National Lottery Heritage Fund Grants: Conservation Management Plans

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The Government have not been in touch with the 1,300 grantees but, as I said, the fund is producing a list of the 500 to 600 for which conservation management plans might have been produced. It will be able to ask those copyright holders whether they are interested in doing that.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, it is clear that something terrible happened, but surely the way to make sure that it does not happen again is to give the National Archives absolute responsibility, whereby any holder of archives should consult it before contemplating any destruction or removal.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am sorry but I do not agree with the noble Lord that something terrible has happened. The National Lottery Heritage Fund has no remit to retain records. It is not an archive; it is there to promote heritage, and it is able to spend on heritage the £150,000 a year that is saved. First, as I said, the originals remain with the grantees. Secondly, the fund took legal advice and, even if it had retained them, it would not have been able to make them available. Therefore, there was no point spending £150,000 a year on retaining the documents when they were not the originals and the originals were available elsewhere.