Government Archives and Official Histories

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, for securing this debate and, indeed, for opening up this whole question with his debate five years ago. I must declare an interest, as secretary to the All-Party Group on Archives and History and, like my noble friend Lord Hennessy, as a working professor of history in Queen’s University Belfast. One of the effects of the important debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, five years ago was the production of the Pilling report. The noble Lord referred to it tonight. There is a striking sentence by Sir Joe Pilling at the heart of his report endorsing the project of official histories. He said that he had come to see the work of publishing official histories as,

“the gold standard of accountability to the country from those who have been privileged to hold senior office”.

It is for that reason that Sir Joe Pilling advocates essentially an improvement and an increase in the production of official histories.

I recall that five years ago I referred to the history of MI6—which my noble friend Lord Hennessy mentioned tonight—by my colleague Keith Jeffery. It was then basically something that existed on Keith’s desk, but now it shows how these things can sell. One of the many points that are so important about that book is that it has sold hundreds of thousands of copies across the world. It may be because the Chinese copy actually has a gun smoking on the cover, but none the less it is an indication that no definite economic death follows the production of official histories. It is important to understand that the work of producing official histories is of great significance.

However, there is a darker side to Sir Joe Pilling’s report. If you read between the lines, he was aware as a member of the Dacre committee with Sir David Cannadine that it was likely that we would move from a 30-year rule. Actually, the Dacre committee recommended moving to 15 years, but in practice it is now a 20-year rule. Sir Joe is also clearly aware that this will become an argument for the state to say that it does not need these official histories any longer. He clearly tacitly acknowledges that that argument is just around the corner. It is the argument that is related to the hiatus that has been announced in the context of austerity. I can completely understand it, there is a forceful logic to it, but there is another hiatus, if I might put it like this. It would be forcefully true when the 20-year rule comes into effect and will be much truer in five, seven or eight years from now insofar as it has truth today. We still have a pressing need in public areas for a certain type of work in an official history programme.

Let me explain what I mean and take the case of the history of the Northern Ireland Office. If you want to look at the volume of official publications on Northern Ireland on the shelf of our Library, you will find a shelf of official publications including the report on Bloody Sunday and the Finucane report. There are hundreds of thousands of pages, mostly dealing with matters of that sort, occasions when the state has been seen to behave not very well. I have no objection to that; I was the historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday tribunal report. However, it is somewhat ridiculous that there is no account of the work of those officials on the British side who struggled to bring about a peace process. It is astonishing that we are silent on the more creative, positive, though no doubt deeply flawed aspects of the work of our state officials while we are so loud in announcing some of the rather bad things that went on. That seems an astonishing way to proceed.

The same point can be made about how aspects of Foreign and Commonwealth Office history in the 1940s and 1950s have been dealt with in recent times. We now seem to think that the way to educate the public about what happened in the past is to apologise or to have a large and expensive inquiry about something very bad. That may well be necessary, but this is the case for a proper, official history programme. With the hiatus that still now exists, particularly in the Northern Ireland Office, the many arguments there have been about legacy in Northern Ireland, the sense there that the past has not been properly dealt with and the small sums involved, there is a case for the Government to reconsider their approach of austerity.

There is a further point made in Sir Joe Pilling’s report that is worth drawing attention to. He says that the internet now allows you to publish a lengthy set of footnotes and a lengthier text—the full scholarly history—but a 200-page shorter version as the book. That seems another way for government to avoid unnecessary expense. In other words, I am arguing that this can be done quite cheaply. I would like to see the Government reconsider the force of the Pilling report of 2009.