Elgin Marbles

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lexden for securing today’s debate on what he rightly describes as magnificent treasures of civilisation, objects that, as he said in his opening, have long provoked lively debate in this country and elsewhere.

It is important to be clear that the UK and His Majesty’s Government do not own the Parthenon sculptures, which were lawfully acquired under the law pertaining at the time. They are legally owned by the trustees of the British Museum, which is independent of the Government.

My noble friend is right to take exception to some of the vitriol and ahistorical claims that have been levelled against the late Lord Elgin. As ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire, of which Athens, at the time when he acquired the marbles, had been a part for three and a half centuries, he acted with the permission of the Ottoman Empire and moved about half of the sculptures that remained from the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens. They were purchased by Lord Elgin, the Government purchased them from him and then Parliament made the decision—indeed, it passed an Act of Parliament—to give them to the British Museum in 1816.

I have referred to the ruins. Sadly, most of these exquisite objects have been damaged or lost to humanity, in particular as a result of the tragedy in 1687, when Venetian bombardment ignited the munitions that the Ottomans had stored in the Parthenon, blowing the roof off and doing irreparable damage to many of the marbles. Of those that survive today, about half remain in Athens. There is a roughly equal amount in London, but important pieces are also held by other European museums, including the Louvre, in Paris, and museums in Denmark, Austria and Germany.

As my noble friend and others noted, in the 1970s, the Greek Government began a programme of restoration of the Acropolis monuments. As part of that work, all the remaining sculptures from the Parthenon were removed to the Acropolis Museum; none can therefore be seen in their original setting. The first formal request for the removal of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum was made by the Greek Government in 1983 and was formally rejected by the UK Government in 1984. Neither Government’s position has significantly changed since then.

Unlike a number of other countries, museums in the UK are independent of the state; they are not run or owned by the Government. Museums are charitable institutions run for the benefit of the public, and responsibility for their collections rests with their trustees; the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, was right to say, in a variety of ways, that most are not covered by statute and that some are covered in differing ways.

The British Museum’s governing legislation is the British Museum Act 1963. This prohibits the British Museum, along with a number of other national museums, deaccessioning objects in its collection except in certain circumstances, such as when there is a duplicate; when an item has significantly deteriorated; when, in the case of human remains, they are less than 1,000 years old; or when they are items that were spoliated during the German Third Reich. There are no plans to change this law, and I did not detect from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, a clamouring for it from the Benches opposite.

The position of the trustees of the British Museum is that there is an advantage and a public benefit in having the sculptures divided between great museums, including the Acropolis Museum in Athens and the British Museum in London, each telling a complementary but different story. In the first half of this year, the British Museum had nearly 3.3 million visitors, so it is returning to pre-Covid levels, when it regularly saw 6 million visitors a year. Visitors to Bloomsbury can see the marbles in their full glory, free of charge. By way of comparison, the Acropolis Museum in Athens had 1.2 million visitors in the last year before the pandemic, and charged them €15 in the summer and €10 in the winter. The British Museum is glad to share its treasures with the world; people from all over the world come to see them.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, asked what my view is. I think that that is a good position: people from around the world can see these exquisite objects in London, Athens and the other European countries I mentioned. On those that are in Bloomsbury, John Keats was moved to poetry on seeing them, while Auguste Rodin was inspired to create a sculpture. I have had the pleasure of seeing them in both the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum in Athens; both are superb institutions, and we learn a lot about these objects on visits to both.

Noble Lords are right to talk about the importance of loaning objects, which is fundamental to a museum’s purpose. Section 4 of the British Museum Act expressly allows the trustees of the British Museum to loan objects in the collection for public exhibition. Before lending any objects, the British Museum enters into legally binding agreements with the relevant borrowing institution. Those agreements contain various assurances and protections, including about the safety of the objects while on loan. The British Museum has said for many years that it would consider a loan of the sculptures to Greece as long as its normal conditions for loans were met. Indeed, it has loaned some of the Elgin marbles in the past. As noble Lords may know, the headless statue of the river god Ilissos was loaned to the Hermitage, in St Petersburg, as part of that museum’s 250th anniversary nine years ago.

The Acropolis Museum is an important partner for the British Museum. An exquisite object is on loan from the British Museum to the Acropolis Museum at the moment—the Meidias Hydria vase—and previous items have been loaned to the Acropolis Museum. A prerequisite for a loan is the acknowledgement of the borrowing institution that the British Museum owns the object on loan. Sadly, the Greek Culture Minister, Dr Lina Mendoni, in a recent response to a question from a Greek MP, acknowledged that the Meidias Hydria was acquired in 1772 by the British Museum and ownership is not disputed, but went on to say that that does not apply to the Parthenon marbles in her view and that there is no question of a lease or loan of these. It is very difficult therefore to see how a loan could be agreed between the British Museum and the Greek Government while that remains their position.

If the Greek Government changed their position—that seems like a big “if”; it has been their position for all of my life—it would require an open individual export licence, which allows museums to send an object on loan for up to a maximum of three years. Crucially, the open export licence can be used only if it is guaranteed that an object will return at the end of the loan.

My noble friend Lord Lexden asked about the reports made of loans of five or up to 15 years. As I said, the open export licence provides for a maximum of three years. Given the legitimate questions raised in this hypothetical scenario about the items being returned, I think it would be important that any loan not extend beyond the tenure of any of the trustees who agreed it. They should be in a position to ensure that the guarantee required in the open export licence is made.

I end by agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and many others, who spoke about the warm friendship between this Government and the Greek Government. The Greeks are good friends. I spoke last night at an event concerning some Greek marble in London, which both I and the Greek Government are very keen to see moved swiftly. In 1882, a splendid statue of Lord Byron was erected in Hyde Park by public subscription; it stands on 57 tonnes of beautiful red and white marble, which was donated by the Greek Government in appreciation and gratitude for Lord Byron’s support for Greek independence. For more than 60 years, it has been stranded on an island far less enticing and accessible than those of the Peloponnese, which Lord Byron frequented, because of the coming of Park Lane. I have been working with our colleagues at the Royal Parks and with the support of the Greek ambassador in London to try to have it moved into the park proper, so that it can be seen and enjoyed. I hope that can be done next year, which is the 200th anniversary year of the death of Lord Byron.

I wanted to end on that happy note, because, while this is a long-running debate, it does not get in the way of the great friendship and co-operation between the Greek people and the British people, nor of either of their Governments.