§ Mr. Weetchasked the Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts whether he will introduce legislation to prohibit the export of registered collections of archive documents to ensure that the archive heritage is not further depleted.
§ Mr. WaldegraveArchive documents are sufficiently protected by existing regulations, under which specific export licences are needed to export any documents, manuscripts or archives irrespective of value and over 50 years old, unless they are part of the personal papers of the exporter or spouse of the exporter. Applications for such licences are scrutinised by the relevant expert in the national collections and may be referred, if necessary, to the reviewing committee on the export of works of art, which advises my noble Friend the Minister for the Arts in cases where refusal of an export licence is suggested on grounds of national importance.