Millennium Project, Greenwich (Hansard, 28 November 1996)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of National Heritage (Lord Inglewood)
My Lords, it will cost an estimated £350 million to build and set up the millennium exhibition. The Millennium Commission intends to support it with a grant of up to £200 million, provided it is satisfied with the viability of the whole project. The balance is to come from private sector sponsorship. The Government intend to meet most of the site reclamation costs. English Partnerships is acquiring the Greenwich peninsula site, and will manage the reclamation work.

§ Lord Donoughue
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Remembering the British Library, I am sure we are all very hopeful that the cost figure of £350 million will be achieved. Perhaps I may ask a question for the clarification of the House so the matter is quite clear in our minds. If the cost is £350 million plus overrun, which I believe is inevitable, funded by 374 £200 million from the commission, leaving a £150 million shortfall as of now, will he tell the House how much money from the private sector is now firmly contractually committed? If there is a shortfall in the end, how do the Government budget to meet that shortfall? Are they anticipating that it might be met from public expenditure from the departmental grant?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, the noble Lord asks a most important question, but I must go back to the original Answer I gave him. I explained that it was anticipated that it would cost £350 million to build and set up the exhibition. In addition to that there is the cost of operating the exhibition, which in turn will generate receipts. The proposal has gone forward on the basis that the cost of the operation of the exhibition will more or less be offset by the receipts received. In order to establish this more thoroughly, a business plan and budget is being presented by 11th December to the Millennium Commission. It will be the result of the combination of the grant, the sponsorship and the receipts that may be received from visitors and otherwise generated by the exhibition which will give the project its income. Offset against that has to be the cost of setting up and building the exhibition and running it for the duration. The Millennium Commission has said that it will spend up to £200 million from the money it currently has for the present period for which it will run and contribute that to the exhibition.
If there is to be any question of additional expenditure being required, bearing in mind the way in which the project has been described, it is the Government's intention, so long as the Government, the Opposition and the Millennium Commission are satisfied with the general robustness of what is proposed, that an order should be brought forward to extend the life of the Millennium Commission in order to enable it to collect sufficient money to meet any deficit that might arise under such circumstances.

§ Lord Donoughue
My Lords, this is an important and complex matter. I wish to thank the Minister. He is always helpful and his reply was very full. However, it lacked the figures for which I asked. How much is currently committed firmly by the private sector? Secondly, since he mentioned the very important factor of the extension of the remit of the Millennium Commission, is he aware that we on this side of the House—possibly a future government—are in no way committed to supporting that?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, I do not have any figures to hand as to how much money has been committed in legal terms as opposed to pledged. On the noble Lord's second question, he was in a position to give your Lordships the information rather than I.

§ Lord Beaumont of Whitley
My Lords, does the cost quoted include the cost of disposing of 80,000 square metres of disposable pre-coated polyester over the Millennium dome at the end of 10 or 15 years, with its possible dangers of carcinogenic toxins and hormone disrupting chemicals?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, I understand that the use to which the dome might be put at the end of the period of the exhibition—I remind your Lordships that the planning consent that is being sought is for a temporary use that will expire at the end of the year 2000—has not yet been determined. So no one is in a position to answer the noble Lord's question.

§ Lord Renton
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that before the millennium site at Greenwich was chosen an immense amount of care and thought was given to alternative sites? This is a very well chosen site and it is unthinkable that any replacement of the millennium project could take place. Will the Government give full support to its completion?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, my noble friend is right about the considerable care that went into the selection of the site. I can reiterate that the Government are confident that the project will proceed and are giving it all their support.

§ Baroness Nicol
My Lords, did I understand the Minister to say in answering the very first Question from my noble friend that the Government are to meet the full cost of the reclamation of the site? If he did say that, it is not the answer he gave me last week when he told me that British Gas would be responsible.

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right to recall the reply which I gave to her last week. An agreement was reached with Port Greenwich, which is a subsidiary of British Gas, to sell the site to English Partnerships. The statutorily required decontamination work which is necessary before it can be sold has been or is being carried out by Port Greenwich, which is paying for it. In addition to that work, before the site can be put to any long-term beneficial use—it is much bigger than the site required for the Greenwich millennium exhibition—a substantial amount of extra work of additional decontamination, reclamation and the installation of infrastructure and services is required.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, as a considerable amount of public money is going into this project, will the Government require of the developers that the exhibition shall contain some obvious indication of what the millennium is celebrating, which is the 2000th anniversary of the birth of our Saviour?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, the whole focus of the exhibition is to be the millennium and its significance for us. My noble friend is absolutely right about its very nature.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, is it not the case that the Minister has twice failed to answer my noble friend's precise question about how much private money has been contractually committed? Does not that question follow directly from my noble friend's original Question about the immense amount estimated to be 376 contributed from respective funding sources? If so, should the Minister not have been able to answer that question, which concerns an issue of fact?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, I have given a reply to the noble Lord. It was one which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, did not find satisfactory. I explained that this project was predicated on the basis that there would be £150 million of sponsorship which would be made available for the exhibition. I explained that I was not in a position now to give an exact figure for the amount of money that has been contracted rather than pledged.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, does the ownership of the land revert to English Partnerships at the end of the day? If so, if English Partnerships sells it at a profit, will the Government get back the £200 million of taxpayers' money that will have been spent on it?

§ Lord Inglewood
My Lords, the owner of most, but not all, of the 300 acre or so site at Port Greenwich is English Partnerships. If and when English Partnerships sells the site it will receive the receipts less 7.5 per cent. of the gross proceeds, which will go to British Gas. That was one of the terms agreed when the site was acquired from Port Greenwich by English Partnerships.