National Lottery

Viscount Falkland Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Falkland (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, not least for giving me the opportunity that I had been hoping for to congratulate the National Lottery and its funding arm on its extraordinary collaboration with the British Film Institute. Not surprisingly, this was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, in his speech, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, will agree. He has had a heavy day and has been in his place for many hours. He was a distinguished head of the British Film Institute at a time when things were much more difficult than they are now.

One of the great decisions that was taken—I hope that this is not a contentious remark—was when it was decided to say goodbye to the British Film Institute’s predecessor, the UK Film Council. What has happened since then has been quite extraordinary. One has to congratulate Amanda Nevill, the chief executive officer of the British Film Institute, on creating the extraordinary relationship with the lottery. Of course, the lottery does not go into film production finance but goes into development. The British Film Institute’s £40 million fund puts it in a position where it funds 30 feature films a year, but films the expensive development costs of 100 films are funded by the lottery. This has made an enormous difference to the number of films that are made.

I came into the House in 1984 when I was a callow youth of 49 years old—that is what it felt like in those days because the average age was rather higher. The leader of the SDP, who sat just below where the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is sitting now, encouraged me to throw myself in rather early in my career, and the Films Bill of 1984, which became the Films Act 1985, was the first Bill I worked through all the way. I learned a great deal about the way legislation passes through your Lordships’ House. It was very memorable. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, was actually speaking of later, but in 1984 the audience was going down and the box office take was at an extraordinarily low level. It was around £84 million and now it is more than double that. I am talking about theatrical—that is, cinema—attendances.

People see films on many platforms nowadays, so there is a huge interest in cinema. This has resulted in a huge increase in the opportunities for young directors, producers and performers, and it has increased the reputation of our history in this area. Although our cinema has been predominantly commercial, it still has an astonishing history, with some enormously great films that have been highly commercial but have also been enormously inventive. I am thinking now of “The Third Man”, which crosses my mind as I speak. So the lottery has been an extraordinary lifeline to the film industry.

I consider, and I think many noble Lords feel the same, that film is very important. It has never been viewed, as it is in France and other countries, as essentially a cultural part of our life, but nevertheless it is incredibly important. People should read stories, see films and learn stories through the visual media. One has to say that the doom-mongers of those times were not right to say that television had wiped out cinema and that it would not survive. It certainly has survived, and so has television; I think everyone now realises that they are two different mediums.

This has been an interesting opportunity to listen to some very interesting speeches. I have to say that the maiden speeches were exceptional. I remind the House that the election of the noble Duke was an amazing result. A friend of mine in the House whom I shall not name and I often speculate on what the odds might be at hereditary Peers’ by-elections. Conservative odds are always the most difficult because that party has the highest number of people putting their names forward. However, this result was a racing certainty.