Cultural Objects (Protection from Seizure) Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, on his maiden speech, and I hope that we will hear more contributions in this particular area of his expertise. The visual arts are of course a feature, in various ways, in creativity and commerce, and together they are a sometimes underrated but hugely important part of our creative industries.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, for introducing this debate and taking the Bill forward. I am sure that all of us here are perhaps planning to visit or will have been—perhaps not recently enough—to exhibitions containing significant work on loan from other countries. It is great that we can have exhibitions again, although I for one will certainly be wearing a mask to visit, until cases are right down.

I am a great believer in the worth of cultural exchange in the wider sense, and engaging with exhibitions is an important aspect of that: it is a way of connecting with other cultures and periods through objects, including artworks, that we would not otherwise have the chance to see in this country. In addition to the list of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, this could also include British art that has been dispersed around the world but brought back for exhibition. It is worth bearing in mind that this will also include contemporary art, which can now be very valuable, with there perhaps being a potential for the seizure of that as much as older recognised treasures. The last exhibition that I visited was the brilliant Hokusai exhibition at the British Museum—“Hokusai: the Great Picture Book of Everything”. All of the original drawings have been purchased by the BM, which is one way to solve the problem.

This is clearly an excellent Bill, designed to instil confidence and trust in lenders and facilitate exhibitions, supported on all sides of the House during what was a very good Second Reading debate last year, in the Commons. I have a couple of questions for the Minister. The first is very basic, and there may be a straightforward answer to it. It is simply this: why does there have to be a fixed period of time in the first place in which seizure cannot take place? Once a museum has been approved, following the high standard of checks that it will need to make around provenance and so on, why does there have to be a cut-off point and therefore a necessity for this Bill? Of course, the Bill will very helpfully extend that original one-year time period further, if required, but perhaps the Minister can explain that. I ask this question not just as a matter of clarification but because we now live in very uncertain times indeed—more uncertain perhaps than when the Bill had its Commons Second Reading, in September. There is now arguably the increasing potential for cultural objects not to be returned for a long period, depending on where they might be lent from.

My second question relates to the approval of museums and galleries to participate in the scheme. I counted 39 public museums and galleries on the approved list published on the Arts Council site, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, said. This is actually one more than the government website, which lists only one of the two Scottish museums, giving the Hunterian but not the National Galleries of Scotland, which are both on the Arts Council site. It has been 15 years since the original legislation, and 39 feels still quite a smallish number, although many of our major museums are on that list. However, they are mostly from England rather than the devolved nations—Wales and Northern Ireland do not have any approved museums at all, which seems strange. Is this because some museums have yet to apply because they have not yet felt the need to do so or are even unaware of the scheme, or have some applications actually been turned down? It would be interesting to know what the department’s view on that is. Perhaps the Minister can clarify its expectations about extending the list, if that is a concern.

A similar argument applies for Wales and Northern Ireland for inclusion in this extended scheme. Has anything changed with regard to Wales and Northern Ireland since Report, when they were excluded from the Bill? It would be helpful to know whether there has been a development on that front. It seems a shame that this legislation could not apply equally across the whole of the UK, even without as yet approved museums.

A museum’s desire to exhibit art and artefacts from other countries presupposes their existence, and it is distressing when we hear about the destruction of cultural property. The Minister will of course be aware of UNESCO’s huge concern about the threat to Ukraine’s artistic and cultural heritage, and we know that art has already been destroyed and cultural sites targeted, on top of the appalling loss of life that we have seen. I thank the Government for their written reply to my question on this last week; in it, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, outlined some of the action that the DCMS has been taking with regard to this. It would be helpful if the Minister could say a few words about this.

I wish the Bill success and again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, on steering it through this House.