Dear Prime Minister, [or Andy if I may]
In 2026 the annual Festival of British Archaeology, when the Council for British Archaeology celebrates all that is best about archaeology in communities across the nation, happens to coincide with what is now the almost annual change of British Prime Minister because today [20 July 2026] you move into Number 10 Downing Street replacing Sir Keir Starmer.
As is to be expected, as you ponders your cabinet appointments and policy announcements, you will face no shortage of advice and lobbying on the part of, frankly anybody, who thinks they might be in with a shout of influencing the policies to be adopted by your Government.
You may even have been lobbied by representatives, or self appointed representatives, of the world of Archaeology and Heritage.
Well, at least the leadership of our sector, principally the Council for British Archaeology which seeks to bring together the sector and the wider public, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, which claims to set the standards and ethical frameworks for British archaeology and the Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers, which purports to represent commercial archaeological companies, but which seems to find the opinions of the highly educated and skilled archaeologists who actually do the work, especially when it comes to pay and conditions, an annoyance bordering on subversion, are always stating that they have held very important meetings with Government.
But between you and me, the working people who make up the archaeology in the heritage sector have to take their word for it because they usually add that they can’t tell us about those meetings because they are too important.
Therefore, in order to mark your taking up your office [GOOD LUCK with that BTW] and in the hope it will assist your ministers as they take up their portfolios, here is a shortlist of proposals for archaeology related policies which your Government should take up with the aim of securing the and future of a sector which, when related to its cost to the exchequer, contributes a disproportionately large amount to the economy which your new Chancellor has to work with.
To put into perspective what is under threat just from what has been termed the “Bonfire of the Humanities” in Britain’s Universities, according to figures published by Historic England, using data from the House of Lords Library, in 2024 the UK’s creative sector contributed £126 billion to the UK economy in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA). It also employed 2.4 million people (with the cultural sector, that is primarily museums, galleries and historic sites), contributing £34 billion.
Therefore the first proposal is to ask you to ensure archaeology and the historic environment remain at the heart of the National Planning Policy Framework, with developers always required to pay for the privilege of profiting from development, if that development is assessed independently as causing harm to the natural or historic environment. The well established and fair “Polluter Pays Principle”.
Actually, the Natural and Historic Environment are effectively the same thing, the Environment and given your need to win back voters from the Green Party, and the support of environmentally focussed NGO’s this should be a “no-brainer”.
Just ask the Tories about what happened to their policy to weaken planning rules when the National Trust and a consortium of Environmental Groups, including the Wildlife Trusts, launched their #AttackOnNature campaign.
To save you looking it up it did not end well for the Government, particularly when many of their back benchers began to report they were in fear for their seats on account of the proposed changes.
In short, Green leaning voters can be heroic too, and there are probably more of them than there are Labour voters who deserted your Party for Reform-UK, most recently at the May local elections. This is specially so as Reform’s true colours become ever more clear, with its culturally reductive, cliched, borderline ethno-nationalist agenda.
Besides, if you are to forge a new relationship with the European Union, as you say you wish to, your Government will need to ensure there is no backsliding in the area of environmental law and practice in any case.
However, planning archaeology is not perfect which leads to the second proposal.
While no sensible archaeologist opposes sustainable development, the sector exists to support it in fact and has done for decades, there have long been accusations that the relationship between some developers and some archaeological contractors is too cosy, with desktop studies massaged to downplay archaeology and archaeological fieldwork planned to suit the schedules and bottom line of developers rather than the needs of the archaeology.
These issues could be moderated in large part by an amendment to the National Planning Policy Framework which would retain the polluter pays principle, whereby developers pay for archaeology on development sites, but remove the ability of developers to appoint consultants and contracting units to undertake fieldwork on their own projects, effectively not so much marking their own homework as setting it in the first place.
Instead, developer funded work would be commissioned by beefed up regional offices of Historic England which would be suitably resourced to undertake this extended brief and integrate developer funded archaeology into local and regional government and into national research programmes, to create a joined up system, consistent across at least England, with the devolved administrations expected to mirror the revised system.
The same mechanisms could be used to set up a much needed network of regional research focussed finds archives to supplement the requirement to operate a Historic Environment Record which was introduced to England in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023.
Finally, with egregious cases such as the fire which destroyed the Crooked House pub and its subsequent unlawful demolition, in mind, the Historic Environment Record should also collect and log Heritage Crimes, and damage to listed buildings from any source. Data which should be mirrored by Historic England regionally and nationally.
This accent of regionality would also support your plans for regional devolution by helping drive heritage based inputs to regional development, not to mention placemaking though an enhanced ability to offer communities a richer account of their past with that of the nations of the UK as a whole..
Think of it as building an archaeological site hut, not just in the North, but also in the South, East and West.
Another way of looking at it would be as a National Health Service for Heritage.
The third proposal is for new Portable Heritage Bill to replace the Treasure Act 1996 and in so doing tackle the outdated attitude that certain cultural material is regarded by that loaded term as “Treasure”, while other material which is equally, if not more, historically and archaeologically significant, is treated as not being deserving of legal safeguarding because it lacks commercial value.
A new Portable Heritage Bill would also attempt to tackle the increasing evidence that metal detecting, especially metal detecting rallies are an out of control financial “wild west” which are less about recovering history that than recovering the greatest return from the sale of finds and You Tube videos of hoards being recovered with all the finesse of a dog digging up a bone.
Recent criminal cases have also shown that rallies offer opportunities for theft, fraud, tax avoidance and, research suggests, even the laundering of illegally obtained metal detecting finds, which can then even be sold for profit.
The new Portable Heritage Bill would replace the Treasure Act with an all encompassing regime making all archaeological material subject to compulsory reporting, either by the excavator, as already happens in a formal archaeological excavation, or by the finder.
Meanwhile Metal detecting would be licenced on the grounds that it is an activity which has measurable and damaging environmental impact.
This would remove the anomaly that hobby fishing has long been licenced on those grounds, with hobbyists paying to fish, whereas metal detectorists are subsidised in their hobby and can even be rewarded with life changing amounts of money from the Treasure Committee of the British Museum, for no effort and with no requirement to return anything to the system which rewards them.
Licence fees would be directed at supporting the administration of the new regime via the existing Portable Antiquities Scheme. Detector users would be required to take an on-line examination annually to obtain or renew their licence in the manner of private drone pilots.
There would also be a levy on the sale of metal detectors.
As in the Republic of Ireland and other jurisdictions including France, there would be a ban on the deliberate search for archaeological material, with exemptions for properly designed archaeological research approved by the PAS or other designated bodies such as Historic England or the National Trust.
There would also be a ban on the sale of any new finds of archaeological material. Other sales would be required to demonstrate a clear and checkable provenance, including a PAS database record where it exists, or a legally binding declaration that there is no such record if it does not exist.
Any manipulation of such records would result in significant penalties, up to and including, prison sentences.
These changes would have the added advantage of offering an opportunity to recalibrate the word “Treasure” in the inevitable media stories about the remarkable finds which turn up in the UK regularly thanks to our incredibly rich human and material history and the people who discover and interpret them..
Of course all that legislative effort would be useless if there are no archaeologists to do the field work or staff the PAS and administer the new regime for metal detecting, therefore the fourth and final proposal [for now]. This proposal is related to Higher Education.
While creating new, non graduate, career paths is important, data shows Archaeology remains a 95% plus graduate profession, however there is a growing crisis in University funding, where the Humanities, including Archaeology, are bearing a disproportionate burden in terms of cuts to courses and jobs.
This is not new, but the problem is reaching a crisis point, with world leading departments closed, as at Sheffield University, and world leading scholars sacked in their hundreds. Indeed, the British Academy has recently pointed to whole areas of the country where certain humanities courses are just not available.
Effectively individual University Vice Chancellors and their SMT’s are making decisions which have strategic impacts at a national level for purely local financial reasons. Often reasons generated by their own strategic or financial mistakes.
In that context it is clear a root and branch strategic review of courses across further and higher education is needed and as part of the terms of reference of such a review there should be a study and recommendations to ensure there is a sustainable supply of trained personnel in such important subject areas including archaeologists, museum professionals, finds specialists, conservators, archivists and craftspeople to support the heritage sector and its disproportionately large contribution to the UK Economy.
A reminder, under threat from the Bonfire of the Humanities in Britain’s Universities, is a contribution of £126 billion to the UK economy in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA), the employment of 2.4 million people (within the cultural sector, e.g. museums, galleries and historic sites), which alone contributes some £34 billion to the economy.
That is probably more than enough legislation for the three years to take us to the next General Election and I recognise that to undertake some of could require the expenditure of a certain amount of political capital.
The licencing of metal detecting in particular and with it the removal of a financial incentive to recover archaeological material, could lead to vocal opposition, but if ever there was a case for taking a route to the greatest good for the greatest number, at least in heritage terms, it is this and the other proposals outlined here.
As you begin your premierships, our past, has been in part privatised to the commercial advantage of developers who too often see heritage wrongly as an inconvenience and a tax on growth and of those who see historical value, not in stories belonging to all of us, but in a hammer price at auction.
Meanwhile, in supporting the growth and sustainability of a two key sectors of the economy, sustainable development and culture, these proposals would help you in your wider task of helping tackle the cost of living crisis, especially among the nation’s archaeologists, who, research indicates regularly, are among the lowest paid professional groups in the entire workforce.
Many archaeologists support progressive politics and you could be Andy4Us.
So do try and take a moment to think of us, perhaps for light relief while you are writing your letters of last resort to the Trident submarine skippers.
Best wishes in your important work
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“A new Portable Heritage Bill would also attempt to tackle the increasing evidence that metal detecting, especially metal detecting rallies are an out of control financial “wild west” which are less about recovering history that than recovering the greatest return from the sale of finds and You Tube videos of hoards being recovered with all the finesse of a dog digging up a bone.
Recent criminal cases have also shown that rallies offer opportunities for theft, fraud, tax avoidance and, research suggests, even the laundering of illegally obtained metal detecting finds, which can then even be sold for profit.”
Frankly I’m shocked at such a statement: I’ve always been told by those with skin in that game – as well as by those within UK archaeology – that such concerns were ill-founded; I was part of the elitist clique, a gatekeeper, angry at “glory” being stolen by Jo the car mechanic or whoever. That I’ve had sites (both in the UK and Germany) visited by these characters was just made up by me because I’m petty and jealous.
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