d our core purpose, and I ask myself what examination mark would be given for what we have done over the last 120 years. And I think they would give us 8 out of 10 on historic buildings, though I worry that it may be true of the people of this country that people are increasingly disconnected from history, and that we should use our houses and present our houses in a way that makes people understand better how history has shaped the world today.
A good example of that is that we own the house of Benjamin Disraeli, a Victorian Prime Minister who was very much engaged with what was then called the Eastern Question, how you sort out relationships between Russia and Turkey. At his house I think we should do more to explain how the treaties and arrangements that 19th Century European statesmen made in the Middle East have an impact on what we see on the news now and shaped the events of today. We also have Churchill’s country house, Chartwell, and there we should show how Churchill helped to create the post-war settlement and the Europe we know today.
If we give ourselves 8 out of 10 on history, I think we should mark ourselves much lower on the state of nature in this country and biodiversity. Perhaps 3 out of 10.
In our countryside all sorts of species of birds and butterflies are disappearing, suffering catastrophic loss. 40 or 50% of their numbers are going, and some species that we would have thought common ten or twenty years ago have now more or less disappeared, species like the cuckoo. Species that people love are disappearing, like cuckoos and hedgehogs.
What about trees?
Many of our trees have been attacked by parasites and fungus. Some of that has to do with the globalisation of trade, but we need to find a solution. We are very worried about disease in our Ash trees, almost certainly imported by spores carried on the wind.
As an organisation we can do our bit to restore landscape and habitat for birds and butterflies and hedgehogs. And we can also, as we own a large amount of woodland, help find solutions to the problems of tree diseases. Over the next 5 to 10 years we will see if we can get ourselves a better mark.
Do you fight against fracking but defend wind turbines?
We argue against fracking because it continues economic dependence on fossil fuels and some of the environmental impacts are still unknown, so we wouldn’t allow it on our land. We are great supporters of good renewable energy and on our land we have some wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectric schemes because we want to get 50% of our energy from renewables by 2020. But we do object to inappropriate, large scale wind farms or solar farms near the properties we own if we believe they destroy the natural beauty of the place.
You come from long Government experience as a prominent civil servant, how do you feel now running a charity?
One thing about it is essentially the same. All the time the decisions I make have the consideration which is: How to serve the public good? Of course, when you are in government, determining the public good is what the democratic government does, and the civil servant is carrying out that decision. Whereas here I can play a much more active part in deciding how we should benefit the public and have a greater freedom of action. But the size of this organisation (10,000 staff and 60,000 part-time volunteers) is very similar to the size of a Government department and so it has a lot of the challenges that running any big organisation has.
What has really changed in the National Trust in the last ten years?
In the last decade or so we have grown and our membership has at least doubled; it was one million in 1995 and now it has grown immensely. Part of that is because it has followed the trend of how people like to spend their leisure time. There are of course more interesting heritage attractions, but a large part of it is that people see us as more welcoming than we were. The biggest progress has been among families with young children. They can make a noise and run around in the woods and we welcome them inside the