Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot attempt to share the love of the Beatles expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, although I completely endorse what he said about the importance of creative subjects—music in particular—and how if you deprive young people of access to their visual and musical heritage, you are in fact sending them out into the world as two-dimensional creatures.

We are all very grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, not only for bringing this subject to your Lordships’ House today but for the manner in which he introduced the debate. I am just sorry that I am the sole Back-Bench representative of the Conservative Party able to take part in it. I have always felt that this is a subject where one has to cross party boundaries. One of the things that I have been most proud of in my now 52 years in Parliament is being one of the three who 48 years ago founded the All-Party Arts and Heritage Group—the others were Labour Members: Ted Graham, later Lord Graham of Edmonton, and Andrew Faulds. It still flourishes—I believe that some of your Lordships attended the Winslow Homer exhibition at the National Gallery this very morning.

I want to go back to the beginning of the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos. He quoted Churchill and, as he did so, I thought of the most memorable, iconic photograph to come out of the war: the dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral rising above the smoke of the Blitz. I am sure that all your Lordships have seen it or variations of it. It has symbolised just how much we depend on our heritage, and how, if that heritage is endangered, our very history and identity are endangered. We should be all the more conscious of that at the moment, as the history and identity of the brave Ukrainians is being endangered and in some cases pilfered and eradicated. That should underline how fortunate we are and what a task any Government have to create a cross-party accord and enthusiasm for defending and promoting our arts and our heritage.

I have the great good fortune to live in the cathedral city of Lincoln. I will not necessarily go all the way with Ruskin, who said that Lincoln Cathedral was worth any other two cathedrals in the country, but it is nevertheless one of the great buildings of Christendom. When I go across to listen to choral evensong, as I do virtually every day when I am at home, it seems that so much comes together: the glorious music, the wonderful building, and what a duty we have to maintain both—and it is very difficult to maintain both when it costs almost £100,000 a week to keep the cathedral open without replacing a single tile or engaging in any major restoration.

When I came into the House of Commons and we formed the all-party group, one of the things that we built on was a Bill that I had introduced in 1970 to allow state aid for historic churches. We have come a very long way since then. Churches are eligible for state aid; first, it was through the Historic Buildings Council, and then George Osborne, who has sometimes been maligned, set up that wonderful £40 million First World War fund for our cathedrals in 2014. As a result, a number which would have undoubtedly closed were able to remain open, and long may that be the case.

It is important that we recognise that the current problems, exacerbated by Covid, are different from but similar to the problems that have always threatened our heritage. There was a great exhibition in 1974 in the V&A—some of your Lordships may remember it—“The Destruction of the Country House”. As you looked at the pictures and heard the noises of demolition, you saw the hundreds of wonderful country houses that had been destroyed in the previous years of this century, very few of them by enemy action.

We have a priceless heritage, and it is our duty to maintain it. I understand that many people are very exercised by the recent decisions of the Arts Council. I share some of that concern, although I must be honest that I am glad that Lincoln came out of the settlement rather well. Our art gallery, the Usher, is now entirely secure. However, it is important that we maintain, everywhere in the country, a tradition of excellence and an opportunity to aspire. The one thing above all that we must never take away from our young people is a sense of their history and their identity, and the ability to hope. The real poor of the 21st century are those without hope. We have got to make sure that we share our built heritage, musical heritage and all the other aspects of the arts so that young people are able to aspire and hope. If this debate gives a little impetus to this, it will have achieved much, and we will all be ever in the debt of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos.