The Government finds £80,000 to make sure Parliament can keep printing laws on GOAT SKIN

What spending cuts? The Government finds £80,000 to make sure Parliament can keep printing laws on GOAT SKIN
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UK laws were set to be printed on paper from April this year to save money
Matthew Hancock says Cabinet Office budget can be used to save the 500-year tradition
But House of Lords has yet to receive offer and will go ahead with change
Vellum producers claim calfskin parchment lasts for at least 5,000 years


Ministers have stepped in to pledge £80,000 a year to safeguard Parliament's tradition of printing Britain's laws on goatskin parchment, known as vellum.

Britain's laws were set to printed on paper from April after the House of Lords decided it could no longer afford the cost of vellum.


But Matthew Hancock, the minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, said he would be prepared to use his budget to cover the cost and maintain the 500-year tradition and insisted the move would be 'cost effective'.

However this afternoon the House of Lords said it had yet to receive a formal offer from the Government and is planning to go ahead with its decision to stop printing laws on vellum.

If an offer from the Government comes forward, it would consider the option of keeping the tradition, House of Lords officials said.

Mr Hancock told the Daily Telegraph today: 'Recording our laws on vellum is a millennium long tradition, and surprisingly cost effective.

'While the world around us constantly changes, we should safeguard some of our great traditions and not let the use of vellum die out.'
The move has the support of David Cameron, whose spokeswoman said this morning: 'Traditions are an important part of our parliamentary heritage.
'It's right that we seek to preserve them wherever possible.'

from the Cabinet Office regarding this decision and expect to move to printing on high quality archival paper, which has a lifespan of several hundred years.

'Currently, the oldest paper records in the Lords date back to the early 16th century, and are only a few years younger than the oldest vellum record in the Archives, which is an Act of Parliament from 1497.

'If the Cabinet Office write offering to take on the responsibility for printing Acts of Parliament on vellum, it would of course be considered. As of yet, that offer has not been made.
Peers have been reviewing the 500-year-old practice of printing two copies of each Act of Parliament, one for Parliamentary Archives and one for the National Archives, on the parchment known as vellum because it is 'extremely expensive'.
The oldest vellum law in parliament's archives dates from 1497, and even older vellum copies survive of documents including the 1215 Magna Carta.
Paul Wright, general manager of vellum producer William Cowley, said Monday that retaining vellum would ensure future generations had the opportunity to 'touch history.'
He said the cost of using vellum effectively went down every year and claimed vellum could last as long as 5,000 years.
'Magna Carta worked out as a safe method of storage at £6 a century,' he told the Today programme.
'Give it another 100 years it will be £4.27 a century.'
'The reason I got so vocal about it all - I just felt that there were a small number of people who effectively were deciding that future generations would be negated of the opportunity to, what the Americans call, touch history.'
The practice of printing laws on vellum has been under threat for years.
An attempt by the House of Lords to use ordinary paper in 1999 was defeated after Labour MPs joined with the Tories to rebell against the move.
A Commons committee has since handed control back to peers, who decided to push ahead with the cost-cutting measure, but since the move was blocked 17 years ago, the cost of printing laws on vellum has gone up by around £50,000 a year.