Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Main Page: Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Labour - Life peer)
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, knows of my interest in matters relating to Ireland. There is a great paucity of records available in Dublin, to be perfectly honest. I will pass the noble Lord’s query back to the department but, as he knows, the archive that we have at Kew goes back to 937 AD. There is an enormous number of records there.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, the material we have been talking about up to now is almost entirely paper-based, but since 2008 most communications in Whitehall have been on email, policy papers have been generated electronically and announcements have been made through social media—believe it or not. The Minister will be aware of the excellent report produced by Sir Alex Allan in 2015 on digital records in Whitehall. Can he explain how far we have got in implementing that, and in particular the very important proposal Sir Alex makes for the emails of designated Ministers and senior officials to be automatically preserved? Is this happening?
The Earl of Courtown
I do not know the answer to the last part of the noble Lord’s question but I am aware of the review carried out by Sir Alex Allan in 2015. The National Archives have built the infrastructure to take in and present digital records, and have completed several successful pilots. I recommend looking at their website and Discovery, which is the National Archives’ online catalogue.