Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Wills Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, as noble Lord after noble Lord has demonstrated, this is not a good Bill. It exemplifies the dangers of concocting a headline and then back-filling policy into it. As so many noble Lords have pointed out today, as has the Constitution Committee, the Government as a whole—not the Minister, I hasten to add—are behaving like constitutional hooligans who are marauding through the public bodies of this country. After today’s long debate, I hope the advantages of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Hunt will be rather clearer to the Government than they perhaps were at the beginning of today’s proceedings. In the mean time, following other noble Lords, I should like to express my sympathy for the Minister, who appears personally blameless for this debacle but still has the thankless task of taking it through this House.

Although I recognise that the Government are not going to think again about the overall wisdom of passing the Bill into law, I offer the Minister some constructive suggestions, following the plea by the noble Viscount who has just spoken, about two bodies that are particularly important to the cultural vibrancy of this country—the Public Lending Right Office and the Film Council. Before doing so, I draw the attention of the House to my registered interests. I am the author of two novels published by Hodder Headline. It is possible, although sadly not very probable, that my novels could be turned into films. I am not signed up personally to benefit from the public lending right.

The public lending right scheme was the outcome of a long campaign by some of our most distinguished authors. Apparently unnoticed by Whitehall and Westminster, it has been a tremendous success. The Public Lending Right Office distributes more than £6 million a year to 23,000 authors. More than 200 authors receive the maximum possible payment of just over £6,500. Of those, 80 per cent said in a recent survey that the annual payment from the Public Lending Right Office is core to their income. Very few authors write bestsellers but that does not make the rest any less valuable to our cultural life. The public lending right is a critical part of our cultural infrastructure. It is administered by the Public Lending Right Office in Stockton in an operation which is widely recognised as capable and efficient. It has reduced its staff by half in the past 20 years while still maintaining high standards. It is an exemplary public organisation, yet now we learn that, as with so many other public bodies, it is to be disbanded and its functions allocated to another public body. However, I hope that the Minister will think very carefully about how this is done. The administration of intellectual property rights is complex, demanding and requires specific skills. Experience developed over time is invaluable. Disrupting a successful organisation, however small, is always perilous. Wrecking this resource would be devastating to many of the writers who do so much to sustain the cultural life of this country.

There are two things that I think the Government could do to mitigate the potential damage of this change which are still consistent with the overall policy framework. First, they could ensure that the current team, which has done such an excellent job, is kept together and in the same location, which is a low-cost area of the country, so avoiding all the disruptions of any move. Can the Minister give such an assurance and, if not, why not? Secondly, the Government could guarantee that the public lending right will not be decreased as a result of this move. Can the Minister confirm this? In particular, please can he confirm that any cost of the organisational change will not come out of the already stretched resources of the Public Lending Right Office, damaging the essential income and support that it provides to authors? If the Minister cannot respond to that point tonight, I should be grateful if he could write to me with the Government’s latest thinking on the most cost-effective and least disruptive home for this organisation.

My second area of concern is the Film Council. It, too, is a national institution that has proved its worth to the cultural life of this country and to our economy. In just 10 years it has been extraordinarily successful in developing the British film industry. It has helped to treble its turnover. It now returns more than £1 billion a year to the Exchequer. The Film Council has backed more than 900 films, shorts and features, which have entertained more than 200 million people worldwide and has helped to generate around £700 million at the box office. For every £1 of lottery money invested, £5 has been generated at the box office, allowing the Film Council to reinvest that straight back into new British films. It has supported the development of new filmmakers, funded imaginative and innovative British films and ensured that British audiences can have access to all the glories of the cinema, with a wider choice of films made available to people throughout the country. It has invested in training, promoted Britain as an international filmmaking location, raised the profile of British films abroad and overseen the introduction of the film tax relief, which is so vital to sustaining competitiveness. This success has been hard-won. Cultural entrepreneurship of this kind demands rare skills: a commercial eye for an audience; an academic intimacy with the medium; a human empathy with the creative artist and the ability to nurture and develop them; and an inspirational excitement about the cultural and industrial benefits that film can offer.

The Film Council has been fortunate in attracting such talent. Its remarkable record attracts the talented, skilled and experienced people who work there. It is essential not only to retain that talent and expertise but, if we are to avoid jeopardising years of hard work and success, to retain it in one place and under one roof; otherwise, some of the most exciting entrepreneurial talent in this industry will haemorrhage from the public sector and we risk losing that and precious creative talent overseas where they might feel more appreciated. This is a mobile industry and it is very important that we keep it in this country. The ecology of such organisations is fragile and can easily be destroyed without anyone necessarily intending such an outcome.

I suggest that there are four measures the Government could take to help avoid such damage which are still consistent with their overall policy approach. First, they could guarantee that the sums available for public funding of films will be ring-fenced, not used to plug funding holes in other organisations or to meet any transitional costs. Can the Minister give such an assurance and, if not, why not? Secondly, wherever the Film Council ends up, its current remit must be retained and not disaggregated or marginalised. In particular, its present commercial and industrial activities must not be compromised. Can the Minister give such a guarantee and, if not, why not?

Thirdly, the administration of lottery funds, as many noble Lords know, requires particular skills, and it would be wasteful of public money to seek to build up such experience in this area from scratch when the capacity already exists within the Film Council. Can the Minister guarantee that when it is decided where the Film Council is to end up, a fundamental review of the governance of that body will be conducted to ensure an effective incorporation of the Film Council into it and, in particular, to ensure that the ability to administer lottery funding effectively is entrenched in the new structure?

Finally—this request should be even easier than all the others that I have asked of the Minister—will he secure appropriate accountability for the new organisation? After all, the Government tell us that accountability is at the heart of the Bill. The board and management of the new organisation must be directly accountable to government, and through government to the public. Such accountability must include ensuring that all board appointments are governed by the DCMS and subject to the guidelines of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. This new organisation must also be subject to the Freedom of Information Act as transparency is the key to accountability. Given the Government’s commitment to accountability, I assume the Minister can reassure me on these points. I hope he will.

As I have said, I accept, regretfully, that the Government will proceed with these changes. I hope that they will change the process through which they go about those changes, as so many noble Lords have urged them to do, but how much of a disaster the changes will be will depend crucially on how they are implemented. I hope that I have been helpful to the Minister in suggesting practical measures for two important institutions and I hope that he can give me some comfort on them.