English Cathedrals

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, it is a great honour to be able to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester and to congratulate him on a formidable and elegant maiden speech that blended so perfectly his own experiences with the challenges of public policy. We can see from his speech what a great asset he is going to be to your Lordships’ House.

Indeed, at a time when Members of this House are under a degree of scrutiny, the right reverend Prelate exemplifies the very characteristics that make this House so special, for his range of interests and expertise is as diverse as it is deep. In fact, he began his career as a chemistry teacher, which will suit him well for our debates on scientific issues. He then became a teacher at Harrow School, trying to instil into his pupils—he would have failed with me—the basics of chemistry. That will make him a natural for debates on education, an area on which he touched today. After Harrow, he spent six years as vicar of an inner city parish at St Luke’s, Wallsend, giving him a perspective on inner city issues and social responsibility that will be much valued in this House. He has a deep interest in international affairs, too. As a longstanding member of the World Development Movement, he will be a natural in dealing with international development issues. Finally, he is president of Worcestershire County Cricket Club; he is thereby a shoe-in for sports debates. In short, the right reverend Prelate is an all-rounder whose contributions we look forward to with great eagerness.

We are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for securing this debate, which has relevance and importance for every region of our country, every diocese and every parish. I am particularly pleased to take part because it gives me an opportunity to talk about two cathedrals in Essex close to my heart, and what they can tell us about the future of cathedrals across England.

I am from Brentwood, which is at the heart of the Roman Catholic diocese of Brentwood, a diocese that, quite uniquely, is exactly coterminous with the Church of England diocese of Chelmsford. Both towns have exceptionally fine cathedrals. In Brentwood, the cathedral dates back to 1861, when it was just a parish church. It was raised to cathedral status in 1917. The cathedral in Chelmsford has more venerable roots, with the first church on its site founded over 800 years ago. It became a cathedral in 1914, when the diocese of Chelmsford was created to meet the needs of the urban population east of London. Both cathedrals have changed considerably over time. Brentwood’s magnificent cathedral was substantially enlarged between 1989 and 1991 in the Italianate style by Quinlan Terry. Taking his inspiration from the classical Renaissance, this cathedral is one of the master architect’s greatest works and one of the finest buildings in Essex.

Chelmsford’s cathedral has grown more organically, with new stained glass windows in the 19th century along with a rebuilt nave and enriched porch in 1953 to mark the bonds between America and Britain in the Second World War. It now has, in the 21st century, a magnificent collection of modern art.

Both these buildings underline how cathedrals grow alongside their communities, reflecting the changes in society and constantly updating themselves, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, to remain relevant, vibrant and the focal point of the diocese they serve.

The Bishop of Brentwood, Bishop Thomas McMahon, a man of huge importance to civic life in the towns and villages of Essex, has written that a cathedral takes its name from the Greek word for chair, cathedra, from which the bishop presides as the “shepherd of the diocese”. As well as being the parish church for those who live nearby, cathedrals stand as the fulcrum of worship for local people. In Bishop Thomas’s words, they stand there,

“to proclaim and celebrate the Christian mysteries in an environment of excellence and beauty”.

In other words, they are of vital importance to the cultural and spiritual fabric of our nation and need to be cherished.

However, cathedrals, as we have heard, are not just about buildings so much as the people who are in them. The central point I want to raise, and one on which a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, have touched, is about the importance of church music and the choirs and organists who provide it. Our cathedral choirs are as much a part of the rich heritage that nurtures our communities as the buildings they sing in. At this point I must declare an interest as a member of the Council of the Royal College of Music.

Both the cathedrals I have talked about have prestigious choirs. Brentwood’s was formed in 1984 and over the years has undertaken tours throughout Europe. Just a few weeks ago, a young man who is a member of the choir and a Brentwood schoolboy, Harry John, was one of just 40 young people in the Diamond Choir that sang for Her Majesty the Queen at St Paul’s. In Chelmsford, an innovative choral foundation, formed in 1994, supports the work of its excellent choir, which brings world-class skills right to the heart of local communities. As the very reverend Peter Judd, Dean of Chelmsford, has said,

“when the psalm is being sung … one is privileged to be in the presence of something exquisite—rather like standing in front of an utterly beautiful painting in the National Gallery, except our Choir does not sing in central London, it is happening here in Chelmsford every day”.

Cathedral choirs perform three vital roles in our cultural life. First, they keep alive and flourishing the tradition of English church music, which is one of this country’s shining artistic achievements, dating back to the remarkable output of Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons and Purcell, and in more recent years, of course, Wesley, Bairstow, Parry and Vaughan Williams. Our cathedrals, choirs and organists have all played a central role in fostering that tradition. In the 18th century, a choirboy from Gloucester Cathedral, William Hayes, went on to become a significant composer and a pivotal figure in English musical history. Three centuries later, one of our greatest choral composers, Herbert Howells, an alumnus of the RCM, learnt his musical trade from the organist Herbert Brewer, also at Gloucester Cathedral. Charles Wood had a similar start to musical life at Armagh Cathedral. Their experience, and that of many others, testifies to the importance of local music teaching and experience in nurturing great national talent.

Secondly, they provide for those who worship at cathedrals, or are simply visiting them, something magical and mystical that lies beyond mere words. They enhance the experience of visiting our cathedrals, as indeed so many other churches, in a way nothing else can. Great buildings need great music. And the music—some of the most sublime works ever written—needs these buildings.

Thirdly, they provide real beacons of artistic excellence in their local communities. They attract new audiences to cathedrals, encourage local composers, act as a magnet for visiting musicians and provide a cultural experience that nothing else can in the same way. As Professor Robin Leaver, an internationally recognised hymnologist, has so pithily put it, church musicians are not simply there to produce,

“nice noises at various points in worship”,

but are cultural ambassadors in their own right. Equally importantly, cathedral choirs often give boys, and increasingly girls, their first taste of high-level music-making. Many go on to successful musical careers. There can be no better start to a musical life than experience in a cathedral choir.

However, cathedral choirs face challenges as much as our cathedrals do. They can prosper only if they have secure and comfortable environments in which to practise. As the English Heritage Creativity and Care report, which we have heard about today, highlighted:

“It takes resources to maintain a proud and ancient choral tradition: resources and space”.

They also need a functioning organ—perhaps the most expensive musical instrument to maintain—and dedicated teachers who so often work on a purely voluntary basis. I was delighted that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham talked about volunteers. They are of such huge importance. A cathedral such as Chelmsford depends on 480 volunteers to keep it going and we need to do more to cherish them.

Above all, there is a challenge to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of church musicians entering the profession to meet the needs not just of the cathedrals but the parishes that form the bedrock of the diocese. Across the world, more churches are chasing fewer music graduates. The teaching of music, particularly in our state schools, is a real issue here, although I suspect that is a subject for another debate.

Many of our cathedrals are, quite rightly, moving now to secure the future of church music and they need our support. I think in particular of the new music resource centre at Wells Cathedral, which we have heard about today, and the new Song School at Chester Cathedral. These are just the sorts of initiatives that are required to secure the future of cathedral choirs and of the proud English choral tradition.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has done us a huge service by securing this debate today. Our cathedrals, with their choirs, are one of the jewels in the crown of our national life. It is right that we celebrate them, recognise the challenges that lie ahead and seek to identify ways in which they can be supported. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham said earlier, a ringing endorsement from your Lordships’ House today would be a splendid way to start.

HIV and AIDS in the UK

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I warmly welcome the publication of this first-class and comprehensive report from the Select Committee, and I am delighted that we have an opportunity to debate it on such an important day.

If I may, I start with a personal tribute to my noble friend Lord Fowler. For nearly a quarter of a century, his name has been inextricably linked with this issue and he has courageously trod an often lonely path. The Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign was a phenomenally bold move. Looking back on it 25 years later, we can see that it was a seminal moment in the history of HIV and AIDS that without any shadow of doubt saved countless thousands of lives. I say to my noble friend that I was just over 20 when the campaign was launched and was therefore part of a generation of gay men who, without the very stark warnings the campaign contained, could have fallen victim to what was then an untreatable disease. My generation owes an enormous debt to the foresight and courage of my noble friend, those who worked with him and the pressure groups that so assiduously supported him. They gave us the gift of life.

I wholeheartedly endorse the conclusions of this compelling report, in particular the emphasis on early and better testing. There is no doubt, as we have heard so often during this excellent debate, that the issue of late diagnosis is now the greatest challenge in dealing with HIV/AIDS. As the report makes clear, delays in dispensing antiretroviral therapy have grave health implications for the person diagnosed, as well as the risk of onward transmission. As the noble Lord, Lord Rea, touched upon, the figure in the report that 52 per cent of adults diagnosed with HIV in 2009 were diagnosed late is shocking. The problem is even higher among those aged over 50, at over 65 per cent. This is becoming not so much a problem of the young but a problem of the middle-aged.

When treatment of HIV is so effective and easily accessed, with rarely any of the problems of unpleasant side effects that once occurred, there can be no excuse for this. We need, therefore, above all else, to get to the roots of this issue. That is what I would like to concentrate upon, drawing heavily on the report.

There are undoubtedly many causes—after all, this is a very personal issue—but I would like to highlight three. One is certainly education. I do not just mean what is taught in schools, where the report has valuable recommendations on incorporating sex and relationships education into the national curriculum to ensure that children are taught about security in intimate relationships; it is more the importance of education throughout life. As the problem of late diagnosis among those aged over 50 is real and pressing, perhaps we need to find, for instance, novel ways to educate older audiences too, by deploying information through the media and the opinion-forming channels which influence those in middle age.

The second is the role of GPs and health professionals. The report rightly highlights how,

“a major obstacle to more widespread testing seems to be with those who could offer the test”.

In other words, some GPs avoid recommending a test to those who might have HIV because of misconceptions about the need for counselling, time constraints and, above all, stigma.

When I was preparing for this debate I visited the excellent Bloomsbury Clinic within the Mortimer Market Centre in Camden a few weeks ago. I heard a dreadful story there of someone who made his way to the clinic after having been ill for two years with a variety of conditions that should have shouted to his GP “HIV” from the rooftops. This person had never been given a test by his GP; by the time it was discovered, when he found his way to the clinic, full-blown AIDS had set in and the person involved lived barely a few weeks.

That sort of situation, rare though it is, is completely unacceptable. I hope that the recommendations in the report on the need for practitioners to become more confident in identifying those at risk of HIV are acted on without delay.

However, perhaps the single most significant problem remains that of stigma, as many noble Lords have said, most movingly, perhaps, in the examples given by my noble friend Lord Lexden. Of course, there have been remarkable strides in addressing the fear and misunderstanding of HIV, which are the wellsprings of stigma. Enormous credit must go to those many organisations—we have heard about the National AIDS Trust and the Terence Higgins Trust, which do remarkable work—which have fought tirelessly to combat HIV, as well as to the wonderful clinicians who work with patients and give them the confidence to deal with it.

However, there is much more to do and it is absolutely central to the issue of diagnosis, because fear of stigma and fear of testing are inextricably linked. Consider this: in the 2009 People Living with HIV Stigma Index, as we have heard, one in eight HIV-positive people living in the UK reported being physically harassed in relation to their HIV status in the previous 12 months. More than one in five had been verbally assaulted or threatened.

My noble friend Lord Fowler quoted from the survey on public knowledge and attitudes undertaken last year by the National AIDS Trust, which does such fantastic work in this area, about how people would regard a neighbour who was diagnosed with HIV, quoting, quite rightly, “Love thy neighbour”. There is an even more shocking figure in that survey that 20 per cent of respondents disagreed with the proposition that,

“if someone in my own family told me they were HIV positive, it wouldn't damage my relationship with them”.

Therefore one in five would have a more negative view of someone in their own family who was diagnosed.

Four areas of action need to be taken to tackle stigma, and the report very helpfully points the way in some of them. The first relates to healthcare professionals; sadly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, said, half of all discrimination reported by people with HIV is in healthcare, particularly in the case of dentists and GPs. Yet those are the very people who should be encouraging testing then, when somebody is diagnosed HIV positive, ensuring that they get swift and effective treatment from experts at the brilliant HIV centres around the country. NHS staff need consistent, high-quality and, above all, continual training about not just the basic facts regarding HIV but the unacceptability—indeed, the unlawfulness—of HIV discrimination, and about the actions that need to be taken to ensure that patients with HIV have the respect and support they deserve. Here, the new NHS Commissioning Board has a vital role to play in requiring anti-stigma training, especially in primary care.

The second area relates to general public information. Undoubtedly, “Awareness of HIV”, in the opening words of the report, is “below the public radar”. What that means is that public understanding of HIV transmission has also decreased significantly in the past decade. The Ipsos MORI surveys commissioned by NAT, which we have heard mentioned today, have over the past few years shown an increase in the number of people believing HIV can be transmitted through kissing. Less that half those questioned cite sharing needles as a possible route, although that is actually the second most common transmission method. These misunderstandings foster stigma because of the link between poor understanding of how the disease is transmitted and a judgmental attitude towards people living with it. Education in schools is obviously vital here, but so are local sexual health campaigns and information to ensure that, at the local level, people have accurate information on how HIV is and is not transmitted.

The third area relates to the media; here, I must declare my interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group. Undoubtedly, HIV scare stories in some small parts of the media still foster the fear that is the basis of stigma. While HIV and its ramifications are complex issues to report, not least because they can often become entwined with other emotive subjects such as immigration, there is never an excuse for inaccurate reporting when it can have a terrible human cost. Some progress has been made. The National AIDS Trust, working with the help of the Press Complaints Commission, has produced excellent guidelines for reporting HIV which have started to make an impact. They cover the law, the myths, the vocabulary and issues about testing. They are extremely important in tackling stigma and I encourage their wide dissemination in newsrooms across the media.

My fourth point relates to public policy. The Government's recent mental health strategy has, as one of its six objectives:

“Fewer people will experience stigma and discrimination”.

The Government are, rightly, backing this with significant funding. HIV is in many ways comparable to mental health in terms of conditions that arouse fear and foster stigma: yet there is no strategy or funding in place specifically to tackle HIV stigma and its resulting harms to public health. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, said earlier, such a strategic policy could work across departments and disciplines, involving education and teachers, the police, social workers, the media and, above all, healthcare professionals to tackle stigma at its roots.

Of course, money is tight but investment in a strategy of this sort would be perhaps the most cost-effective money the Government could ever spend. Various noble Lords have quite rightly pointed out the simple maths, which I am afraid were never a strong point of mine. I would look at it this way: £1 million spent on an HIV stigma strategy would be recouped by preventing just four of the 2,656 confirmed UK-acquired infections diagnosed in 2010. It is just four; once we get to the fifth, we have started saving. If it were successful, the long-term savings to the public purse could be considerable. Taken together, these four steps could significantly help tackle the stigma, encourage more people to get tested early, help prevent onward transmission of the virus, and ensure a better quality of life for the 100,000 people who will soon be living with HIV.

In my closing comments, I want to mention those 100,000 people. Thanks to effective treatment, there is no reason that they should not lead long and healthy lives. However, we have to recognise that HIV is now a chronic illness, that our understanding is relatively new, and that we do not know what its long-term consequences might be, or the long-term effects of the drug therapies, particularly in terms of other conditions that those living with HIV might contract. If you have HIV, every illness that you get could potentially impact on your treatment regime. As people live longer, this is going to become a much more complex issue to deal with and the model of care, as the report notes, will need to change accordingly. That means a holistic approach to treatment, with regular access to specialists in the field for all those with HIV.

For a number of reasons, some of which I mentioned earlier, GPs may not be the best suited to this task. I am cautious of any moves to give them primary responsibility in this area when it is specialist care which is going to be increasingly vital as the health service copes with an increasingly elderly population living with HIV. Ideally under the new commissioning arrangements, designated centres of excellence for HIV treatment and care should be the ones responsible for ensuring the most effective, convenient, continuous and flexible therapy for all HIV patients. I believe this would be likely to offer better longer-term results in quality of care than the strategy of giving GPs shared responsibility with specialists.

In my remarks today, I have tried to touch on a wide range of subjects. I could go into nearly as much detail as the brilliant report that we are considering. That is a point that underlines how complex this issue is in public policy terms. We are fortunate indeed that this report has given us the opportunity for such an important debate. I hope that in its way it can be as effective as the original campaign 25 years ago—this time not just so much about saving lives, but improving the quality of those lives. That is the great and noble task ahead.

Millennium Development Goals

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I just have one central point to make. Everyone acknowledges that while some good progress has been made in meeting the millennium development goals, progress in too many areas, such as malnutrition, maternal mortality and HIV, has been sporadic and patchy. I believe that one of the reasons for this is that in setting the goals, no attention was paid to what should be the central motor of the development process—the provision of a free and independent media.

I speak as chairman of the Commonwealth Press Union Media Trust, which aims to enhance press freedom throughout the Commonwealth, and I declare an interest accordingly. Experience from within the Commonwealth shows how free media can contribute enormously to the development of democracy and good governance, which are the foundation stones for the achievement of the MDGs.

A media that is free and robust, such as in India, Botswana, Kenya and the Caribbean island states, calls government to account. My noble friend Lord Chidgey, to whom we owe a great debt for securing this debate, rightly talked about empowering the poor to hold their governments to account. It needs a free media to do that. A free media will also take seriously its educative role in communicating objective information. In many countries, independent television and radio have been a successful platform for social information programmes to disseminate vital health messages. But state-run media, with journalists often cowed by the threat of jail, always end up doing a government’s bidding. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, where progress on meeting the MDGs has been slowest, this means the propagation of misinformation campaigns through which the population is often actively misled about subjects of major importance. There could be no better or more tragic example of this than the failed state of Zimbabwe, where the Government hold a vice-like grip on all information, with grave consequences for public health, which means that life expectancy is now just 33 years.

A report from UNESCO in 2007, Press Freedom and Development, outlined the strong correlation between media freedom and progress in meeting the MDGs, concluding that,

“press freedom is an instrument of development in itself”.

It highlighted how no country has both a free press and a very large percentage of its population living below the poverty line, how life expectancy improves as governance does and how media freedom makes it more likely that sound public health policies will be introduced. Let us look, for instance, at Ghana, which has an independent media whose freedoms are enshrined in the constitution. Its president, John Atta Mills, has worked in partnership with the media to instigate imaginative programmes to move the country forward toward the millennium goals, particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS. In Kenya, much progress has been powered by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai and her Green Belt Movement, working with free media throughout East Africa to improve environmental conservation and women's rights.

Development cannot be imposed; it can be only facilitated; and an independent media, with well trained journalists, is the best facilitator that there can be. If we are going to meet the ambitious targets of the MDGs by 2015, much more will have to be done to improve issues of governance, of public information and of press freedom, the three catalysts of change. Will the Minister ensure that greater attention is now paid to these issues and that the Commonwealth in particular is urged actively to encourage the development of free and independent media, which will be the precursor to the progress we all so desperately want to see?

Women in Society

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I am honoured to deliver my maiden speech in this important debate. This House is as rich in its extraordinary history as it is in the wisdom and knowledge of its Members, and to be able to take part in its proceedings is a privilege without equal. At this point I will, as other maiden speakers have, mention the great kindness shown to those who are new both by fellow Peers and by our formidable staff. It has been overwhelming and I am profoundly grateful.

I must admit to a few nerves this evening—not perhaps for the obvious reasons, but because I realised sitting here last week quite how many of my ex-bosses are on these Benches. There is my noble friend Lord Wakeham, one of my supporters, for whom I worked not just once but twice. Then there is my noble friend Lord Tebbit, who was my first boss in politics, who is joined by my noble friends Lord Brooke, Lord Bell and Lord Saatchi and, since yesterday, my noble friend Lord Howard. So this feels almost like a job interview.

I have worked for over 20 years in roles dealing with the media, for all those noble friends. As a passionate supporter of press freedom, not just here but throughout the Commonwealth, I hope to be able to contribute to our discussions on the future of the newspaper industry and the wider creative industries. As a trustee of the Imperial War Museum, and a member of the council of the Royal College of Music, our cultural heritage is also of great importance to me. However, today is for another subject. My noble friend Lady Verma is in so many ways the embodiment of the crucial issues we are discussing. She brings such substantial experience to the work of this House, and it is a privilege to take part in the debate in her name.

I was born and brought up in Brentwood in Essex. I went to its fine school, where I learned to play four musical instruments simply in order to dodge sports lessons, and fell in love there—with Virgil and Plato, and our islands' history. I played the organ at Sunday services. I cut my political teeth and became a councillor. It is a great place for a young man to learn. Looking back on my time there I have an overpowering memory—that in all the vital parts of our community's civic fabric, the bedrock of our local civil society was the older women of our town. They ran the local charities, and organised the volunteering. They were crucial in local politics. They kept the churches open and beautiful. They raised money for local hospital services, and our remarkable hospice. They were the often undervalued treasure trove of our town's existence. It is as true now as it was then.

Across the country, older women whose children have left home, or who have recently retired, play a pivotal role in our society. A citizenship survey from the Department for Communities and Local Government published at the end of last year showed how women from 65 to 74 were the most likely to participate in formal volunteering. Another survey, from the Institute for Volunteering Research, found nearly half of all volunteers to be in their 60s, with women playing by far the biggest role in education, social welfare and heritage. It is of real importance that we recognise that today. If, as I believe we can, we are to build the big society, they will help us power it.

It is therefore right that as part of this debate we also consider ways in which we can make sure that this huge potential is fulfilled and cherished, and that means looking very carefully at the special health needs of older women. It is not lack of willingness that makes many of them less active—to the detriment of our society—but the burden of premature ill health and frailty. The citizenship survey that I mentioned identified disability and long-term illness as the major bar to volunteering.

There are many such health issues, whether it be asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or depression, from which twice as many older women suffer as men. However, I want to highlight just one, which is eminently avoidable—the blight of osteoporosis. I have seen at first hand how that dread illness—responsible, if undiagnosed early, for so many debilitating fractures—is often to blame for the lives of those working in the service of others being curtailed. As it progresses, it stops too many older women doing much of what they want to do for our society, as mobility falters, pain increases and their world shrinks. In the case of my own mother—one such lady whose kindly spirit was the catalyst for a great deal in our town’s life—osteoporosis was diagnosed too late. Complicated years later by the appalling condition of polymyalgia, which we still know too little about and which also affects far more older women than men, her potential was, to her great sadness, thwarted too early. This is true of far too many other sufferers. One in two women over the age of 50 will suffer a fracture at some point because of poor bone health. That is one in two lives lived less fully than it could be, with our civil society—the great society—diminished as a result.

It does not have to be like that. So much could be done to deal with this problem simply by ensuring the widespread operation of fracture liaison services at hospitals and groups of GP surgeries. Such services could spot this condition much earlier and allow sufferers to continue doing more for us for longer. I hope that, as part of the Government’s plans for NHS reform, osteoporosis and bone health will now be recognised as a major public health issue and that indicators on fracture prevention will be included in the Quality and Outcomes Framework of the GP contract. Such moves are long overdue.

For so many reasons, I believe that older women should, in Belloc’s phrase, be preserved as our “chiefest treasure”. It has been an honour today to have the opportunity to speak briefly about their role in our civic life and to highlight some of the things that could be done to make sure that they achieve their full potential for longer. It is a subject very dear to my heart and I hope that in future debates we shall be able to track real progress on this issue.