English Cathedrals

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on securing the debate and thank all noble Lords who have contributed to it.

I was struck by the suggestion made by my noble friend Lady Andrews that the word “cathedral” has, in some senses, become detached from its relationship to buildings and can be used in other contexts in order to give a sense of scale and impact of the event being described. This debate could be called cathedral-like in the sense that we have ranged wide, with knowledge and expertise, across the histories of our cathedrals and the contribution that they make to our society.

We have benefited tremendously from the expertise around the House today. I have already mentioned my noble friend Lady Andrews, who does so much in her capacity as chair of English Heritage—she has been congratulated on her work throughout the debate—and there were also, of course, the detailed contributions of the right reverend Prelates. They have taken us into the day-to-day living in cathedrals and how that impacts on local communities, and given impressive snapshots of the work that they do.

I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester on his maiden speech. He said that it was providential that he had come up to the House a few days before this event and that he was able to make his maiden speech, unlike so many of us who skulk around for several months wondering how on earth we are going to do it. We wait for an appropriate debate to come along, and what happens? Is it in two or three days? He was able to come up and wow us all with his contribution, which was so eloquent—as it would be, of course, from a fellow chemist.

In my researches for this I was very pleased to note that Worcester Cathedral had a Bishop Wilfrid in the early 700s and again in the 920s. There has been none since then; I am not offering, but it is time that the Wilfrids of this world struck back.

I should declare that as a Scottish Presbyterian, raised in a slightly different tradition, I am probably not the best person to address this topic today. However, we do have cathedrals. I was in Dornoch Cathedral only recently, while on holiday, and I have also in a recent lifetime sung regularly in St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh and attended concerts in St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. We have also heard about the cathedrals in Wales.

It is clear that, in making speeches such as this, one has to reflect on one’s experiences in these amazing buildings because of their scale, their impact and the contribution they make. Very few of us have been able to avoid addressing that as we have spoken. I suppose that I am to add to that. I now live regularly in England, although I do go back to Scotland; my cathedral highlight was probably singing, as part of a concert, Tallis’s motet “Spem in Alium” in Bath Abbey—not a cathedral in that sense, but close enough to count for this debate. It was a fantastic occasion.

Somehow cathedrals seem to attract people to visit them. We have agreed that there are 42 of them. I happened in my research to come across a story in the Sun newspaper recently about an English Heritage worker who has visited all 42 of England’s Anglican cathedrals and licked every one. He now plans to carry on licking in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. He said:

“We’ve no idea why the bet was centred on licking cathedrals—it just was. I’ve tasted a lot of new places”.

The cathedrals of Britain span the millennium, from the cathedrals dating from the 1100s to the modern cathedrals found in Liverpool and Coventry. As we have heard, they display a wide array of architectural styles, from early English Gothic to the majesty of the Renaissance at St Paul’s and the 1960s modernism in Liverpool. In the Middle Ages and up to the Reformation in the 1500s, the church enjoyed enormous power and wealth, and cathedrals are eloquent symbols of the dominant place it still holds in British society.

This debate has provided three strands of concern. The first is the question of whether our cathedrals can continue to be both ecclesiastical and, as it has been said, “common ground” places for our people. The evidence is pretty good. The worry is how we can continue to fund them in the way they are currently perceived. Many of us have talked about the places of worship scheme and I have some questions for the Minister at the end of what I have to say.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said that the soul of a country was in its buildings and that we could not call ourselves civilised if the spire of Salisbury or the wonderful vision of St Paul’s in London were ever at risk. Cathedrals are living, vibrant buildings, and as we have heard they make a contribution to local communities not just with spiritual and other work but in economic terms. It is very difficult to believe that we would continue to operate in society with our weddings, our funerals, our christenings, our graduations and even in the jubilee without using our cathedrals as a centre of much of the focus of our activity. Several noble Lords have spoken very movingly about the music in cathedrals and the contribution that has been made over the years to the musical life of our country. However, as we have been warned, we must not take this for granted. We must certainly celebrate our cathedrals—we must cherish, value and support them—but we must also express our concerns to those who have the authority to ensure that they continue.

A recent BBC survey found that representatives of almost half the cathedrals in England that responded to the survey were concerned about meeting running costs in two years’ time. Despite financial concerns, only nine of the cathedrals charge a mandatory entrance fee. We have heard a bit about Durham Cathedral already from my noble friend Lady Sherlock. Durham Cathedral does not charge for entry but asks visitors to make a £5 donation towards running costs, which are about £60,000 a week. Despite the request, on average visitors donate 32p each. There is obviously a huge gap. The quandary there—this is my second point—is that the question of what cathedrals are raises the question of whether there should be a charge. The chapter at Durham has obviously discussed the idea of charging for entry “many times”. However, as the BBC report says, the chapter felt that the cathedral was a public place where people should have free access for prayer and worship.

As we have heard, in England cathedrals can obtain funding from a range of agencies, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, or HLF, and English Heritage. On the latest figures, at the last grant announcement in January, HLF had requests totalling £27 million and gave out £10.3 million, so it was oversubscribed 2.6 times. We have also heard that English Heritage has seen the amount that it has to give in grants reduced from £25.9 million in 2010-11 to £15.4 million in 2012-13 as a result of government funding cuts.

There has been an interesting campaign about the way in which VAT is levied on church repairs; a number of earlier speakers mentioned that. I have taken two or three of their points, because I think they are relevant to the general questions about how we address this.

The case was made in a paper from the Church of England’s General Synod that since the largest portion of the grant aid available to support cathedrals comes from public funds, it is rather wasteful that much of the money is then recycled back to the Government through VAT. That is an important point. It has also been pointed out that the Government take more from the VAT charged on restoration works than they contribute in grants through their various bodies. There is also, of course, the more generic point that charging VAT is a disincentive to potential donors, since people are reluctant to give money that they know will end up being paid as tax.

We have some questions for the Minister and would be grateful to have them answered at the end of this debate. One of the problems about funding the church arises from the question of whether there can be a reduction specifically of VAT on church repairs and alterations. I understand that in December 2010 the current Government stated that they saw “no realistic prospect” of an agreement at EU level to allow for historic church repairs to be zero-rated. Can the Minister confirm that the Government have now given up attempting to get this concession?

In December 2010 the Government announced that the listed places of worship scheme will continue until 2014-15, with a fixed annual budget of £12 million. However, in the Second Reading debate on the Finance Bill, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that he would increase the listed places of worship scheme by £5 million a year to enable churches that have alterations to benefit from the scheme and not to be adversely affected. That took us up to £17 million per annum. I have one more loop before I get to the final figure.

The Church Commissioners said that we had got to “an insecure and inadequate solution” and that the potential VAT cost faced by the Church of England could be as much as £20 million a year. At the start of the new Session, therefore, the Chancellor announced that the Government would provide an extra £30 million a year for this scheme. He said:

“That will be 100% compensation, exactly as we promised in the Budget, for the additional cost borne by churches for alterations. It should also go a long way towards helping the situation on repairs and maintenance, where in recent years they have not been able to get 100% compensation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/5/12; col. 731.]

Could the Minister confirm the exact figure? My noble friend Lady Warwick said that it was £42 million per year. I make it £47 million per year. It would be nice to have an exact figure. In addition, that would make HMT the biggest funder of ecclesiastical buildings in the country, which is great; a slightly novel situation. Again, it would be interesting to confirm two things that relate to that. What did the Chancellor mean when he said that this additional grant would go a “long way” towards helping the situation on repairs? Are all alterations and repairs now to be covered by that, and if so, is it the Minister’s view that the £47 million—or £42 million, whatever it is—is now sufficient?

A final and important point is this: do the Government now believe that they have all funding in place, and will they now let the funding continue to operate, as this scheme was due to end in 2015? We would be grateful for the final word on that.