Built Environment: Design Quality

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, touches on an important and topical point. CABE was established by DCMS in 1999 as the national champion for better design in England’s building places and spaces, and in regard to design for climate change. It became a statutory body under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. It is sponsored by DCMS and, since 2003, has been jointly funded by DCLG.

[Baroness Whitaker]

The Minister’s department used to be the design champion within Whitehall. I hope that that is still the case. Would she be kind enough to confirm it? In that capacity or in any other, how does her Secretary of State see the future of the Design Museum, whose funding is to cease in four years?

[Baroness Rawlings]

The Design Council remains the UK’s national body for design, but under the proposed option it would no longer be within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Instead, it would operate outside the public sector, retaining its charitable and royal charter status. The proposal would reduce the Design Council element of BIS and refocus its activities—which cover, I imagine, what the noble Baroness was talking about. However, the key programmes that are valued by stakeholders would be preserved.