Bletchley Park

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing the debate, and that is not just the usual formula. It is clear that the situation at Bletchley Park needs some attention. I was rather dismayed when I looked through the Library briefing for this debate. Bletchley Park is much too important to allow the current problems to continue. As many speakers have said, two important things happened there: the cracking of the Nazi Enigma code, and the beginning of computing and of computer science. Both deserve a proper, civilised and shared commemoration. It is entirely appropriate that we should have a museum of code-breaking and a museum of computing on the site. What is entirely inappropriate is that the two museums should be on such very bad terms.

I will not rehearse again the various charges and countercharges levelled by each museum against the other. I will not comment on the obviously dysfunctional management that allows the situation to continue. However, I will say that any organisation which loses the person who saved it is obviously doing something wrong. That person is Dr Sue Black, who is largely responsible for saving Bletchley from dereliction in the first place. She was instrumental in obtaining the funding needed to secure Bletchley Park’s future, yet has resigned from the board of the Bletchley Park Trust in protest against its failure to sort out the long-running dispute with the National Museum of Computing. Dr Black even suggested that the gender balance on the boards could be preventing a solution; she did not mean that there were too many women on the boards.

It is clear that the relationship between the Bletchley Park Trust and the National Museum of Computing has broken down. It is clear that some kind of intervention is needed. Common sense needs to be restored. The commentator Gareth Halfacree, in his blog of 29 January, made an extensive analysis of the situation and several common-sense recommendations. He recommended: that there continue to be knowledgeable and expert volunteer guides alongside the modern audio guides; that there be a review of the joint ticketing arrangements, which is eminently sensible; and that the trust look again at the way in which it communicates its goals and plans to its employees. He did not recommend the removal of the fence, but that was because it had not been built when he wrote the review.

None of those recommendations seems difficult. In fact, they all have a common-sense and conciliatory air. However, to put them into place and even to begin to discuss them, firm leadership is required. Bletchley Park and its history are too important to allow a rather shameful quarrel to continue there. Intervention is needed, and I hope that the Government will think creatively about how they can, if at all, help to resolve the situation. But there is another kind of intervention available. When the campaign to pardon Alan Turing seemed to be stalled the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, wrote to the Prime Minister. Two months later, Turing was pardoned. Perhaps it is time for her to take up her pen again.