Kew Gardens

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

There are three reasons why I want to contribute to the debate. First, I was the last Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—the Labour Government abolished it when they came into office in 1997. At the time, MAFF had responsibility for Kew gardens. For a while, therefore, I had ministerial responsibility for them, and they were an oasis of calm, especially when one was having to deal with things such as BSE and slaughtering millions of cattle. However, the case of Kew makes the machinery of governance point that non-departmental public bodies ricochet from one Department of State to another, depending on how the architecture of Whitehall responsibilities is made up. I will come back to that in a second.

My second reason for wanting to contribute is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) have made clear, Kew is one of the country’s outstanding assets. Indeed, in an oral question about Kew—looking at the House of Commons Library brief, I think I am one of the few colleagues who has asked one—I said that we all see it as a “national treasure”.

The third, personal, reason why I want to contribute to the debate is that my very first date with my wife was at Kew gardens. I therefore have a particular sentimental reason.

The hon. Gentleman’s machinery of governance point is very much the nub of the issue. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to be Ministers know that, each year, the Chief Secretary agrees a spending provision with the Secretary of State for each Department. Once that overall spending envelope is agreed, Ministers have to go through the Department to see how it will be shared out among the various commitments and statutory provisions it has to undertake. Inevitably, non-departmental public bodies come at the tail end of those negotiations because Departments tend, understandably, to look first at their core activities and then, if one is not careful, to say, “We are having to take an x% reduction in our public spending, so we have to apply that across the Department as a whole.” That leads, even if there is a three-year review, to the figures one sometimes sees.

As the hon. Gentleman fairly observed, and as the House of Commons Library brief demonstrates, the narrative here is not one of recent sudden cuts to Kew’s funding: there has been considerable yo-yoing over the last eight years or so. For example, in 2013-14, Kew’s funding was £28 million. In 2007-08, however, it was only £25 million. In the following years, it was £26 million, £28 million, £24 million, £28 million and £32 million, so it yaws around quite considerably over the years. In those circumstances, it is difficult for any organisation or institution to plan.

If one keeps Kew as a non-departmental public body, it will be hard for the Department of State to ring-fence funding for it, as against everything else it has to provide for. Of course, the figures are not small. DEFRA provided £32.5 million in funding in the financial year 2012-13, out of Kew’s total income of nearly £60 million. Kew’s budget is therefore quite substantial; indeed, I cannot think of any similar non-departmental public body with a similar budget. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the museums, but they tend to get direct grant in aid, while other research organisations tend to be parts of universities.

One of Kew’s great assets is its seed collection. I know from my time as a Minister with responsibility for the Overseas Development Administration and from chairing the International Development Committee that the seed collection is a global resource. However, that is really the responsibility of the Department for International Development, not DEFRA.

I rather find myself agreeing with my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman that we need to see how Kew, which is, by every account, an exceptional body, can be removed from the non-departmental public body, machinery of governance funding process. Permanent secretaries across Whitehall—in DFID, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, DEFRA and, indeed, in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is responsible for innovation, science and connections with universities—should put their minds to determining what value the nation places on Kew and then work backwards from that. If the nation places a value on Kew, it may be more sensible for Kew simply to get a grant in aid directly from the Treasury.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

As a London MP, I wish to make it clear that Kew is not just a museum piece or a phenomenally important research institution, but a wonderful part of London. It is used by many of my constituents as a place for general recreation and leisure. It is very much a 21st century asset, as well as having an important history.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I think the whole House would agree with that observation.

I do not think the House should look on this as a beat-up for the Minister who has to respond to the debate. Nor do I think anyone would disagree with the Deputy Prime Minister when he said:

“Kew gardens is one of the world’s most important botanical research and education facilities…The Millennium Seed Bank is of global scientific significance, and scientists at Kew are heavily involved in research in the vital fields of biodiversity and climate change.”

All those things go pretty much across every Department. Climate change involves the Department for Energy and Climate Change. It is very hard that the responsibility for funding the whole of Kew should come within the budget of just one Department of state.

I would therefore hope for cross-party and cross-departmental discussions, not just about the funding of Kew, because such discussions would bring us perennially back to the same issue, but—although it may be rather boring talking about the machinery of governance—about where within the machinery of governance Kew sits and who is responsible for funding it under the National Heritage Act 1983. Changing that structure might make it possible to give Kew more certainty than it has had—and not just on the present Government’s watch. In fairness, I have not looked back to before 2007, and the Library has not given the figures, but I suspect that if I look back even to the time when I was the Minister, the figures tended to yo-yo around from year to year, depending on the departmental spend. I suspect that a cross-Government and cross-departmental review is required of where Kew should fit within the machinery of government and how it can be given sustainable funding. If we regard it, as I think we all do, as a national asset, we need to treasure it as one.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on presenting such a cogent and comprehensive case for the support of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. I agree with every word that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said. I hope the message will go out that there is substantial unanimity across the House about something that is not just a national but an international treasure—an important and fantastic resource for the United Kingdom.

I have been going to Kew gardens since the days when it cost one old penny piece to go in. I see the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington nodding. He and I are of a similar age and I suspect that we both delved into our pockets to obtain that coin, which perhaps had Queen Victoria’s head on it. The price has gone up, of course; it is now £15 to get in, I think. I declare an interest as my wife is a friend of Kew gardens, and I have a constituent who is one of the most distinguished scientists in the world in her field, Professor Monique Simmonds. She is the deputy director of science and the director of the Kew innovation unit. She was awarded the OBE last year for the extraordinary work that she and her team have been doing, not just in the United Kingdom, in the Jodrell laboratory at Kew where they do scientific research, but around the world. She, with her team, makes a fantastic contribution through visits and making connections, and identifying plants that can produce life-saving medicines. So I wholeheartedly support the campaign to ensure that Kew is properly funded.

I am a Thatcherite Tory—I see you nodding, Sir Alan; thank you—and I recognise fully the need for the nation to balance the books. Unquestionably it is the big challenge of the Parliament to address the budget deficit, but the nation still spends £700 billion a year, and therefore how to spend that money on services, even if the amount is reduced, is a matter of legitimate political and public debate. I feel strongly that the nation needs to capitalise on one of its greatest assets: the talents of its people. We face a competitive world out there, with countries such as China and India snapping at our heels, and the only way this nation will survive is by harnessing the innovative talent that fortunately runs through it.

I argued repeatedly when I was a Defence Minister that we need to spend money on defence research. We need to be at the forefront of technology, and that also applies to Kew, in the field of medical science. We have the means to do it. We have the talented and skilled people at Kew, who are able to deliver. Rather than cutting them back we should expand them for, if I may be permitted to use the expression, they are the seed corn of our future prosperity as a nation. One of Britain’s most successful businesses, apart, of course, from the defence industry, is the pharmaceutical industry. There is a synergy; what the scientific research at Kew produces complements one of Britain’s most important industries.

Kew is not an ancient monument to be preserved, although I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington—as well as my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who mentioned his personal attachment to Kew—that it is a lung in west London, serving a wider purpose beyond the one that we have predominantly discussed today. That is important, but what is fundamental to the salvation of this nation is that we harness technology. In Kew we have a jewel in our crown, and I hope that we shall continue to fund it.

Another aspect of Kew’s work is the involvement of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the fight against crime and terrorism. We face a bio-threat, and without places such as Kew we would lack some of the expertise with which to address it. Some hon. Members may remember when a boy’s torso was found in the Thames. It had no head. The origins of that child were established by the forensic work done at Kew gardens. By analysing the contents of the stomach it was possible to tell which part of Nigeria the torso came from. I use that as a graphic but simple illustration of the depth of expertise that we cannot, as a nation, afford to lose.

I will not discuss the question that my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury raised of how we structure government. I just believe, as others do, that there must be a long-term solution. My right hon. Friend suggested direct funding from the Treasury. In a sense, I do not mind how it is done, but done it must be, in the interest of the nation and the exchange of information and samples around the world. A huge amount of work has been done through fundraising at Kew, to raise funds without relying wholly on the Treasury; but as for the director saying it can all be done by selling more, that is what Kew has already been doing, and some of what it does involves payment in kind. By giving expertise it gets access to plants and other facilities available around the world. Much more bartering, as opposed to pounds, shillings and pence, may be happening.

I am left with the words of that magnificent magazine Country Life, to which I am sure the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is a regular subscriber.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Compulsory reading.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Absolutely; required reading. The article said:

“The nation would, of course, be mad to let this treasure go, but that, in the worst possible sense, is what our elected representatives are doing already.”

Notwithstanding the funding that has been given, which I regard as temporary plastering, we need a fundamental, long-term solution, to preserve the fantastic work being done at Kew.