Defence Records

HL Deb 28 April 1993 vol 545 cc417-32

7.50 p.m.

Lord Teviot rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the arrangements for the preservation and storage of the pictorial records, including video tapes, of the Ministry of Defence.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Greenway need not have apologised for speaking too long, he could have gone on for another 10 minutes in the debate and noble Lords would have benefited from his wisdom.

Over the years, for one reason or another, this Question has been deferred and various noble Lords have asked what it is about. I thought, looking at the Question on the Order Paper, that it was crystal clear, but I must give noble Lords the benefit of the doubt and will try succinctly to explain what I mean to the best of my ability.

Before doing that, I should say that without question the Public Records Office, or in other terms the national archives of Great Britain, is foremost in the world in that its collections are the most comprehensive and most accessible to the public of all collections and on the whole they are well preserved, with certain reservations. Conservation and preservation cost money and can sometimes take a back seat.

Only in the past 80 years at the outside—as compared with 900 years if we go back to the Domesday Book—have pictorial records been in our midst. Fairly or unfairly, as a nation I fear that we have yet to realise their importance or become aware of it. The pictorial records which we are debating tonight are those held in the Imperial War Museum which has very high standards, but some records are in jeopardy and we shall concentrate on them later.

I start by referring to The Times newspaper of 11th August 1916. An article in it described the release of the official British film of the Battle of the Somme and the reviewer wrote: If anything were needed to justify the existence of the cinematograph, it is to be found in the wonderful series of films of the opening of the British attack on the Somme … In years to come, when historians want to know the conditions under which the great offensive was launched, they will only have to send for these films and a complete idea of the situation will be revealed before their eyes—for we take it as a matter of course that a number of copies of them will be carefully preserved in the national archives". More than 75 years on, there is both good news and bad news where the reviewer's "matter of course" is concerned. The good news is that steps have been taken for the careful archival preservation of this film and of many equally valuable subsequent records of the nation's history. The bad news is that there is cause to question whether those steps have been followed by sufficient other measures to ensure the continuation of the tradition into the second century of cinema.

We should therefore congratulate our predecessors who, in founding the Imperial War Museum at the close of the Great War, had the foresight to include in its collections the official British films made during that war, thus establishing what was probably the world's first official film archive. We should also honour the officials working on behalf of the museum who were, as early as 1920, taking and acting on advice on the optimum conditions for storage and the best procedures for testing and preserving the films.

Having mentioned storage and preservation, I feel that this is perhaps the moment to explain to noble Lords or to remind noble Lords that a decision to preserve a film is not simply a matter of finding a shelf on which to store it. Film is a fragile medium. I am sure that noble Lords are well aware of that. The film is exposed to risk of damage every time it is handled. To ensure both preservation and access, therefore, it is wise to ensure the existence of several copies or generations of each film: access copies for viewing by the public and preservation master copies, the purpose of which is solely to be used to make further access copies.

Film is also vulnerable to passive damage. Stored in the wrong conditions, it may become brittle or dirty, or grow fungus. Over all those problems, in the case of old archival film, there looms the "nitrate problem". Film consists of two parts: the emulsion—the part of the film on which the image is recorded—and the base, the transparent carrier of the emulsion. Up to the early 1950s, virtually all professional film was made using film stock in which the emulsion was bonded to a base made of cellulose nitrate. Chemists among noble Lords present or who will read the Official Report will recognise cellulose nitrate as another name for gun cotton. In fact, nitrate film—the original stuff of the archival records of which we are speaking—is a close chemical relative of gun cotton. It is extremely, almost explosively combustible. Once alight, it is virtually impossible to extinguish and the fumes it gives off are highly toxic.

In the past 15 years, there have been major fires in the United States of America, France, Germany and Mexico, to name just a few countries which have suffered in that situation. A nitrate film fire is, however, the most extreme form of the nitrate problem. For archivists, there are other equally worrying concerns. As nitrate film ages, it deteriorates. Initially, it discolours slightly, then the base becomes sticky. Being sticky, it is possible that the picture-carrying emulsion in a spool of film will stick to the wrong strip of film and the picture will start to be lost. Beyond stickiness, the whole roll of film will turn into an unpleasant, jellied mass and, beyond that, into a heap of brown dust. The archivist has, however, lost the struggle to save the film long before that stage is reached.

The onset of that form of deterioration can be delayed, provided that the film was well processed originally and is stored in good conditions. There are still occasional finds of film from the earliest period of cinema from which much can be saved. Unfortunately, good processing and proper storage were far from universal and stories of almost miraculous survival can only too regularly be balanced by the stories of films less than 50 years old which have deteriorated beyond repair. As early as the 1970s the Imperial War Museum was finding advanced deterioration in viewing prints of films only 30 years old.

Since there is no infallible way of preventing the deterioration of nitrate film, the only way to ensure the survival of archival nitrate film is to copy it on to a more modern film stock. The film archivist's problems do not cease when the archive is held entirely on "safety" acetate film stock rather than on nitrate. But he or she is at least beyond the reach of the "nitrate problem". It might seem logical to expect that an archive would simply move through its whole collection and generate the necessary copies on acetate on a systematic basis. Such an approach is, however, likely to be beyond the reach of most archives because film preservation is an expensive business.

To generate a full set of preservation and access copies for a single 10-minute reel of film costs in the region of £900. The film archive of the Imperial War Museum still has 8,000 reels of film only on nitrate film—more than £7.25 million worth of work. At that rate of film copying the museum's programme will continue beyond the year 2020 when most noble Lords, or at least I myself will be very old—if I am still here. I shall be approaching 90. As I have already suggested, it is far from certain that all the film which needs copying will be so obliging as to wait that long.

Which films are we talking about? I have already mentioned the original core collection of the Imperial War Museum—the official films of the British effort in the First World War. Happily, those are not at risk, as they have already been duplicated onto safety film. However, the museum's collection has grown enormously since the transfer of its original collection; and by no means all of the later material, still nitrate-based, is ensured full preservation on safety film stock.

Perhaps I may give two examples of the later acquisitions. First, the film record of the Second World War, as compiled by the Army film and photographic unit and the Royal Air Force film production unit, was added to the museum's collections in the 1950s. It is uniquely valuable footage in its original unedited form—now truly the film equivalent of the unpublished source documents in public record offices which historians are so delighted to find. The second example is that the museum holds a substantial representation of the film distributed by the Ministry of Information in the Second World War, which was intended not only to sustain morale on the home front, but also to promote Britain's cause among its allies and the neutral nations. In addition, the museum has important collections showing the impact of the war on the civilian population; for example, material showing the railways at war or the work of the London fire brigade through the Blitz.

At the end of the 1980s, the trustees of the Imperial War Museum announced the goal of completing the transfer of nitrate film to acetate by the year 2000. That is a goal of useful symbolism, combining an approximation to the centenary of cinema on the one hand (1995–96) with an approximation to the 50th anniversary of the end of the nitrate era (2002) on the other. It was also a realistic estimate of the likely lifespan of much of the film concerned. How far has the museum progressed in terms of that target? What has it been able to do to ensure the preservation of its nitrate film?

Since the financial year 1988–89, the amount of funding put into film preservation by the museum, mainly in the form of payments made to commercial laboratories for the processing of new copies of film material, has totalled £1.1 million—an average of £220,000 per year. I must emphasise, talking of cash calls, that none of the figures cited in this part of my speech includes the salaries of museum staff involved in the programme or the running costs of the building. Such costs are far from negligible. Fourteen members of staff are employed full-time or part-time in the museum's film vaults and preservation facilities and in work related to the central London site. The construction, maintenance and servicing of buildings to provide proper conditions for the long-term storage of film is also an expensive commitment.

An average of £220,000 a year is a major commitment for the museum, whose total budget for running costs, excluding pay, was just £4 million in the financial year 1992–93. It may even be considered an impressive sounding total in overall terms. But it falls a long way short of what is needed if the "year 2000" target is to be taken seriously. In its various five-year plans and corporate plans since that target was announced, the museum has calculated the amount of funding needed per year to make the target possible. That has inevitably increased from a projected 650,000 per year from 1991–92, according to the five-year plan for 1988–89, to a projected £1.046 million per year from 1994–95 as forecast in this year's corporate plan. The Government have made additional funds available. The museum is very grateful for that help. But the total received—£110,000 in 1989–90 and £200,000 in 1992–93—sadly, still falls a long way short of the museum's needs.

The museum has also sought additional funds from other sources. Although it is not apparent that preservation of historical record film is an activity that has yet caught the imagination of any corporate sponsors, there have been two important successes. While a Minister of Defence, my noble friend, Lord Trefgarne, whose wisdom we shall listen to shortly, ensured that the museum received considerable support from his Ministry—to the tune of £450,000 spread over three years—to ensure an improved rate of preservation for films approved by ministry historians. A further important and most welcome boost to the preservation of the museum's film has been the agreement of the National Heritage Memorial Fund to grant up to £200,000 towards the current programme that will ensure the preservation of the London Fire Brigade collection.

Finally, if all the sums of money that I have so far mentioned are added together, they total more than £2 million. It is a considerable sum, but it is not sufficient. Archivists have coined the phrase "Nitrate won't wait". The longer we make it do so, the more dangerous is the game we play with some important parts of our nation's history.

I have spent rather longer than is usual on this subject, but this is a one-off opportunity to talk about such an important matter. I hope I have given enough material to act as a springboard for noble Lords to follow, and enough material for my noble friend on the Front Bench, who I hope will respond from the Ministry of Defence point of view. One other interesting point—unless other noble Lords take part—is that it is a totally Welsh situation: one originally Jones, another Morris and finally a Philipps. I hope that I have done the subject justice.

8.8 p.m.

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this rather narrow, but I believe important, matter in the way that he has. Noble Lords may be relieved to hear that I shall not try to follow him with all the detailed facts and figures, which he so helpfully gave during the course of his speech.

Ever since the invention of still photography, in about the middle of the last century, and the invention of motion picture photography towards the end of the last century, the Armed Forces of the Crown have been churning out photographs and films at a quite prodigious rate. Not every inch of film, and not every still photograph, deserves to be kept and preserved for posterity. But a very considerable quantity does. My noble friend was right to refer in particular to the splendid collection of films relating to the First World War which now form part of the collection of the Imperial War Museum. But that is not all. There are, I believe, within the Imperial War Museum collection a few films relating to as far back as the Boer War. There are certainly still photographs which go back to the Crimean War. The photographs and films, supplemented now by the video films which are more the fashion of today—and they were very much in vogue during the more recent conflicts in the Falklands and the Gulf—form what must be regarded as a priceless national asset. It is quite wrong that the significant proportion of them to which my noble friend referred is under considerable threat because there are simply not sufficient resources to convert the nitrate film to which my noble friend referred onto the more modern film which is necessary to secure their preservation.

As my noble friend said, it has long been the case that the responsibility for these matters rests with the Imperial War Museum. During my time at the Ministry, I took a considerable interest in this matter and visited the various places at which the Imperial War Museum maintained its collection. I was enormously impressed by the work the museum is undertaking on cataloguing and preserving these important records. It is doing its very best within the resources available to it.

I was glad to be able to make additional resources available from the Ministry of Defence, as my noble friend mentioned. However, it was a very small sum by comparison with the sum that is required to have the whole collection of nitrate movie film transferred to a more modern base. There are something in the order of 1,000 reels still waiting to be copied. On present plans, that will not be completed until well into the next century, by which time, sadly, many of those reels will be long past copying and fit only for the waste paper basket. That is not good enough. It is a priceless collection which is about to be lost for ever not only to the nation but to the world. I hope that my noble friend will be able to assure us that the Government will do something to ensure that that does not happen.

I do not insist or necessarily suggest that the Government are the only source of funds for that operation. I wonder whether it is possible to find additional commercial sources of money for that purpose. However, there is a difficulty. I ask my noble friend for a specific assurance tonight that, when commercial enterprises seek to make additional funds available to the Imperial War Museum for such a purpose, the Treasury does not cut back its grant by the appropriate amount. If that were to happen in this case, it would be monstrous. I hope that my noble friend can assure me that, if commercial sponsorship and additional commercial support can be found for this operation, the Government will ensure that the existing allocations to the Imperial War Museum from the National Heritage Department are not affected.

I have referred in particular to the motion picture film problem. I should like now to touch briefly on the still photograph collection, which is enormous. It is contained in a whole variety of different negative formats. For example, the Imperial War Museum holds a very large number of photographic plates which are almost the size of a large piece of foolscap or quarto size paper. They are very expensive to store correctly but they are of an extraordinarily high quality and need to be preserved if at all possible. I know that the Imperial War Museum have pursued a programme of transferring the most important of those negatives to modern plastic—perhaps that is not quite the right word—or synthetic negative material, which makes them much easier to store and to access when the need arises.

I believe that there has been some commercial support for that particular exercise. If my memory serves me correctly, BP provided some support for the conversion of those very expensive and rather unwieldy glass photographic plates into a more modern medium. That was extremely welcome. However, so-called additionality—namely, slicing back government grant in the light of the commercial donation—was an issue at that time. I hope that my noble friend will be able to address his answer to that particular point.

Thirdly, there is the matter of the video films. These are a much more recent innovation in the archive of the Imperial War Museum. I know that there is still considerable technical uncertainty as to the best method of preserving these films for as long as possible, the best conditions under which to preserve them, how long they will last, and so on. Clearly some research needs to be done. The Imperial War Museum needs to be assured that the conditions under which it proposes to store the films are the best that can be arranged and the most suitable for the purpose. I am no expert in that matter but I dare say that the Imperial War Museum has access to the right expertise and does the best it can. The fact is that many of the motion picture records of the Ministry of Defence are now made on video film. The Ministry has designated the Imperial War Museum as the repository for those films and therefore I feel that the Ministry itself has a responsibility to ensure that the Imperial War Museum is supported to the extent necessary to ensure that those video films are properly stored. So much for the technical considerations of the three principal media.

Finally, I come to what I regard as a most important matter, which I have already touched on briefly; namely, commercial support. I have already referred to the possibility of commercial support for the specific copying operation of the old nitrate movie film. But I wonder whether there is more scope to exploit commercially the collection of photographs, films and, for that matter, videos, which the Ministry of Defence is now consigning to the Imperial War Museum. For example, the number of photographs is enormous. I do not know how many photographs are in the Imperial War Museum, or, for that matter, are yet to be deposited there by the Ministry of Defence. The number must be enormous.

I wonder whether those photographs could be rather better and more effectively catalogued—I refer to the Ministry of Defence and not to the Imperial War Museum whose cataloguing arrangements are rather good whereas the Ministry's are rather less good. If only we could have a more complete and detailed catalogue of what is available in the way of photographs, I feel certain that a greater degree of commercial exploitation would be possible. I dare say that those noble Lords who served with gallantry in one or other of the armed forces and are now writing their memoirs would regret any prospect of having to pay a higher royalty for the use of a photograph to be included in those memoirs. But the high cost of preserving those pictures and films ought to be better defrayed by those who make use of them. I am sure that there are many people and many commercial organisations, such as television and film companies, who would be willing to pay a reasonable amount to have better access to that great archive.

I hope that the Government will give some consideration to that point. I gave some consideration to it in an earlier incarnation. I know that the Imperial War Museum makes its pictures and films available to those interested; but I am less certain whether it markets them with the vigour and enthusiasm that might produce better results. I am not even certain if the museum is the right body to do it. The Services Sound and Vision Corporation, which is part of the Ministry of Defence but which operates on a commercial basis, might be in an equally well placed position to market the pictures, photographs and films in an effective way.

Let us not simply say that the Government must provide more money, though that would be very welcome. Let us try to find some additional outside support as well for that important process. Let us ensure that the key problem of converting the nitrate films on to more modern stock can be carried out with a degree of government support.

8.19 p.m.

Lord Morris of Castle Morris

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, for giving us the opportunity to debate this important matter tonight. I feel sure that noble Lords will unanimously agree with me that it is vitally important these days that we should all be politically correct in all our Questions and debates. So I take it that the wider aspect of the Question before us is to what extent, if any, the Ministry of Defence feels janitorially challenged in its custody of such pictorial records and visual material as comes into its care from time to time. The material which comes into its care, as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, pointed out from his first hand experience of dealing with it, is enormous both in quantity and importance. It is also of many different categories. One of the things that must be decided in the preservation and storage of all this visual material is how much of it is sensitive; how much of it needs to be kept as unofficial—secret—because some of it clearly does.

Equally, I feel bound to inform your Lordships that this Question is not a matter to which the Labour Party has given its full and undivided attention as a matter of policy over a long period of time. We are of course deeply and urgently concerned about unnecessary secrecy in government. We believe in a Freedom of Information Act, and my colleagues in another place are actively promoting our Right to Know Bill. But we recognise that in the Ministry of Defence, as in the security services, there are records and documents that must be kept secret in the interests of national security. One does not expect a stiff card invitation to "An Open Day with MI5".

The preservation and storage of MoD pictorial records and public access to them would, of course, be subject to the Labour Party's Freedom of Information Act. But obviously access would be restricted in cases where the information could jeopardise national security or threaten the lives of service personnel. Restrictions on access and disclosure would also be required where information was commercially confidential or liable to cause distress to service personnel or their families.

But I think we would agree on all sides of the House that the Ministry of Defence records of all kinds must be professionally conserved, catalogued (where that is appropriate) and stored in correct conditions of temperature, humidity and security. Greatly at risk at the moment is that part of the collection which is on film. Obviously there is going to be a problem caused by the vastly increased amount of such material flowing back into the Ministry of Defence week by week. I heard recently that an Army photographer in Bosnia has taken many thousands of pictures of that conflict, equivalent to a roll of film every day for six months—and back it comes. Someone has to process it; decide what parts of it can be sent down to the Imperial War Museum and what cannot.

A different order of problem comes with the work of official war artists. Your Lordships will recall the temporary embarrassment caused when some rather controversial paintings by our official artist in the Gulf War were made public. Now, I believe, a war artist is being sent to Bosnia and problems may well arise there. Does the ownership of all or any of those images of war accrue to the Ministry of Defence? If so, what rights does the artist retain?

I hope I do not exaggerate when I say that the public perception of the Ministry of Defence is not as an organisation deeply concerned with the conservation and storage of artistic artefacts. It has other priorities to attend to. Obviously the ministry must be heavily dependent on professional advice from museums and galleries. The Imperial War Museum is, of course, an official repository for film and war photographs under the Public Records Act. But I have to remind your Lordships that the formal, legal position is one thing; the actual operation of the process is another. The Ministry of Defence should deposit all film that it does not necessarily retain with the Imperial War Museum. But alas that does not always happen as it should. The Imperial War Museum has asked the ministry to issue an internal departmental record order to try to encourage compliance. So far as I know the ministry has not done so. It would be interesting to know why not.

Indeed, the Ministry of Defence should know its way better around the world of museums and galleries and should play its part in that world perhaps more enthusiastically than it sometimes does. After all, the ministry is directly or indirectly responsible for the funding of some half a dozen national museums and over 100 regimental and corps collections. It has its own collection of about 250 paintings, many of them on display in MoD premises at home and abroad, and they are rightly proud of the high standard of conservation which those pictures receive. Surely then the ministry should be aware of the importance of the conservation of nitrate-based film and should be ready, willing and eager to continue its funding of the Imperial War Museum for the continuing conservation programme which it is so dangerous to discontinue. The importance of the IWM's expertise and work on conservation of film is universally recognised, not least by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which gave a grant to assist the conservation of the film records of the London Fire Brigade. But the future cannot be left to the National Heritage Memorial Fund. It has too many other calls on its slender resources. If government aid is not to be forthcoming, commercial sponsorship must be sought and won.

If the Ministry of Defence is in any doubt about that, let its officials consult the Museums and Galleries Commission, which is the Government's principal adviser on these matters. That raises the question of why the ministry has not already consulted the Museums and Galleries Commission on the matter, since its conservation unit is at the forefront of research on the subject. Perhaps when the noble Viscount comes to reply he can tell the House what consultations there have been between the Ministry of Defence and the Museums and Galleries Commission during the past year or so. No doubt there are continuing discussions on the implementation of Admiral Sir David Williams' report on the Armed Services Museums, but is that the only current point of contact or are there others?

There are some other questions I should like to ask the noble Viscount, since this area of the MoD's activity seems slightly shrouded in mystery and the facts about it are not easily to be obtained elsewhere. First, can he give an indication of the number of pictorial records currently held within the MoD? I realise that that is a fluid and constantly changing situation, with material coming in and going out daily. But could he give the House some idea of the order of magnitude of the flow? Are we talking about hundreds of items each week which need to be processed, or thousands, or tens of thousands?

Next, could the noble Viscount tell the House the number of civilian or military sites currently storing those records and the annual cost of the preservation and storage of that material? Can he confirm that the Government are satisfied with the level of security at those sites wherever material of a sensitive nature is being stored?

Thirdly, can the noble Viscount explain to us who is responsible for the classification of pictorial records and who rules on the question of public access to them? Clearly, the vast majority go to the Imperial War Museum, but who decides what goes and what stays? Can he confirm that the Lord Chancellor's advisory council on public records is involved in the process?

Fourthly, can he say how many archivists, curators, conservators or other museum professionals are currently employed by the Ministry of Defence to look after those pictorial records which the Ministry retains within itself for the normal reasons of national security or commercial confidentiality? I ask that to seek reassurance that the properly secret records are properly conserved, documented and stored. We know now a great deal about the standards set for correct conservation both in the Imperial War Museum and by the conservation unit at the Museums and Galleries Commission. It is important that there should be complete public confidence that the standards set and achieved within the Ministry of Defence are equivalent to those obtaining in public museums and galleries. When a record is to remain secret, that is an additional and important reason for ensuring that it does not deteriorate in any way.

The Question which the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, raised—and rightly raised—is an important one and it is also a sensitive one. I hope that the noble Viscount who is to reply will understand that several of the questions I am asking are probing questions and I fully understand that he may not be able to answer them here tonight. If there are questions that he cannot answer, I profoundly hope and pray that he will not write to me about them because that would be an unnecessary expenditure of everyone's time and effort; and there may be genuine reasons of security which prevent him from providing your Lordships' House with the details that I have requested. I hereby absolve him from any necessity to write to me about those matters too. I hope that he and I both recognise that "security" should never be a convenient blanket to conceal the nakedness of inefficiency or sloth. As one important 20th century guru wrote: Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; security is the denial of life". The words, my Lords, are the words of Ms. Germaine Greer; the curious may find them in her book The Female Eunuch.

8.30 p.m.

Viscount St.Davids

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend's inquiry on the preservation and storage of pictorial records of the Ministry of Defence. It comes at a time when officials at the Ministry of Defence are reviewing the present arrangements and it provides me with a timely opportunity to say something about the problems and how they are being tackled.

The present procedures and instructions for the custody and preservation of films and photographic material are of long standing. With regard to films—and here I include video tapes—a master copy of each Ministry of Defence sponsored film considered worthy of permanent preservation must be earmarked for transfer to the Imperial War Museum, where the content is primarily of military interest, or otherwise to the National Film Archive. Here I would correct an idea of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris. Not all material is passed to the Imperial War Museum by the Ministry of Defence but only material that is considered and deemed to have historical value and therefore to be worthy of permanent preservation. In other words, when the noble Lord talked of a roll of film a day, not all of them would necessarily be of historical value and possibly not all of them would survive.

To this end, sponsors of films are required to report to the Ministry of Defence departmental records officer at the end of every calendar year details of each new acquisition they have made so that a decision can be made on its eventual disposal. If the film is judged worthy of permanent preservation, a master copy—preferably the original—is retained under the best conditions possible until, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Records Acts, it can be released to the Imperial War Museum or National Film Archive as appropriate. These institutions are the approved places of deposit under the provisions of the Public Records Acts.

Similarly, long-standing arrangements exist for the proper management of photographic material. All photographs which merit consideration for permanent preservation have to be sent to the Ministry of Defence archives for review and, ultimately, transfer to the Imperial War Museum. The approved place of deposit for aerial photographs is the University of Keele. For security reasons all post-World War II material is retained by the Ministry of Defence at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, RAF Brampton.

The procedures which I have described, together with instructions for their implementation, are given wide publication through Ministry of Defence manuals covering both headquarters and outstations and are also supplemented through announcements in Defence Council Instructions. Nevertheless, there have been indications Of late—and the Imperial War Museum has expressed its concern—that all is not well and the supply of material reaching the Imperial War Museum seems to be on the decline. There are question marks, too, over material held in Service museums, libraries and other establishments both as to the propriety of their retention and as to the conditions under which they are stored.

The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, asked whether we know how many institutions of one kind or another retain significant holdings of pictorial information. So far, I have not been able to obtain an answer. If one thinks of regimental museums, regimental associations, old comrades' associations and museums up and down the country, it is obviously a large number. However, I cannot, I am afraid, come up with the number.

The Ministry of Defence departmental records officer, supported by the Service historical branches, met representatives from the Imperial War Museum and the Public Record Office on 27th January this year to discuss what should be done to regularise and sharpen the procedures governing the care and flow of material through the Ministry of Defence archival system to the Imperial War Museum. In particular, it has been accepted there is a pressing need to identify fully the principal sources of film and photographic material so that they may be advised directly and routinely on their obligations to the Imperial War Museum, rather than as at present leaving it to the vagaries of standing instructions.

Experience shows that all too often such instructions go unheeded. It has been recognised, too, that appropriate material needs to be sent to the Imperial War Museum as soon as possible—that is, within the statutory 30-year period —subject of course to the usual security and sensitivity caveats. For example, it is our intention that photographs deemed worthy of permanent preservation will in future go straight to the Imperial War Museum once they are no longer required for Ministry of Defence use. The status of certain film and photographic collections held by Service museums, libraries and other establishments will be examined against the provisions of the Public Records Acts. If there is a case for the continued retention of public record material by any of those bodies an application will be made to the Lord Chancellor for his formal authority. The Lord Chancellor would of course have to be satisfied with the conditions under which the collection would be held. Material not authorised to be retained would be transferred to the Imperial War Museum. And, finally, clearer instructions for the care, custody and selection for permanent preservation of film and photographic material have been prepared and will shortly be issued.

In all these initiatives the Imperial War Museum and the Public Record Office are playing a full part. As my noble friend will be aware, the Imperial War Museum is one of the National Museums and Galleries funded by the Department of National Heritage. The department's grant in aid to the museum in 1993–94 is £10.8 million. Management of collections is the overall responsibility of the trustees, who, with the senior management of the museum, allocate the resources given by the Government to the particular needs of the institution.

I can tell your Lordships that the Imperial War Museum has made significant bids for additional funding for the conservation of the nitrate film stocks and for additional storage facilities at Duxford. It also has bids for additional funding for documentation and additional curators to service the collections. However, these bids will go with other bids to the Department of National Heritage. It is for the department to decide on the priorities.

My noble friend Lord Trefgarne raised the question of commercial sponsorship and commercial exploitation of the collections. Both issues are ones for the trustees of the Imperial War Museum and for the Department of National Heritage. My noble friend asked me about additionality, but I am quite sure that he, with government experience behind him, would not expect me to come up with a firm assurance on such an issue, for it is one on which the decisions lie with my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury.

I am aware that the museum considers conservation of the collections as being its largest and, in the long term, most important curatorial programme of activity, which has normally accounted for about 14 per cent. of its running cost expenditure. For a variety of reasons, including the delicate nature of many of the materials and sheer vastness of the collections, the trustees are confronted with a substantial volume of conservation work, and the House should commend them for what they have been able so far to achieve.

In recent years the Government have provided additional funds to assist the museum with its film preservation programme. The then Office of Arts and Libraries gave £110,000 in 1989–90, with £450,000 in kind provided by the Ministry of Defence over three years ending in March 1992, the sums referred to by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. A further £200,000 was allocated by the Office of Arts and Libraries in 1992–93, and £200,000 over three years from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

A comprehensive review of collections storage carried out by the museum in 1987 and updated in 1989 and 1991 has established a general policy of seeking to place all suitable exhibits on show either in conventional displays or in appropriately secure forms of open stores or study rooms. Duplicate records for which no significant second or multiple use is required should in principle be disposed of by loan or sale.

I know that there are many pressures on the museum in the areas of conservation, storage and documentation, and it has managed these in a most professional way. I also know that the Department of National Heritage is very much aware of the museum's priorities in all these areas, and it will certainly consider them fully when assessing the museum's requirements in its corporate plan. However, as I am sure the House is aware, there are finite funds available, and the Department of National Heritage must assess this important area of work against overall priorities.

The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, asked whether I could give any indication of the number of pictorial records currently held by the MoD. I believe that even to come at an approximation would be an impossibility because, as my noble friend Lord Teviot indicated, those records go back a considerable way—to the Crimea—and they are being generated all the time. They are in many diverse places. I do not believe that we can come up with a realistic number, but I am quite sure that they run not only into hundreds of thousands, but well beyond that.

The noble Lord also asked me who is responsible for the classification of pictorial records and the rules on public access to them. Obviously, the classification of pictorial records has a security implication and the responsibility lies with the Ministry of Defence. I can confirm that the Lord Chancellor's advisory council on public records is involved in the process.

The Imperial War Museum and the National Film Archive, acting on behalf of the Public Record Office, are the authoritative sources of professional advice on matters of storage and preservation. The Government have not found it necessary to consult the Museums and Galleries Commission on this particular issue. The noble Lord also asked me whether I had any idea of the number of archivists, curators and other professional people employed by the Ministry of Defence working on the records. Again, I have been unable to ascertain the number.

I assure my noble friend that the Ministry of Defence is fully committed to the proper care and preservation of pictorial records. I hope that he will agree that the measures that I have outlined will go a long way towards remedying the recent decline in the supply of material to the Imperial War Museum and will also provide the means by which both the Imperial War Museum and the Public Record Office can be satisfied about the conditions under which retained material is stored.