situation. It has cut expenditure where it can, increased box office revenues and raised sponsorship; but, alas! some bodies which are of great value have fallen by the wayside.

Many noble Lords have spoken about sponsorship; but when we are talking about sponsorship there is a rub. I am a governor of the British Film Institute. We have spent seven years doing exactly what the Government wanted us to do and we have raised an enormous amount of money. I believe that we lead in the whole league, having raised more than the so-called "Big Four". This has been achieved mainly through the skill and work of our director. We were among the lucky people who got some money from Paul Getty for a new building for offices, but the assurances needed were that the rent that we otherwise would have had to pay would be used for film production, the care of the archives and for all the artistic objectives for which we exist.

But what has happened? The increases that we have got will not cover the wage increases that will have to be paid because they are put at much less than the amount of inflation. Therefore, we feel very strongly—and this applies not only to us but to other bodies, as well—that money that has been given in good faith by generous donors, whether large or small, and which has been given for the artistic side of the work, is having to be used for the nuts and bolts. We think that these people must feel betrayed because of this.

The museums and galleries also have suffered enormously in this respect, which means that they can acquire fewer objects. The situation becomes a completely rundown affair, which juggling with the figures does not alter. I agree entirely with all noble Lords who have said that sponsorship should be the topping up and not the core seed of the amount for the arts. The Government have to take the place of the patrons who supported art in the past and who were quite prepared to take on unknown painters, musicians and composers whose works today are of enormous value and have tremendous historic reputation. Without this, how are we going to be able to finance the workshops, the ethnic groups, the women's theatre, the children's theatre, the local authorities who last year made a marvellous partnership with the Arts Council?

The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, was absolutely right when he said how difficult it would be for these local authorities to repeat the performance, particularly as many of them are rate-capped. It is true that the arts is an expanding industry. As has been pointed out many times, it brings money, prestige and employment; and for that reason alone—but not just for that reason—one would think that any government would want to cherish it. If a number of people are out of work in, say, the motor industry there, is, quite rightly, an outcry, but unfortunately unemployment in the arts industry seems to be taken for granted.

To those noble Lords who have said—and my noble friend Lord Donoughue, mentioned this—that the Government think there are no votes in the arts, I would say that any government who takes that view are likely to be found rather foolish. They would take such a view at their peril because the activities in the arts are increasing all the time, the demand is enormous and the need for education (which we have not really been able to touch upon) is also very great. I am the President of the Association of Arts Institutions. Of the number of applicants to enter our courses, courses which go from fine arts, graphics and fashion to design, over 50 per cent. have to be turned down, not because of lack of merit—that would account for only a small number—but because the number of places is being cut all the time.

One of the results of that is that in the area of design, which is part of the arts complex in this country, we are falling miles behind our competitors abroad and therefore our manufacturing industries are suffering as well. Therefore, there is even more reason for our investing in the arts. On the other side of things, the side about which I feel very passionately, I feel that the Government have a responsibility to the people to open the doors to the broad base of the arts, to enhance the quality of life, to educate our eyes, our ears, our hands and to bring enjoyment and also to bring fun.

To provide art for the country, with its increasing demand for it, with its increasing wish to participate, with the greater spread (about which we have heard this evening) right across the country and into Scotland and Wales, certainly mean more investment, more Government money, in the arts. Until that happens, we shall be the bottom of the league in Western Euroope and really a disgrace to any civilised community.

5.5 p.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, this afternoon has been valuable in calling attention to a wide range of issues which noble Lords have been able to raise despite the time limit, and, although it would not be the unvarnished truth to say that I agreed with everything which the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, have said in their speeches, I welcome the opportunity which this debate provides to repeat the Government's commitment to the arts. I should like, first of all, to join with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter in saying that I am a bit perplexed that, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, in his opening speech, said that in his view the arts are absolutely booming with success at the present time, yet both he and his noble friend Lady Birk criticised the Government for the support they are giving.

If one uses the gross domestic product deflator as the principle for one's calculations—something which is used by all government departments—then I may say to the House that the announcement last week by my right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts of the budget for next year of £339 million means an increase of £17 million in cash terms over the year that we are in and a cash increase of some 5½ per cent. I may also say that since 1979 central government expenditure on the arts has increased by over 13 per cent. in real terms, and I emphasise that this excludes entirely the additional provision that has been made to deal with the funding of the arts following the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan authorities.

I would therefore say that I believe that we have more than honoured our manifesto commitment to maintain central government funding for the arts in real terms. Like my noble friend Lady Carnegy, if the noble Lord will forgive me for saying so, although I very much enjoyed Lord Donoughue's speech I found his criticism of government provision really to be somewhat out of date. I had much more sympathy with the noble Lord when later in his speech he said that he felt there were broader responsibilities which fall on both government and all of us who are interested in the arts.

In particular, I would say to your Lordships that I believe very much that the Government have a much broader role than simply producing £340 million of the taxpayers' money for the arts. Our task must surely be to create the framework and the conditions under which the arts of this country flourish, and in pursuing this strategy we have taken a series of initiatives which open up new opportunities.

In his speech my noble friend Lord Bessborough drew attention to the Chichester Festival Theatre, with which I know my noble friend has been connected for some time. I would certainly endorse the tribute by my right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts to the remarkable self-help exemplified by the Chichester Festival Theatre; and I should like to thank my noble friend and my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter for going on to refer to business sponsorship of the arts, which has increased so dramatically in recent years. From a starting point of half a million pounds in 1976, business sponsorship has risen to over £20 million today.

My noble friend Lord Butterworth will be interested to know that over 70 per cent. of the business incentive scheme awards go to arts bodies outside greater London. My right honourable friend is maintaining the budget for the scheme at £1.75 million for the coming year, a scheme which now is attracting £10½ million of new money and involving 350 new businesses.

My right honourable friend also announced last week the Arts Marketing Scheme, referred to as a novel, pilot marketing plan by my noble friend Lord Wolfson in his speech, which will be launched shortly to help arts and heritage bodies improve the effectiveness of their marketing and their success in reaching a wider public.

I was grateful to my noble friends Lord Butterworth and Lord Wolfson for saying particularly that the support of private patrons is very important. As we all know, recently there have been the most enormously generous gifts from major patrons, ranging from £1 million to £50 million for the benefit of such great institutions as the National Gallery, the British Film Institute (mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk), the Tate Gallery, the Royal Opera House, the National Art Collections Fund and the British Library. And, of course, in addition to gifts of cash there are gifts in kind.

My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter drew attention to the Government's taxation policies, which have done a great deal to encourage this private giving. In particular we have improved the incentives and tax reliefs for charitable giving, particularly through the covenanting system. I very much agree with my noble friends Lady Carnegy and Lord Mersey—and I enjoyed his speech very much indeed—that growth in arts provision is surely a matter of plural funding, and the Chancellor's initiatives are designed to encourage just that.

In addition to the Government's commitment to do their best to keep up the level of governmental support and to create conditions in which the arts can develop and flourish, there is of course a third and very important aspect of our policy; namely, to safeguard Britain's heritage. In 1980 the Government created the National Heritage Memorial Fund under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Charteris. May I say that we value the fund highly. It has proved a valuable husbander of its resources and a wise spender on heritage items. The noble Lord, in his very amusing speech, was good enough to confirm the value of government help in saving a variety of very important houses and buildings. The noble Lord mentioned in particular the report on longer-term funding of the fund, and at the present time this is under consideration.

I do not think anything should be said from this Front Bench without a mention of museums and galleries. Since 1979 funding from the arts budget for the national museums and galleries has increased by 15 per cent. in real terms. The change to grant-in-aid status for the national museums and galleries with benefit from the present year will enable them to obtain full benefit from any additional income and support that they can generate. Also, government funds have been assisting the expansion of national museums and galleries; for example, the major development of the Imperial War Museum—to which, of course, the museum itself is contributing £2.5 million. Then there is outside London, where so much emphasis has been laid by many of your Lordships. For example, on Merseyside, Liverpool's Albert Dock is housing two major projects: the Tate in the North project, which the noble Lord knows so well, where a warehouse is being converted with Government, local authority and private money to house a major new gallery of modern art; and the Merseyside Maritime Museum, where a lively and attractive new facility for visitors will be fully opened next year.

The bulk of expenditure on libraries, as your Lordships know, is undertaken by local authorities, supported by the rate support grant. Here, again, I have to say that on the basis I have taken it is a story of real-terms growth of 9 per cent. since 1979 to 1980; and next year the local authorities' provision for current expenditure on libraries and museum services represents an increase of 14 per cent. on this year's plans.

May I finally, in my own prepared words, come to the performing arts and, of course, the position of the Arts Council. Most of your Lordships have mentioned these matters. Next year the Arts Council will receive £138.4 million. This represents a basic provision of almost £114 million, a continuation of the special provision of £600,000 for Scotland following local government reorganisation there, and an increase in post-abolition funding of £3 million over the planning figure for each of the next two years given to the Council last January. Therefore, post-abolition funding will he £24 million and £23 million next year and the year after.

The increase in basic grant is about 3.5 per cent. over the figure for the current year. The increase in abolition funding is picking up three-quarters of the so-called taper previously announced. But in saying that, let us remember that local authorities have been relieved of the very substantial precepts on them previously levied by the GLC and the metropolitan counties. I really do think it is entirely reasonable that they should be expected to make a slightly higher contribution next year. Last year the local authorities contributed £14 million against the central government's £25 million to make up the abolition gap. In the event, the gap was covered in full and all major arts bodies in abolition areas have continued their work.

My reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, is made with great respect, because the noble Lord has great experience. I suggest it would be as well to see what the Arts Council makes of the distribution of its grant before individual companies cry "Wolf!". Your Lordships will remember last year the great anxiety about the future of Sadler's Wells, the two theatres on Tyneside, the Empire Theatre at Liverpool and the Philharmonic Hall there. All seem to have survived successfully, and I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, despite the warning he gave, for making this particular point.

If I may, I should like to respond to some of the individual points made by your Lordships during the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, referred to the need for a central ministry. I am afraid that we do not accept the case for a large interventionist central ministry for culture, communications and heritage. We are seeking to encourage local and regional development and individual initiatives. In this way we feel we are encouraging success, and we believe that the Arts Council is doing so also.

Incidentally, I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, paid tribute to the Arts Council in terms of music. The four London orchestras which are supported by the Arts Council are giving more concerts than ever before. And, of course, the Arts Council, through the South Bank Board, has taken over the concert halls from the GLC and is devising and presenting imaginative programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, made an exceedingly interesting speech, if I may say so, which I am sure appealed to all of us wherever we sit in this House. He welcomed the Carnegie Report on arts and the disabled. My right honourable friend has also welcomed it and has drawn it to the attention of arts bodies. I am glad to say that many of them, including the Arts Council, the Crafts Council and, indeed, the British Film Institute, have already drawn up policy statements based on the report.

The noble Lord, Lord Charteris, in addition to what I have already mentioned, spoke about the purchase grants in connection with national museums and galleries. I will face the point that we looked at the purchase grants. My right honourable friend the former Minister looked at the purchase grants and decided a couple or so years ago that what was needed was better conservation and display, together with better maintenance of buildings. I believe that was right, and that it is in the long-term interests of the institutions if more resources are available. Of course we should want to raise purchase grants, but they are only part of the picture of acquisitions which I know the noble Lord would have mentioned had he had the time.

There is also the benefit of acceptances in lieu of tax, allowing now up to a further £10 million in a year to be spent on works of art. And, of course, there is the valuable work of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which the noble Lord chairs. My noble friend Lord Bessborough made a particular plea for the British Theatre Association. I should like to say to my noble friend and to the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, that government officials are discussing with the association as to whether a survey could be carried out of ways in which the functions of the British Theatre Association library could be secured in the longer term. Your Lordships will not be surprised if I say that it is not the responsibility of my right honourable friend to support specialist libraries; but I hope that both noble Lords will feel that I have listened carefully to what they said. There is some response, and we do take seriously the possibilities of what has been a very interesting organisation.

Talking of the theatre, I cannot resist saying in passing that I have had some briefing for this debate from the Society of West End Theatres who have gathered figures which I was surprised showed such a splendid result, knowing that in the past there have been problems about filling theatre seats. The information I have is that last year 10¾, million people attended West End theatres, and up to the first week of September this year nearly 7 million people have attended. It is dangerous to extrapolate, but the indications are that the total for this year will be little short of last year's despite the fact that there were fewer tourists in London. What is further encouraging is that audiences are getting younger and that more people appear to be coming to the theatre from outside London.

I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Wolfson for his speech. He took the Government to task for not producing the public expenditure figures dividing off capital spending from recurrent expenditure for the arts. I understand that this is, in fact, done in the public expenditure White Paper. Of course, I admit to my noble friend that Government expenditure is shown in cash terms. Resources have to be found from taxpayers in the year in which they fall. We cannot disguise that, and that is why we act in that way.

I should like quickly to say to my noble friend Lady Carnegy and to the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, that the Arts Council's grant for next year has been increased by 3½ per cent. In that figure, as I have said, is a special provision of £600,000 in this year's Arts Council's budget; again, for the support of the Scottish national companies. This is an additional provision, one over and above what goes to the Scottish Arts Council. That extra £600,000 is, of course, a sum of money of which the beneficiaries can certainly include the Scottish National Orchestra; and, as I say, that special provision of an extra £600,000 is being continued. However, at the end of the day it is for the Arts Council to decide what is the appropriate share to distribute to the Scottish Arts Council.

The noble Lord, Lord Raglan, spoke of his desire to spread the benefits of the arts more widely, as indeed did my noble friend Lord Butterworth. I think it is fair to say that this is happening. There is a tremendous increase in the funding by the Arts Council of regional arts associations. This means not only that art is exhibited in the regions as much as in London, but that small bodies which involve people as participants, not just as spectators, receive a larger share of the whole.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, mentioned the matter of the Theatres Trust and its income. Of course, the trust now has more fundings this year. It inherited the freeholds of the Garrick and the Lyric theatres from the GLC and this has provided a new source of income.

The noble Lord, Lord Gibson, raised the matter—but very briefly, I know—of the position of the Royal Opera House. The noble Lord would not wish me to go into this in detail now, even if I could, except to say that this great institution, the biggest recipient, of course, of any grant at all, had the plea made for it by Mr. Priestley that its grants should be index-linked. That has not proved possible. On the other hand, there are, as the noble Lord very well knows, economies which Mr. Priestley recommended and these have not yet worked through the system. Once again, I have listened very carefully indeed to the speech which the noble Lord made.

Lord Gibson

My Lords, I would only say that economies have been made.

Lord Belstead

Yes indeed, my Lords. But, as I understand it, they have not worked through the system in the benefits that they have produced.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, was perfectly accurate in his reference to the arts opera report made to the Arts Council. The council are still considering it but have made no proposals, so far as I know, about wider touring. Opera touring is, of course, very expensive, although the noble Lord gave us a splendid recitation of the success of many of the touring companies.

Finally, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, I will draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Baroness has said about the funding of the British Film Institute. But the noble Baroness, will, I think, accept from me that there is a real terms increase on the basis that I have been using in figures of 1.2 per cent. of funding for the British Film Institute. I am sure that the noble Baroness and I would like to see more, but the noble Baroness reminded us of the wonderful way in which the institute has managed also to attract private funding; and think that the institute will continue to go from strength to strength.

That is the end of my time. I would simply add two more sentences. I believe that in the arts we need to rely on a variety of funding. I believe that Government policies are creating a climate in which this can continue to happen.

5.25 p.m.

Lord Donoughue

My Lords, I will not detain the House much longer with particular responses, especially having had the privilege of an allocation of 15 minutes at the beginning and having overrun by two minutes. I apologise for that and hope that your Lordships will forgive me as something of a newcomer—a sort of novice hurdler in this kind of race.

I would make two points briefly. One is on the point of private sponsorships mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. I believe that it is a delusion to think that private sponsorship can ever replace public funding in this country. Corporate sponsorship in America is still only 6 per cent. Private sponsorship is much more, but they have a totally different regime of tax incentives from ours.

To the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, I think I understood what he meant when he talked about the only criterion being the test of the box office. But I would say to him—and I am sure he agrees—that that is a pernicious doctrine if too rigidly applied. Virtually all pornography would pass that test and most of the great artists, composers and the writers of this and previous ages would not have passed it for all, or much, of their lives.

In general, I should like to welcome the excellent contributions from such a large number of noble Lords. I think that they have brought a range of experience and a depth of knowledge that has contributed to a quite superb debate. I am personally reassured because I believe a large majority expressed support for greater provision for the arts, and those who disagreed with me did so courteously, especially the Minister who is so charming and disarming. But they, in their disagreement, have helped me to learn much, and for that I should like to thank them.

I do not believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, that my speech was partisan. It was certainly not meant to be that. It was partisan for the arts and I am partisan, and would be against any government that neglected the arts.

Most speakers had much more to say than there was time to present. I should like to conclude by supporting the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, in their suggestion that we have proper time in future for a full discussion of this important subject. I thank your Lordships very much.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.