Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, on what date archives are able to reopen under the Government's roadmap for easing covid-19 restrictions.

It is our expectation that the reading rooms and study areas of archives in England will be able to reopen as part of step 2 of the Government’s roadmap to ease COVID-19 restrictions, in line with similar functions in libraries. The Devolved Administrations will publish their own plans. As laid out in the Government’s roadmap, step 2 will not commence until 12 April at the earliest.

Many archives provide a range of functions and services, for which they may need to refer to other areas of guidance on reopening; for example exhibition spaces should not reopen until Step 3 of the roadmap, in line with the museums and galleries guidance.

We recommend that archives consult the guidance relevant to their functions. The National Archives will provide further detail to the archives sector relating to archives when regulations are published in due course.