Thomas Cook

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is very kind and generous. A number of your Lordships were involved in the Bill on historical institutional abuse. It is now the law of the land, and we can all take heart from that. I will be as diligent in this regard as I can be and will do all I can in the new Parliament, if I am spared, to do this.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, can I raise a subject which I am sure is not in the Minister’s brief and on which I therefore do not expect a reply this evening? Perhaps he will look into this and write to me. It is on the question of the Thomas Cook archives. Thomas Cook was a company founded in 1841, originally to take temperance supporters on holiday by train in the Midlands. It grew very rapidly into the world’s leading travel company and pioneered journeys to places such as Khartoum, to help with the evacuation, as well as holidays to Switzerland and all sorts of other places. The Thomas Cook archive is priceless. It is based in Peterborough and everything in it needs to be preserved as part of the history of the industry. It is indeed a company that for many years was state-owned, after the nationalisation of the railways in 1948. So could the Minister look into the question of the Thomas Cook archive? I will be happy to send him a letter that Sir Peter Hendy has sent to the chairman of the Business Archives Council, in which he lists the case for this archive to be preserved. It is really worth doing.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is of course correct that I do not have before me the answer to that particular question. But I recognise that the archives of Thomas Cook, stretching as far back as they do, will be absolutely invaluable to understanding the evolution of our country and how Thomas Cook began to show the world to the people who travelled. So I look forward to receiving the letter that the noble Lord will forward to me. I will, in due course, respond directly and place a copy of that letter in the Library for all to see with regard to the historical archive.