Historical Manuscripts Commission

Lord Wills Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on securing this debate and on an excellent speech. In my few brief remarks I want to support everything he said, not least about the crucial importance of these archives for our national heritage. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord for his many years of service to the cause of archive in this country.

I am also sorry that this debate has been necessary because, as the noble Lord indicated, it suggests that there remains unfinished business from the creation of the National Archives in 2003, nearly 10 years ago. It was clearly understood then that there would continue to be a distinctive and important role for the commission and the invaluable work that it did with private archives after the creation of the National Archives.

However, when I, as the Minister who had by then become responsible for the National Archives, was approached by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the late Lord Bingham in 2009, it became clear to me that undertakings in this respect given by previous Ministers had not been honoured as they should have been. The initial focus after the creation of the National Archives had understandably been on government records, the significant task of meeting the challenges of digitisation, and on ensuring that records remained available for future generations in the face of rapid and profound technological change. This was a significant challenge for the National Archives, and I understand that.

However, once I looked into it, I could see no reason why this and all the other excellent work being done by the National Archives should be incompatible with honouring the understandings reached between the commissioners and the Government at that time. Therefore, I held a number of meetings, including, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned, the one with him and the late Lord Bingham. I reached agreement with the National Archives on a way forward which, I hope it is fair to say, satisfied the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the late Lord Bingham as the de facto custodians of those original undertakings. However, at that point I had already announced that I was not going to stand again for the House of Commons—the general election was imminent—so it is perhaps not surprising that my agreement with the National Archives was not pursued with the same vigour as it might have been had it been reached a few years earlier.

As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, he and I then met the noble Lord, Lord McNally, last year and, once again, I thought that we had reached agreement on a way forward. Indeed, some welcome changes have taken place, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, described. As I understand it, for example, the new forum is now meeting regularly with a membership that reaches out across the spectrum, and I think that everyone is content with that.

However, issues remain to be resolved. Everybody accepts that the National Archives, like all public bodies, today operates under severe financial constraints, but so far as I am aware—this is something that I have asked for, as, I know, has the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—there has still been no commitment, as had previously been agreed, that, when finances allow, the resources allocated to private archival work should be at least at the level they were when the work was carried out by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Such a commitment, however caveated, would represent an unambiguous recognition of the importance that the National Archives attaches to this work, and I hope that we will see it in the not-too-distant future.

I am afraid that the website still leaves something to be desired. Because this is the gateway to the National Archives for more and more people, including professional historians as well as members of the general public, I saw this as an important vehicle for honouring the commitments made in 2003 and, above all, for preserving the identity of the commission in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, described. That was particularly important to the late Lord Bingham. However, it was only after the meetings last year that my original ministerial request to have a reference to the HMC on the home page was fulfilled. Even now, it is only a quick link and then that link follows on to a page which conveys little of the significance and importance of private archival work. I really think that, in the light of everything that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has said today, the National Archives could do a bit better than that.

The merger between the HMC and the PRO has clearly not worked as well as it should have done. Given the continuing difficulties in meeting the expectations created by the understanding with the commissioners in 2003, despite my ministerial intervention and meetings with Ministers last year, it is now time to keep track systematically of the honouring of those commitments. To that end, I suggest that the Minister agrees to meet the National Archives annually to review progress on this issue and the state of private archival work more generally, and I should be grateful if, in his reply, the Minister would agree to do so.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for securing this debate and for the way in which he has kept at this question since the merger of the Historical Manuscripts Commission and the National Archives nearly 10 years ago. It is quite right for noble Lords to remember with great sadness Lord Bingham, whose commitment and dedication as the chair of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts ensured that the nation’s archives and manuscripts were in safe hands.

It is now nearly 10 years since the merger. In the light of what has happened since, I think it is fair to say that we are in the safe hands of a larger organisation. The Historical Manuscripts Commission was funded on a very modest scale, but I recognise that it was said in the Chamber today that we all need to make sure that resources are still there, that private records are given at least as much attention as public records and—perhaps I may add this, although it was not in most of the speeches—that the shift in public and in particular private records from paper to digital form is a challenge that the Government and all their partners now have to face and meet.

My engagement in this area comes as a lapsed historian. I share the feelings of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who the other day described the sheer joy of rummaging in an archive, feeling the paper and seeing different handwriting and typefaces. That is part of what we will lose with digitisation. The question of who will look at the noble Lord’s e-mails in 20 years’ time to see what he was really saying when he talked to Ministers is one that future historians will find rather more difficult.

There are a number of private archives still to be rescued; we all recognise that. I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the religious archives survey that the National Archives has just done, and looking at how we capture the archives of churches that are now much less prominent than they were, and how we get at the records of the Jewish community and now the Muslim community to make sure that they will be available to future researchers. I note that here and elsewhere we are talking about a partnership between government and other keepers of archives. Southampton University has developed a very good relationship with the Jewish community, for example, in the keeping of Jewish archives. Manchester University has a similar specialisation in Nonconformist archives.

My own involvement has been with the London School of Economics, which has developed a very useful archive of political records. Some years ago I gave my father-in-law’s records of the Liberal Party in the 1940s and 1950s to the LSE, which sorted them out far better than I would have done. I added my own records of the party in the 1960s and 1970s—also not always an easy period—and I am extremely happy that the LSE is cataloguing them rather than me. I was also pleased, with my wife, to take my father-in-law’s Bletchley Park records, which he should not have had in the first place, and give them to the Imperial War Museum. In the past few weeks I have enjoyed talking with other Members of the House about a number of Bletchley Park records, in particular because a 96 year- old who worked with a number of people I know sent us several entirely improper photographs taken of people working at Bletchley Park during the war. They are now on record and digitised, and we will hand them on.

I am grateful for the opportunity afforded by the debate to discuss this question. Perhaps I may reassure noble Lords that matters are under way. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to the advisory forum. It was established—before he talked to the noble Lord, Lord McNally—in May 2010, no doubt as a result of some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, had been engaged in.

We recognise that the problem of the budget squeeze is real in terms of staffing. There are now 4.5 full-time equivalent staff working in the private archives area, but a number of other people in the National Archives offer advice in different ways to people working in the private archives sector, in particular on the tremendous challenge of the shift from paper to digital that we are all beginning to face. Therefore it is not entirely true to say that staffing has shrunk. I cannot at this point give a definitive pledge that staffing levels will in future be raised, but I will take it back and discuss it with the various departments concerned and with the National Archives, and we will see what we can do.

On the question of a proper independent body, in December this year there will be the first of what it is intended should be an annual consultation with the owners of private archives. It will be held at Syon Park under the patronage of the Duke of Northumberland, and we very much hope that it will lead to a series of continuing dialogues with private archive holders, of the sort to which noble Lords referred.

The commitment on monographs is another difficult one. Perhaps I may move here to official histories. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said. As a historian, I am not entirely sure that I want official histories to continue in their old way. Those that I have read with most interest, and sometimes discussed with the people who wrote them, were particularly in those areas where the archives had been kept closed for 50, 60 or more years, and where someone distinguished and trustworthy was authorised to look through them and publish as much as they were allowed to for the rest of us to read.

The Government are trying very hard to reduce the secrecy of public archives and the length of time they are kept secret. I like to think—it is certainly my advice to my colleagues, and my opinion rather than government policy—that where possible archives should be available to people who are not subject to state control and Cabinet Office guidelines to write the sort of histories that we have had on nuclear weapons, for example, or the Cold War, much more rapidly than before because the archives will have been declassified. That is more desirable than relying on the state—but I take the point about an official history of the Northern Ireland Office. Again, I will take that back.

To reassure the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Wills, I think that we are responding, and moving in the directions in which we have been asked to move. The advisory forum is there. Dialogue with owners of private archives is very much there. Those who look at the website will see—as I have on the last two occasions on which I accessed it—that the Historical Manuscripts Commission appears very quickly when one moves into that dimension of the register. There is also some interesting stuff not just on the religious archives survey but on business archives and private archives.

We now have the National Register of Archives. Despite everything else, more than £250,000 has been invested in this comprehensive spending review period to update and improve online access to these systems so that the processes of contributing information to the register and finding the information it contains are brought up to date and simplified.

The National Archives has also undertaken the revision and provision of online access to the Manorial Documents Register, in which 22 counties have been surveyed since 2003. This is a lengthy task since the register has not been systematically revised since the 1920s. More than £300,000 has so far been invested in this project. Those are not insignificant sums at a time when the National Archives’ funding has been cut by 25%.

I emphasise that private archives and public interest are a matter of partnership with county museums, local repositories and, increasingly now, with universities. The vision and scope of the work with repositories beyond the public records system has grown and developed. The work undertaken today reflects a broad constituency of civil society, serving both traditional record-holding establishments such as record offices, landed estates and universities and an increasingly diverse range of private and charitable institutions.

Advice and support offered to such institutions and individuals reflects the National Archives’ awareness of diversity in the provision and maintenance of private archives. In fundraising opportunities, commercial licensing, the digitisation of software and community engagement, a breadth of advice is available. However, a two-way learning process from the wider expertise is also available as part of a bigger, national organisation.

Looking to the future, the National Archives is soon to launch its refreshed action plan to support the Government’s overall policy on public and private archives. The plan’s central priorities are the sustainable preservation of archival records and their accessibility to all who need and use them. The archives accreditation scheme currently under development will provide further support to specialist record repositories across the public and private sectors.

We recognise that it is vital that records of both the public and private domain are cared for and accessible and that their significance continues to be recognised. I can assure noble Lords—and I have spoken to a great many people over the past week—that the National Archives is striving actively and successfully to sustain a future for our archival heritage wherever it is held and that it is recognised as such.

[Lord Wills]

I assume that the Minister is about to conclude. Before he does, will he address my request for an annual review on progress in meeting the commitments already given? In doing so, will he recognise that for all the splendid work of the National Archives, and he has given a very good defence of it, there is nevertheless remaining unease about the commitments given in 2003 by people who are no longer in position? Although it does not mean that the Government should not honour those commitments, those commitments have not yet been fulfilled. Will he agree to an annual review meeting on that basis?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I recognise the question. My understanding is that the Syon Park meeting in December is intended to fulfil a great many of those commitments. If the noble Lord is not satisfied with that, I undertake to write to him on that score. I spoke to him before this debate, and I have also taken fully into account the concerns expressed by a number of people both outside this Chamber as well as inside it. Looking at the current situation I am relatively assured that most of the points made have been met, except for the question of funding. We would all like a great many more staff to assist.