Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Main Page: Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, I, too, wish to say that it is an enormous privilege to speak in my noble friend’s debate. She brings to it an exceptional personal knowledge of Bletchley Park in its operational days. What we owe to the men and women like her is impossible to express adequately. Their importance to the history of our nation and, in turn, the free world should never be forgotten.
Why and how did this place and the truly extraordinary people who worked there become so crucial to the successful outcome of the Second World War, and therefore why is it so important that its future should be secured? Bletchley Park, until fairly recently, was probably Britain’s best-kept secret, a point to which my noble friend Lady Trumpington referred. Indeed, the secrecy surrounding all the activities carried out there was vital to our national security and ultimate victory, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, emphasised.
During the war it became the centre of code-breaking and intelligence activity. As has been said, it was at Bletchley that the Enigma codes were broken—an event which turned the course of the Battle of the Atlantic in our favour, as the mother of my noble friend Lord Astor knew at first hand—and later the Lorenz codes, with crucial implications for the D-day preparations. It has been estimated that the duration of the war was reduced by two years thanks to the work undertaken in secret at Bletchley.
Some of those who worked at Bletchley are now as famous as the site itself: Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman and Dilly Knox come to mind. Your Lordships have recently played a pivotal role in ensuring that due recognition is given to the supreme contribution that Alan Turing made and which the Government acknowledge. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and my noble friend Lord Sharkey were particularly crucial in this matter.
The code-breaking activity at Bletchley developed into an operation on an industrial scale. I believe that up to 10,000 people were employed there at the height of the war. In October 1941, after receiving a letter from some of the senior code-breakers decrying the lack of resources being afforded them, Winston Churchill directed:
“Action this day! Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done”.
Machines were developed to deal with the huge amount of data, including the Bombe, an electromechanical device which helped to reduce the potential number of codes. It was at Bletchley that Tommy Flowers built the Colossus, now recognised as the world’s first electronic computer. So Bletchley is also recognised as being of international significance due to its place at the beginning of the age of the computer. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, highlighted this point, as did my noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. At the end of the war, the remarkable expertise that had been developed at Bletchley Park was taken forward by a number of the wartime Government Code and Cypher School staff in a new organisation known today as GCHQ.
In 1987, after 50 years of association with British intelligence, Bletchley Park was finally decommissioned. In 1991, many of the organisations that had occupied post-war Bletchley Park had moved out. The site became partially derelict and was being proposed for housing and a supermarket development. A campaign was launched to save the site. Inspired by veterans and others, the Bletchley Park Trust was formed and took ownership of the site on a 250-year lease.
Bletchley Park museum opened in 1993, and since then the trust has been working to restore the site. My noble friend Lord Cormack spoke of the beginning of this journey and the impression that it made on parliamentarians when they visited the site in those early days. In 2007, the Codes and Ciphers Heritage Trust began to establish the National Museum of Computing, which includes a working reconstruction of a Colossus computer, along with many important examples of British computing machinery.
A number of your Lordships have raised concerns about the reports of discord between the Bletchley Park Trust and the National Museum of Computing. I acknowledge the work of both these organisations and I very much hope, as I know do your Lordships, that they will look to collaborative solutions to their differences. Indeed, we look to both museums to tell the incredible story of Bletchley in the most innovative but accurate way that will enable Bletchley to be in the nation’s consciousness for many generations to come. Since opening, the Bletchley Park museum has seen a consistent growth in its visitor numbers: 40,000 people passed through the gates of Bletchley Park in 2006, with that number swelling to 150,000 in 2012. Indeed, there are ambitious projections for the next three to five years. The figures that I have seen for this year compared with last year are very remarkable indeed. It is obviously a place that is becoming very strong in people’s consciousness, which is so important.
This is a testament to the relevance and importance of the work of Bletchley in this country’s history. So many people of all ages and backgrounds want to come and understand how this site contributed to the world in which we live now. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, was absolutely right to mention education and interpretation. We have to inspire the next generation to understand what this was all about. The education and interpretation part will be a very important feature of what will happen at Bletchley.
Of course, this increased demand has meant that the Bletchley site has had to upgrade to reflect this continuing interest. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, rightly asked some questions about the status of the independent Bletchley Park Trust. In September 2011, the trust secured a grant of just under £5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the £8 million restoration of Bletchley Park phase 1 project. The noble Lord was absolutely right to acknowledge that there were other contributors to that £8 million which again has been hugely appreciated and is absolutely vital for the fulfilment of that first phase.
In this first phase of regeneration the once derelict Block C will become a vibrant visitors’ centre. The code-breaking Huts 3 and 6 have been restored to their original condition and the restored bomb Huts 11 and 11A will present exciting new displays. So, by the middle of this year, the huts will be ready for visitors to experience what life as a code-breaker was like. I thought that my noble friend Lord Higgins gave a fascinating and personal insight into what that could mean.
Remarkable work has been done and progress made over the past 20 years. We have mentioned discord, but it is important in all these things to get the balance right and record and celebrate the remarkable achievements. The strategic vision for Bletchley Park is to restore and put to productive use all the remaining buildings. Everyone I have spoken to who has visited—I have to say that I have asked quite a number of people how they would describe it—almost without exception has come up with the words, “This is such an inspiring place”. Our task is to ensure that that remains.
My noble friend Lady Trumpington and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, referred to volunteers. I say specifically that volunteers, as in so much of our nation’s life, have been at the heart of Bletchley’s regeneration and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to their work. It is through the dedication, knowledge and enthusiasm that they devote to Bletchley that has helped to bring it to life again. It is very clear from the rise in visitor numbers and the growing recognition of what we owe to the men and women of Bletchley Park that there is ever-increasing interest. It is clear that it is somewhere where families and children go, and it is very important that all of it is understood. These men and women who worked there gave of their best. Indeed, we are rightly very proud of my noble friend. It is for our generation and those who follow to ensure that this site of exceptional, historic and national importance is secure.