St Helena

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland—now a considerable authority on the affairs of St Helena—on having secured this debate and on the germaneness of his wording in concentrating our minds. On 31 October last year, I intervened during the gap in a debate, initiated by my noble friend Lady Hooper, on the overseas territories. Today I seek to return to the questions I raised then. It is a pleasure and a coincidence, rather than motivations of egocentricity, which cause me to direct anyone interested in these issues to col. 1787 in the Official Report of that day, in which I alluded to a forebear of mine becoming Governor of the island in precisely the year 1787.

These issues are about how, when tourists arrive at the airport, they can be encouraged to recommend the experience to others through the fruits of improved conservation of both local natural history and Georgian buildings. I did not seek to be plaintive, but I did indicate that I had hitherto had difficulty in finding out how well meaning citizens in this country could assist in this project. The device I deployed through last year’s intervention was extremely successful in that it provoked responses from a worthwhile posse of interested and interesting correspondents. I have spent part of the seven and a half months since then becoming an octogenarian and the rest of the time seeking to put my affairs in order to respond to these intimations of mortality. However, I fear that I have consequently been guilty of discourtesy in not responding to each and every one of these very useful correspondents. I hope that if any of the writers pick up this debate too, they will regard my participation in it as evidence of my continuing interest.

I was especially grateful to the director of the St Helena National Trust for a long e-mail about the trust’s background and functions. I have been tempted to quote from it passim and verbatim but I felt that would be presumptuous without his authority. I would be happy to show the text to those noble Lords interested in the affairs of St Helena hereafter. However, I emphasise that there is no link between the St Helena National Trust and the National Trust in the UK, though both are members of the acronymic INTO, the International National Trusts Organisation, which is based at the National Trust in this country. This long and helpful e-mail, which embraced both the natural heritage and the built environment, went on to furnish an attachment from the St Helena National Trust on the immediate future of the built heritage on St Helena. This is, in the short term, my principal interest and I will return to it to ask a specific question of my noble friend who is replying for Her Majesty’s Government. However, I shall first seize the opportunity to make brief reference to the natural heritage in order to indicate its attractiveness. This comprises, inter alia, the very significant and tiny world populations of the critically endangered wirebird, the spiky yellow woodlouse, the black cabbage tree, the he and she cabbage trees, and other very special fauna and flora, and their natural habitats. I am not going to dwell on them, save to say that great attention has already been paid to them; however, I should declare an interest as a trustee of MEMO, which acronymically derives from the Mass Extinction Monitoring Observatory.

I return to the issue of the built environment, where there is a drawback from the lack of the assignation of responsibility for St Helena’s built heritage to any government department, office or institution. This is a discouraging first impression in the context of the terms of this debate and the concerns for tourism; for it implies no responsibility for these structures, nor yet support for their maintenance. To shine a searchlight on this dilemma, the small NGO that I mentioned is in receipt of a £17,000 annual grant from the St Helena Government, while the two core staff alone require almost £30,000 per annum in salaries. This shortfall’s cure lies with the 4,000 souls on the island and those who come to visit, who are the subject of this debate.

On a more cheerful note, after the initial six-week training exercise last year for Six Saints under Henry Rumbold MBE—a redoubtable heritage stonemason with form on Fountains Abbey and the Prince’s Trust—all six have been assured of their certification within the UK’s NVQ3. In that regard, I should declare another interest as having been a long-term president of COTAC. I am looking forward to hearing whether these skills have been successfully engaged on site. In that regard, the attachment to which I made earlier reference is constructive. There are 967 historic structures recorded in the St Helena Historic Environment Register, with new discoveries daily still to be properly recorded. All these buildings would respond to the care of Mr Rumbold’s six charges and, even more, if intact, would make a lively contribution to the island’s economy.

I am not in a position to report on progress on the Governor’s own initiative in this area, but I will cite the opportunities available to clarify what could be achieved. This is, to some extent, a laundry list: replacing the mass concrete fill of inner courtyard at Plantation House with locally cut island stone flags, repointing the upper storey of the Essex House frontage—the lower storey was properly repointed with a lime mortar four years ago, and completing the partial restoration of Lemon Valley Lower Farmhouse, which was the site for the Six Saints’ training last year.

In parallel, there are structures not in daily public use that need to be brought back into management in a planned programme, which, again inter alia, could be deployed towards tourist use as weekend and short-stay holiday accommodation for island visitors and tourists—which is relevant to this debate. Access, water supply, litter prevention, sewage works and day-to-day control would all help to minimise vandalism.

To identify specific target projects, I refer to Broadway House, which is now let to the trust—the NGO I mentioned—High Knoll Fort’s two major wall collapses, and urgent attention needs to be paid to Munden’s structures that are now slipping away. I shall mention a few more: Bank’s; the steps and railings of the Ladder; Ladder Hill Fort; Munden’s walls and paths; Man and Horse signal station; the Wharf Buildings and mortuary, and the Papanul wreck’s salvaged contents. I have tolled this requiem towards collapse in order the make the point that there is a ready-made programme available to the skills already locally acquired if financial means were available.

This brings me to my question for my noble friend. The 4,000 souls on the island and the present level of tourists will not be enough to capitalise on this opportunity, so the responsibility comes back to us. I have been advised that tax-advantageous devices are being devised to encourage heritage and conservation disciples in this country to make a contribution, which is what prompted my interest in the debate last year. Therefore my query to the Minister is whether Her Majesty’s Government are taking an interest in this domestic venture as regards a conduit, and if so, what progress has been made and in how long a future timeframe.