Ministers and officials regularly receive representations on listing issues, including funding, from a wide range of partners. More than £26.5 million was made available via English Heritage grant schemes in 2008-09 for the repair of listed buildings and other heritage assets.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. The current system of listing buildings can hold up development and lead to additional costs. In the case of Stockport college, in my constituency, that meant that a capital grant from the Learning and Skills Council for phase 2 development was almost entirely spent on improving two listed buildings with no educational benefit to any young person. That cannot be right. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss my concerns about the current system of listing buildings?
I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend in the near future to discuss the issues and I know that she has written to me about them. She raised two issues of substance. The first is the delay in considering the listing of buildings. We try to get the decisions out within six months, but that does not always happen and we should strive continuously to improve that. The second issue is the balance that has to be struck between ensuring that we protect our heritage, particularly buildings of historic and architectural value, and that buildings are fit for purpose and can be used, particularly by public bodies.
Bearing in mind that Canterbury, Lincoln and Lichfield cathedrals alone—to name but three—are looking for more than £26.5 million, will the right hon. Lady accept that that is not an enormous sum in the face of the problem? Will she encourage her Treasury colleagues to reconsider allowing private owners to offset the cost of maintenance against tax, freeing more money for public buildings?
I hope that the hon. Gentleman, with his great interest in these issues, will accept that the investment that we have made in churches and cathedrals over the past decade or so has been successful in dealing with some of the worst dilapidations that have occurred in those wonderful heritage assets. I assure him that I make constant representations to my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Treasury to see whether we can get some leeway to ensure that more resources are given to conserve our heritage assets.
Will my right hon. Friend resist any temptation to list Preston bus station, which has little or no architectural merit and has had an application rejected in the past? The current application is being used purely as a tactic to stop the redevelopment of Preston city centre.
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. That particular building has not been drawn to my attention so far, so I am grateful to him for doing so. I shall look in detail at all the representations I receive in coming to my decision.
Listed buildings are part of our national heritage—a national heritage that the Secretary of State described last week in disparaging terms as “the past, old buildings” and “monuments”. Does that explain why the Minister’s Department has cut funding to English Heritage by £100 million, more than halved lottery funding for heritage and withdrawn the draft Heritage Protection Bill?
Let me talk first about heritage funding. I would have thought that Opposition Members would support the Government as we try to ensure that investment in our heritage goes to supporting the assets rather than the bureaucracy of particular organisations. Although it might be true that English Heritage’s funding has kept level over the past few years, the investment in our buildings has increased. We now invest some £600 million per annum in heritage across the piece. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that there has been a decline in the funding of heritage. Indeed, I look forward to what he will say in his manifesto about the investment that we will have in heritage rather than the cuts that we will have in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its bodies.
On the Bill that failed to get time in Parliament, I regret that that happened but I am taking forward a lot of the propositions in it. Earlier, we discussed the Bill on spoliation that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has successfully piloted through both Houses. We are managing to put other elements of the Bill into effect without the legislation, but we will continue to look for an early legislative opportunity both in this Parliament—
Order. I think that we have the gist of the right hon. Lady’s reply.