National Railway Museum and Ownership of National Assets

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Chope. I can relate a railway story from when I was growing up in your constituency, when I spent a day on Hinton Admiral station waiting for the Flying Scotsman to come through—alas, it came by road. Thankfully, it is now restored to the rail.

This is an important debate. I am so fortunate that the National Railway Museum is in my constituency, with its incredible collection. It is a dynamic museum that is not preserved in aspic, and I will talk about some of the exciting developments there. I am sure everyone hearing the debate will want to embrace them and one day come to visit. In fact, I am sure everyone has been to the museum.

The museum has an incredible collection, and it is always a joy to go there to see new locomotives. The exhibitions change on a continuous basis to ensure that visitors are always treated to something new. Visitor numbers are rising, from three quarters of a million to nearer millions. I ask Members to please come to York to boost those numbers and enjoy a day at the museum. Everyone has their favourite engines; most people come to see wonders such as the Mallard or the Flying Scotsman. Personally, I like to see the Scotsman out on the line doing its work. There are many delights and hidden treasures in the museum.

Between 2010 and 2014, the museum undertook a complete review of its collection and how best it could share its assets and ensure they were all on display. Previously, about 2,000 objects would be on loan to different exhibitions and museums, around the country and beyond, but in reality, that was neither manageable for the museum nor in the best interest of the items. I have discussed that at length with the museum. Often, when objects were loaned by the National Railway Museum, identifying who was responsible for the upkeep of the objects, keeping them in a good state of repair and functioning, was of prime concern, to make sure that those assets were kept in the best condition. The previous model, with such a scale of distribution of different pieces of the collection, did not work. Sadly, as a result the upkeep of some pieces, including some of the engines, was not in the best state.

The museum wanted to address that and ensure that upkeep was maintained. It therefore looked at how it could have the best arrangements possible for care, which often meant passing pieces to another museum. The question was who was responsible for an item loaned to another museum or collection. If the museum was going to have it back, why would somebody invest in that particular artefact? Gifting the artefact—it is only gifting; we are not talking about selling the items and losing them from the public space—and having local interests upgrade, keep up, restore and, as we have heard about the gift to the Swanage Railway Trust, even bring the locomotive back into steam, would bring real improvement.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I must say that it is only in the last two days that I have heard about the possible promise to get the Swanage steam engine into steam again. I suspect that might be a reaction to today’s debate. Wonderful as small private railways are as a supplement to the NRM, they cannot have the resources to do the job properly and ensure that our national assets stay in good condition. I could go on, but perhaps I have said enough.

[Rachael Maskell]

I can inform my hon. Friend that the Swanage Railway Trust is working with the National Railway Museum, using its expertise to look at how it can improve the condition of that piece of the collection. We are not talking about a divorce settlement; it is about working together on a national asset and looking at how it can be best cared for, and having the space to display it. Some of the locomotives to which my hon. Friend referred were kind of put in the back cupboard, but have now become the star of the show, because one thing that is really important to the NRM is for locomotives to be displayed where there is a geographical relevance. For example, an LSW or GWR train might be taken down to the south-west, as opposed to having it in a shed in the north-east.

The NRM has a clear desire to best exhibit its collection and to make sure it is accessible. I completely agree that we should be able to freely access the collection across the country and not have to pay for the privilege, but at the same time we must recognise that the collection’s upkeep costs money. We must therefore ensure that the collection is at least accessible, even if not everyone has the means to access it.

The Science Museum Group, of which the railway museum is a part, has in place a process for disposal that the museum assured me it follows, acting as other museums of global standing act on their collections. It wants to continue to refresh its collection, and there are gaps within its collection that it wants to fill to make sure it is telling the complete railway story. It looks at issues such as duplication, and as I say, geographical relevance. It first sends its items for disposal to be peer- reviewed by the group’s board of survey. Recommendations then go on to the collection and research committee, and then, ultimately, to the full board of trustees before items can be disposed of. The museum said that it has gifted a significant number of items from the museum to ensure they are better cared for and looked after elsewhere.

As I have said, locomotives that were perhaps put in the back shed are now being upgraded to their former glory and, we trust, even restored back into use, which is an exciting development for the museum. However, there is oversight—this is not privatisation or selling, or the locomotives going into a private collection. If, for instance, Swanage Railway Trust or any other body goes into receivership, the NRM has the first option of taking that locomotive back if other museums want it. I talked it through with the NRM, and it is like a loan on the never-never, with the local interests upgrading and restoring the collection. We need to make sure, as time marches by on that incredible 200-year history, that the collection is kept in good order.

The NRM is changing. It is currently undertaking the greatest development in its history. As we heard, in 1975 it opened in the UK’s largest urban development site, York Central, with £50 million of investment. To me, this is what is really exciting: the museum has tasked itself to inspire the next generation of rail engineers by taking people through that incredible 200-year journey of the railway, moving from the past to the present and on to the future. We know that Britain did not just create the railways of the world—its railways changed the world.

The museum now has the ambition to capture the imagination of young people and to expose them to the opportunities of engineering and to take them on that new journey, looking through science, technology, engineering and maths in its new centre. The railway museum has an incredible future in York, and it wants girls as well as boys to come from the city and to the city to engage in the new hands-on gallery, so it can teach them about the opportunities that engineering brings and ignite their imaginations to bring forward a new era of engineering innovation on the railways.

These are exciting times for York and for the NRM, celebrating the past and looking to the future. I hope everybody gets behind this project, including funders, and that the NRM will not only be about an exhibition of the future and showing off the technological advances that our country is making today and tomorrow, but will ensure that its collection is displayed across the nation for all to enjoy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) on raising this incredibly important matter? He has not only highlighted the specifics of the National Railway Museum’s decision to dispose of these three locomotives to private companies but given the House the opportunity to debate the principle of who has the power to do what with important national assets. Unlike some of the previous speakers, I cannot claim to be an enthusiast. I cannot possibly display the passion of the hon. Members for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), but I can claim to have been born a platform’s length—albeit a long one—from the legendary St Rollox works in Springburn in Glasgow many years ago.

[Rachael Maskell]

I just need to correct the hon. Gentleman: nothing has moved into private organisations. They are charitable organisations.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank the hon. Lady for that, but I think we are dancing on the head of a pin. They have been taken out of public ownership and removed from public control.