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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent

Ministry of Justice plan to destroy historical wills is ‘insane’, say experts

Tom Holland.
Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest is History, said the Ministry of Justice proposal was “obviously insane. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

“Sheer vandalism” and “insane”. This is how leading historians on Monday described government plans to destroy millions of historical wills to save on storage costs.

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on digitising and then throwing away about 100m paper originals of the last wills and testaments of British people dating back more than 150 years in an effort to save £4.5m a year.

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