Battle of Barnet: 550th Anniversary

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Ms Rees. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) for securing this fascinating debate. We have been all over the place, from “Game of Thrones” to Shakespeare, and she has entertained and educated us.

As my right hon. Friend says, we should recognise that this is a very sad anniversary. It is one year since the lockdown started. So many lives have been lost, and so many of us over the period have lost the things we hold dear—the chance to see our friends and loved ones, and to attend the events that we love. This year has also driven us to appreciate more than ever the things that we appreciate in life and the things that bring us together as a community—our sense of togetherness, and our shared history and heritage. Those are the things that unite us.

As the Minister responsible for heritage, I am heartened to see the passion and vigour that our nation’s history evokes. There is absolutely no disputing that the battle of Barnet was one of the most significant and important battles of the wars of the roses. It was a very important moment in English history, when King Edward IV was restored to the throne. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for bringing it to life for us today with so much vigour and passion.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that such events have shaped our national story. The 550th anniversary of the battle of Barnet serves as a perfect opportunity to reflect on our past and engage our communities in a way that fosters a sense of pride, shared history and belonging. As she said, it is a way to reinvigorate our towns and village centres, which have suffered so much over the past year. It is an opportunity to inspire our youngsters in our schools and colleges, and it will potentially inspire some historians of the future.

Barnet’s medieval festival is a perfect example of that, and I am sure it will deliver on those aims. It will mark the prestigious anniversary with a special programme of battle re-enactments, gunnery and archery displays, living history encampments, music, dance, a medieval market and children’s activities. I cannot think of a better way to spend an afternoon—I quite fancy having a go at firing a cannon myself, I have to say. Having been delayed by the coronavirus, the festival is now due to take place in September, and I think it will be an absolutely resounding success. It is the sort of event that we have all be desperate for over these past months.

The Battle of Barnet project, as my right hon. Friend says, serves as a shining example of how, more than half a millennium later, our nation’s history can really be used to enrich the lives of the local community. Running from 2015 to 2019, managed by the Barnet Museum, the Barnet Society and the Battlefields Trust, it sought to improve knowledge and understanding through archaeological surveys of the battlefield, in conjunction with the University of Huddersfield. It is such fascinating work.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of more than £98,000, awarded in 2016, also helped to engage audiences of all ages across the local community, as my right hon. Friend pointed out. It developed a wide range of initiatives. Barnet High Street was enriched with information boards about the battle. My right hon. Friend talked about the heraldic banners, which must have been quite a sight. It is so important to have a greater understanding of the past, and that was fostered through the school activity packs, the medieval replicas, the maps, the pictures, the teachers’ pack, and the publication of a free leaflet, highlighting locations around Barnet relating to the battlefield. That brings it all to life in a spectacular way. The medieval festival attracted several thousand attendees and proved to be a huge success. The festival has been repeated in subsequent years independently of Lottery funding, such was its success.

This anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of our historical environment. Battlefields such as that in Barnet provide such an important anchor to the evolution of our country and they provide an important reminder of our past as well. Their conservation is therefore integral, for research purposes, to improving our understanding and appreciation of our heritage. The significance of these sites is highlighted by the inclusion of some of the most significant examples in Historic England’s register of historic battlefields. There are currently 47 registered battlefields, including the site of the battle of Barnet, and these sites are conserved through the planning system. I am pleased to see that the overwhelming majority of our registered battlefields, Barnet included, are still in excellent condition.

Like my right hon. Friend, I eagerly await the return of public events such as Barnet’s medieval festival, which contribute so much to our lives through celebrating our culture and heritage. We know that our first priority at the moment must be public safety. However, in February the Government published a road map that aims to provide some clarity to event organisers as restrictions are eased, and that seeks to balance that key social and economic priority while preserving the health and safety of our country.

Crucially, the road map focuses on data, not dates. Alongside this, and to back it up and help move it forward, the Prime Minister has announced some scientific events research programmes, which are an integral part of the road map and will explore how these kinds of events, across the culture and entertainment sectors, can reopen safely. Over the spring, to support this, we will be including a series of pilots using the enhanced testing approach as another measure to run events with large crowd sizes and reduced social distancing, to really prove the fact that they can return. My sincere hope is that, come September, the Barnet medieval festival and similar events right across the country will be able to go ahead as planned. With infection rates falling and now well over 27 million people vaccinated, there is cause for great optimism in our country.

My right hon. Friend spoke about indemnity. The Government acknowledge that the circumstances of the pandemic have left many unable to have the confidence and certainty they need to plan for events. We have been engaging with stakeholders in my office right throughout the period to understand the issues. The potential challenges around indemnity are a very big part of that.

We know that progress on the vaccine and beating the virus are crucial and this, combined with reopening only when we know it is safe to do so, will reduce the chances of cancellations and interruption. That will create a much more predictable and secure operating context for these sorts of events. Any decision about indemnity alongside that will be taken by the Treasury, which I know is keeping the situation under review, and we are working with it to determine the most effective response to the sector within the public health context.

On that note, I again congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate and for entertaining and educating us this afternoon. I have every faith that the 550th anniversary of the battle of Barnet will serve as a fantastic opportunity for the local community to come together again, to engage with our fantastic national heritage and to really begin to foster and rebuild that sense of community pride, shared history and belonging.

Question put and agreed to.