Elgin Marbles

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure to pause and give room for the last two contributions. I will start with a message to the Minister which might help him in his reply. In December 2011, I was in his position replying to a debate about a pardon for Alan Turing. I stood up and gave the set government reply, which had also been the reply of the previous Labour Government. Two years later, in 2013, when I had left the ministry, the then Secretary of State stood up and announced a pardon for Alan Turning, and all the careful wording I had used in explaining why we could not go against previous legislation or previous decisions just went. The Government had decided that it was necessary in the spirit of the day to pardon Alan Turing. The only thing left of this is that if you look me up in any of the reference books you will find a very helpful line saying: “Lord McNally refused a pardon for Alan Turing in 2011”. No, I did not; I was reflecting the policy of the Government of the day, as the Minister will be in a few minutes.

In a way, a lot of the legal and historical arguments do not match the fact that we are changing our views of what museums are for and their role in their societies and the world. By God, it will keep me awake tonight, but I am fully in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said: this is a dilemma with a solution that is an opportunity. It a chance for us to play on the big stage in a confident way about how we see our heritage and our future.

Some of the ideas put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, I have put forward in previous debates. There is ample opportunity to have a permanent partnership between Greece and Britain, between the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum, which would be a world standard in co-operation and exchange. One thing I do know, coming into the early autumn of my career in politics, is that the idea that if you send the Parthenon marbles to Greece on loan, you will ever get them back is disappearing into fantasy. They are of such special and unique importance that the political craft is to set an agreement between our two Governments and two museums that will leave the marbles where they should be in Athens but also leave a legacy for both museums of co-operation and exchange which is far more to the credit of both countries than this sterile old argument.