English Cathedrals

Lord Rowe-Beddoe Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rowe-Beddoe]

My Lords, I acknowledge with gratitude the House’s indulgence in allowing me to speak in the gap. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on securing the debate. I shall not attempt to continue his elegantly described train journey through the cathedral cities of east England, but I will speak about the six great cathedrals of Wales.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Representative Body of the Church in Wales and an interest as a grateful recipient of an early education as a boarding choirboy and organ student at the Cathedral School, Llandaff, the only professional cathedral school in Wales. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester referred to in his excellent maiden speech, cathedral music must never ever be underestimated as a core of the cultural life of our country.

Our cathedrals in Wales range in scale from the small but perfectly formed St Asaph, now situated in the United Kingdom’s newest city, to the imposing grandeur of St David’s, a cradle of Christianity in these islands since the 6th century and declared a centre of pilgrimage by Pope Calixtus in 1123. Our newest cathedrals in Brecon and Newport are well established as key places in civic and social life; and Llandaff, a remarkable mixture of old and new, now hosts the largest organ built in this country for the past 100 years. It was beautifully demonstrated this April at a jubilee thanksgiving service in the presence of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen.

However, cathedrals will face even greater challenges in the coming years as they, as centres of excellence, continue the process of adaptation to serve an array of faith, community and outreach projects. The most recent announcements on VAT, while welcome, are still confusing and uncertain, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others have suggested. If grant provisions for returning in grant the equivalent of VAT are not retained—not only in this Parliament, as promised, but beyond—the implications are most serious. The award-winning creation of the cloisters at St David’s Cathedral, for example, would have been nigh impossible to realise if full VAT had been imposed on all the costs involved.

As the noble Baroness said, cathedrals, like all churches, face serious threats from metal theft. It is vital to continue our efforts to eradicate this crime wave. The Private Member’s Bill recently introduced in the other place is therefore greatly to be encouraged.