HC Deb 25 March 1998 vol 309 cc578-82

'.—(1) Welsh public records shall not be public records for the purposes of the Public Records Act 1958.

(2) But that Act shall have effect in relation to Welsh public records (as if they were public records for the purposes of that Act) until an order under section (Transfer of responsibility) imposes a duty to preserve them on the Assembly (or a member of the Assembly's staff); and this subsection applies to Welsh public records whether or not, apart from subsection (1), they would be public records for those purposes.'.—[Mr. Ron Davies.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Ron Davies

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

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin)

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 17—Transfer of responsibility.

Government new clause 18—Meaning of "Welsh public records".

Government Amendments Nos. 113 to 115, 118 and 99 to 102.

Mr. Davies

We said on Second Reading that we would bring forward amendments to make new provision for Welsh public records. I am pleased to present the new clauses and amendments now, and the House will wish me to explain their effect in a little detail. There are three new clauses and a number of consequential amendments. The broad effect of the new clauses is as follows. First, we propose that there should be created a new category of Welsh public records. As the House may know, there is no separate record office for Wales at present and most public records relating to Wales are held in the Public Record Office at Kew. That is very different from the position in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where national record offices hold records relating to those countries.

The proposal, therefore, is that, simultaneously with the establishment of the assembly, a new category of Welsh public record will be created and, in the fulness of time, responsibility for them will be transferred by order to the assembly.

I shall explain what records will fall within the new category—they are set out in new clause 18. The first will be those of the assembly itself. The Public Record Office does not, as a matter of principle, hold records of any elected bodies. It follows that, without the provision that we are making, there would not be proper provision for the assembly's records.

The second category will be records of the Welsh Office. That is particularly appropriate because the Department's records have now to become available under the 30-year rule.

Third will be the records of other bodies with responsibilities in Wales in areas in which the assembly has responsibilities—health bodies, a number of listed public bodies and the records of bodies that may, at a later date, be made subject to the new provisions by order.

The idea is to be able to extend, where that is considered appropriate, the category of Welsh public records to a wider range of non-departmental public bodies than the 1958 Act currently applies to, but that power would not be exercisable without the assembly formally resolving to request the Lord Chancellor to do so. In such circumstances, the assembly would want, first, to consult the affected bodies.

The new category of Welsh public records will have no operational significance unless and until my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, who has departmental responsibility for public records, makes a transfer of responsibility order under new clause 17.

The effect of such an order, which can be made only after consultation with the assembly, would be to transfer to the assembly responsibility for the preservation of Welsh public records covered by the order and responsibility for making them available for public inspection.

Mr. Rowlands

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's excellent decision. I have perhaps spent too much of my time at the Public Record Office at Kew searching among Welsh Office or Welsh documents of one kind or another, and the new clause will give students and research assistants much better access than was possible at Kew, with the additional cost that spending time there entailed.

The BD category at Kew applies to Welsh documents, some of which go back to 1945–46, with the old Board of Trade documents. Will they also be available for transfer, as opposed to those post-1964? They are extremely valuable and many reflect the evolution of Welsh administrative life before the establishment of the Welsh Office. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that.

Mr. Davies

As always I am grateful for my hon. Friend's vigorous and wholehearted support. I am only sorry that during the previous debate, when he expressed full and vigorous support for Government policy, we had to change the policy. On this occasion, I assure him that his support is welcome and it will ensure that my determination to proceed with the proposal as it stands is set even deeper in concrete. I hope to be able to give my hon. Friend a specific answer by the usual method before the end of the debate. If I cannot do that, I shall write to him. It may well be that the answer is yes. I am having some difficulty with the calligraphy.

A transfer of responsibility order will also contain provisions based on the Public Records Act 1958 on requirements for preservation, so there is no question that a lower standard of preservation of the records will follow from the making of such an order. Furthermore, such an order will designate a place within Wales to which Welsh public records may be transferred from the Public Record Office. No decision has yet been made about where that should be, and there will be no need to reach such a decision for some time yet. In due course, a study will be undertaken of the options. If my hon. Friend has any suggestions to make in that regard, I shall listen carefully.

Mr. Rowlands

I understand that at the moment most Welsh Office records are in the Embankment building—an old munitions building that is the least advisable building for such a purpose. I hope that my right hon. Friend does not go out to massive tendering of the kind that we had for the new assembly, and that we have a public record office in which Welsh records will fit.

Mr. Davies

I am sure that we shall have an opportunity to discuss the matter further, and I shall listen carefully to my hon. Friend's observations.

We have also had to amend clause 148 to ensure that it covers a transfer of responsibility order made by the Lord Chancellor, who is not a Secretary of State. That is the reasoning behind amendment No. 99.

I should make clear that all the clauses simply facilitate a process of, in effect, establishing a location in Wales for the preservation and public inspection of records relating to Wales. They do not require that to happen. The assembly will clearly need from the outset to preserve its records in accordance with the 1958 Act, but there is no reason necessarily to suppose that an early transfer of responsibility order will be made.

Mr. Grieve

I support the idea of Welsh records going to Wales, but how far back will they go? There will come a point when extricating English and Welsh records will be difficult. We might have to wait for a more detailed presentation, but there might be objections if certain hybrid records were transferred.

Mr. Davies

The matter can obviously be sensitive. The hon. Gentleman's point is fair and will be taken into consideration when we consider the nature of the records that will be held in Wales.

The new clauses will facilitate the provision of a record office rather than require it. The assembly will have to consider the options and the costs, in consultation with the Public Record Office and the Lord Chancellor, to see whether and when the powers should be exercised. Nevertheless, the new clauses represent a major step forward in identifying a discrete category of records specifically relating to Welsh public administration. They hold out the prospect of such records being held and made available for public inspection in Wales.

Mr. Rowlands

I shall be brief. I intervened a couple of times in my right hon. Friend's speech because I feared that there would not be enough time for me to speak.

I should like to underline my support for and appreciation of the proposals. It may not have been the easiest of battles to obtain the powers in the new clauses. The Public Record Office is a jealous guardian of its powers and responsibilities and I imagine that the Lord Chancellor's Office is, too. If there has been a bit of an argument, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on winning it. It is a significant one.

Welsh historical research has suffered considerably from the fact that records are held at Kew. It is an expensive business for a 22 or 23-year-old to come up to Kew and spend time at the Public Record Office to work through the available documents. Photocopying costs are enormous. I have the great fortune that I am here and can sneak out for an hour or two to do my research. A great deal of important research into Welsh public administration during the past 40 or 50 years has been made more difficult by the location of records at Kew.

I hope that the Lord Chancellor's office will take the most generous attitude to the matter. I understand the sensitivities that have been mentioned, but there are discrete categories of documents such as the BD documents. The BD documents do not belong to the Welsh Office because they belonged to the regional division of the Board of Trade after 1945, but that was the time of the birth of a distinctive Welsh administration. It was born out of the war. The records from the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Production and various Departments that survived the war and led to the regeneration of communities such as mine ought to come home.

I do not want to over-egg the matter, but the documents are the equivalent of our Elgin marbles. I welcome them home and I hope that they will find a fitting and proper home. I hope that, unlike what has happened on other aspects of our debates, we do not have a quarrel or squabble about where and in what way we shall have our records at home. I thank my right hon. Friend for winning whatever battle he has won to achieve this result.

Mr. Grieve

I endorse everything that the hon. Gentleman for Mertyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has said. The categories of documents about which he is concerned cause me no concern at all. I stand to be corrected by the Secretary of State, but it seems to me that the powers could extend to documents from many years before those to which the hon. Gentleman referred—from a time when Wales had not become a separate administrative unit. People studying that time rather than Wales's development as a separate administrative unit might wish to study those documents. That would cause problems, but if I understand correctly what the Secretary of State said, that is not the category of document about which he is concerned. I understand that it is not the sort of document about which the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) is concerned, either. I simply raise a flag to say that we will come to a point at which we will come across sensitive documents.

Mr. Rowlands

I do not think that we should concede what the hon. Gentleman says. If documents from before 1536 and the Act of Union—I am not a mediaeval historian, so I do not know what the records look like—are available, why should they not be moved to Wales, except for the reason that we get into the amazing world of preservation? Let us concentrate on more recent documents that would be helpful in developing our contemporary Welsh history.

Mr. Grieve

On that, the hon. Gentleman and I can agree. I should only say that if we go back to the council of the marches we are dealing with matters that pertain to both sides of the border. I imagine that it is likely that there will be some objection from people dealing with records relating to Shropshire and Herefordshire if the documents are moved to a new depot in Wales. These are matters of some sensitivity, but I am prepared to accept that we should not labour them too much. I simply register the point that we have a common history and splitting archives is a complex matter.

It being a quarter to Eight o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [15 January] and the Resolution [this day], put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

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