HC Deb 27 March 1963 vol 674 cc1465-74

Notwithstanding anything in this Act the Trustees may with the consent of the Lord Chancellor transfer to the Public Record Office any historical manuscripts or other documents that formerly formed part of the public records, or which form part of a series of documents the bulk of which are in the possession of the Public Record Office, or which in the interests of historical research it is convenient so to transfer.—[Mr. Fletcher.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

I ought to begin by declaring an interest in this matter in that I am, under appointment by the Lord Chancellor, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Public Record Office, as, indeed, was the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, until his promotion to the Front Bench, who discussed this matter with me and with my hon. Friends in Committee. We revert to it again today because, at the conclusion of the Committee stage, the Economic Secretary indicated that this was one of the matters that he would wish, in the interval between then and the Report stage, to consider with the Trustees. May I, therefore, try to make to the House the case for this new Clause.

The position is this. It has recently come to the knowledge of some of my hon. Friends that a certain number of public records which have strayed from official custody have come into the British Museum. How they got there is not quite known. They seem to have disappeared from the public records of the day, at a time before the Public Record Office was established. Some of them, apparently, passed into private hands and were subsequently acquired by the British Museum. In some cases, these documents have been in the British Museum so long and are so well known that it may well be in the general public interest that they should remain where they are. But there are other cases of documents which form part of a series, for example, annual accounts, where the separation of one document from its fellows is not only very inconvenient but an obstacle to historical research.

Odd though it may seem—here my informant is Mr. H. M. Colvin, Fellow and Tutor of St. John's College, Oxford—there is one case, and he does not think that it is a unique case, where an important medieval document has been torn into two halves of which one half remains in the Public Record Office and the other fragment is in the British Museum. That, of course, is obviously undesirable; but when on some recent occasion it was suggested that the two halves of this document should be brought together, the objection was made that under the law as it then stood the Trustees of the British Museum had no power to part with any document in their possession.

Fortunately, this Bill gives us the opportunity of possibly rectifying that position and giving the Trustees of the British Museum the power to transfer to the Public Record Office those documents, where obviously it is most convenient in the interests of historical research that a whole series of documents should be; or, if it is one document of which there are two halves—one in one place and one in another—it should be transferred to the Public Record Office.

I give two illustrations. There is one which I think will be of particular interest to hon. Members. There is what is known as the counter-roll of one of the accounts for the reconstruction of Westminster Hall by Richard II. That document is in the British Museum, but all the other surviving rolls and counter-rolls are in the Public Record Office.

Again, there is the text of an account connected with the war of St. Sardos in Gascony in the reign of Edward The document itself is in the British Museum, but the cover remains in the Public Record Office. A third illustration is the Wardrobe Account of the thirteenth year of the reign of Edward II, a book which at some time has come to pieces. Two-thirds of the leaves are in the British Museum and one-third are in the Public Record Office, the latter portion coming in the middle. Obviously, this is a most inconvenient situation for students and for those who wish to search and study these medieval documents.

It has been said that to some extent this inconvenience can be overcome by the fact that photostat and microfilm copies nowadays can be made available, as, indeed, they are, both by the Trustees of the British Museum and by the Public Record Office; but that is not always possible, particularly when documents are fragile, and it is often necessary in the case of medieval records for a student to make a physical comparison of one manuscript with another. That is something which cannot be done merely by the use of a microfilm or a photostat copy.

Therefore, the case for the new Clause is that alt long last the Trustees of the British Museum should have the power, where documents are separated, to restore them to the Public Record Office and where there is one or more of a series of documents, the bulk of which is in the Public Record Office, to send them there.

There is nothing compulsive about the provisions of the new Clause. It merely gives the Trustees permission to make this transfer with the consent of the Lord Chancellor in circumstances in which it is in the interest of historical research so to do. With that safeguard that the consent of the Lord Chancellor is required, I hope that the Chief Secretary and the Government will feel that there is ample protection against any rash decision being made by the Trustees of the Museum. It seems to be desirable that they should have this power and I hope that the Government will be able to accept the new Clause.

Dr. Alan Thompson (Dunfermline Burghs)

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) on the new Clause. It is for the convenience of scholars, and particularly of medieval historians, who often travel long distances to London from, say, universities in Scotland or in the North. Frequently, they spend only a day or so in London working on these records and it would be a considerable convenience far them to have the records together in one place.

I notice that when this matter was discussed in Committee, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury said that the First Schedule to the Public Records Act, 1958, specifically excluded from the definition of "public records" any records which formed part of the permanent collection of a national museum or gallery. I regard this as a mere quibble when set against the convenience of the scholars concerned. I know that there are not a great number of them. I know that the medieval historian vote will not be a crucial one at the next election. Few marginal seats are likely to be swayed by the indignation of medieval scholars. Nevertheless, this is a matter to which we should pay attention.

As has been pointed out, the new Clause states: Notwithstanding anything in this Act the Trustees may with the consent of the Lord Chancellor transfer to the Public Record Office any historical manuscripts or other documents that formerly formed part of the public records … Clearly, the Trustees would still remain very much in charge of the situation. I suspect that behind the objection originally raised was the thought, not that the Trustees themselves were unreliable, but that their successors might be. We all have that slight kind of feeling towards our successors. Whether we are in the Army and hand over our platoon to a new man or in civilian life we hand over our job to someone, we never feel that our successors will discharge the task with quite the same care and attention as we discharged these duties. I can only think that if the Trustees are themselves objecting to this proposal they are thinking, as I say, of some time when public records may be disposed of with less care than they, the existing Trustees, would themselves give. I think that this again is an invalid objection. This new Clause is a very moderate one and permissive only and I hope that the Government, for the convenience of the small number of scholars concerned, will accept it.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke (Bristol, West)

I am afraid that I cannot agree with what the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson) has just said, and I cannot because of my own personal experience, because it so happens that the British Museum and the Public Record Office hold documents and drawings which have relation to the historic house in which I have the privilege to live, my own home, and I have always found that both those great bodies have been most prompt and courteous in the way in which they have made their documents available. If that was not so I could well see that there would be some point in the new Clause, but I have always found that they have been very ready to look for what one has wanted to find and to provide documents for one's inspection, and also to provide photographic or photostatic copies.

I would not want to introduce a note of discord into this discussion, but I would make one point, that in both the British Museum and the Public Record Office the charges for providing photostatic copies are high. I think that perhaps at a later stage we might look at that, but I feel that they provide ample opportunities for scholars, and even amateurs like myself, and I could not support the Amendment.

Dr. Stross

We discussed this matter in Committee, and the Economic Secretary was very courteous in his response to me at that time, as, indeed, he was to everybody. He said that he would consider this matter. I also would point out that this is a very permissive new Clause. Indeed, I rather think it is so permissive a Clause that no real change will be made by it in the powers of the Trustees. However, I am influenced by what I heard a few moments ago, that all Trustees tend to suspect that those who follow after them will not be as able as themselves to care for the treasures they are caring for, and this may well be true at the present time. The Trustees may feel that even this permissive form of words is something they do not wish to be embarrassed by. Yet the facts as I read them are that even if we do not put this new Clause into the Bill the Trustees surely will have this very power by the time the Bill is on the Statute Book. They will have power to lend to another institution if they wish. I should like to hear what the Chief Secretary has to say at this point.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

As the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) have both said, this point arose in Standing Committee and my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary gave an undertaking to con- sider it, and in particular to discuss it with the Trustees. That undertaking has, of course, been implemented, and I have myself had a discussion with the members of the Trustees' Standing Committee. We all agree that this is an interesting point and certainly one well worth both raising and considering. The view, however, of the Trustees is that they would not, for reasons I should like to give to the House, wish to be entrusted with this power.

The House will be aware that it has been the policy of the Trustees for a very long time to follow a line of what I may call non-alienation; in other words—apart from the kind of matters which the Bill deals with, of articles unfit to be preserved in the collection, duplicates, and so on—not to part, even to other distinguished institutions, with objects with which they have been entrusted, partly as a matter of policy, partly because many things have been bequeathed to them on the basis that they should remain in their possession.

They feel that this power, if it were given to them, would be an embarrassment. The hon. Member is right. What is proposed in the Amendment, not unreasonably, is a permissive power. But I think it is our experience in this House that permissive powers, though in form permissive, can sometimes be something of an embarrassment. There can be pressures exercised upon one to exercise the power from which pressures one is free if one has not got the power to exercise.

Representatives of the Trustees with whom I discussed the subject felt, after very careful consideration, that it would be wrong to introduce for this purpose and in this limited sphere a breach in the general policy of non-alienation even on a permissive basis. That is not to say that the Government and the House are not free to form their own views when a Bill is before Parliament. On the other hand, I am sure that the House will feel that the views of the present Trustees, a very distinguished body of men, are entitled to very considerable weight, and I think that the reasons which they gave are also entitled to a great deal of respect.

Nobody would seek for one moment, of course, to brush aside the case which the hon. Member for Islington, East made, most persuasively, in respect of scholarship and research, and I have also seen the letter from Dr. Colvin, a letter from a fellow of a college which carries particular weight with the Economic Secretary. On the other hand, the development to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) referred, of photo-copying, means that it is possible to meet the practical needs of those who desire to see a complete collection of documents in order to work on them far more easily than has ever previously been the case.

Both the Public Record Office, to whose excellent administration I would like to pay tribute, and the Museum are, I understand, in very good relationship and exchange copies of photographs of documents that they have which relate to each other. The hon. Member for Islington, East referred to one example. Let me give another. The very interesting report of the Commissioners into the state of the Navy in 1608, perhaps the precursor of some of our defence debates, is held between the two institutions. They have exchanged photo-copies as a result of which for all the practical purposes of research and study there now exist two complete sets of the relevant documents, one at each institution.

There is another practical point which weighs with the Trustees, and it made some impression on me. The catalogues of the British Museum are very serious and solid documents, with, generally, a long life. They record the documents that the Museum possesses. If the Museum were to transfer them, then we should have the fact that the catalogues would no longer be accurate, that when scholars came to see them it would certainly be found, although there might well be a photo-copy, that the documents referred to were no longer there. That is perhaps an indication of how even a small breach in the principle of non-alienation might very well induce very considerable practical difficulties in due course.

The proposed Clause refers to documents formerly in the public records. I have had some inquiries made of the Museum as to what this might cover. The Museum tell me that there is only one example of which it is aware, although it may be that further research would show others. It is rather an amusing one, of what is called "The Lord Chamberlain's Plays"; that is, scripts of plays which had been submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for his wise guidance or censorship.

These were originally at the Public Record Office, but in 1923, apparently feeling that it had no particular use for them, it returned them to the Lord Chamberlain's office, which subsequently deposited them with the British Museum. That is the only example I know of where documents which have formerly been part of the Public Record Office are now in the possession of the Museum, although I am the last person to say—and the Trustees take the same view—that they are the only ones. They do not, however, constitute a very strong case for this proposal.

But the basic point is that I do not think it would be wise for Parliament to seek to force on the Trustees power which, on reflection, they do not want, particularly if the conferring of those powers would inevitably involve some breach, however small and however well intentioned, in a principle to which the Trustees quite rightly attach very considerable importance.

I would go with the hon. Member for Islington, East a long way against that view if there were really some powerful, practical objection from the point of view of research and scholarship. I do not exclude the possibility of cases where there is real reason for seeing the original documents and not relying upon photographic copies, but in the vast majority of cases there can be got together a complete set of the documents by means of photographic copies, and the practical point is, in large measure, met.

Of course, one gets the odd and extreme case, such as the one quoted by the hon. Member—of which I was not aware—of a document torn in half by some kind of Solomon's judgment, but I do not think that case provides sufficient foundation for this proposal. Although I could not, of course, commit the Trustees, whether the Museum's half should go to the Public Record Office or the Public Record Office's half should go to the Museum, this Amendment inevitably, because of the nature of the Bill, would be unilateral in its effect. But for such extreme cases the lending powers in Clause 4 would be sufficient without the conferment of considerable additional powers, and I understand that there is no duration laid down as to the length of a loan.

I realise that this new Clause has been put forward with great reasonableness and with perfect good sense, but because of the predominant considerations against it I must advise the House that it would be unwise and against the wishes of the Trustees to add it to the Bill.

Mr. Fletcher

I do not want to pursue the matter at great length but we cannot leave it exactly there. I am disappointed by the right hon. Gentleman's response. The reasons he has given for rejecting the Clause are rather pedantic. In the first place, this is not really a matter for the Trustees but for the Government to decide. Fundamentally it seems rather ridiculous that where there are documents of the same series and of the same kind, partly in the Museum and partly in the Public Record Office—both of which are basically under Government control—there should not be power to collate them either in one place or the other.

The right hon. Gentleman said that in a sense this Clause would operate in only one way because of the nature of the Bill. But the Public Record Office already has power to move some of its documents to other depositories. After all, the proposal is put forward fundamentally if not entirely in the interests of scholars and researchers. These are the people who are the interested parties. This question has been raised by them because they have, from experience, found it inconvenient, if they want to study a particular series of medieval documents, to find half of them in the Museum and half of them in the Public Record Office. It is even more absurd where we have a document which is torn in two, one part of which is in the British Museum and the other part in the Public Record Office. Therefore, I am not impressed by the argument that the Trustees do not particularly want this power.

10.45 p.m.

In so far as the Minister has consulted the Trustees, I think one is entitled to remind him that the existing body of Trustees is about to retire. The main object of the Bill is to nominate and constitute an entirely new body of Trustees who, presumably, will have new and perhaps more progressive ideas than the existing Trustees. But, after all, what is proposed is merely permissive and it cannot possibly do any harm to the Trustees to have this power.

The objection put forward that pre-sure might be brought to bear on the Trustees really will not hold water when they have the protection that they can only do this with the consent of the Lord Chancellor. This is not a matter of very great moment or compass. It can apply only in a relatively small field, but where it has been found inconvenient and may be found inconvenient to scholars and students in the future, I should have thought, in view of the representations made by them and on their behalf, that it was a sensible thing for the House to see that the inconvenience to which they have drawn attention is removed.

It can be removed quite simply and, I should have thought, without inconvenience. I have no doubt that if in the past the Trustees had had power to do this they would have done it without any question or difficulty arising, but merely because, for technical reasons, they are operating under an Act of the eighteenth century they have been unable to do it. Therefore, I should have thought that had this question arisen de novo there would have been no doubt at all about the sensible line that the House would take.

I hope very much that, whatever the House decides, before Parliament finishes with the Bill the Government will have second thought on the matter.

Question put and negatived.