Learned Societies at Burlington House

Debate between Christina Rees and Tim Loughton

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the learned societies at Burlington House.

First, I declare an interest as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, which is one of the learned societies. I am grateful for the huge interest in the debate, but I will not take interventions so that we can get more people in. If necessary, I am happy to give up my right to reply at the end. I just want to get on with it.

I particularly welcome the Minister who has taken a real personal interest in the problem since he was put into his current role. I want to thank all colleagues who responded to the quite intensive lobbying by the Society of Antiquaries, the Geological Society, the Linnean Society and the Royal Astronomical Society who, together with the Royal Society of Chemistry, form the learned societies who have called Burlington House in Piccadilly their home since the 1850s. Those learned societies, also known as the courtyard societies, are under-appreciated gems in UK research and academia, but they have global standing across a number of scientific and historical fields. I have had loads of emails. Just this morning I had a letter from various professors in Denmark and museums and learned societies in support of the case that I am making this afternoon. As the chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts, the learned societies’ next-door neighbour, recently put it,

“These charities have stood sentinel on this site since the 19th century, preserving our histories, furthering our understanding of the world and promoting its study to bring about discoveries and advances in the field of science, history, astronomy, natural history and earth sciences.”

The societies, together with the Royal Academy, were originally housed in Somerset House, but were turfed out by the Government of the day and relocated to Burlington House in Piccadilly, which, from 1855, gradually became their home and effectively a cultural hub for the arts and sciences. It was here that Darwin explained the theory of evolution and Schliemann showed off his discoveries from Troy. Important scientific works have been deposited and priceless artefacts safeguarded, including some of the oldest existing copies of the Magna Carta and iconic items entrusted to the societies to keep safe for the British public, and to foster both academic and public understanding of our heritage. There are works by Galileo, Copernicus and Newton.

The Society of Antiquaries, the Geological Society and the Linneans are the oldest of their kind in the whole world. The Society of Antiquaries has been an educational charity of global historical and cultural significance since 1707. The Geological Society, founded in 1807, is the UK’s national society for earth sciences, whose charitable work focuses on improving our knowledge and understanding of the earth. These are not dusty museums set up to indulge crusty old anoraks like me. They are very much living, breathing and highly relevant institutions that provide guidance to the Government on matters such as climate change and greenhouse gases, the safe disposal of radioactive waste, and the impact of immigration planning on the future of UK science. Those are just a few of the roles of the Geological Society, for example. It also gives strategic advice on HS2.

The 4,000 members of the Royal Astronomical Society advise and publish on solar system science, geophysics and many other areas crucial to the protection of our environment, and the Linneans play a substantial role in providing evidence and guidance on the biodiversity crisis and the ever-increasing demands of the global population. All of a sudden, if they were not there, a very large hole would be left. But their very existence is threatened because of a change to the way that their landlord—in this case, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—charges the learned societies rent. In effect, that has meant that in the past 10 years, the annual rent charge has increased by 3,000%. In the case of the Linneans, it has gone up from £4,000 a year to £130,000 a year, and rents are set to double further in the next decade. That was not what was envisaged when a new rent framework linked to the local rental values was first mooted under the previous Labour Government.

When the societies signed the lease back in 2005, they accepted that by 2085 they would pay commercial rent. However, at the time, calculations showed that the societies would have 45 years to adapt to a new model of income generation and rental payment before a dramatic increase. That increase actually started after just seven years, and was so rapid that the societies cannot adapt in time.

The societies are not the sort of luxury retail emporia to be found in other parts of Piccadilly. They are charities with limited income and particularly limited routes to raise more income while their tenancy is highly uncertain and their leases specifically prevent a third party from taking a charge on the properties, meaning that the societies cannot approach major funding bodies for grants to adapt and improve their building. The leases also prevent additional income generation through subletting or commercial activities—they cannot even have a café.

They are severely hamstrung in increasing their revenue, without which they cannot afford to pay their rent. But there is a Catch-22 as well: if they cannot afford their rent, they will have to move, but in the case of the antiquaries, the cost of moving the thousands of priceless fragile treasures would bust that society. Even the prospect of moving to a warehouse on a cheap industrial estate in a town in the midlands or north of England is a non-starter, let alone the fact that it would break up the hub and make the collections largely inaccessible to fellows and the public alike.

Their location in the heart of London enables courtyard society activities across the United Kingdom. As in other areas of operation, affordable tenure at New Burlington House allowed the courtyard societies to dedicate resources to active programmes outside London, from specialist meetings to large national conferences, matching local interests to available expert speakers. The societies are committed to a levelling-up agenda, and have been for a long time, reaching out and undertaking community-based learning. The London base is crucial to that work; they need the base to house their collections and to be near other societies, within easy reach of their important stakeholders who travel to Burlington House from all over the UK and internationally.

The societies are not expecting something for nothing. They have accepted that their rents should rise. At the behest of a previous Minister, at their own cost, they undertook a public value contribution analysis by the consultants PwC in 2019, which calculated that the learned societies together give an annual public benefit of some £47,368,500 to the British public, communities, and science and academic institutions throughout the UK. Surely it is only reasonable that the public benefit should be taken into account when calculating the rental value of those properties. In the case of the antiquaries, the same PwC study calculated that of the £5.4 million public benefit that the antiquaries generate, some 78% would be at risk each year if the society were to be forced out of its current premises.

The societies all want to increase that public benefit. They want to greatly expand engagement with the public at Burlington House and around the country, with other societies in schools and universities, with businesses, charities and many other partners. Indeed, the Society of Antiquaries has shown how this can be done with its other property at Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire, the former home of William Morris. Because it owns the property, it has been able to raise over £6 million from the national lottery heritage fund and others, to build a new education centre. When it reopens after the pandemic next year, it expects to double the number of visitors to more than 40,000. The same advantage awaits the other courtyard societies if they have a secure and affordable tenure, which is the basis of the problem.

We appreciate that Government have made certain proposals and have been helpful, most recently under the new Minister, including offers of a rent freeze, a rent holiday and some adjustments. However, the problem is that the rent now is unaffordable and without a new long-term lease, the offer to help seek lottery funding will not work. Since just 2019, the rent has increased by a further 39% at a time when financial positions have been made even worse by the pandemic. The situation has gone from bad to worse.

The problem is that the Government are still treating the buildings as investment properties housing commercial tenants rather than as the academic charities and educational research institutions that they really are. Unlike commercial tenants, they cannot just sell more widgets or put up the price of their widgets—or, perhaps more appropriately for Piccadilly, Louis Vuitton bags and designer frocks.

We need the Government to take a different approach and to recognise the learned societies for the unique tenants that they really are. The societies will be putting further alternative proposals to the Government and I am glad that there now appears to be a dialogue; for quite a long time, there was a logjam and dialogue just was not happening. Again, I thank the Minister for helping to facilitate that.

Among those proposals we should ideally seek a new long-term lease arrangement, as the Royal Academy negotiated some years ago, whereby they pay a peppercorn rent and have become commercially viable and very successful. The societies could make an up-front payment, made up of cash and in-lieu components, reflecting the public value assessments that have been mentioned already, and ownership of parts of their valuable collections could pass to the Government to make sure that they are enjoyed by even more members of the public.

Perhaps the management of the learned societies could pass to other Government Departments, where they could more readily be appreciated and engaged as cultural and heritage assets. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is an obvious candidate and I know that the Secretary of State has been sympathetic about taking a closer interest in and engaging with some of the learned societies. It would be helpful to understand on what basis discussions have already taken place. Apparently there have also been discussions between DCMS and the National Lottery Fund, because, as it stands at the moment and as I have said, the learned societies just cannot access those funds because they do not have the security of tenure.

The other solution is that MHCLG changes its rental policy so that it can charge a nominal rent but at a level that at least equates to the capital charge levied on the Department as a consequence of holding this asset. We believe that there are parallels with the way that the Ministry of Defence values some of its defence assets, for example, and the way that the Department has disposed of previous assets of historical and cultural value, such as Somerset House and the Royal Naval College.

Whatever solution is found, the Government really need to revisit the way that they charge the learned societies to reside in their purpose-made home at Burlington House. I am sure that colleagues who are here today, and the many others who have shown support for the cause, will help to play whatever part MPs can to help to forge a new arrangement between Government and these unique institutions, so that they can stay in their natural home, a cultural and scientific hub in central London, working with each other and with the Government to produce huge value for the whole country, worth well in excess of the sum of their individual parts.

I know that the Minister is the man to make that happen and I am delighted that he has agreed to visit the learned societies—hopefully next month—to see them at first hand. I hope that that will help to produce a long-term, fair and sustainable settlement that will see these unappreciated gems flourish further, and for the whole country to benefit as a result in tackling the big challenges of the day in science, environment and culture. It all rests on the shoulders of the Minister; I am sure that he will not disappoint and that we will have a solution to take back to the learned societies, which eagerly await the outcome of the debate.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

If Back-Bench speakers could confine themselves to three and a half minutes, we should get everyone in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I should have said at the outset that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees.

This has been an excellent debate. I thank all hon. Members for the conciseness of their contributions, which were all the more powerful for it. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) said, it all comes down to: “Stop faffing around!”

I am delighted that the Minister absolutely appreciates the value of the learned societies, and I in no way meant to impugn his own culture by suggesting that DCMS might be an alternative landlord. However, the problem is that talking about formulas and talking about tweaking formulas just does not cut it. The learned societies would have to sell a hell of a lot of coffee to get anywhere near paying the sort of rents that are being proposed, and at the current rate they are going to be on a full market rent by 2040, not 2085. This is coming down the tracks very quickly.

This is a crisis facing the learned societies. If the Minister genuinely believes, as I hope he does, that Burlington House is their home, and that we need them to open up—we have given examples to show that they desperately want to open up, but they are hamstrung by the financial positions that they find themselves in—I hope that he will consider the way the rent structure works at the moment. It just does not work for these learned societies. We risk losing the huge contribution that they make unless he does that—

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order.

Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Christina Rees and Tim Loughton

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend pre-empts a large plank of my speech. Rather than let everybody pre-run what I want to say, I think I shall get on with saying it. Perhaps I will take some contributions at a later stage.

Returning to the problem that I have identified, when one partner is much older than the other and there is a reasonable expectation that they will die some years before the other, the long-term survivor would not receive the same tax benefits as a married person or someone in a civil partnership, which is also discriminatory towards the couple’s children. Even a couple who are engaged to be married have more rights than a cohabiting couple. Offering a formalised role within an opposite-sex civil partnership could save a lot of retrospective ignorance and the ensuing heartache and financial implications.

It is for those reasons of natural justice and protecting the rights of partners that I am yet again promoting a private Member’s Bill to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, which I have been trying to do since the change to the legislation back in 2013. There is a deal of déjà vu involved in my reappearance on the same subject here today.

Without Government support, the Bill is unlikely to make headway, despite the support of hon. Members from all parts of the House and a nationwide campaign that has so far attracted more than 71,000 signatures to a petition. I am particularly pleased that we have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), who is the chairman of the 1922 Committee, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). We have the support of hon. Members from just about every party represented in this House. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who speaks for the official Opposition on equality matters, wrote on her blog:

“we have the chance to take another step in extending true equality, admittedly only in one aspect of our lives; choosing the type of partnership that best suits our needs, faith and aspirations.”

She gave her support and that of her party to the Bill, and is sorry she could not be here to give it in person.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward the Bill. I have supported this proposal for a long time, as it is all about equality. I had a private Member’s Bill, which did not get as far as his, that would have corrected another anomaly in the law by putting mothers’ names and occupations on marriage certificates. The hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) has taken up the mantle on that. The Bill before us is about equality. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, despite the result of the appeal in the High Court, which is being challenged, it is for this House to decide the matter because it is of great public interest?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is right. I will refer to that case, which will go to appeal imminently, as she says. My Bill may not get much further than hers if I succeed in talking it out in the remaining minutes, so I will make some progress.

The Bill has high-profile supporters, including Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, the couple who instigated the campaign. I pay tribute to them. They appeared in the royal courts in London last November seeking to overturn the Government ban on different-sex civil partnerships, arguing that it is unfair because it treats people differently dependent on their sexuality.

By contrast and more recently, Claire Beale and Martin Loat became the first UK-based heterosexual couple to enter into a civil partnership in the British Isles. The catch is that they had to travel to the Isle of Man for the privilege. Bravely, the island recently made this reform to its legislation. While our British island cousins have made this step towards equality, the Government on the mainland of the United Kingdom claim, as they did when Rebecca and Charles first went to the High Court in January, and when I first tabled an amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, that such a change would be costly and complicated. I just cannot see how or why.

I am not convinced by the Government’s excuses. This change is very straightforward. Just as with same-sex civil partnerships, it would not be possible for someone to become a civil partner with a close family member or someone who is already in a union. Such a union would need to be subject to the same termination criteria. All that is required is a simple one-line amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which is what my Bill would enact. That is why it is a very short, one-clause Bill. It could all be done and dusted in Committee by tea time.