Learned Societies at Burlington House Debate
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Siobhan Baillie
Main Page: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)Department Debates - View all Siobhan Baillie's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Learned Societies at Burlington House
Siobhan Baillie Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for arranging this session. I do not have a book to plug and I am not clever enough to be a fellow or even a candidate, but I am passionate about trying to find a solution for the societies. We have high hopes for the Minister, as has been seen. Please, please, please free the big planet-sized brains in the learned societies. They need to be freed by you from the interminable discussions about rent and leases, to let them get on to use those planet-sized brains to help solve the greatest challenges of our time and educate people along the way, because we know they can do that.
It takes years of history and knowledge to solve challenges, and the learned societies have hundreds of years of respect and experience between them. The Royal Astronomical Society founded in 1820, the Geological Society founded in 1807, the Linnean Society founded in 1788, the Society of Antiquaries founded in 1707—so much would be lost by a forced relocation that is unnecessary, and that would be a brutal disrespect to all that has gone before.
I thank my Stroud residents, who wrote to me in large numbers and who brought the issue to my attention. Stroud is a cultured and learned place and is also the best place to live, according to The Sunday Times; I have to get that in for a whole year. The cultured and learned place that is Stroud is absolutely exasperated. My small patch of Gloucestershire cannot understand how we have spent 16 years trying to settle a matter that would effectively mean that we are preserving the learned societies for future generations—future generations like that of my baby daughter, who I want to grow up to be a candidate or a fellow, certainly.
What are we asking the Government to do? I have a briefing about that, but what we are asking the Government to do is to stop faffing around. We call on the Government to provide for an affordable, sustainable arrangement that allows the societies to remain at Burlington House, and to use the apartments as appropriate for their needs in the 21st century. That will preserve the unique and irreplaceable record of history, discovery and heritage. In the year of UK COP, G7 and the fact that we are leading on so many aspects of global policy, let us not lose the backbone and history that we have in the learned societies as we go along.