Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to introduce an amendment to Clause 4 which has arisen as a direct result of the scrutiny and debate on the Floor of this House and to put on record the substance of the letter that I sent to noble Lords last week to explain the amendment.

As was discussed in detail in Committee, Clause 4 deals with the extraterritorial application of ancillary offences. For example, it means that if an individual abroad attempts or conspires to commit an act, that act would be an offence under this legislation.

Noble Lords may recall that in Committee, the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Stevenson, tabled an amendment to subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 4, which makes provisions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The essence of the amendment is to try to understand why these provisions were drafted differently from those relating to Scotland. My predecessor, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, explained that this was due to a difference in Scottish criminal law. While subsection (6) was not the subject of the noble Lords’ amendment, the debate prompted the Government to reflect on the drafting of this clause and to conclude that the original drafting would benefit from some clarification to ensure that the Bill’s provisions relating to the ancillary offences had the intended effect in Scotland. The Scottish Government and the Crown Office in Scotland have been consulted regarding this amendment and have agreed the appropriate drafting.

I hope noble Lords will accept the amendment. I am grateful that the close consideration this House has given the Bill has resulted in this improvement in its drafting. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his position and thank him for his previous acceptance of the noble Earl’s amendment and for this amendment. We all agree that this is a good Bill and I am grateful for these two improvements to it.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am looking sideways because Hansard will not be able to record this unless I explain what has happened between me and my noble kinsman, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. When this point first arose in Committee, I rather stupidly intervened ahead of the noble and learned Lord and he rose magisterially, if that is not too otiose a phrase, to explain that, even though I hail from Scotland and carry a Scottish town in my title, I was hopelessly under-read about how the law operates in Scotland and I should know better than to try to amend a Bill that he was able to assure us was in good order at that time.

Or was it? I did not know very much about it—and did not intend to say that I did—but, in the tradition of these Bills, I tabled a probing amendment. We rarely have an opportunity to see probing amendments come home to roost with such extraordinary felicity—I am still nervous that the noble and learned Lord will jump up and shout at me—but I relish that this has now happened. I also welcome the fact that we are having a good afternoon with two concessions already, so I shall not say any more.