§ 3.24 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDEMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of a recent publication 460 The File on the Czar which contradicts the original record by the Foreign Office of the murder of the Czar and his family in 1917, an up-to-date statement of the facts will be made in order that the history may be available in this country.
§ The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts)My Lords, all the available documents in the possession of Her Majesty's Government relating to the assassination of Czar Nicholas II and his family are open to the public at the Public Record Office. It is for historians to assess this and other evidence. It is not a matter on which the Government have pronounced or could pronounce.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDEMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that is a rather unsatisfactory Answer—
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE— to that Question, in view of the fact that posterity may not be alerted to the facts that are in this new book? Would it not be possible to have just a general statement as to the new facts that have arisen, so that the whole of this country, and indeed historians, shall know that there are other facts which are different from those originally filed in the Foreign Office?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, I think that the noble Baroness perhaps makes a case for adding this new book to the records available in the Public Record Office, so that those records plus this book, for what it is worth—and I am sure that it is a substantial production—can be assessed by those most competent to do so; namely, historians.
§ Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONEMy Lords, would not the book already be available in the British Musuem and the Bodleian Library?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSIndeed it would, my Lords, by Statute, and I think in one or two other libraries, including our own Library in Wales and, I believe still, in Dublin.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDEMay I ask the noble Lord whether he is absolutely satisfied that three other daughters of the Czar are not still alive?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSNo, my Lords. Nor do I think anybody else is absolutely satisfied about that.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTONMy Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that the rewriting of history is not an activity which should be encouraged in Foreign Offices?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, I agree that probably a Foreign Office anywhere should be encouraged to make history, rather than write it.
§ Lord PANNELLMy Lords, is it not a fact that the Government have had great difficulty in coming to a final conclusion on the Katyn massacre which took place in 1940? Why should they be charged with going back as far into history as 1917 with any hope of a better result?