Federation Of Family History Societies

Draft Heritage Protection Bill

Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Report published 30 July 2008

The draft Bill is concerned primarily with the protection of buildings and the extension of this protection to include sites and scatterings of archaeological finds.  However, there is one particular part which is of interest to family historians (see below).  The report from the Select Committee runs to 185 pages.  It can be accessed at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmcumeds/821/821.pdf.

The report incorporates a memorandum from the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government (ACALG) and the FFHS welcomes the views expressed there concerning the need to introduce legislation to protect archives.  To quote from the memorandum, ACALG says “We would also take this opportunity to remind the Committee about the rather serious difference between the level of protection afforded to buildings and the heritage environment and the lack of protection afforded to “portable heritage” and most specifically archive collections. These can be as enmeshed with the identity and history of a community as any building or landscape, but have little if any protection in most cases other than the refusal of an export licence if they are perceived as being over a certain monetary value…At present the archive room of an historic building can have protection, but the contents of the room do not even though they relate to the fields the estate and house are on or the people who lived and worked there.”

It is disturbing to note that the Select Committee states that “The cost of implementing the Bill, outlined in the accompanying Impact Assessment, is considered by much of the heritage sector to be a gross underestimate.”  This is not unusual and Government ought to take steps to get its house in order.

Roger Lewry