Ivory Bill (Second sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Chief Inspector Hubble: Yes, we would still have to prove that they knew it was ivory and that they had then mislabelled it, knowing that it was ivory.
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Chief Inspector Hubble: All the time that the burden of proof is on us to prove that they knew, that is difficult from an enforcement perspective. If the burden of proof was on them to prove that they did not know it was ivory, that would make enforcement much easier.
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Chief Inspector Hubble: Absolutely.
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Chief Inspector Hubble: That is because eBay banned ivory as a listing two or three years ago: eBay was openly selling ivory and an approach was made to it to say, “This is illegal, you cannot do this.” It took the ivory category down, so now people call it bovine bone or ox bone, but clearly it is still ivory.
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Chief Inspector Hubble: Absolutely. In general, we do not deal with the people who will apply for exemption certificates and who will register their items and apply for permits, because they are the responsible, law-abiding people. We deal with the ones who have a complete disregard for policy protocol legislation. We deal with the ones who are deceptive, who lie and who want to make money out of this. The burden of proof has to be manageable and has to be able to be enforced, otherwise it is not enforceable legislation.
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Chief Inspector Hubble: We have to apply a proportionate response to any investigation that we undertake, based on what they are doing, what they have done before and whether they are willing to engage through an education process or a preventive measure. All those factors determine the outcome and the sanction.
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Chief Inspector Hubble: Absolutely, yes.
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Grant Miller: Our ability to take cases and offenders before the courts would be impacted on greatly. We would be pushed into going out to each constabulary, looking for a supportive senior manager to take on an investigation on our behalf. If we were not able to find that, our activity would be just to disrupt and seize, and the threat would just continue. We share intelligence—we are very much a data-driven organisation—to get our targets and to know where we are working. If we do not get that feedback, ultimately we will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I received a donation from the Musicians Union at the last general election and the previous one. I want to put that on the record—it has been declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I also received a donation from the Musicians Union at the last election.
For the record, anyone, including distinguished members of the panel, can continue to submit written evidence through the parliamentary website with a reference to this Bill.
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Paul McManus: Let me be very honest: we are extraordinarily grateful that this exemption has been considered at all. The vast majority of instrument manufacture involving ivory ceased around 1975. There was some continued use of ivory, with the other ivory that was not brought into enforcement until 1989. While it would be tempting to say “Can we have a bit more, please?”, if I am totally honest, we were so delighted with the proposal as it stood that, considering it would catch the vast majority of instruments, we did not want to appear over-zealous in our presentation to you.
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Paul McManus: It is a challenge. As an industry, we have been dealing with the rosewood legislation that CITES brought in last year. Nearly every guitar is made with rosewood, so we have had to try to educate an entire industry that makes guitars—both here and overseas—and every musician buying or selling a guitar, about the fact that rosewood is now a protected product. It is tough; I will be honest with you.
I suspect that ivory will rise to the top in awareness quicker than rosewood did. We have had to use every communication channel we can. We have gone to special Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs meetings in Bristol to educate the whole industry and take our members to it. Back to the online platform debate—to be fair, some of the online platforms have now been putting up information saying, “If your guitar is rosewood, you need to be aware of x, y and z,” as they have done with ivory. It is a challenge, but we just have to do everything we can to communicate this. There are so many platforms that people can buy and sell through.
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Paul McManus: Every instrument will come to less than 20%. A piano is 3%, because of the total volume of the product the ivory keys are 3%. There are a few instruments, such as accordions, that will get into the double digits, but nearly 99.99% will come under 20%. It will not be a problem in the percentage; it will be the article 10 provisions that you have to—
You would think a light would go on in the head with a piano, because everyone knows that the keys are made of ivory. As David mentioned, if you have a smaller instrument in which a tiny bit of the bow is made of ivory, the issue is how that is even flagged up.
David Webster: It is difficult. You might find that on a banjo, for example, the fret board has a bit of ivory on it, or the tuning peg. As far as registration is concerned, the Bill refers to a fee for registering the instrument, to be set by the Secretary of State. We would ask that the fee be waived for professional musicians, who generally do not earn a large amount of money. They might spend many years doing various jobs, but they do not earn a huge pot. Their major investment is their instrument, and we would not want to see them pay a large fee to register it in order to be able to trade it.
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David Webster: It is not in the Bill. It is “as prescribed” by the Secretary of State.
No ballpark fee?
Paul McManus: A CITES article 10 is normally about £30, but the registration might be separate from that.
David Webster: These are working musicians and the instruments are the tools of their trade. It is an important distinction. This exemption is welcome because it really does recognise that these are working instruments, tools of the trade, and a cultural heritage as well as what the musician needs in order to do their job on the world-class platforms we have in the UK.
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David Webster: I think it would cause a problem for musicians, yes. If there was a total ban on selling instruments online, you would have to travel in order to have face-to-face consultations. Musicians generally know what they are selling when they sell their instruments. An online sale facilitates musician-to-musician instrument selling, and an online ban would not help at all as far as our members are concerned.
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Paul McManus: Yes, and the problem is that the minute you say something cannot be done online, people get around it. You can buy a gun bag on eBay with a free gift inside it, because you cannot sell guns on eBay. People will get around it. David is right; a lot of musicians need to talk to other musicians around the world about their products. If it has been promised to a guy in America for 10 years, it will be done online.
David Webster: If it is a serious sale, they will be able to see it online and pay for it online, but they might want to actually try it out. When you buy an instrument, it is not just the instrument; it is also the ergonomic feel within the body and the tonal quality. Collectors might want to buy online and that would affect them, but the professional musician will always play the instrument before purchasing it.
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Paul McManus: There are a few, and they come under antiques. We saw a lute that had nearly solid ivory plating over the whole thing, but that was pre-1947. It dated back to the 1800s.
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Dr Boström: We already have an opinions service, which is a public-facing service. Each curatorial department, on the first Tuesday of the month, has a public opinion session. We would certainly be able to offer the service through that. Whether a more robust service beyond that is needed, and what that might be, is one of the discussions that is on the table, I think.
Hartwig Fischer: In view of the importance of what the Bill addresses, I think provision should be made for those experts to give expert advice. There is an investment of time and expertise that should be covered, because it is during working hours.
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Anthony Misquitta: As museums, we are not in the business of selling. We are not really entitled to sell. Once an item enters the collection of a museum, that is normally it. The term we use is de-accession and we have very narrow powers to de-accede. Certainly, once it is in the collection, we are not in the market to then sell it back into private ownership. Normally—99.9% of the time, and probably more than that—when it enters a museum’s collection, that is it forever.
What about acquisition?
Anthony Misquitta: An example could be a musical instrument with more than 20% ivory content, of which we have some. We have some that are almost 100% ivory.
Dr Boström: Or a piece of furniture.
Anthony Misquitta: Or potentially a piece of post-1918 art deco furniture, for example, that is of significant cultural value.
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Hartwig Fischer: I would be very surprised if any of those institutions breached the law. We have extremely strict procedures in place for due diligence on provenance. Before any object enters our collection, it goes through many filters and is closely monitored. My understanding is that it would be exceedingly difficult for any of these institutions to do this. It is unlikely that something like this would happen inadvertently. It would be most exceptional for something like this to happen. I am very confident that these institutions are extremely conscientious when it comes to acquiring objects.
Anthony Misquitta: There is a very strict accreditation regime for museums in this country. Accreditation is by Arts Council England. Where a museum falls foul of those very strict rules, it loses its accreditation and that is catastrophic. It loses its Government indemnity scheme, it is unable to loan to or receive loans from other museums, and its charitable status is thrown into jeopardy. There are a number of checks and balances in the accreditation regime.
I will not say that museums never break the rules, because it is a very tough climate for museums—not the likes of the museums before you, but it is a difficult period for regional museums. Sometimes they are faced with the stark option of selling an item or closing, for example. They might sell an item and run the risk of losing their accreditation, but it is not something that they would do lightly and it is devastating if they do.
It may be necessary for the Arts Council to think about adding reference to this legislation to its accreditation tests.