Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill (First sitting)

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David? I thank all Members present for agreeing to serve on the Committee.

This is a simple two-clause Bill with a simple objective: to retain on the statute book the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009. Section 4(7) of that statute is a sunset clause, and means that the legislation will cease to apply after 11 November this year. Clause 1 of the Bill would repeal section 4(7) and thus leave the 2009 Act to continue in operation indefinitely. This private Member’s Bill enjoyed strong cross-party support when it was introduced as a ten-minute rule Bill and on Second Reading. No amendments have been tabled.

For the following reasons, I hope the Committee will feel able to support the passage of Bill to Report and Third Reading on Friday 15 March. The 2009 Act was introduced as a private Member’s Bill by Andrew Dismore, the then Member of Parliament for Hendon. Mr Dismore was noted for talking out many such Bills, but thankfully on that occasion he was strongly supportive. He was backed by both sides of the House, and by the other place. His legislation allows 17 UK national museums and other institutions listed in section 1 to return cultural property lost, seized or stolen during the Nazi era to its rightful owners. Those institutions include the British Museum, the British Library and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Property can be returned following a recommendation by the Spoliation Advisory Panel, with the agreement of the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. That panel of experts was established in 2000 by the Government to advise on claims for cultural objects lost or stolen during the Nazi era. It formed part of the follow-up to the historic Washington conference, where 44 Governments pledged to redouble and renew their efforts to return cultural property removed during that era, defined as 1933 to 1945.

Until the 2009 Act became law, certain national institutions were unable to give effect to a recommendation to return an object, because their governing legislation prevented them from transferring ownership of items in their collection, except in very narrow, specified circumstances. An example of that kind of legal constraint can be found in section 5 of the British Museum Act 1963.

Clause 2 covers territorial scope and commencement. The 2009 Act and the Bill both extend to England, Wales and Scotland, but not to Northern Ireland. A number of the institutions specified in section 1 of the 2009 Act are located in Scotland. I am pleased to inform the Committee that a legislative consent motion has been passed by the Scottish Parliament in relation to the Bill, and I am very grateful to the devolved Government for their support. None of the institutions covered by the 2009 Act is located in Wales or Northern Ireland, so no legislative consent motion is necessary from those parts of the United Kingdom.

Although much information is available about the items held in our national art collections, research into the provenance of items that changed hands during the Nazi era is ongoing, and potential claimants may still be unaware of the location of objects that used to be in the possession of their families. I also emphasise that the narrow and specific nature of the 2009 Act means that it has not had a destabilising effect on collections held in our national museums, with only a modest number of cases being determined under its provisions, and nor has this narrowly drawn piece of legislation had an impact on wider debates about the potential return of cultural objects to their countries of origin. There is widespread acceptance that the horror of the holocaust and the systematic attempt to wipe out an entire race and its culture make it a unique case that justifies a unique response.

There is significant support for retention of the 2009 Act among the museum community. For example, Sir Nicholas Serota, the former director of the Tate Gallery, has said:

“In recent years, new claims have become less frequent, but there is a strong moral case to remove the ‘sunset’ clause that provides for a time limit on cases being considered. It is important that potential claimants should not feel that the door is being slammed in their face.”

The Government expressed support for keeping the legislation on the statute book at the London spoliation conference in September 2017, and that announcement was warmly received. The Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which does excellent work in this area, has also given its backing to the legislation that is under consideration today.

I hope I have been able to outline clearly how this two-clause Bill will operate and why it should be supported today. In closing, I reflect on Second Reading, when hon. Members spoke movingly about the important reasons they had for supporting the Bill. A number of them made the point that, in addition to the appalling mass murder that took place, the Nazi persecution of Jewish people involved a deliberate and systematic attempt to wipe out all trace of Jewish culture. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) put it:

“We must remember that the goal of the Nazis was not just to murder their victims, but to annihilate all trace of them…They did not just murder those who were living; they demolished cemeteries, burned down synagogues and sought to erase the entire culture from Europe. That is why it is so important that where these artefacts are preserved and retained, they are returned, so that they can be exhibited and be shown by families again as a reminder of what once existed.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 562.]

I believe that provides a powerful summary of why this Bill is needed, and I close my remarks, as I did on Second Reading, by quoting a family involved in this type of case. One family seeking restoration of property told the Commission for Looted Art:

“Whether it’s a painting or a book or a porcelain jar, every object represents the life and lives that were lost. Their restitution restores a personal connection, a link with those lives so utterly transformed or destroyed by the Nazis. Hitler’s project was to erase the Jews from history. But by recovering objects and documenting their owners, restitution also returns those people to their families and to the historical record.”

There is no justification for applying an arbitrary time limit to the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009. That legislation has worked well and it is still needed, and I commend this Bill to the Committee.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

As we all know, the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year was being “Torn from home”. In the speech I made that day, I took the opportunity to speak about the way the Nazis’ attacks on Jewish people began slowly and escalated painfully. The attacks on lives were harrowing, because each new law, each new confiscation and each new theft of property was compounded by the awful, awful events that followed. We talked about how being torn from home was about the destruction of a whole way of life and a whole culture.

Of course, what was lost can never really be recovered, but we have a duty to respect, to remember and to understand that history, and to keep those memories alive. That takes a lot of work. Tragically, it is important to say that that work has never been more important than it is today. Each year, we lose more survivors of the holocaust—people of exemplary courage, resilience and moral fortitude who have suffered so much. We lose those who have taught us so much about not only the horrors they were subjected to but the ways in which the disease of antisemitism spreads: through lies and conspiracy, through baseless and manipulative accusations of disloyalty, and through an insidious, creeping and escalating dehumanisation of a people.

In recent years, we have seen a sharp rise in antisemitism across Europe, at home in our communities and, tragically, in our political parties. On the Friday we discussed this excellent Bill, other hon. Members mentioned the Community Security Trust, a group that I admire and thank. It has provided me with so much personal support in the work I have done over the years on community cohesion. The trust has released its report on antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2018, in which it has recorded a massive 1,652 incidents. That is the highest annual figure on record—more than 100 incidents every single month. I can only imagine how scary that must be.

We must all redouble our efforts to reject the politics of fear, division and conspiracy. As the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said better than I, that change starts here, and it continues with this Bill. In that spirit, we are expecting to have a new holocaust memorial near Westminster in 2022, and like other hon. Members here today, I hope it will be very near here. The Imperial War Museum is due to open a new permanent holocaust gallery in 2021, which I also warmly welcome.

Returning stolen cultural objects wherever possible is an important part of this project. Returning artworks and cultural objects is not just about undoing the past but about recognising it and, frankly, about justice. Millions of people had their lives and their futures stolen by the holocaust, but we must remember that property was stolen too, and tens of thousands of objects stolen at that time are likely to remain hidden. Ultimately, we do not know how many cultural objects stolen and looted from the Jewish community by the Nazis are still in collections here or how many have not been returned within the lifetime of the 2009 Act so far.

That is why it is absolutely right that the Act is extended by this important Bill. The destruction wielded by the holocaust was intended to destroy a culture, a history and all the rich memories of that culture, that history and that people. For those who have lost family, the testimonies show what an important emotional experience it can be to have possessions returned to them. It is right that the named 17 institutions are able to make these experiences possible, as I am sure they will all want to.

In my final remarks, I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, who has spoken so passionately and articulately about this Bill, for her tireless work on this issue. We must all ensure that what was stolen and can still be returned is returned, and we must create every single chance for some fragments of justice—however small in comparison with the enormous injustice of the holocaust—to be done.

[Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)]

I want to speak briefly, partly to put on record my thanks and the thanks of the Jewish community in East Renfrewshire to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for bringing this Bill forward.

More than 50% of Scotland’s Jewish community live in East Renfrewshire, and I can say without hesitation that this Bill has their unequivocal support. The local Jewish community strongly opposed the sunset clause when it was first introduced, partly for the reasons explored in today’s debate. It is no surprise that claims are still coming forward only sporadically; given that some holocaust survivors have only recently found living family members, it is hardly surprising that it has taken longer and been harder to find objects that were in their families’ possession.

There is a worry that if holocaust survivors or their heirs were prevented from having property restored to them simply because they became aware of an object’s continued existence and location only after several decades, we would be doing a huge disservice to all those who lost their lives in the holocaust. As was explored by the hon. Member for West Ham, a completely arbitrary time bar entrenches one aspect of the holocaust in perpetuity. Property was stolen, expropriated, forced to be sold or transferred under duress, with the sole intention of destroying any memory of the Jews, their culture and their history. Being able to continue to return property is a very small part of what is a hugely important process for our Jewish communities.