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Commonwealth War Graves submission of 15 February 2022

PE1893/B - Introduce legislation to protect Scotland’s war memorials

Thank you for your letter dated the 9th of November 2021 regarding petition PE1893 in relation to the proposed introduction of legislation to protect war memorials, brought by Friends of Dennistoun war memorial.

We apologise for the delay in responding to your request and thank you for your patience. We are grateful to the Committee for its recognition of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) as an authority regarding the commemorations of war casualties, and for requesting our views.

To provide background, the CWGC was established in 1917 as the sole authority charged with the care of the graves and the commemoration of the 1.7 million service men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First and Second World Wars. The CWGC built and continues to maintain cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in more than 153 countries and territories across the world and we are committed to carrying out this work in perpetuity. In Scotland, we are responsible for 21,000 war graves in 1,275 burial grounds.

Under the terms of our Royal Charter, we commemorate all war casualties, either on a headstone marking the grave location or, if the grave is not known, on one of the CWGC’s memorials to the missing. As the CWGC commemorates the casualties at their burial location wherever possible, or on a designated memorial to the missing in accordance with our policies to commemorate casualties by name in one location, we have no responsibility for war memorials that were erected by local communities. We understand from the consultation that it would be these memorials, erected and maintained by local communities, that would benefit from the proposed legislation. We therefore do not feel we are the appropriate authority to consider this request as the memorials which would benefit from this legislation are outside of our remit and we do not, therefore, propose to offer any comment.

We are aware of a website funded by DCMS that may provide further information in relation to war memorials that the Committee may find useful: UK War Memorials

Thank you again for seeking our views. If we can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.