National Lottery Heritage Fund Grants: Conservation Management Plans

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

No, it is not a bad dream. However, it is more complicated than the noble Lord portrays. First, the records that were destroyed were not originals. The originals remain with the grantee of the fund. The conservation management programmes that the National Lottery Heritage Fund possessed were copies from a point in time. They were living documents and were changed; they were not the originals. Secondly, the fund does not retain the copyright, so even if it retained the documents, it would not be able to make them publicly available. It is trying to ensure that in future the grantees of National Lottery funds are able to make the documents publicly available, and they are encouraged to do so, but there are issues about finding an archive prepared to take all those documents.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I strongly support the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Howarth. What steps are being taken to ensure that similar archive material held by other bodies such as the National Trust, which straddles Wales and England, and by bodies in Wales, such as Cadw and Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru, is also preserved? What discussions have taken place between the Minister’s department and the Welsh Government on those matters?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The National Archives has talked to bodies such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund to make sure that they can make arrangements in future so that there is a single point of access, if you like, for these documents. As I said before, the issue is making sure that the owner of the intellectual property or the copyright enables that to happen. Physically, it is possible. The archives sector is discussing that, and Historic England is promoting the heritage information access strategy, which is designed to do exactly that and have one point of access.