The 1,000-year-old practice of recording laws on goat and calf skin may be saved, after the House of Lords said it would consider an offer from the Cabinet Office to pay the costs of carrying on the tradition.



An outcry was prompted among some MPs after peers signalled their intention to end the method of recording each act of parliament on vellum and use archive paper instead.

Matt Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister, is intending to make an offer for the government to pay the £80,000-a-year cost so that the tradition can continue.

The Lords will still be in charge of the decision and no offer has yet been made, but a spokesman said they would take it into consideration.

“The House of Lords agreed as long ago as 1999 to move to printing acts of parliament on archival paper instead of vellum. This change is expected to save at least £80,000 a year,” the spokesman said.

The original 1806 foreign slave trade abolition bill on vellum parchment. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

“We have had no contact 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 said printing two copies of each act of parliament, one for the parliamentary archives and one for the National Archives, on vellum parchment, was “extremely expensive”. A switch to archival paper, which can survive for up to 500 years, had been expected to save about £80,000 a year.

But Hancock said using vellum was “surprisingly cost-effective” and a millennium-long tradition. “While the world constantly changes, we should safeguard some of our great traditions,” he said.

Asked about the offer, David Cameron’s official spokeswoman said traditions were an “important part” of parliament.

MPs handed the decision to end the practice to peers, who decided on Wednesday to push ahead with the cost-cutting measure. But it met with criticism in the House of Commons, where the Conservative MP James Gray called for the “retrograde decision” to be reversed.

The Lords made the same decision to end the practice in 1999, but the move was blocked by MPs.

• This article was amended on 16 February 2016. An earlier version referred to the 1,000-year-old practice of printing laws on goat and calf skin.

