Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on tabling Amendment 65A, which I support, as it is an imaginative amendment that seeks to discuss the UK Film Council and the British Film Institute and how their continuing respective functions will relate to each other. It quite deliberately uses the term “merger”.

I will speak to the work of the British Film Institute and to my concerns and hopes for this important organisation in the light of the changes that are to be made. Its multifaceted work does not have a primarily commercial imperative. Its work is inherently good for British culture and British society as a whole. Film has become, as in other countries but particularly in Britain throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, part of the lifeblood of the nation, so the BFI is as relevant today as it has been in the past and will be in the future.

Over decades, the BFI has done tremendous work, not least in saving, restoring and rediscovering British films that would otherwise be lost because of the fragility of the film medium. My own father, Terry Trench, worked in the post-war British documentary film industry, mainly as an editor but sometimes as producer or director. His films are among the close to a million titles that the BFI now holds in its national archive. My father was one of a number of still often unsung heroes of the original British documentary film movement, although now there is a much greater interest in this tradition, due in no small measure to the BFI—the success of its DVD compilations such as “Land of Promise” are a testament to this.

Indeed, the BFI is keen to allow work to be as accessible as possible to the public, although, given the copyright issues, this is not always easy. As it happens, the very first film that my father edited was directed by Anthony Asquith. The BFI recently restored Asquith’s early features, including “Underground”, leading directly to something of a critical reappraisal of his work. At present, the BFI is in the process of restoring nine of Hitchcock’s silent films in readiness for a retrospective in 2012, which in the year of the Olympics will garner considerable international interest.

I think on reflection that it could be a good thing if the UK Film Council was merged with the BFI—I choose my words carefully. However, I hope that this will not lead to the current BFI becoming some type of junior partner within this cinematic coalition, as with clear overall leadership its current role could and should be kept intact and necessarily as properly funded as the UK Film Council, which I understand from Ed Vaizey’s announcement on Thursday stands to benefit from a well deserved multimillion-pound injection of financial support, just as the BFI faces an undeserved 15 per cent cut in funding.

Ideally, the BFI would become the guardian of film of the past, the present and the future—the Paul Newman Butch Cassidy role to the UK Film Council’s Robert Redford Sundance Kid, if you will. However, if the overall framework overburdens the BFI and then threatens its current work, the merger will be a disaster, whatever extra funding the UK Film Council in effect receives, as there will be no legacy to aspire to and no heritage to make. In the light of this, I call on the Government to look carefully at the balance of funding and to reappraise those cuts, which are aimed at the heritage of the national film industry.

We are still fighting the same ideological battles as 50 years ago, even though the stages for such battles might have changed. My father worked for the state-funded Crown Film Unit, a much respected quango that was set up to replace the GPO Film Unit, whose work of course included the celebrated “Night Mail”. What then happened in 1952 to the Crown Film Unit, fresh from its recent BAFTA and Oscar-winning triumphs? A newly elected Conservative Government abolished it, the reason cited being financial in a time of austerity. I hope very much that the BFI goes from strength to strength and that the Government will continue to support its important work.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I have a brief observation to make. We heard a very enthusiastic speech from the Prime Minister in recent days about regenerating the imaginative drive of British industry. We are good at the creative arts and we are good at universities. Why do we have this generalised bureaucratic approach to sweeping legislation instead of getting down to the task—the real discipline—of looking specifically at each of these sectors and the things that are happening in them and devising the strongest possible arrangements to support them in maximising their success? Their success is beyond doubt and it is absolute madness to have been through an episode in which the talent that had got together and that was fulfilling the job so convincingly has been undermined, demoralised and fragmented by what has been proposed. How on earth does this relate to what the Prime Minister was talking about at the weekend? I ask the Government, even at this late stage, not just to try to patch up what has happened and try to find some acceptable solution but to look at the whole thing again and ask how they can really ensure that they have the strongest possible and most dynamic arrangements in place to enable the film industry, and indeed the universities, to succeed as they should.

[Earl Cathcart]

My Lords, I was not going to speak in this debate, but two things strike me. Here, I ought to declare my interest in that, in my past life, I was the chairman of a film production and distribution company.

First, my gut feeling about the merger is that it would be much better to have one body speaking to the British film industry and combining all the functions of the two existing organisations. This would reduce overheads, produce greater efficiencies and allow the new body to focus on the important issues for the film industry—in other words, to be one strong voice for the British film industry. Before these amendments came before us today, I asked one or two noble friends who are in the business for their views. I am told that not all but many eminent practitioners think that the Government in this instance have got it just about right.

Secondly, I am not 100 per cent sure why these amendments are being discussed today in our deliberations on the Public Bodies Bill. I did not think that either the UK Film Council or the British Film Institute were public bodies. They are not statutory bodies, so as excellent and as passionate as this debate has been, surely it should have been conducted outside the confines of this Bill.