Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn
Main Page: Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Conservative - Life peer)Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn Excerpts
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, the situation that we are dealing with in this Bill is obviously extremely grave and very important, and it is something on which we need to move forward. However, as we have already touched on a number of times in our debates, it deals with matters affecting officially declared wars but it does not deal with some of the conflicts that people automatically assume it should, including the conflicts that we are currently witnessing in Syria and some other places. This amendment is an attempt to suggest that, as soon as the Bill comes into force, there ought to be a move to think about how one might take forward measures that would apply to conflicts or perhaps terrorist activity which do not necessarily fulfil the criteria of a war.
I understand that this legislation is a major step forward and in no sense do I wish to suggest that the Bill should be amended in a way that would make it difficult for the Government to go forward with ratification. However, as I hinted earlier, the amendment is part of a slightly broader cunning plan. This important but limited Bill looks back to 1955 but does not look forward to conflicts that are to come. Therefore, as a response to those who have concerns in this area, I wonder whether we should consider—possibly at some future date; we do not necessarily need to set a time limit, although the amendment would do that—a third protocol. It could include measures such as ensuring that Article 19 of the convention, which concerns conflicts not of an international character, are dealt with, and how we deal with the question, which has previously been raised and discussed, of what a modern definition of culture or cultural products should be, as well as other matters that might come up either now or by the time we get to the end of the Bill.
In a sense, I have tabled this amendment in order to promote a debate about why we would be satisfied—although I am sure we are not—with limiting the impact of the Bill to wars. The aspiration, contained in the convention but not really realised, that more effort should be made to step up to the plate on issues around conflicts which do not yet have official war status should be something that we commit to in order to make this measure go forward. I beg to move.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Con)
My Lords, this amendment has a great deal to commend it. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has indicated, its intention is not to disrupt the nature of the Bill or to introduce matters that would disrupt its passage or expand it in a way that would unilaterally broaden what it is an international convention. The amendment seems to find a middle way. It proposes an addition to the Bill that would not in any way disrupt the definitions as they apply but would meet the concern many people have that the outrages that have concerned us most in recent years—the events in Palmyra, the damage to the Winged Bull at Nineveh and the events in the museum in Mosul—are not in fact covered by the Bill, as the noble Baroness confirmed at Second Reading. It is fair to say that she did not give a very detailed analysis of the situation in response, but it is not covered by the Bill.
The nature of warfare perhaps has changed, but the point is that Daesh, or ISIL, is not recognised as a state, and that is why this is not an international phenomenon. As the situation is regarded as being an internal insurrection or civil war, it does not fall within the scope of the Bill directly. Therefore, it is a very helpful suggestion that we should acknowledge the—I will not say “defect” of the Bill, although I regard it as such—limitation of the Bill, without in any way disrupting its passage now or impinging on its application.
Everybody in the House is very keen to see this. It was originally a convention of 1954 and it is time it is passed by the House with the two recent protocols. The ingenious suggestion of a third protocol, which is not being proposed now—we are not delaying the Bill in any way but it could be an agenda for the future—is a very helpful one that should be taken very seriously.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, as I understand the situation in relation to the matters, for instance, with Daesh, they are currently covered by other domestic legislation as a result of a Security Council resolution. Therefore, they would be offences but only within the confines of that additional legislation.
This amendment has a lot to commend it. It is the first example of us perhaps attempting to look at the wider problem of international human rights law, which was mainly drafted at a time when the main villains we were trying to deal with were states. It is a problem that goes across many treaties: when the villains are non-state or third-party actors, we find that there are very large gaps in some of the treaties. We have to start somewhere in trying to look at these situations because, more and more, there is international human rights law in treaties for which we are going to have to do something to fill the gaps. Daesh is almost certainly not the last example of a group that we might have to deal with, with Boko Haram being just one of the others.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn
My Lords, I warmly support the amendment in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and his colleagues. It makes a number of really important points. The first point, which he expressed very well, concerns transparency. It is extraordinary that at the moment there is no obligation on a seller at auction to indicate who is selling the object. That is needed at once. We talk of transparency but there are auctions of major antiquities, for instance, where the name of the vendor is not made clear.
The noble Earl is also absolutely right that if we are talking about, for example, an antiquity, it is useful to have its history over a period of time, although it may be overambitious to talk about an object passport. If it is a prehistoric object, we will not have the names and addresses of all previous owners. Perhaps we could specify all previous owners since 1970, using the date of the UNESCO convention. There are one or two places in the Bill where one could insert 1970. After all, as the Bill makes clear:
“Subsection (1) does not apply to property imported into the United Kingdom before this section comes into force”.
Therefore, we will not lose much if we insert 1970 at that point.
The principle of trying to establish the history of an object over a good number of years, preferably before 1970, is very important, and I very much like the suggestion of an object passport, although I realise that we must be careful not to introduce too much additional paperwork into the world. However, if one had an object passport, one would certainly want to have a photograph as one element of it. That would be very important, as one could certainly have the ownership history going back at least to 1970, and that would be very useful.
Although antiquity sales in this country have diminished in recent years, I have learned that Sotheby’s is proposing to reintroduce its sales of antiquities in London, which previously it exported to New York following the major scandal in Sotheby’s some years ago. I am not sure that that reimportation is a good thing but, if it is to be done, it should be done properly, as my noble friend Lord Inglewood said. Therefore, a clear provenance history is essential, and we ought to ask the auction houses and dealers to introduce it. Whether it can be done through a simple amendment to this Bill, I am not sure, but the principle in the amendment is crucial. The notion that there should be information on the identity of the seller of the item and as much history of the item’s ownership as possible is admirable. Although the idea of an object passport needs further thought, the suggestion that there would be a limit on the value and it would not apply to every small-value object would limit the bureaucracy involved.
I very much welcome the amendment. Although we heard about the virtues of the art market in London—I am sure that it has many virtues and is an important part of the economy; indeed, as my noble friend Lord Inglewood said, in recent years the antiquities dealers have tightened up and are applying stricter standards—the basic standard of knowing where the object comes from and who has owned it is essential and I would like to see it carried forward.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I rise to speak to this amendment and to say that I do not plan to move Amendment 29 because it raises this issue.
A number of us in this Chamber were responsible for pushing through the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act. Although it is good to know that at least one prosecution has taken place under the Act, that did not stop it, at the beginning of the last Government, being put forward by the Conservative Back-Benchers as a piece of legislation that was redundant and could be got rid of because it had never been used. The problem is that such legislation gets moved in response to a specific event; in this case, it was the looting of the museum in Baghdad. The ratification of this Bill has been moved forward very much due to the cultural destruction that is taking place in Syria at the moment.
I do not believe that this Bill is the place for this amendment, even though I have put my name to it. However, it is probable that we could raise it again in any money laundering legislation that comes in front of the House in the future. As the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, so adroitly pointed out, the real problem is that a lot of art provenance is not known, is written on dodgy pieces of paper, or is attested to collections that no longer exist in foreign countries. This is a problem.
I take on board the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, that because there is a law, many people will not break it. However, there are many laws that people know are there and do break. The art market does not have the best of reputations from instances in the past. Therefore, if we are to clear up the art market, we need to make sure that there is some implication of having a law. That is why I put down the amendment to say that there should be a review each year. For example, we know that, in 2003, the amount of Mesopotamian artefacts on the marketplace drove down the price. We also know the source of those Mesopotamian artefacts, and, bizarrely, that trading was done very much in the areas that are next to the British Museum.
Provenance is a double-edged sword. Many of the artefacts that are now safe in the British Museum were illicitly lifted and their provenance is now based on the paperwork that proves they were filtered from the country of origin without the authorities’ knowledge. One could say that many of the collections of the great museums have a slight provenance issue.
Although this amendment will probably not be agreed, it raises the issue that, although we have the law, it has not been taken as seriously as it should be because it has not had the funding that it might require. Resources are needed to deal with this. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, raised the issue of trying to bring forward prosecutions to the police. However, the arts and antiquities squads were so underfunded that they resorted to trying to get special constables who were recruited from staff at the British Museum. In my view, that is not a well-funded or well-thought-out prosecution system to deal with a market that runs into the millions of pounds.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn
Before the Minister sits down, will she clarify just one point? She made a very interesting remark, in that she thought that the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, might infringe the human rights of a former owner of an antiquity or cultural object. Will she clarify a little how she thinks that might be? Would it have infringed the rights of Lord Elgin that his ownership of the Elgin Marbles was clear or the rights of the Earl of Portland that the Portland Vase had been in his ownership? I am not quite clear how that works, and it certainly seems counter to the cause of transparency—which has been emphasised by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth—which I think is very important in the antiquities trade. Part of transparency is ownership history, so this notion that it would damage the human rights of Lord Elgin or Lord Portland seems to me to be a very disturbing one.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think the noble Lord is right; it is a bit of a puzzle. Of course, Lord Elgin and co were from a long time ago, before any of this legislation existed. Anyway, that is the advice that I have had—you do get these curiosities with human rights, which in general we support but sometimes create difficulties for us. Perhaps he would like to look at Hansard and see what I said, and I am sure we can discuss this further, if the noble Lord would find that helpful.