Tourism

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone]

I congratulate the noble Lord on securing this debate, and endorse many of his points. I know the work he did as Minister for Tourism.

I had two specific aims when I was Secretary of State, the first being that I should sign all the letters concerning tourism, which is normally left to a junior Minister. If the Secretary of State signs the letter in interministerial correspondence, all the other Secretaries of State have to sign the letter. I thought that was a wonderful “Yes Minister” device to force Cabinet-level Ministers to understand the importance of tourism and hospitality and to not let them delegate it to a junior Minister. Secondly, my small and simple target was to speak at the CBI conference on the importance of tourism, hospitality and leisure, because it is a genuine sunrise industry and a great job creator. I decided that being on the CBI agenda would get tourism and hospitality where they needed to be. I am delighted to say that I secured that small target as well.

My small specific target today—I declare my interest as chancellor of the University of Hull and as the about to be appointed sheriff for the City of Kingston upon Hull—is to secure for that wonderful, creative and vibrant city the award of City of Culture 2017.

I warmly congratulate the Secretary of State on her speech today, which I think the noble Lord did not entirely understand. She spoke about understanding the economic potential which the arts and culture offer, both directly and indirectly. They are not an add-on, they are fundamental to our success as a nation. Culture does not simply have a role to play in bringing about a return to growth, it should be central to these efforts. Culture, as part of tourism and hospitality, is evidently critical. I was delighted she made the speech at the British Museum, which was founded by a lottery and jeered at by someone from my former constituency in Farnham, William Cobbett, who asked, “What manner of interest is that to the common man?”. All these centuries later, we see that the BM has survived extremely well.

Hull has always been a hugely creative city. It is the birthplace of Andrew Marvell and William Wilberforce. More recently, Andrew Motion and Philip Larkin taught at the university. Roger McGough, Anthony Minghella and Jenni Murray were all at the university. Tom Courtenay and Maureen Lipman were brought up there. There are wonderful local centres such as the Hull Truck Theatre; the dynamic, creative and modern Ferens Art Gallery; The Deep, which, I am pleased to say, was lottery-funded during my time on the Millennium Commission, and is a wonderful environmental and conservation charity; the Guildhall; and Trinity House, which houses the largest and most splendid silver collection across Europe.

All in all, it is a vibrant city that faces on to the rest of the world. It has always welcomed people from around the world, and harnessed its creativity and excellence as a spur to tourism. I only hope it becomes, like Liverpool and Londonderry, the next City of Culture in 2017.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Glasgow]

There are no votes in making concessions to people living in grand houses; rather the opposite, we are targeted as people to be milked. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of those living in grand houses are not particularly rich—because they are living in grand houses. HHA members collectively spend £139 million a year to maintain their historic buildings and grounds, and these sums are barely enough to contain the dry rot and stop the wet coming in.

The late Nicholas Ridley, a Minister in the Thatcher Government, grew impatient with historic house owners bellyaching about the cost of maintaining their houses. “If they can’t afford to keep them, why don’t they sell them to people who can?” was the argument.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone]

He said the nouveaux riches rather than the anciens pauvres. I was his junior Minister.

[The Earl of Glasgow]

Oh, did he? I did not know that. I think his sympathy was the same. On the surface, this seems perfectly rational but it ignores the reasons why so many of us carry on, year after year, struggling to hold on to the buildings we have probably inherited and in most cases learnt to love, while continuing to lose money every year. To own such a place is a privilege as well as a burden. Perhaps we feel we owe the struggle to ancestors who were struggling before us.

I think I am right in saying that no stately home in Britain that is open to the public actually makes a trading profit. The ones that are surviving do so only because the owner has other sources of income or can resort to selling a Titian or a Van Dyck every other year to fill the gap. Nearly all the historic buildings in private ownership are now open to the public but the income derived from them only helps defray the cost of keeping the house wind and watertight. On top of that, we must pay VAT on all structural improvements we make to the building, while our rich neighbour can build himself a brand new, comfortable, warm house completely VAT-free.

Now we hear that the Government intend to cap sideways loss relief, which was one of the few forms of tax relief to the beleaguered owners of historic houses. Then, as my noble friend Lord Lee has already said, we have the prospect of a mansion tax some time in the future. In this time of recession, many owners of historic houses are holding on to their homes only by a thread. Already some are having to face reality, forced on them by their banks.