[SIGCIS-Members] House of Lords Debate on Bletchley Park

[B. Randell]

Hi:

On March 12 the House of Lords had a one hour debate on the Bletchley Park dispute (between the Bletchley Park Trust and The National Museum of Computing), at the request of the redoubtable Baroness Trumpington, who was at Bletchley Park in Hut 4 (the Naval Intelligence Codebreaking Hut), during WW2. The debate was well-informed, and very interesting (and unfailingly courteous, as is typical of House of Lords debates). Most of the speakers urged the Government to do something to bring the dispute to an end, but the final speech for the Government's Department of Culture, Media and Sport, though full of nice words, was unfortunately rather non-committal.

The BBC has an item about the debate at:

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/house-of-lords-26550583

(This item includes the full video record of the debate.)

There is an excellent transcript of the debate online in Hansard  at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/140312-0002.htm#14031284000111

(This transcript, which was made available just three hours after the debate ended, will I understand move after it has been checked and archived.)

Cheers

Brian Randell

School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell