Future of the National Trust

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

I would like to make Members aware that this is my first time chairing Westminster Hall. I am sure we will all get along well.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the National Trust.

Congratulations on your appointment, Ms Bardell; I am sure that we will give you no trouble.

This year is the National Trust’s 125th anniversary year. I start by paying tribute to the founding visionaries, benefactors, members, volunteers and staff who have made it the great mediating institution that it certainly is.

For the entire eight years of planning and execution, I was the Prime Minister’s point man for the United Kingdom’s commemoration of the centenary of the great war. I was immersed in the sensitive handling and portrayal of history and narrative. I think we did well, and I take particular satisfaction in helping to shed light on the part played by people whose contributions had been overlooked for 100 years.

Today is Armistice Day, so I shall recall particularly a truly remarkable exemplar whom we ensured played a big part in the commemorations: Lieutenant Walter Tull. As it happens, his likely last resting place in a plot near Arras has recently been discovered. I mention him in the context of some of the difficult things that I want to touch upon in this short debate. I do not want to be either misconstrued or misrepresented.

In my constituency, we have one of the trust’s principal possessions. Stourhead is about a mile from my home and we are frequent visitors, alongside tens of thousands, every normal year. Indeed, pre-covid, the trust had a membership that was gusting 6 million. It has eye-watering financial resources that would be the envy of most charities at this difficult time. It has international standing and an international reputation, and several countries actively seek to emulate it. So what is the problem?

The trust mission is clearly laid out in statute: to be clerk of works to a large wedge of our national treasures. There is evidence, however, that in recent years the trust—frustrated no doubt with that simple custodial function—has been interpreting its remit much more broadly. I submit that that requires scrutiny.

The key to the unhappiness expressed in recent times is contained within a collection of documents of varying status, some leaked, some published. The material, entitled “Towards a 10-year vision for place and experience”, is a blueprint for a different National Trust from that envisaged in statute in 1907 and in subsequent National Trust Acts.

That document might have been convincingly dismissed as a think piece had it not been followed by a series of supporting “Reset” documents. Taken together with the recently announced round of redundancies and reduction in access to small sites, it amounts to a dramatic change in direction—one that has alarmed the trust’s members, volunteers and workforce, and provoked a storm in the media.

Of particular concern is the proposed closure of smaller houses, I would say under the cover of covid-19. Those rather crudely referred to by the trust as treasure houses, including Stourhead, have always cross-subsidised those smaller properties. That has been the business model, which is commendable. We now find the properties that have been sustained by that model—for example, George Stephenson’s house in Northumberland—are being closed. It could be that they are closed permanently.

We also find that it is not receipts, per se, that are the problem, because the outdoorsy attractions appear not to be in the crosshairs. Rather, the issue is with buildings, particularly what are referred to as mansions. The trust says it does not want to close or repurpose its sites, but has to cut its cloth because of covid-19. But look at its reserves, as well as its access to a huge volunteer workforce, together with furlough and other assistance given by Government during this crisis, and ask whether the trust, faced with the inflexibility of covenants and reserves, has approached either the Charity Commission or the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to see what statutory or non-statutory mechanisms there might be to assist in freeing up funds in these difficult times, in order to support its charitable purposes.

On top of that, we have a hobnailed boot of a document called, “Addressing our histories of colonialism and historic slavery”, which is considered sufficiently off-piste to attract the interest of the Charity Commission as regulator.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Murrison]

I think those words and facts speak for themselves. It is very important that those who associate themselves with a great institution such as the National Trust are very careful about what they say and the way they project themselves. They must not make themselves hostages to fortune, as I fear has happened in this case.

However, there is always hope. Faced with a wall of unhappiness, trust bosses have been back-pedalling, at least rhetorically, and that is very much to their credit. We are told that the leaked “Towards a Ten-Year Vision” was an initial draft, despite no such caveat being present in the original. The director general was at pains to reassure me about that when she spoke to me yesterday, and I note that her op-ed in The Daily Telegraph today uses similar terms.

We have to take the trust’s leadership at its word. It seeks a “reset”—its word, unambiguously stated. We have a good idea now of what is in its mind and where it is taking us. Given the trust’s statutory underpinning, that is not to be undertaken lightly or without wider public cognisance, so let us commission an independent review like the recent Glover deep-dive into national parks. Thus fortified with a refreshed set of marching orders, the trust that we all love can then chart a course for the next 125 years.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that there have had to be quite quick changeovers between debates. You have antibacterial wipes on your desks, so I ask that you do your best to clean the microphones in your areas before you leave and when you arrive as we fight covid-19. I would like to call the Minister by 4.22 pm.