Welcome to this morning’s meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Today we are holding our fifth and final session on protecting built heritage; we have heard lots of important evidence over the four previous sessions. We have also had almost 120 written submissions, which have all been really useful and shown how important built heritage is to communities across our country. Today, to bring us to a magnificent conclusion, we will present all the evidence that we have gathered to the Government. We are joined by Baroness Twycross, who is the Minister for Museums, Heritage and Gambling, but clearly not all at the same time; Fazima Osborn, the Deputy Director of Heritage at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; and Mark Chivers, who is the Government Chief Property Officer, the Office of Government Property, Cabinet Office. That is a long job title. I should point out that our witnesses come with very different responsibilities: DCMS, through the Minister, and Ms Osborn, lead on national heritage policy and support for the sector, whereas Mr Chivers represents the Cabinet Office’s role in overseeing and managing the Government estate. Bringing those views together will help us fully understand where the challenges and opportunities lie. You are all very welcome today. Thank you so much for joining us. Before we start, I need to remind Members to declare any interests at the point that they ask their questions. I am going to kick this off with you, Baroness Twycross, please. The Government recently announced £1.5 billion funding over five years for cultural venues, which includes £230 million specifically for heritage. One of the issues that we keep hearing about through our evidence sessions is how difficult it is to get access to that money, how patchy it is, and how often that money just gets swallowed up very quickly, leaving so many organisations unable to access it. What are you doing to ensure that the at-risk heritage sites, especially those in areas without much local support or resources, can access and benefit from this funding?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the invitation to appear in front of you today. One of the ways that DCMS is making sure that funding goes to the places that need it most is by ensuring that it looks at double disadvantage: places of particular need—in terms of multiple deprivation and in terms of social capital—and places that may have low levels of social capital. In some ways, that also means that they are probably least equipped to apply for funding. I have spoken personally to those who administer the funds for us: the Architectural Heritage Fund and Historic England in terms of making sure that it is made as straightforward as possible and that those applying for the funding get as much support as possible to access the funds they need.

When it comes to distributing the money, how will you do that geographically? Do you have geographical targets? Is it done, as you say, on indices of multiple deprivation?

Yes, we are using the indices of multiple deprivation and the community needs index. The actual measures of how we will do it are still being worked through with the arm’s length bodies about how this will work in practice, because we are also clear that when you are looking at heritage, we need to take into account the value of the heritage, whether that is historic value or the community value locally. Hopefully we will get improved heritage assets as a result of this significant funding, but we will be looking for evidence that it contributes to the key objectives of the Department—improved economic growth or improved community cohesion, for example.

Another one of the issues that keeps coming back with all these Government pots of cash is their short-term nature and the unpredictability: organisations do not know whether they are going to be able to bank on receiving funding in the years ahead, so they cannot plan for the future. They say they just want certainty when it comes to Government funding. What is this fund doing to give them certainty? What more broadly are you as a Minister doing to give them certainty over their futures?

There is certainty over the spending review period in terms of the funding and that was at the heart of what the Secretary of State announced in terms of the overall pot of funding. Clearly there is an application process to go through, but we hope that this funding will ensure that the sector is clear what capital funding will be for the next few years—that will help, not least with planning the skills pipeline, which is also an issue.

What is the end date on this funding? How long is it for?

Four or five years.

This spending review is to the end of the Parliament.

Okay. The other issue that keeps coming back following the Government’s announcements of this fund is getting the expertise to be able to make those applications, figuring out actually what is needed and how to make it happen. It is one of the biggest obstacles, particularly for small organisations. How are you considering the need for early-stage development or grants, particularly for smaller organisations that are struggling to write these major applications?

The Heritage Lottery Fund looks at guidance for volunteers. One of the things we need to recognise is that a lot of these organisations applying for funding are actually volunteer-driven, volunteer-led or led by community groups that maybe do not have a huge amount of professional capacity, so that resilience building of those organisations can be part of the funding available. The Architectural Heritage Fund, which I believe you spoke to in an earlier session, really impressed me with the way it works very closely with local communities in terms of walking them through the process and making sure that they are well equipped to apply for the public funding that is available.

Is there money available to do the early-stage work? As you say, so many of these organisations rely on the goodwill of volunteers and the huge dedication of volunteers, but is there a potential that there is a pot of cash people can use to be able to do that early work?

There is funding for feasibility studies. I might hand over to Fazima to talk you through that.

That is exactly the sort of thing that the Architectural Heritage Fund will do. This year it delivered quite a lot of project viability grants as well as early project development grant funding, and that is exactly the sort of thing that it will do for our future funds in relation to the Heritage Revival Fund. Historic England, which is delivering the Heritage at Risk Fund and the new Places of Worship Renewal Fund, will also offer practical hands-on support to local volunteers with dedicated project officers and step-by-step guidance.

That sounds quite confusing to me. You have announced the Architectural Heritage Fund, Historic England fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and all the different pots of money that they are juggling. If I suddenly became a volunteer steward of a historic building, where would I start if I did not come with any of this knowledge? Is there a sort of one-stop shop, an advisory hub, a place where I could look to see where I could access the expertise and the money to be able to support my work?

The regional offices of Historic England give a huge amount of advice and my understanding is that that would also include signposting to other pots of money.

Is that signposted on the Government website somewhere?

It is definitely signposted on Historic England’s website. We can check that it is sufficiently signposted. I have not actually gone through the route of checking that myself.

It would be interesting, just to see from the point of view of a volunteer, how you are signposted to all the potential access to different funds.

We can definitely check that.

Very good, thank you very much.

There is the Government grant finder; all our grants should be listed on there as the first one-stop shop. But Historic England’s expertise is really useful in actually guiding those small volunteer organisations a bit more on the specifics of those funds.

Very good, thank you. Let us move to Rupa, please.

I just wanted to ask about the listed places of worship grant scheme. It was a huge relief from the sector when it was announced that it was going to be replaced by the son of the fund, the Places of Worship Renewal Fund. How is the new fund going to work? What are the differences?

The key difference is that it is going to be targeted. The VAT model we previously used was a pretty blunt tool. The new fund, which will have £90 million over the next four years, will be targeted at areas of double disadvantage, as I referred to earlier. We are working through the criteria and how that will work in practice, because I am also clear that a postcode is not necessarily reflective of where the place of worship is undertaking its community work. So we are looking at how it will support community cohesion as well. We are working with Historic England and the wider sector on the specifics, but we will be focusing on areas that might not have actually been able to raise the capital up front, which obviously in order to access the VAT relief people had to have quite a significant amount of capital to undertake the works.

I found it interesting. You said you are looking at multiple deprivation; it says areas of greatest need. Can I make a plea to be a bit more granular than the Fair Funding Review? One of the two boroughs I represent is Hammersmith and Fulham, which came off quite badly on that because the south of the borough is Fulham and yuppies, but the extreme north of the borough is in dark red if you look at the poverty heat map. In fact, all my £2 million houses are not in Hammersmith and Fulham; they are in Ealing borough, which is a net gain. So if you can look at it by ward data or something a bit more blunt than the whole borough, I would be grateful.

I appreciate that, and that is why when we have been discussing how we will make the assessment, I also asked for people to look at where the listed places of worship served, and what its actual postcode was.

Okay, that would be good. Shout out to St Cat’s Church on the A40. It is a 60s building, so it is not your traditional ecclesiastical building, but those kinds of things are difficult to heat; they need a lot of repairs, the windows fall out, and so on. You mentioned that these things are volunteer-driven. Do you have concrete plans to avoid creating additional bureaucracy for the lovely ladies who run St Cat’s Church and other places of worship, because there is a quagmire of forms and bureaucracy?

One of the early conversations I had with Historic England and the new chief execs of Historic England was exactly about how we make sure that moving from the VAT model, which is obviously relatively straightforward, to a more targeted model does not increase the burden of volunteers, and Historic England has committed to working very closely with volunteers to make sure that they walk them through the process.

That would be very welcome. Mosques, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, and all those things have provided playgroups, warm spaces, and soup kitchens. One of mine was a vaccination centre, so these places do more than just deliver the Alpha course. But we have heard that since the fund was announced, there are some quite shocking figures indicating that repair schemes are going to increase. In fact, the National Churches Trust has given a figure for savings to the NHS. They claim places of worship save the NHS £8.4 billion a year, but repair schemes are going to go up by 20% because the VAT relief has gone for places of worship. They claim it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. What comment do you have on that?

We did an assessment of the previous scheme, and remarkably 80% of the respondents said that they would have undertaken the repairs anyway. Some 15% said that they would have done the repairs at exactly the same time in exactly the same way. We are clear that targeting resources to places where they struggle to raise capital means we are using public money more effectively, ensuring we focus on areas where they might not have been able to undertake the work. Clearly we will see some people who will not be able to get the 20% back, but for some places of worship we would assume and anticipate that they would get much more significant amounts of money than they have been able to under the VAT relief scheme.

Okay, so it is not the picture that is being painted?

I probably do not agree 100% with NCT on its portrayal of where we are moving to, but we will work with it and other organisations to make sure the scheme is as straightforward as possible and that churches and other listed places of worship recognise that we are doing what we can to help the church congregations and the places of worship more generally. We are clear that they do incredibly valuable work and have a much greater community benefit than the faith communities themselves, which is also significant.

Lastly, do you have any steps you are taking to stop listed places of worship? By nature, they are often very old and rambling; well, we are in an old rambling building ourselves now. The R and R proposals came out last week. Are any steps being proposed to stop them from falling into disrepair and make them fit for the future?

The first step is obviously having the targeted fund, but we have other pots of money that they can also apply for. The heritage fund remains a significant funder of repairs. There are also huge numbers of people who give philanthropic money towards a place of worship. Clearly the Church of England also puts significant amounts of money into church buildings, as do other faith communities.

Thanks. Once it all settles, if there are anomalies, I may be writing to you.

Absolutely.

Baroness Twycross, can I encourage you just to be explicit? The stated purpose of the previous scheme, the listed places of worship grant, was expressly about heritage conservation and historic buildings. The letter I have from you with your signature on talks about maintaining “The fabric of our nation’s most historic and beautiful buildings.” The new scheme talks about places of most need. Now, obviously, the two can coincide; you can and do have, I am sure in many places, historic heritage assets that are also in places of great need, but they are two different primary objectives. Can you just be explicit? Is the purpose of the new fund different from the purpose of the old fund?

The purpose of the new fund is around heritage buildings. It is heritage funding, but we are looking at where those funds are needed most.

Meaning? You can define “needed most” in lots of ways. What is meant in this context?

It is about whether the people trying to fundraise for their building need it most and whether the building needs it most from a heritage perspective. We have not yet worked through all the criteria so if I land too firmly on one thing, I do not want to come back and say, “Actually, we’ve tweaked it and done it another way.” We are looking as a Department in terms of our funding for that double-deprivation, double-disadvantage measure, which will also be factored into this new scheme.

I am not passing any judgment on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing; I am just trying to understand. It means you would lead on the criteria. This fund is a lot smaller than the old fund. You said the main difference was something else, but the main difference is that it is smaller than the fund that was. You are going to have to cut out a lot of projects that otherwise would have been covered. From what you are saying, it seems that in that prioritisation what will get cut out are heritage buildings, some of our nation’s “Most historic and beautiful,” but that do not happen to be in areas that show up high on the list of indices of multiple deprivation.

I will bring in Fazima because she is clearly keen to come in. But one of the key things in the decision making is that it is the same amount of headline money as it has been for the past financial year—

But before not that. You are not comparing it to last year but to the scheme as was.

No, that is true, but one of the reasons we kept it was that we recognise the importance of the listed places of worship generally. The key thing for me was in the evaluation where 80% of people said they would have done the work anyway. When I visited St Michael le Belfrey in York, it had established that it had found the funding from somewhere else. It is about when you have scarce resources, and it is clear that we inherited quite difficult economic circumstances, we need to establish how we can best use those limited resources. For me, using those for schemes that would have taken place anyway did not actually feel like the best use of Government money.

But in evaluating individual projects, you do not know the answer to that question. Project managers can answer that question after the event. Would you have done this anyway? They are not going to say in the application, “We will do this anyway.” You will be applying criteria such as the demographics of the postcode rather than whether they would have done it anyway. In having reduced the fund so dramatically, is it the case that what is going to fall out of favour will be heritage buildings that do not happen to be in deprived areas? I am pretty sure the answer is yes, but I am just trying to understand it clearly.

As the Minister said, we are still developing the finer details of the criteria. We have talked about areas of double deprivation: the indices of multiple deprivation and the community needs index. We are talking about weighting the criteria towards those places, but this is about heritage funding, so that will include thinking about the condition and the community use of the asset. I do not think we are saying that no other places can apply unless you are in those areas; however, the fund's weighting may make that less likely.

Are you working on that weighting, that formula at the moment? When do you anticipate publishing the criteria?

We have committed to having the new criteria clear by the beginning of the next financial year.

We would like to give places the opportunity to understand how the scheme will work and then further detail in terms of opening of application processes may be a bit later.

But we are working with the faith organisations as well on that.

The current scheme reimburses VAT on repairs to churches and other listed religious buildings, and that will end at the end of this financial year and be replaced with the grant scheme. So that actually means that churches and other religious buildings will pay tax on their repairs for the first time in many years. What was the thinking behind that?

It was around the fact that VAT is a very blunt tool and with the limited pot of money, we were clear that we needed to make sure we were targeting it as effectively as possible.

What sort of message do you think that sends out to all those volunteers and all the custodians of our shared heritage who are working so hard to maintain heritage buildings in their own communities right across the country? It feels to me quite a negative attitude to just say, “Well, it is not about the building anymore; it is about where the building is located.”

As Fazima outlined, there will still be scope for buildings to apply, and some will get significantly more funding. I do not underestimate the effort it takes for people to raise funding for projects in places of worship. My own parents have been active in their local church raising money and I know it takes a huge amount of effort and is a lot of stress for the people involved who are not doing it professionally, so I am not underestimating that. But I would like to think that the people involved in fundraising would understand the rationale of us making sure that with limited resources, we are targeting it to places and projects that need it most.

We will talk about VAT a bit later on, but it just feels that if you are building something new, you do not pay VAT and suddenly in order to try to breathe new life back into a valued, older building, you are paying VAT. It just feels like a really bad message to be sending out. Let us move on to Natasha.

Do you want to start, Fazima?

Who do you want to start on this? Is your question about the Government property portfolio or just generally?

One Public Estate is definitely me so I am more than happy to start there and evolve. For the panel, Mr Hinds asked a question to my colleagues from MOJ and MOD in the last panel. One Public Estate has been going for 13 years and is a programme that we work with the Local Government Association. We catalyse schemes that are bringing together local partners and central Government partners and catalysing regeneration or schemes. It has been a hugely successful programme with hundreds of millions of capital receipts and new houses. From memory—I can check the numbers in a moment—80,000 houses have come out of it. It is small-scale; it is not on the scale of Homes England schemes. It is much more little developments, albeit some run to hundreds of houses, so it is an important contribution. There are lots of examples where we have spent some MHCLG money for remediation or maybe for some master planning which has then led to developments coming out of the ground which have often in particular related to heritage assets, the dual purpose of providing a sustainable future for the heritage asset and created housing. Needless to say we were expecting the question so we have trawled back through the records of how many schemes we have. We have had 41 schemes which have included heritage assets and led to maintenance and a sustainable future for those heritage assets, and the housing and other commercial developments have come out of it.

You heard it a little from the property directors whom you talked to last time; I start from the perspective that if we have a building for Government use then the first purpose is to get a productive and efficient use for Government for that building. In some instances there is no longer a beneficial use for the Government and it moves through to a disposal, a development scheme or whatever so, as part of that disposal process, the Departments will look at whether there are options around development or sale to a developer to bring forward housing development and other uses.

It is in the mix but it will be picked up through the Green Book valuation, which assesses the social value of the scheme; it will be weighted through that route, but I cannot tell you that there is a 5% weighting towards housing or whatever else.

Heritage is an incredible opportunity for us in relation to new housing, and Historic England thinks that there is a potential for up to 670,000 new homes, which is quite remarkable. In terms of the funding available, some of that is through VAT, and I know we are coming on to VAT in due course. The other thing we are doing is consulting on changes to the planning system to make sure it is easier for reuse to take place.

Yes. It would involve repurposing disused mills and similar initiatives. It is a remarkably high figure.

DCMS is having regular conversations with MHCLG about the planning process to make sure that we remove some of the barriers that people identify. There is a sense that if you have a historic building, it is more complex than a new build as you are not starting from scratch in the same way. So we have been looking at how we can make sure that we change the planning system to balance conserving our heritage and allowing development to happen, including for housing and infrastructure. As the heritage Minister, I am very clear that if you reuse a historic building that is not in use it is actually the best way to preserve it for future generations. People really appreciate living in heritage buildings, and so there is a value for the communities and for those people who can then live in accommodation that has a higher welfare benefit: having historic buildings and heritage buildings in your local area is seen as a really positive thing by local communities, but generally only if it is in good repair.

I might just talk a little about the new local plans that local authorities will be required to deliver. They should have a section which has a positive strategy for the historic environment such as identifying potential heritage sites for development, talk about areas that might be in decay and what considerations might need to be given to enable those sites to be reused for housing. That should give developers and applicants a bit more certainty and clarity and to help them de-risk their projects.

I have a tiny point on the previous question and then I will give an example of where it is being done well. On the previous OPE or general development from a very much property angle, in my experience, the heritage building is often the anchor for a development both in terms of providing the cultural aspect and the sort of centre of it. It can also be a way for a developer to get additional housing by maintaining the building and providing a life to the building, so it is not just the core asset—the core mill—but there is some development around that. As you might expect I go on some brilliant site visits. One I went on last year was a Homes England development that it was doing through a developer of the cold war nuclear bunker in Nottingham, completely concrete or whatever. It was surrounded by a big field and the housing in that field was given consent. For the developer, that was where the money and the return were but what Homes England had put in place was a deal that structured the release of the housing planning consent dependent on the amount of refurbishment and reuse of the nuclear bunker. That is the sort of thing that can be done to tie two things together.

Precisely.

One of the things we hear is that developers want certainty, clarity, and consistency of decision making so the biggest change that we are making is consulting on the national planning policy framework, which is a change from the current framework. I will just exemplify a few things that will be really important for them. First, bringing an empty or underused building back to life is now considered an important public benefit in planning decisions. Secondly, something we may come on to is making heritage buildings energy efficient, which is also an important public benefit and should be given substantial weight. Thirdly, I would highlight that we are removing the test for whether optimum viable use has been found, which should make it easier for planners to consider viable options provided there is no significant harm to heritage. Collectively all those things should mean that when they are looking at sites, developers, applicants, and local decision makers have clarity.

Thank you. The issue is when are we actually going to see that making a difference on the ground. I will give you an example in my constituency: you may be aware that we have a site called Fort Gilkicker. It has had successive owners because it is a complex historic site. As the name suggests it was formerly a military site and was literally just lying there rotting at public expense. The local kids were clambering all over it; there was a risk to life and limb, graffiti, and the whole thing was just rotting into the ground. If someone comes along and buys Fort Gilkicker with the view of turning it into a housing development and restoring it to its former glory, that is the point at which so many layers of bureaucracy get thrown in on top. For example, Natural England makes them try to find newts and start rehousing them, the local authority, which clearly does not have the expertise to opine on some of these planning issues, just keeps putting in more and more bars to jump over, or Historic England or whoever else with all their extra requirements as well. It becomes financially so punitive that it is almost impossible to deliver it in a way that is going to have any benefits for those who have invested in the first place. The investors are effectively doing it out of the goodness of their heart rather than because there is any commercial advantage. When is that going to change?

It is something that is being consulted on currently in terms of the consultation on changes to the national planning policy framework. I am clear that that needs to change; it needs to shift in order to remove some of the barriers. The conversations I have been having with MHCLG have been about making sure it is no longer seen as a disadvantage to try to reuse a heritage site but seen as an advantage and something that they can embrace because we are making it more straightforward. The hoops people have to jump through currently are clearly a disincentive.

Potentially sitting on 670,000 new homes—that number is eye-watering.

It is; I kept having to check that it was not 67,000 when I was doing my prep.

The Government are staring down the barrel of red-faced embarrassment at the fact that they are not going to be able to deliver on the housing numbers that they promised the country that they would. They promised 1.5 million new houses; we are nowhere near going to be able to deliver on that. You have the secret. You are holding the key to the door to unlock the Government’s huge embarrassment in this, so why are you not just standing there waving a flag saying, “Come on everyone, throw your resources here, this is how we do it.” It just feels like “We’re consulting on this and we’re asking about this and we might be changing the policy down the road.” If I were you I would say, “Come on guys, this is it. I can save your red faces. Let’s do this.”

I am confident that we are going to make changes that make this much easier. I appreciate that it would be popular to just announce that we are going to tear out the red tape, but we need to get this right because it is about making sure we reuse our heritage buildings in an appropriate way. We need to go through the consultation first. I appreciate that it would be very popular to say we will just chuck it all down the drain, but we want to get this right. We want these properties to be developed in a way that is sympathetic to their heritage and are good places for people to live. We are confident that the changes that will come through the consultation can make a really valuable contribution towards the goal of the housing targets.

When will we see this start to come to fruition? When will we suddenly see homes delivered in some of our valued listed buildings?

We are already seeing homes delivered in them.

The consultation closes in early March and the Government will consider the responses as soon as the new framework is published which should start to influence the decision making. We hope that this will be an encouragement for the local planning authorities to make different decisions. Historic England has a really good pre-application service which means that they can work really closely with developers at early stages to work on designs as well as the practical application of what might be needed for the condition of the site. That means while it is going through planning that allows speed and de-risking of the projects.

The problem you are going to have is that local authorities do not have access to that sort of expertise or decision-making help.

On the point about local authorities, the Government are also investing 48 million in upskilling the local planning authorities. So by the end of this Parliament we are anticipating that there will be 1,400 additional planning officers at local authorities. Obviously from a heritage perspective I hope that some of those people will have conservation and heritage skills but we recognise that actually we need to put funding in where it is needed to make sure that the local planning authorities have the skills and resources they need.

In some cases it might be enough for them to share somebody with that resource but we are not dictating to local authorities exactly how they should focus that money. They will need to work through their own priorities, and in some cases, they might already have those skills. For us to dictate how the MHCLG money is used would potentially not actually result in the outcomes we are looking for. We are not dictating to local planning authorities how they should spend that funding.

You said earlier about having conversations with MHCLG in terms of repurposing these buildings. What specific things have you been asking for in those conversations?

I am very mindful as I have been sitting here that I have not actually had a direct conversation with the housing Minister; I will be honest about that. It is probably on my list of things to do after this. My conversations with MHCLG have mainly been around the planning process more generally in terms of making sure we adjust it so we are still recognising the importance and how we preserve heritage but actually removing some of what seems like unnecessary bureaucracy. For example, 92%, I think, of listed building consent applications are approved. If that is the case then it feels like there is a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy going into doing processes just because we have always done them rather than actually saying what we need to make sure we are mindful when we are looking at the development of heritage, and what we can do to make things more streamlined. Some conversations have been around local listed building consent orders and so forth which are currently being used increasingly by local planning authorities, but there are actually only a handful of councils that are using them, compared to the overall number of local planning authorities; it seems very low.

You said you have not yet met with the housing Minister?

No, not directly. I have met with the planning Minister.

I should think they would be rolling out the red carpet if you turned up at their offices telling them that you can offer them 670,000 houses.

I would like to think they are already aware of this which is why we are able to have the conversations on planning.

The conversations that we have been having have been really trying to get the right outcomes into the consultation, and we would say that we would not underestimate that the changes we are making will have a significant impact. They need to happen and then be used on the ground.

The outcome of that potential is the reason for those conversations we have been having about planning.

Can I go back to the issue of VAT? We have a situation where if you are building new homes you do not pay VAT; you have VAT reliefs and exemptions. But if you want to reuse and repair these 670,000 potential homes in potentially beautiful buildings with all the embedded carbon, you have to pay VAT. It just seems to make no sense. Lots of people have told us that reforming the VAT rules would make a massive difference to repurposing heritage assets. First, do you agree that it would make a big difference and it makes no sense? Secondly, it is a Treasury decision; are you pressing the Treasury to reform the VAT rules on this?

I am open to looking at the evidence on this but there are a number of schemes where there is much lower VAT. For example if a building has been disused or vacant for two years or more or if you are converting a commercial property to a residential property, you can have 5% VAT. So there are some VAT incentives in place, but our focus has really been around changing the planning system to prioritise sensitive change. I would need to have a bit more evidence to take to the Treasury to make the case for that.

We can probably provide you with the evidence. I remember the MOD saying to us that it would make a huge difference. The director general at Historic Houses suggested “If such a rebate scheme existed, that would cost about £6 million,” which is not a lot of money in Government terms, and “It would generate benefits in the region of £14 million.”

I would be keen to see what the findings of the Committee are on that point. Obviously, the Chancellor is responsible for tax policy and it is something that has been discussed over the years with officials and the Treasury. But there are other reasons why that property is not being unlocked, and we have been focusing very clearly on the planning reasons why there might be issues in terms of releasing that property and getting it reused, which is actually what people have been telling me is one of the biggest constraints.

That is good and fine, but I want us to deliver these 1.5 million new homes as well; it seems that this is another lever to do that. Do you know if the Cabinet Office has had any conversations on this issue?

It is an issue for the Treasury ultimately, as you have directly said.

Yes, but where other Departments can see an advantage in the policy change, they can make the case, can they not? I would encourage both Departments to make the case in this situation. Are there any other financial, or other, incentives that you can use to promote repair, reuse and conversion into new homes?

In terms of turning properties into new homes, it has largely been around the changes to the planning system. In some cases where there are projects that combine other community uses, there will be funding from the heritage fund or the Architectural Heritage Fund around that community use, but I am not aware of any particular pots of funding specifically around this, not from DCMS anyway.

No, but MHCLG have the Pride in Place fund which is a significant amount of funding over 10 years, and many hundreds of places are eligible for that. While that is for local people to decide how they might want to use it, they could choose to use some of the funding towards restoring and renovating heritage buildings.

I do not think the Pride of Place fund can be used for that sort of housing project.

Right, okay. Apologies.

Because the amount that we have in my constituency it would be used for exactly that purpose.

We can go away and double check whether the Department is aware of any funds that could be used for that and we can write to the Committee.

You have not met with the housing Minister. Have you met with the Treasury Minister to talk about the potential for removing the VAT?

No, because we have been focusing on the planning aspects. Officials have been engaging in that for a longer period of time.

Those figures I quoted were from Historic Houses and they were about publicly accessible historic knowledge, but lots of people have told us that the reform would make a big difference.

I read quite a lot of the transcripts and am aware that a lot of people have raised that.

Yes, loads of people have said it is an important change.

You are going to be quite busy, Minister. We are beginning to fill your diary up for you already with all these bilateral meetings that you are going to need to have. Sorry about that.

Morning all. Mark, this is a question for you. We have heard from various Government Departments that they do not know the condition of their heritage assets or the expenditure on their upkeep and maintenance. How do you manage the oversight of heritage assets across Government Departments?

It is a good question. Let me start at the top in the sense that you have heard that MHCLG has set the legislation for a lot of this through the planning laws. My role is that I provide the strategic and professional leadership across the property function across the Departments, and we have a number of standards: a property functional standard, a commercial standard, a people standard and so on. We are responsible for the property standard, which lays out how Government Departments should look after, maintain, and provide a resilient estate. Within that there is an element which is specifically about heritage, which comes into the Government Property Strategy as part of our smaller, better and greener estate. It is laid out within the functions and then we require each of the Departments to have something called a strategic asset management plan. The Departments are required to provide a strategic asset management plan each year for their estate. To Dame Caroline’s point earlier on in the conversation, we are then requiring a much greater forward look so that it is not just a one-year or three-year position; we are asking for longer time periods to look forward for the maintenance and the care of their estate.

Is that per Department?

Yes, per Department. This year, we have had 30 strategic asset management plans returned from all the Departments and some of the key arm’s length bodies. You heard from the Government Property Agency, which is an arm’s length body of the Cabinet Office, and it produces a strategic asset management plan. The strategic asset management plans are a work in progress, without a doubt, so the property function as a whole is relatively young; it was started in 2017-2018. I am the first person as a Government Chief Property Officer, apart from an interim who is a property professional in that role, and we are trying to increase the professionality, the capability of those across the property function, the data and the due diligence. Going back to Dame Caroline’s different point, when we look at disposals, for example, we are encouraging more and more due diligence into who disposals are going to be sold to so there is a credible plan for that asset to be taken forward rather than land banked or left to wither on the vine. So there is a structure which starts in legislation, goes into the functional standard and then each year I have probably two bilaterals with those Departments to hold them to account for the delivery of their strategic asset management plan.

Thank you. You mentioned earlier about a productive and efficient use of the disposal process.

Yes.

You mentioned that you are professionalising the Departments in how they look at property assets. Does that extend to partners that can help dispose of assets, repurpose assets or bring assets quickly to a disposal process?

By “partners”, are you referring to commercial agents, community, or something else? Sorry, what is the direction?

All those, and Historic England, to help realise the asset's potential. How proactive are we in looking at all those different avenues to support that goal?

The process within the largely commercial estate for Government core buildings is that when it is deemed to be fit for disposal—it cannot be used anymore—the first question is: can it be used elsewhere in Government? Can a different Department use it or can it be put together with another asset in order to create something different and better for the partners? If disposal is the only outcome and the chosen outcome then each Department will have a responsibility to maximise the Green Book value. I mentioned the Green Book already and I say “Green Book” rather than “Maximise the proceeds” because the Green Book value includes the social value as well. So the burden, the onus or the responsibility of the Department disposing of the asset then becomes to create the highest social value, and ensure as part of that, particularly for heritage assets, the building will have a conservation and a sustainable future. As I have said, there is a responsibility around due diligence to make sure that the acquirer is not going to let it wither on the vine—to use the previous analogy I used—but actually create a sustainable future for the building. Going back to the conversation we had about One Public Estate, there are a number of examples, but Waltham Forest is a particular example. The scheme for the public building in Waltham Forest led to the refurbishment and reuse of the grade II listed Waltham Forest Council building—forgive me; I have probably said the wrong terminology—also allowed more than 400 houses to be built on the land that was released around it. I am trying to portray that this is not just “Let’s get the pound notes into the tills,” there is a longer-term prospect about how we can generate the best solution for the local community.

Brilliant, thank you. You almost brought a tear to my eye—a happy tear—because I got married at that site in Waltham Forest.

I genuinely did not know, but if I had I would have definitely used that example.

You are good. I suppose this brings me back to bureaucratic obstacles and security considerations around ownership rules. We met with the MOD a few weeks ago and some of the challenges they spoke of were around legislation and the inconsistency of local authority interpretations. I know we spoke a little about the skills gap within councils: lack of conservation officers and those kinds of things. So what is your Department doing to try to help redress those problems?

One of the things that I am trying to do for the 6,000 or 7,000 people who declare to be part of the property function across the civil service is, in one of my key assurance roles, to ensure the resourcing, the capacity, and the capability exist to deliver the services. My remit does not extend into the capacity and capability within local authorities because my role looks over the central Government estate rather than across the whole estate. But I completely accept and recognise the comment around a lot of hollowing out of capacity and capability within local authorities. So we will do what we can from the central Government point of view and if there is a particular scheme, then I am sure those colleagues across central Government will lean in to try to support as they can into local authorities.

Thank you. That is really important because we were talking to the MOD, for example, about seeing particular buildings or real estate that are no longer useful; forward-looking, there are no potential uses for them. It just seems like a whole new process is required in terms of bringing it back into community use or just changing some of the land boundaries, if you like, in order to hive it off so that it can be disposed of quickly. I suppose this goes back to my point about partners and proactivity: any support there would certainly be needed.

We will certainly lean into that. We probably need to work with DCMS to actually point out and create some stories around the successful examples because working with a series of partners is not always successful and it is very difficult, but there are examples of where it has really worked well. Where those partnerships and collaborations have worked well across the commercial, housing, and regeneration sectors, we ought to be shouting about them a bit more loudly than we probably are.

It feels to me that a lot of Government Departments do not have a clue as to what is going on with some heritage assets or keep strong records. You say they all have to send back a strategic asset management plan but, when we spoke to the MOJ and MOD, a lot did not actually keep a very close eye on the condition of their heritage assets. Does that surprise you?

The MOJ’s strategic asset management plan call outs its heritage assets. Ricky McSeveney, the property director you met last time, called out Hewell Grange, which is a disposal that is going through at the moment in Tewksbury in terms of the strategic asset management plan. The MOD is more difficult. I have not yet had a strategic asset management plan from the MOD. I will be talking to it next week to ask it when we are going to get it, interrogate it, and be able to hold it to account. So the functional standard, as I have laid out, is clear. There is a requirement to do it. If the Departments are not doing it, I need to hold them to account and escalate that as appropriate.

What would be a satisfactory return from your perspective? I am sorry to keep harping back to my own constituency but it is my point of reference. When the MOD was here, we spoke about HMS Sultan, which has two listed forts within the perimeter of the estate. Fort Rowner is currently used to house people’s caravans and no money is spent on any form of maintenance or restoration. It is just being allowed to rot in a way that, if any of us owned it, we would not be allowed to do. You can understand why; all the money the MOD has is being spent on security and defence. It does not have the resources to be the stewards of historic buildings but there is no incentive for it to dispose of them either. In fact, it is almost the opposite. The incentive is to allow these buildings to rot. We were pushed back on this phrase of managed decline but it is the phrase that we hear time and time again when it comes to the stewardship of these assets, this policy of managed decline. If this strategic asset management plan came back and it said that Fort Rowner, for example, was in a state of managed decline then would that be acceptable? Would that get a tick in the box? What would you be able to say about it?

The functional standard, and the Government property strategy, maintains or dictates the custodianship of the heritage assets. I do not accept that managed decline is acceptable. We will challenge instances of insufficient maintenance. One thing that is happening in parallel is a much greater focus on the condition of the Government estate and the backlog maintenance, not for the heritage assets, but across the rest of the estate. We are linking in with Treasury much more than we have before in terms of the SR settlements that were referred to earlier to actually give the release of money into Departments on the basis of sustainable plans for the repair and maintenance of those buildings. So we are starting to provide the tools for much greater linkage between the money coming through—not being spent on something else—and spent on things it needs to be spent on.

What about disposal? The one public estate, as you say, is hugely successful but it does not feel like the MOD or MOJ have been encouraged to think creatively about how they might potentially use it. Clearly, some buildings are right in the middle of a piece of—

Behind the wire?

Yes, but some are right on the edge and would easily be disposed of. What can be done to incentivise that?

We have a target across government of disposals, which we have exceeded, so disposals are happening. I cannot provide you with the data as to what the disposal proceeds are from heritage assets. I do not know whether the data will allow us to look at that but we can try to do it. With the strategic asset management plan, there should be a property asset management for each property in the estate. If there is no beneficial use for that building going forward then it is taken down the path of disposal. What we will try to do is hold the Department to account as to where it is in that disposal process.

The director of property at the MOJ said he had no relationship with Historic England; he had never met it. How regularly do you meet with Historic England?

I met Claudia and Emma for the first time in May last year at a regeneration conference. To be fair to them, they introduced themselves to me rather than the other way around. I then followed up and met them in June or July. I went across to their offices in Cannon Street and we have been co-ordinating since. In the next few months, they we will be publishing the Heritage at Risk Statement[1]. We will be supporting that, as we have done in the past, by chasing the errant Departments that have not provided returns; so providing extra power to the elbow. I have told Claudia and Emma that, increasingly going forward, we will tie them into the property leaders’ network because I bring all the property leaders together. This coming May, at the big regeneration property investment public sector conference in Leeds, which is called UKREiiF, Historic England will be part of the Government tent. It will be doing presentations and speeches in the tent along with the Ministry of Justice and other Government Departments. So we are at the start of tying it in much more closely than it has been.

Claudia and Emma are excellent, and it would be useful—

I agree.

They are very good. Following the session they were at, they definitely arranged to meet the MOJ afterward.

A question for Mark and Fazima. We have talked about housing targets. Is there a target, either numeric or generic, from the perspective of the government estate overall or from the perspective of heritage assets, regardless of whether they are public sector or not, for hotel accommodation or the development of other travel and tourism assets?

Not that I know of for Government.

Even in central London which is where—

You have seen The Old War Office and Admiralty—

I know what has happened. I know we are still expecting Petty France to go, but there is still a lot of very high value prime real estate owned by HMG that could be a hotel. Obviously, you want to get the best value for sale subject to The Green Book but is there any drive specifically to develop our capacity and capability for tourism?

Not specifically. Going back to my previous answer, when we dispose of something it is because it is not needed by Government for use. The use of that building going forward, as a property development or a straight swap into another use, will be dictated by the developer and the social value case for that building. What you are seeing with Admiralty Arch, The Old War Office and 102 Petty France is the highest value usage coming through in those particular locations.

Which happens to be hotel accommodation. Fazima, from the point of view of the wider heritage asset register, is there any particular move to use it as a way to develop tourism and travel?

I do not think we have any specific targets around hotels in particular. We have talked previously about the system allowing the right developments to come forward, and for local communities to have a voice in what they would like to see happen in their communities. I am not aware of any for hotels.

May I ask about skills? You talked earlier about planning for the skills pipeline. Obviously, the Government are making a lot of changes to the Apprenticeship Levy, the Growth and Skills Levy, and are going to reduce the minimum length and content of apprenticeships and remove the independent body that oversees apprenticeship standards. Do you anticipate those things being of help to this sector?

We have an issue with skills in relation to heritage and the built environment generally. The thing that has been raised with me most as I have been going on visits is the ageing nature of the people with the skills. Sometimes they are sole traders and do not necessarily have the capacity to take on an apprentice. A shorter apprenticeship is not always the right model to have for a heritage skill, but some skills in the construction boot camps around joinery and construction are relevant to the pipeline we need for heritage. One of the first things I did as Minister for Museums, Heritage and Gambling, was hold a skills roundtable with the sector. There are some incredible examples of innovation within the sector. We have centres of excellence at York Minster and St Paul’s. I have also visited Salisbury. Various sector organisations have their own schemes and Church of England sites have others. What I did not see, and have been working with the sector on, is anything to address the skills challenge through discussing how to get join-up around that. It is clear that, if you do not have the skills to adapt or refurbish heritage buildings, you can make the situation worse than it was to start with. We want to get this right. What has encouraged me the most is the willingness of sector organisations such as Historic England, The National Trust and Historic Royal Palaces to work together and look at how an apprenticeship could work across several different sites or organisations. We are following that up.

That is possible already.

Yes, but it has not happened to a significant extent in this area. The other thing I have done is discuss heritage skills with the Minister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, raising issues the sector has highlighted to me. She was very positive about how we could work with Skills England to make sure it is addressed.

Did you mention to Baroness Smith any worries about the removal of public funding for level 7 apprenticeships for people aged 22 or above, like heritage consultants, conservation architects, or the archaeology specialist masters?

That has not actually been raised with me directly.

Witnesses have told us that the levy does not cover wages or essential costs like travel, PPE, and tools, which is a huge thing for apprentices. It is an ageing but very skilled workforce, which drives up the cost of restoring heritage buildings because they are thin on the ground and have excellent skills. Is there anything more you can do to ensure the levy works for employers wanting to take on apprentices?

I am sure there is and it is something we can pick up again after this session. One of the most interesting visits I had was when talking to apprentices about why they took on the role and how they heard about it. There is more we can do to highlight the roles in the first place. There are other issues as well. One of the biggest is people’s awareness of this type of skilled work as an opportunity for a career for the future. There is far more that needs to be done to highlight, both to people who could provide the apprenticeships and young people coming through the system, the type of opportunities that are available. Some apprentices happened upon it; they were not aware of it in the first place.

Could more be done with Skills England to highlight the heritage skills that are—

Definitely.

How would it do that?

How would it do what, sorry?

How would you anticipate Skills England having a role in making people aware of the opportunities?

I might need to hand over to Fazima for the exact name of the working group; is it a working group on the construction skills? Historic England is part of the engagement around that, so it would be by ensuring that our sector organisations have a voice at the table so they can highlight issues and be part of the shared solution.

Which table is that? You said, “A voice at the table.”

There is a working group—sorry, I cannot remember its name. There is a construction board that is looking at broader construction skills and Historic England is definitely engaged with it.

I was trying to get at something a bit lower level. Trying to put in front of young people the range of opportunities is a long-term issue. I thought you were saying that Skills England could play a role in making young people more aware of these varied routes, but you went on to talk about a sector table which is possibly slightly different. Do you know a way that career routes in the heritage sector can be made more available and more known to young people?

It is broader issues around how young people access apprenticeships. Obviously, this week is Apprenticeship Week so it is a good point to be discussing it. What careers advice is available in a field that has had a lack of attention over the past decade or so? It is being addressed. When young people go to an historic royal palace or have a school visit, what are they learning from that visit? Is it just history or is it about the range of careers that are open to them? When I spoke to the Historic Royal Palaces, for example, it was very open to making sure that young people were aware of the skills that were involved in maintaining a site, whether project management generally or exposing them to somebody who was doing the stonemasonry.

Will Skills England be involved in that now?

It will now.

It will now. It is across the piece and every single level needs to make sure that young people are aware of the careers available to them.

Have you ever had a conversation with Skills England where you suggest that heritage skills are embedded within the local skills improvement plan and the regional workforce strategy?

Historic England is engaged with Skills England as a Government adviser.

You think it is?

No, it definitely is.

Will it be pushing on those two things?

I will double check that it is but it should be.

You may well have seen that yesterday the DfE announced 13,000 apprenticeships and T Levels in construction skills. I do not know whether there is any specific heritage route in as part of that, or what proportion, but we will pick up the conversation around that. To pick up new apprentices into that gap in construction skills more generally is fantastic news.

It would be lovely if heritage was a part of that.

Exactly right.

You might have to add that to the list of people the Minister for Museums, Heritage and Gambling is going to be visiting over the months ahead.

Can we talk about listed building consent briefly? We have heard from a number of people about the delays and inconsistency in the process. Is the Cabinet Office doing anything to accelerate listed building consent for public estate re-use?

No. As you will know, building consent goes through MHCLG via planning local authorities. I have an enormous amount of sympathy over something Emma said when she came before you last time, which is that it does not necessarily take more time especially if there is pre-engagement with Historic England. What I will be advocating, if one of the property teams asks me across Government about getting listed building consent, is that your first call is to Historic England to get advice on how best to pursue this particular scheme.

Anything from DCMS on that particular topic?

In terms of the Government estate or generally?

Generally, in terms of improving the process.

I referred to this earlier. When 92% of applications are being approved, there is an argument that too much is going through. It feels too high to us, which is why we are looking at the whole system. We want the local planning authorities to look at the local listed building consent and make sure that they have the potential for blanket permission. I referred to the handful of local planning authorities that have done this for solar panels, double glazing, or heat pumps. Kensington and Chelsea has permission for solar panels to be added. This is not currently being used sufficiently and is one reason why there are so many applications going through the system in the first place which, if I am honest, seems a bit daft.

Are you making those happen?

We are encouraging people to look at it as a way to facilitate sensible and sympathetic adaptations.

It is encouraging that local planning authorities are doing this. There have been three new ones in the last year, which is great, but they seem to be an underutilised tool. Historic England is looking at the barriers to using it more. If the evidence shows that more things could be done at the national level, then that is something we could be open to and encourage more of those tools to be used.

We also heard about what has been described as a postcode lottery, both in terms of the interpretation of what is needed to go through the processes and the capacity to deliver these things. What actions can we take nationally to end the postcode lottery and improve the capacity, expertise, and the consistency of the process?

The capacity issue is around investment in the local planning authorities and making sure that they have the right skills; so £48 million towards this that is intended to improve the quality and consistency of advice. It is a fair challenge; at the moment the system is not necessarily consistent either in terms of the speed at which these things are done or consistency of outcome.

Is it mainly about investment rather than streamlining processes?

The streamlining of the process is really important. If we can avoid some applications from needing to go through in the first place, it stands to reason that it should be more straightforward and quicker for people to get the permissions they do or do not necessarily need.

If I might add two things. The new Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 includes training for planning committees, which should include training on the historic environment and help with local decision making. However, in terms of the Minister’s point about lots of applications going through the system, the statutory consultee review is also looking at where we can take cases out that are going through the system, which will allow Historic England to focus on the most complex cases. That is due to be responded to shortly.

You talked about energy efficiency and how important it was for planning. What are we doing to make it easier to retrofit historical buildings to ensure that they can meet net zero targets without compromising heritage? What will you do to support skills development to ensure that we achieve this? How will you ensure that planning policy balances heritage and conservation with climate goals? Another important issue on this, which has been raised a lot, is around VAT.

Shall I start with the specifics? The changes we talked about, in terms of the reform to The national planning policy framework, are really important. Making heritage buildings energy efficient, and having substantial weight in the system, should help in making those retrofit changes happen with heritage. That is really significant.

Absolutely. We estimate that we need about 100,000 additional workers to carry out the retrofitting generally to meet net zero targets, so it is not an inconsiderable task. A large part of that is coming through the work the DfE is doing in terms of the skills pipeline around construction. As Fazima said, we also want planning to approve some of this work. We need a planning system that is permissive in terms of sensitive retrofitting but also a workforce that can carry out the work safely so that it does not diminish the stock of heritage buildings specifically or individually. There are some really imaginative examples out there. I visited York Minster, which is an UNESCO site. It has managed to find a way to put solar panels on a refectory roof. You could not tell that they were not the original tiles. It has managed to do it in a way that is sensitive to the heritage environment. Part of the solution is about the sharing of best practice. It has been very innovative in the way it has addressed the need for sensitive retrofitting and changes to the building, recognising the need to adapt to climate change in a way that meets the quite stringent requirements of its custodianship of really valuable historic sites.

Your point on heritage needing more creative things is really important. In terms of construction and the apprenticeships that are coming through, how much emphasis is on making sure they are trained in heritage and being able to get the right balance?

It is one thing we have been discussing with the sector; what we can do to make sure we understand what the skills gap is and the pipeline required. How we can support them from a DCMS perspective and, in terms of that advocacy with DfE, make sure we get apprenticeships that work for the heritage sector. If you go to a palace, they are not going to let a new apprentice work on an irreplaceable tapestry, for example, so how do we make sure that we are replacing the ageing workforce and learning from people whose skills are potentially dying out if we do not do something now?

Can I come in with a couple of examples of those qualifications that might help? Energy efficiency in older buildings is a level 3 qualification. That is trying to embed those retrofitting skills so that they are not niche but a part of industry standards; making insulation installation apprenticeships more mainstream for construction workers to deal with historic homes.

It is not niche because 20% of our built environment is counted as historic, so these skills should not be seen as niche.

Have representations been made to the Treasury on VAT when retrofitting?

It is not something I have raised.

Under the last Government, there was an energy efficiency review. There were some discussions but, as the Minister said, it is not something that we have had detail on recently.

Before I was elected in 2024, I worked at Congress House for the TUC. That building was built for the TUC—it is historically and culturally significant and is a listed building. It now has to sell the building because it cannot afford the environmental upgrades. An organisation like that cannot just upgrade it, so it is looking at moving out of a building it was curators of. It was for the trade union movement and who knows what it will become. What are your thoughts on places like this? We will have this issue going forward with the environmental upgrades, which are quite right for the sustainability of the buildings, but have the effect of those living and breathing buildings being used as a corporate, or hotel, or whatever. I was interested in your thoughts on that living example of the effect this is having.

From my perspective, it is really sad that the TUC is moving out of the building. We are clear that the best way to maintain heritage is to use it. In terms of the retrofitting cost for that specific site, I do not have the answer but Historic England gives advice to organisations on that type of work on a regular basis. Whoever takes it on after the TUC, I would hope that they work very closely with Historic England to make sure that the historic nature of the site is recognised and maintained in some way going forward and that they do the retrofitting in the most sympathetic way.

I am so upset about it.

Yes, me too.

I wanted to ask about buildings in terms of community and culture; so community stewardship and buildings that are culturally important but do not tick boxes in terms of the listings. The questions are to you all but I will start with DCMS. What is your approach to strengthening community involvement in the care, ownership, and future of local heritage sites?

Our approach is very much about how the community values the particular heritage asset. We are getting better generally at recognising community buildings that contribute to our national stories, whether that is Brixton Market or The Crown Hotel in Birmingham, which came across my desk, where Black Sabbath started their career and heavy metal originated, although I was not there at the time. It is right for listings to be reserved for buildings that have a national interest, but there are a lot of other ways to recognise the significance of a building. The blue plaque scheme has been extended to the whole country and the UK’s oldest lesbian social venue, the Gateways Club in Chelsea, received a blue plaque last year. Local listing can also do that. For me, the biggest way the community value of heritage can be recognised is by re-use. For example, a couple of unlisted properties in Grimsby have been turned into an art centre that brought part of the docks back into use after being quite derelict. So what do you value and how do you make sure the community sees its value? We are still learning lessons from the Heritage Action Zone Programme, and The Architectural Heritage Fund has worked on bespoke projects with communities to bring derelict or part derelict buildings back into use. As a result, it quite often gets funding from other sources further down the line for the greater redevelopment of the area. There is nothing more depressing than seeing a heritage building in disrepair. At the heart of what we are trying to do is make sure that communities feel they are valued by seeing some of these buildings come back into use.

We have covered it a little already but we lay out a disposals’ guidance when we are selling government buildings, and heritage is a particular part of that. It is worth reiterating that assets do not have to be sold for the highest market value. The point is that, where there is a community social value, it is absolutely taken into account. The good news is that we are not just selling it to the person who is going to land bank it or anything else.

Can you give any examples of where that has been successful?

I will come back to you in terms of where we have sold for less than the market value, no problem whatsoever. The other thing I would say, and this is from my pre-Government life when I managed a number of heritage buildings, is that we looked at community usage for some. As has been said by the Committee, it is a hard gig for a community to take on a building because it is not just about the conversion cost. They have to think about the maintenance costs going forward and the community, business, or enterprise has to be sustainable in its own right to be able to support those ongoing payments, which will often be more than running a non-heritage building. There is also an extra burden on its business plan. I am under no illusion as to how difficult it can be for communities to take it on. Our responsibility in committing a government property into a community use is to do the due diligence and, without being patronising in any way, help them to help themselves realise that they can take on the burden of responsibility.

Quite often communities know what the value of their local heritage is. A large part of where we are going, and this is obviously a different angle from that of the Cabinet Office, is about empowering communities to protect the heritage that matters to them. One of the most significant changes the Government are making is around the community right to buy, which will give communities the first opportunity to buy assets of community value when they go up for sale and doubles the time communities have to raise the funds. It also brings a wider range of assets in scope. I cannot underestimate the value of some bodies that we work with in terms of their engagement with local communities in supporting them where they do not necessarily have the skills from previous experience but are passionate about the area. I have been particularly impressed, as I said earlier, by The Architectural Heritage Fund and other organisations including Historic England. The National Lottery has also helped with capacity building.

What about support for costs going up that the community had not envisaged?

The business planning process is one thing that The Architectural Heritage Fund helps groups with. I have not heard that just from the fund; I went to an event it ran a few weeks ago and heard it from people who had benefited from its support. It also has some innovative funding models, albeit not with the government funding part of it. It has a system of lending money to projects, so it is quite a circular way of using the money it has to make sure that as many organisations and projects can benefit from its support and advice.

Some organisations and academics we have taken evidence from previously in this inquiry talked about the idea of a safe-harbour scheme, and the Music Venue Trust talked about the owner venues initiative to protect at-risk buildings while communities plan for their future. How do you see that working?

Some of that would come under the community right to buy. The National Trust has discussed and proposed, in very loose terms, the idea of a safe harbour. We are really interested to hear more from it about how that would work in practice, but it shows the appetite from the sector in looking at innovative ways heritage can be protected.

We have had a lot of ideas on the different ways it could work in different sectors, and the Diocese of Liverpool came up with something. Are there any other thoughts from the panel?

Everything that Baroness Twycross said is right. The ambition has to be for transferring into community to maximum social value, which is often a case of transferring it into the community with a plan for long-term stewardship. I completely agree.

My final question is about the volunteers: the people who help. We have been hearing that they are overstretched, burnt out, and lacking in skills. They are also an ageing volunteer base. What is your strategy to support these volunteer-led organisations to prevent that burnout? How are you incentivising the volunteers of the future and encouraging younger people to get involved in volunteering?

From a broad DCMS perspective in relation to volunteering, we have a portal that is live or is going to go live about—

It is a work in progress.

A work in progress. It will make clearer what opportunities there are for volunteering and make sure that people can identify volunteering activities. Our arms-length bodies offer quite a lot of guidance and support for volunteers. We are also focused on making sure that if it is a volunteer-led or community-led project, which is often the same thing, the application process is as helpful as possible. That is where the advice of our arms-length bodies comes in as well as demystifying the process because, if it is only possible for people to get through the process if they have experience in it or are doing the work professionally, we are missing the point in terms of making sure that we are community-led and community-focused in our approach to heritage. We are very clear with our arms-length bodies that we need to have processes that volunteers find accessible. That should help with some burnout but it is really important that we recognise the incredible work our volunteers do. We have two and a half times as many volunteers in the heritage sector than full-time employees. It is a sector that is incredibly reliant on volunteers for delivery of their day-to-day work.

Just out of interest, are there any stats or analysis on their background, diversity or age profile? I would be really interested to know who is coming forward to volunteer and what barriers there might be in different parts of society for whatever reason. I am thinking particularly of class.

I do not have the stats here but we can see if we have anything from the relevant teams in the DCMS. Clearly, if people are economically able to volunteer then I suspect it is probably slightly more age-focused. You obviously have to be able to afford the time to do it.

I wanted to ask how you could help cultural venues that might not be architecturally significant but are vital as a community asset. There is the assets of community value status but, as an MP, we had it with a pub, The Goldsmiths Arms. It was listed under that scheme, which staved it off for a year, and then the developers came. That pub, which had been a coaching inn from the 1700s, is no more and there is a block of flats there now. How could you strengthen that?

In terms of the listing?

Saving things. It is quite weak. Any constituency MP who has dealt with the status knows that it just gives people false hope by making a petition. They want to save this thing and I do not think enough credence is given to the community value of it.

I would hope that the community right to buy would play a significant part in that, which is coming on stream in the near future.

You presumably need megabucks to buy it out.

They have a particular length of time to find the funding for it. I do not know if Fazima has more details.

One specific change introduces an independent evaluation process to ensure a fair price for both the asset owner and the community. That is a change being considered as part of the legislation.

I was at The Hammersmith Society last night. The Apollo is thriving because it has megabuck sponsors that can underwrite it. However, Bush Hall talked to our Committee before the election, when we had a venues roundtable, and it really struggles. It was a huge fundraising effort from the community. If you do not have a sugar daddy, is there any way you can help protect venues?

Some arts venues would also be able to access money through Arts Council England. It is quite difficult to generalise where there could be different pots of money for these organisations.

Maybe someone can send a comprehensive, “If this, do that.” It would be good for us to have that information at our fingertips when we have these venues. The last thing I wanted to ask you about is the UNESCO version of these things. It has the intangible cultural heritage listing. What is the Government’s position on that? It is a relatively new status, 20th century, and is not for bricks and mortar but cultural interest. Some things that have been granted that status include the baguette in France—it is such a cultural thing—and Berlin techno. I wondered what your opinion is on this. If there was a bid to protect, for example, grime music, would the Government be supportive of such an initiative?

We currently have a consultation on our own list in the UK. Each component nation in the UK will have their own list, and then it will be a UK-wide list. It is around living heritage and what makes our communities, groups and places special. It is not up to me to go through lists and say, “I like grime music. I do not like grime music.” Expert groups are going to be looking at each of the applications on different themes but it is a hugely exciting opportunity to make sure we monitor and maintain an understanding of what living heritage people value in this country. It might be anything from grime music, Highland dancing, cheese rolling, or whatever our equivalent of the baguette is, but I would say that it is the making of the baguette rather than the baguette itself. There are a whole range of things and what we are doing in the first instance is asking people to nominate things that they care about then, later in the year, we hope to be able to publish the outcome and have an understanding of what people see as our living heritage and what they value. If I can just make a plea, the consultation is still open and we are really keen for people to put things forward. I know a number of MPs, on a cross-party basis, have been encouraging people to put in their local traditions as well as the more nationally recognised ones.

The one always cited is Morris dancing but I know there is a campaign for grime. I will be meeting them tomorrow so I will convey—

We would very much welcome—

If I can say the Minister is supportive, they would love that.

You can say I am encouraging them to put in the application. I am not the person that decides what goes on the list. It is about living heritage and, in that sense, it feels very much like part of our living heritage.

Liverpool had its UNESCO status taken away, is that not concerning? Somebody said that it was political. It may be Everton that did it but—

It was to do with the football ground, was it not?

I do not know if it is just a rumour but I also heard that it is a post-Brexit climate and it does not like us having all these things.

That is probably an oversimplification. I was not the Minister for Museums, Heritage and Gambling when that happened. We are very keen to work with UNESCO to make sure that the incredibly rich heritage of this country continues to be recognised as world-class heritage.

Earl’s Court, which was another one that came up at The Hammersmith Society, has had huge gigs in the past. It was an enormodrome of a venue, but the new Earl’s Court will just have a community room that is not like-for-like. It would be nice if we could save these iconic spaces. It is the same with The Goldsmith Arms. They said it could have a community room but it is not big enough to swing a cat in. It is not the same as what we lost.

I vote for a chip butty.

Yes, that would—

How about a Mars bar?

It is the making of the chip butty that is the living heritage, not the chip butty itself.

Maybe it is just because it is lunchtime.

Can I just clarify something that you said a moment ago on the assets of community value and community right to buy, Fazima? You were talking about a new regulator that would determine a fair price.

An independent valuation.

Independent valuation—so what does that mean in practice? Does it mean that there could be a commercial bid that is higher than what our independent valuer has come up with? Dr Huq is right; sometimes it is frustrating for community groups because assets of community value is a stay of execution by effectively saying, “Can you match this commercial bid?” Somebody owns the property and, in a free society, has the right to recoup the value. What is the practical effect of this independent valuer? Does it cut through that process and say, “No, we think this community group should be able to buy it with this amount of money even if somebody else is offering potentially a higher amount”?

We need to write to you on the detail of how that would work in practice.

That is fair enough. I want to come back to the famous 670,000, which is sticking in all our minds from today. It would be really helpful—again this might be something to follow-up in writing—to know any breakdown or segmentation there is of that 670,000. You might know the answer to this right now, but how much of it is in the publicly owned estate?

I will endeavour to write to you on that. Some will presumably be in the publicly owned estate but I am not sure what that would comprise of. It is Historic England’s figure so we will get a sense of the breakdown from it.

I have one stat. So 300 are long-term vacant historic dwellings but, as the Minister has said, we will write to you with more detail. I cannot speak to the public estate but Mark might be able to.

Thank you very much for all your time today. Were there any final messages that you wanted to leave us with or have we drained the well in terms of your expertise on this issue?

I do not think I have anything else to add. I am looking forward to seeing the recommendations, though. We have an incredible opportunity to improve where we are with the historic heritage building stock. We are really keen to hear the Committee’s recommendations and hopefully be able to take some forward.

Thank you very much.

We did not touch on it in terms of capability and skills but one thing we are trying to do when we employ contractors on the heritage estate around Government is make sure that, in the choice we make around contractors, there is a social value element. We are using it to try to trigger some sustainable training programme apprenticeships and so on for those buildings. It is a small part but we are trying to get smarter in terms of how we specify the work to be done and the requirements that we need to do it.

In the sense that you employ local builders and you specify that they should take on local apprentices and develop skills?

Exactly right.

That is an interesting line of thought, thank you very much. That is everything that we have for you today. Thank you very much for all your time. This brings the session to an end but also this inquiry to an end. We will now be putting our heads together to come up with some cunning recommendations that we think could potentially make a difference in this space, so we are grateful for your input today. [1] Note by witness: I misspoke, the correct publication will be the 'Biennial Report on the Care of the Government Historic Estate'.