Syria

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Earl is right. The presidential statement called for unhindered humanitarian access, including the granting of visas and permits, which is something that the Syrian Government can do, and pressure is being put on them to do that.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, in response to the noble Earl’s question, is it not made rather difficult because we do not recognise the legitimacy, or even the existence, of the Syrian Government?

[Baroness Northover]

The situation is extremely complex.

Philippines: Emergency Aid

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord of course knows that the United Kingdom has a long-term commitment, which is why we have committed 0.7% of our GNI to aid. He is quite right to emphasise the need for long-term reconstruction. One of the lessons that came out of the report penned by my noble friend Lord Ashdown was that when bringing in aid in this sort of circumstance, one needs also to look at long-term reconstruction. However, right now we need to deliver immediate assistance to people in the form of shelters, water supplies and so on. I note that we are also bringing in solar lanterns with built-in mobile phone chargers because the need for communication is absolutely essential in these circumstances. However, we are well aware of the need to ensure that reconstruction looks to the long term.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, after Haiti, the tsunami and now this appallingly tragic and devastating catastrophe, is there not a case for the Government to have a larger contingency fund within the aid budget? Some of us are a little concerned that nations which have space programmes are helped, as are nations whose regimes are not beyond the accusation of corruption. We need a much larger contingency fund so that not only can we go in quickly with large sums, we can also deal with what the noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about—the aftermath.

[Baroness Northover]

It was in the light of the Humanitarian Emergency Response Review by the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, that we set up the Rapid Response Facility, which has been brought into operation here. Money is set aside for just this kind of situation because clearly that is important.

Perhaps I may come back to a question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, about FCO advice, which I do not think I answered at that point. The FCO is advising against all travel to the Philippines, and the embassy in Manila is working to support UK nationals in the country.

Arts: Contribution to Education, Health and Emotional Well-being

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am inspired to begin by saying:

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”.

I am sure that we are all extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, not only for what she has said this afternoon so succinctly and so powerfully, but for what she has done over so many decades to further the cause of the arts.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for two things: first for initiating this debate and the manner in which she did it, and secondly for her—and the Minister’s—kindness to me. This debate has started a little later than many of us hoped and as there is only one train to Lincoln at 7.06, I will have to leave here at around 6.10 so that I can get to Kings Cross in time. I hope that other colleagues in all parts of the House will be as kind to me as the Minister and the noble Baroness, and acquit me of any discourtesy.

Whenever I go into that glorious Lincoln Cathedral, which is now within 50 yards of my home, for a great service and I sit there and look at the marvellous shards of Purbeck marble rising to the roof, see the dappled, stained glass as the sunlight comes through the window and listen to the choir, I realise that this is the full beauty of “craftsman’s art and music’s measure”. What I want is for more people to be able to share it. Of course, some are conscious every year of the all-encompassing quality of the arts when they see the television broadcasts of the King’s College choir on a Christmas eve, and now similarly at Easter, with the Rubens masterpiece, the “Adoration of the Magi”, at the high altar, the marvellous fan vaults of Henry VI and, of course, the glorious music of the choir.

The noble Baroness is right to say that the arts are of overwhelming importance, educationally and to the health and well-being of the nation. She referred to the Dulwich Picture Gallery experiment, where not only the old, but also the sometimes quite recalcitrant young are brought to a greater understanding. They are—to quote Wordsworth, as did the noble Baroness—“seeing into the life of things” in a very different and new way. I saw this many years ago when I was involved in the beginning, in this country, of the Music Therapy Charity. One saw what effect music had on severely handicapped children who otherwise would have had no outlet. It began with a glorious service in Westminster Abbey when Yehudi Menuhin played Bach partitas on the chancel steps. The two remarkable Americans, Nordoff and Robbins, who started this charity, were there. It has now grown considerably and is known around the world.

If you go into prisons—I had two in my constituency, one a young offenders institution and the other an adult prison—you see that people who have often been written off by society, quite wrongly, can be moved by art. They can be moved by lovely pictures, by poetry, by drama and by music. If you go into hospitals, you see the therapeutic effect of art on severely sick people, when they look at wonderful images and listen to glorious music.

The arts are, in every possible sense, priceless. To equate them with commercial calculations is doing us all a disservice. You cannot quantify it; if you want to start quantifying it—I am sorry I could not take part in the debate of my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft—you can provide a very good justification. After all, the thousands of tourists who are flocking here this year—there seem to be more than ever—are not coming for the glory of the weather, although they are enjoying it at the moment, and they are not coming for the excellence of our cuisine, although that has improved very dramatically in the past 30 or 40 years. What they are coming for, as their forefathers did before them, is to see our fine buildings, to go to our wonderful galleries, and to listen to the music at the Proms and other concerts. The arts bring in to this country enormous sums of money—a fact that no Government of any political persuasion have ever fully recognised.

I wrote a book about this in 1976, in which I tried to argue that our heritage was in danger and that it was in everybody’s interest to safeguard it not only because of its innate glory but because of what it brought in to the country. This remains true. People come and are moved by this great building in which we are privileged to work. Of course, they have a passing interest in the constitution, but what really turns them on is the majesty of this Chamber and the glory of Barry and Pugin’s architecture. Therefore, the noble Baroness was quite right to say that we should evaluate what the arts do for our education, our health and our well-being.

I will close on education. As a former schoolmaster—although that was more than 40 years ago—I believe that we sell our children short if we do not open their eyes and minds to the wonderful heritage of European civilisation, and of the civilisations beyond. Our young people should be made more aware of the glories of Italy, the majesty of France and the wonderful beauties in our own country. Every young person, as part of his or her education, should go to the National Gallery and spend an hour in the company of someone who understands and appreciates the paintings. Every young person, before he or she leaves school, should spend an hour or two in one of our great cathedrals and should be able to listen to wonderful music. That is easier because the musicians can travel.

The noble Baroness did us all a signal service. The day began in a rather strange way, as days in this House often do. We had a debate on the cultural impact of Premier League football—not just football, but Premier League football. What we are considering this afternoon is premier league art, which is far more all-encompassing, far more moving, far more valuable and far more lasting, so we are very grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing the debate.

Transport: HS2

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it is not just Liverpool that will suffer under the present plans. Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and other cities will be bypassed. I do not want to follow the right reverend Prelate, because I do not support HS2 and I never have. Now, of course, it threatens the county that I had the privilege to represent in the other place for some 40 years; I am receiving letters. “Staffordshire’s pain will not be Staffordshire’s gain” sums up the messages that I am receiving both by telephone and in the post.

We have to consider that this is a finite country. Our glorious, beautiful landscape is finite. The noble Lord, Lord Truscott—we are all in his debt this evening—talked about the vaster spaces in France and Spain, our continental neighbours. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever until it is destroyed; we will be destroying some of the finest and most beautiful countryside that this country has, in the Chilterns, the Midlands and beyond. To what point and to what purpose are we destroying it? The people who come to Liverpool and elsewhere come to this country not just to do business, although we hope they will come in increasing numbers. They do not come to enjoy our weather; they come, increasingly perhaps, to enjoy our cuisine; but most of all they come to enjoy our built heritage—our historic towns, villages and cities, and our cathedral cities in particular—and they come to enjoy the truly breathtaking countryside that we are privileged to have. It is our duty to pass that on to future generations.

There are so many other things that could be done with this money. I have the privilege of living in the glorious cathedral city of Lincoln. Lincoln does not have regular services to London. There is one train a day from Lincoln to London and one from London to Lincoln. A Lincoln man or woman can have a day in London, but somebody in London cannot have a day in Lincoln. As we approach the octocentenary of Magna Carta, we are going to have great celebrations in Lincoln. It is essential that we have better rail communications. People from London could have a day in Lincoln as they can so easily have a day in York. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for Transport for the personal interest he is taking in this matter. He is a man for whom I have the highest possible regard, as I do for my noble friend who will respond to this debate.

I think we have our priorities misplaced. We should be spending this money on upgrading and perhaps on reinstating some of the lines that were so ill-advisedly taken up in the wake of Beeching. My time is up; this country’s time will be up scenically and in many parts of its beautiful landscape if HS2 goes ahead. I hope and pray that it will not.

English Cathedrals

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Cormack]

That this House takes note of the future of English cathedrals.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House notes the future of English cathedrals. In doing so, I cast no aspersions on cathedrals in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland: I wish to concentrate today on the cathedrals of the established Church of England.

I am delighted to have this opportunity and I am most grateful to those colleagues in all parts of your Lordships’ House who have put their names down to speak. I am particularly glad that I will be followed in the debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, the distinguished chairman of English Heritage, who has made such a magnificent contribution to causes about which we both care deeply. I am also very glad that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester has put his name down to make his maiden speech. I am sure the House looks forward to what he has to say.

After I leave the Chamber I shall be going to King’s Cross to catch the train to Newark. It will stop at Peterborough and I will see the cathedral there. If I had the time, I could alight and go and admire the tomb of Catherine of Aragon. I could even get a train to Ely to see that glorious lantern tower rising above the fenland. In fact, I shall get off at Newark and go to my home in Lincoln.

I hope that the House will forgive me if I beg leave to agree with Pugin, Ruskin and Alec Clifton-Taylor that Lincoln is the fairest cathedral of them all. Of course, if I stayed on the train, I could go to York, that most magnificent and greatest in size of all our Gothic cathedrals, and admire the wonderful stained glass windows. I could continue to Durham, where the noblest Romanesque building in this country dominates the landscape—

“Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot”,

as Sir Walter Scott said.

However, I will not be able to do any of those things today.

I want to reflect briefly on the importance of our English cathedrals. We could all agree that one comes closest to the soul and story of a nation in its great buildings. That is nowhere truer than in our wonderful English cathedrals, especially the pre-Reformation cathedrals and those ancient foundations that were designated cathedrals either in the 16th century or after. However, we are talking not just of noble historic buildings of often unsurpassable beauty but of living, breathing, vibrant buildings, and it is important that we recognise that. They are centres of worship; that is their primary purpose, and those of us who are Christians, particularly those of us who are members of the Anglican Church, will always regard that as their primary purpose.

However, they are centres not just of worship but of music, craftsmanship and of their individual communities. I seek in this debate to underline the continuing contribution of the 42 diocesan cathedrals of England—plus, of course, the two royal peculiars of Westminster Abbey and St George’s, Windsor, which are always taken together—to rejoice at what they are and what they represent, and to stress how crucial it is that their future should be secure. We rightly talk and behave as if they belong to us all, and as cathedrals of the established church they do. Each week around 40,000 people worship in our cathedrals; last Christmas season something like a million people worshipped in the cathedrals of this land.

However, it is not just for their services that we regard them as we do. Last week I had the honour of convening a meeting between parliamentarians from both Houses and deans of English cathedrals. A number of your Lordships who are in the Chamber today were present at that meeting. It was a very interesting occasion because we were reminded by those who have the daily charge of our cathedrals what a key role they play in the social, cultural, civic and national life of England. We heard about Bradford Cathedral—not perhaps the most distinguished architecturally, although it is a very fine building, but a church where people of all communities, and faith communities in particular, are able to come together for mutual fellowship and sustenance.

We heard about Wells Cathedral—Wells, that wonderful small city, surrounded by marvellous countryside that nevertheless has many problems within it. We heard from the dean how Wells ministers to that rural community. We were reminded about how often cathedrals are the centres for concerts, exhibitions and graduation ceremonies. Only three weeks ago I went to Southwell Cathedral. There was a graduation ceremony taking place when I arrived. I went to see the exhibition to mark the 350th anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer and the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen. I talked to the dean and became conscious of how that cathedral, in a very small city, was the focal point for miles around. We were reminded at the meeting last week of how, at moments of sadness and rejoicing, a cathedral was a place where people came together. One thought of Soham and Ely and, on a much happier note, every cathedral in England this year has had a special service to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen.

However, when all too easily we take for granted the beauty and dignity of our cathedrals and their surroundings, we also tend to take for granted the glory of the music and the excellence of the craftsmanship. Even the fact that cathedrals continuously patronise the arts in the best possible way tends to be taken for granted, too. I was delighted when a couple of years ago English Heritage published a document that concentrated on the new things which have been built in and around our cathedrals, highlighting in particular the sculpture in Lincoln and the magnificent tower at Bury St Edmunds, which people now talk of as if it had been there for centuries. When we take these things for granted, we ought to remind ourselves that they do not just happen; they all come at a price.

I am glad that we do not have the French system where all the fabric of religious buildings is vested in the state. That would be a great pity, and I know of no dean and do not yet know of any bishop—perhaps I will be disabused today—who takes a different view. The pride and sense of local patriotism that leads to fundraising through a sense of belonging to a community are absolutely irreplaceable and beyond price. But we have to recognise that there is no automatic direct funding from the state to support our cathedrals, nor is there such funding from the Church Commissioners. They provide for the stipend of the dean and two canons, but that is about all. To a large degree the cathedrals are still self-financing. As the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral, Philip Buckler, said to me earlier this week, cathedrals value their independence but not their isolation.

Things are better than they were. When I entered another place in 1970, there were no state grants at all. I served on the Historic Buildings Council and we were expressly forbidden to give grants to places of worship. I introduced a Bill to provide state aid for parish churches. The campaign was successful and it was followed by one for cathedrals. We are all glad and grateful for that. We are particularly grateful to English Heritage for what it has done, and I shall say a word or two more about that in a moment. But although things are better than they were, there are still real problems. This year we had the VAT bombshell in the Budget. The Chancellor has responded and we are grateful.

Listed places of worship will continue to benefit, but let us remember that each cathedral is at the centre of a series of buildings. Almost every cathedral has a close, just as we have our minster yard in Lincoln. The cathedral is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of often incredibly important medieval and later buildings. The VAT exemption does not touch anything other than the actual place of worship. It is also limited to the year 2015, so there is no certainty of continuity. That is a pity and a great worry to those who are concerned with these issues. Money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, for which again we are all grateful, can go to interpretive schemes and to new extensions but not to the maintenance of the actual fabric of the cathedral.

All this must be seen in a context where, as we speak, Canterbury Cathedral, the mother church of the Church of England, will need £50 million over the next five years. Lichfield, which used to be my diocesan cathedral, has had to raise and spend £5 million over the past five years and will need another £7 million in the five years ahead. At Lincoln we will need £16 million over the next 10 years. All this is in addition to the £50,000 a week that it costs to keep the cathedral open. It is a similar figure in Winchester and many other places.

English Heritage has been put in a very difficult position. It has had its own grant reduced. That has meant that the carefully worked out strategy between it and the cathedrals has been to a degree undermined. That is partly because of diversion of resources to the Olympic Games. We have to face up to that. The Heritage Lottery Fund has also had resources that might have been devoted to some of the causes that are dear to us in the Chamber today diverted to the Olympic project. I wish the Olympics every success but there has been a distortion of priorities in recent years that needs to be put right.

We must recognise in all of this the positive contribution that cathedrals make to the local and national economy, music, craftsmanship and employment. Although it is wrong to define the importance of our cathedrals in terms of tourism, we must remember that those who bring so much much-needed money and, indirectly, employment to our country are attracted by our great buildings. They are attracted particularly to the great country houses and cathedrals of this country.

I make a plea to the Minister that she should discuss this matter with the Chancellor, the Culture Secretary and others. I would like to see a more generous interpretation of the VAT exemptions. That is crucially important. In Lichfield, the dean has pointed out to me that one project alone is likely to cost another £500,000 as a result of recently announced changes. That money is not easily found.

I pitch my request at a very modest level. I would like £50 million provided as an endowment for the cathedrals of England over the next five years, with the money given to and channelled through English Heritage, which has the expertise to liaise and to distribute it. That would be a particularly appropriate gesture in the year of the Diamond Jubilee, bearing in mind that the Queen is after all Supreme Governor of the Church of England. I do not think that many people in the land who appreciate things of enduring beauty and wealth, whatever their religious persuasion, would begrudge that very modest sum. I would like to feel that we could have a promise that that will be discussed. Of course, my noble friend cannot make an exact promise at the Dispatch Box.

There are two enduring images of this country perhaps above all others: Constable’s painting of Salisbury with the spire above the meadows and, from a more recent period, the picture of St Paul’s in the Blitz, rising above the smoke. No nation can afford to call itself civilised if it allows the spire of Salisbury or the dome of St Paul’s to be put at risk.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I am told that I only have two minutes. I would love to mention every speech but I thank all those who took part in what was a wide-ranging, passionately felt and very well informed debate. I am extremely grateful. I must single out the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, whose presence has been much appreciated by us all. What she said was even more appreciated. I must also mention with great delight the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester. As my noble friend Lord Black said in his remarkable speech, it augurs well and we look forward to the right reverend Prelate’s future contributions.

This debate has united the House in expressing concern for these glorious buildings. There might be slight differences of opinion as to which is top of the list but that matters not a jot. We are talking about some of the most glorious buildings not only in this country or Europe but in the world. I derived some comfort when the Minister said that she wanted to ensure that they were safeguarded as well as enjoyed. Grateful as we all are for what she said, I hope that she will reinforce the request for the £50 million endowment. It is a very tiny sum in the national budget, as others indicated. I very much hope that something will come of that. The sums we are talking of are small.

One of the recurring themes of the debate was the wonderful contribution of choral music and the crucial importance of maintaining that tradition, which means so much to us all. When I go to Lincoln for choral evensong, as I do every day when I am there, I come away feeling inspired, refreshed and invigorated by what I have heard, and by the solemnity of the surroundings in which the glorious music took place. I feel the same on a Sunday morning after sung matins. I am delighted by the good Prayer Book services in Lincoln. I thank all noble Lords for what they said in the debate and am most grateful to them for underlining the importance of this glorious built heritage of ours.

Motion agreed.

Insurance: Gender Discrimination

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, does not this demonstrate that on this occasion the Court behaved as a court of injustice?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend raises a good point, but I am afraid that I have to go by the ruling, as we all do as members of the EU.