How is history currently used in policy?

In the second of three blogs about the use of history in Whitehall, Sir Anthony Seldon turns to recent and current practice across departments.

Official histories and historical precedent?

Two kinds of history activity take place, if very unevenly, across departments. First and less impactful, publishing of official histories, information-sharing about the past and archiving records, all for the benefit of the public and historians in the future. Official histories emerged in the late 19th century to record military events so lessons could be learnt. The approach blossomed in the series of 109 volumes on the First World War, published from 1915 to 1949 and a similarly extensive series on the Second World War, published between 1949 and 1993. Volumes have also been published on domestic policy, and on MI5 (2009, MI6 (2010) and GCHQ (2020).?Second, probing into historical precedent to inform and enhance decision-making in the present. Those utilising history for this end includes senior officials and ministers, but middle ranking and junior civil servants as well.?

?Big players in history??

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has had historians since 1918, to help preparation for the Paris peace conference. Over the following years, they were heavily involved in preparing the Documents on British Foreign Policy series. A new impetus came with the arrival of the Blair government in 1997 with a handful of historians including Gill Bennett dividing their time equally between the documents and historical advice to ministers. Most recently, ‘Black Lives Matter’ prompted considerable interest including in the colonial art works in the main Foreign Office building, while the war in Ukraine has prompted calls for advice on parallels with Russian and Soviet behaviour in the past. The present chief historian, Patrick Salmon, founded the Whitehall history network in 2018, with some 60 people attending regular history events from across Whitehall. ‘Witness seminars’, bringing together participants in and students of recent historical events, are run in partnership with King’s College London (with Ed Balls and Jon Davis leading luminaries).?

Few departments have more historians poring over their work than the Treasury, given the enormous scholarly field of economic history. Interest in history though fluctuates, as it does in other departments, according to the taste of the permanent secretary. Douglas Wass (1974-83) wound up the history section in cuts after the 1976 IMF crisis, while Nick Macpherson (2005-16) proved a great champion of history. Under his sponsorship the Treasury History Society and Duncan Needham of History&Policy (H&P) (and Cambridge) began to organise seminars annually, focussing on topics likely to be of upcoming interest, such as the National Debt and productivity. In 2016, inevitably, the in-demand subject was the history of difficult negotiations in Europe.

Numbers attending talks have mushroomed since the COVID-induced switch in 2020 to hosting talks online.

That year, the seminar series focused on 300 years of financial crises and included its most popular talk by William Dalrymple on “The East India Company Bailout”. Since 2015, the Treasury has delivered a postgraduate programme on economic history since 1945, in association with King’s College London.?

?The Home Office’s ‘Learning from Experience team’ was established in 2013 by another history–enthusiast permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill (2013-17). Under a number of administrative guises, some 30 stories were gathered in the first five years, with topics for seminars including history of immigration legislation, pricing of alcohol and modern slavery. Chris Williams of H&P and the Open University has been the guiding light.?

?The Ministry of Defence makes the most use institutionally of history, with weighty army, navy and air historical sections, and with separate museums for the three services. Philip Murphy, current head of H&P, has noted: “isn’t it interesting that the military are the one branch of the state who actually value historical knowledge? Maybe if we could persuade civil servants that formulating policy was a bit like preparing for a military campaign, we might get more historians into Whitehall?” Quite.??

At the centre, the Cabinet Office oversees official histories. At No.10, Jeremy Heywood, Chris Martin (both now deceased) and I began the series of lunchtime history talks for staff. Academics Andrew Blick (then director, H&P) and Jon Davis have done much to galvanise the history of the prime minister and the office. Some post-war prime ministers have been conspicuously interested in history, such as Harold Macmillan, Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson. The last brought in John Bew, a professor of history and foreign policy at King’s College London, to advise on history, notably with regard to Ireland and to lead an integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy. More on him in the final blog.

?Other departments’ approaches to history?

History is much more uneven in domestic policy departments, especially those which are new or have had their identities merged and changed.

Health has perhaps the best record on history among social policy departments. Historians Pat Thane and Virginia Berridge have delivered talks on health themes. Simon Szreter of H&P wrote with Hilary Cooper the paperback ‘After the Virus. Lessons from the Past for a Better Future’ (2021). Some other domestic departments including transport have had intermittent historical activity. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has a voluntary network, established in September 2020, with around 100 members in the department, to help improve policy-making and institutional memory. The inaugural session was held in April 2021 and an oral history project is capturing memories of long-serving members of the department. The Department for International Trade has an informal “trade historians group” of volunteers dedicated to promulgating the history of predecessor departments going back to the formation of the Board of Trade over 300 years ago. They too have initiated an oral history project to capture the testimony of staff, past and present and to research the history of the Old Admiralty Building.?

The final blog will look at what can be learnt from these very different experiences.

History is always present in decision-making – but it is mostly unconscious and therefore, because it is unexamined, bad history.

So how can good history be intentionally embedded and be no longer dependent upon the chance patronage of a passionate permanent secretary or minister? Because, make no mistake, history really does?matter. Without it, we are destined to make mistake after mistake.?

The author would like to thank the following for their advice and help: Philip Murphy, Duncan Needham,?Simon Szreter, Chris Williams,?Iain Forbes, Catherine Haddon,?Sally Kershaw, Alix Mortimer, John Murphy, Sally Sheard, Patrick Salmon, Virginia Berridge, Jeremy Black,?Clare Langhammer and Pat Thane.?

Please note: The views expressed in these texts are those of the author and not necessarily of the Policy Profession Unit or the Civil Service.