PM urged to help keep Turing's papers in UK

A set of reprints of papers that belonged to the renowned computer scientist, thought to be the most complete in the world, are to be sold at auction.

Campaigners fear a wealthy foreign bidder may buy them and take them out of Britain before the money can be raised to purchase them.

The Prime Minister told MPs he would do anything he could to support a campaign by the Bletchley Park Trust to save the papers for the nation.

At Prime Minister's Question Time he was pressed by Tory Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes S), who said: "While the trust is confident of raising the funds to buy these papers, there is a danger that the auction may take place before they have a chance to do so. Will you do all you can to give Bletchley Park a fair chance to secure these important documents for the nation?"

Mr Cameron replied: "I would certainly like to do that. Alan Turing was a remarkable man and all those people who worked at Bletchley Park during the war, cracking the Enigma code, there are still many of them still alive and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. They made a decisive difference in winning the Second World War."

Turing, instrumental in breaking the German Enigma code, was prosecuted for being homosexual. He committed suicide in 1954. Before his death he presented his friend and fellow codebreaker Professor Max Newman with the set of 15 offprints.

Last year, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Turing a posthumous apology for the "appalling" treatment he received for being gay.