The Labour peer Lord West gives his perspective on recent developments in the National Trust in the Telegraph:

I sit on the Labour benches in the House of Lords, but I feel that there are areas of national life that should be outside factional politics. That is why I was so concerned when Hilary McGrady, director-general of the National Trust, told a meeting at the Labour Party conference: “I would say that 70 per cent of my staff and volunteers would be regarded as progressive activists.”

Mrs McGrady may well be right about the senior staff at head office, but she surely overestimates the enthusiasm for fashionable political causes among the National Trust staff and volunteers dotted across the UK. 

Advertisement

The ones I have spoken to remain devoted to the task of keeping houses in good nick, and take a dim view of what their bosses often have them do. Many staff and volunteers do not want to have to focus on the discourse of anti-colonialism and slavery, which are often not key to the history of most properties. And, as a sailor I am proud that thousands of Royal Navy seamen gave their lives to end the vile slave trade when almost every other country in the world was encouraging it.

Members of the National Trust are currently voting on resolutions and electing new members to the governing Council. The management has introduced the Quick Vote, a single tick-box at the top of the voting form, which automatically casts a member’s vote in line with the wishes of the existing National Trust leadership. (Members who want to cast their own vote are confronted with a complex maze of decisions, with three different votes taking place and more than 100 candidates standing for the governing Council.) 

Many members fear that the Quick Vote is being used by “progressive activists” to keep fellow “progressive activists” in charge of the National Trust. That same system kept a candidate of the calibre of Lord Sumption off the Council.

It is no longer possible for those running the National Trust to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the Quick Vote is not damaging the charity’s reputation. 

As Lord Sumption has said, “It is unacceptable for the National Trust to adopt voting methods that are designed to entrench the current management.” Prof Sir Vernon Bogdanor has written, “The implementation of the Quick Vote has created, or exacerbated, significant biases within the National Trust’s elections, which have undermined the integrity of the elections and diminished the voice of the members.” Sir William Proby, himself a former chairman of the National Trust, has described the Quick Vote as “an extreme form of proxy voting” which makes “the election process undemocratic”.

Despite efforts to discredit them, the people at the campaign group Restore Trust have made a sensible case for change at the National Trust. They have taken a stand against the Quick Vote and set out, with a wealth of evidence, why this perverse voting system does not deliver fair outcomes at the AGM. They have produced a well-argued report explaining why the National Trust’s plan to keep Clandon Park House in its ruined state after a devastating fire instead of restoring it is not in the nation’s best interest.

Restore Trust is clearly not a rag-tag bunch of complainers. They represent the views of many current and former members and there are serious and experienced people on their team who deserve to be listened to.

Why do I care so much about this? I used to think of the National Trust as one of our wonderful institutions that quietly got on with its vital work and would always be there. Now I realise that it is up to all of us to shape institutions that we can be proud of. It doesn’t happen by accident.

When the National Trust focused on doing its job of managing countryside and keeping houses and collections in good repair, it was more than the sum of its parts and commanded considerable affection. Now that those in charge of the charity appear to think of it as a collection of “progressive activists” tasked with being the nation’s moral teacher, it has made itself ridiculous.

I encourage members to use their vote in the upcoming AGM to choose candidates who are willing to stand up to the activists and bring the charity’s focus back to what it is supposed to do: protecting the countryside and historic houses which we have received from those who came before us and must hand on to those who will come after.