Introduction and the Import of Cultural Goods (Revocation) Regulations 2021

Lord German Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, the objective of this legislation is to replace the EU regulations in so far as they have been operated by the UK prior to us leaving the EU with the existing laws that are already in place. They will, as the Explanatory Memorandum says, be primarily aimed at the 2003 legislation, as it states in paragraph 7.5.3:

“The principal domestic legislation relating to the illicit trade … is the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003”.


Like the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I believe that deficiencies are left by the process that we currently see. They fall into three areas: the geographical scope, which I will come to in a moment; weakened regulation over the requirement to be vigilant; and the loss of potential international reputation and data sharing.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in looking at this matter, raised three issues on which it seemed to have got agreement from the department that there are problems with this legislation. The first is that the revocation of the EU regulation by this instrument could potentially weaken the legal prohibition currently provided by Article 3.1. The second is that the UK needs to do more to prevent the import into the UK of cultural goods that have been stolen, looted and/or unlawfully exported from other countries. The third is that there could be a perception that we are watering down our commitment to protect cultural property from illicit trade, which we will need to counter robustly. Those, roughly, are the three areas that I will cover and question the Minister on.

On the geographic scope, given that the primary piece of legislation is that 2003 legislation—not a weighty document; it takes up only a small number of pages—the last paragraph of that Act of Parliament, Section 6(3), says:

“This Act does not extend to Scotland.”


My first question is therefore: if these are devolved powers to Scotland—I suspect they are not—what legislation is in place from the Scottish Parliament to cover that gap? If this legislation, which is the primary legislation that the Government are falling back on, does not apply in Scotland, what is there to replace it? Clearly, I do not suggest this will happen, but these goods could be imported through Scotland and then even passed on to Northern Ireland or to other parts of the United Kingdom.

The second issue is Northern Ireland itself. The UK Government declared on 8 December 2020 that the regulation would be fully implemented in Northern Ireland, as I believe the Minister said in his opening. However, the government website currently states that Article 3.1 applies in Northern Ireland but that the Government do not intend to change the way they handle the import of cultural goods. There is a direct contradiction between what the Minister has explained to us today and what the Government have on their website. Northern Ireland cannot comply with its obligations and fail to change the way it handles the import of cultural objects. We need an explanation of that if we are to follow through and understand what the resultant revocation of these regulations means.

The second area of concern is weakened legislation. Article 3.1 of the European legislation significantly widened the scope of applicable cultural property and would apply in the UK today if we had kept it and moved forward with it. The scope of the objects concerned is wider, which reflects the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. However, the date threshold at which an object is considered illicit is longer and varies according to the country of origin of the object. The regulation itself places obligations on authorities to put measures in place to restrict import rather than creating a criminal offence for the individual knowingly dealing in tainted objects, which of course is in the 2003 legislation.

I will give an example of that, which I am grateful to Blue Shield United Kingdom for giving to us. Prior to Article 3.1 coming into force, it would not have been illegal to import into the UK an Egyptian cultural object simply because it had been illegally exported—but not necessarily stolen—from Egypt in 2000, despite Egypt having enacted national legislation. Article 3.1 has an impact. It requires that customs authorities permit the import of this Egyptian object only if it was legally exported from Egypt post 1983, which of course is 20 years in advance of the 2003 legislation, or if the importer can demonstrate that it was exported prior to the Egyptian law banning export. There is a danger and a perception that the legislation will be weaker than what we would have had before the revocation of the EU law.

The third area, of course, is that of potential loss of international reputation. This is significant, because there will be inevitable criticism for the way in which the UK Government have gone about this. We will have been clearly put in a position where there are deficiencies in our current legislation, and where the European legislation is providing a better and broader understanding of what needs to be done and is more up to date. There is no change proposed to the UK legislation—and, if any is proposed, surely it would have been better to consider these matters together rather than separately.

The third point is what the EU legislation proposed—the use of an electronic system for a centralised database to be shared between EU member states so that people can easily track and follow goods that are particularly concerning or worrying. Will we have the opportunity to be part of that electronic database, or at least have access to it? Clearly, it will provide a safeguard that would be helpful going forward and it would protect us a little bit from having our international reputation chipped away at.

The way the Government have done this has left us with a shoddy mess of inadequate and conflicting law that will damage our reputation worldwide. There is a need for extra actions to be taken. It may have been better to try to amend the legislation; revoking it without looking at the consequent legislation that we are left with seems inappropriate and certainly not helpful to our reputation. It will give the impression of a reduction in the scale of protection in the objectives that we have set out ourselves and which are in the EU legislation, as well as those that lie behind it. Overall, it is not a helpful position for us; it would have been far better to have done this in a more comprehensive manner.