Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords]

Matthew Offord Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a perfectly valid point and I agree with him. The art market is determined and supports the Bill. The last thing it wants is for this country to become a place where people can deal in unlawfully exported objects. It is worth bearing in mind that the market is hugely competitive and the third biggest in the world—it was worth something like £9 billion in sales in 2014. I would not like to see it inadvertently put at a disadvantage compared with other markets around the globe. I hope the Government bear that in mind. As I have said, I very much welcome their commitment.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Whittingdale]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have finished my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the former Minister. I am sure he recalls the many occasions I asked him about this very issue. He did tell me, in answer to a written question, that he intended to legislate as soon as possible, so he will be pleased that this day has now come. The Bill is very important not only for this country but for the protection of cultural property worldwide. We need to play our part to safeguard the centuries-old cultural and religious heritage of the world.

The UK is the only member of the UN Security Council that has not yet ratified the convention. The Bill seeks to change that. Ratification would be an important step towards the UK becoming the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to have ratified both the convention and its protocols. I am very pleased about that.

I am aware that the Opposition, when in government, published the draft Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill in 2008. Many of us regretted that that Bill was not passed then. As the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), said, the Labour Government simply ran out of time, and I am pleased that Labour supports this Bill. Back in January, I called on the Leader of the House to bring forward the Bill in the Queen’s Speech and I am pleased the Government have chosen to do so.

The destruction of cultural capital is a powerful propaganda tool and is part of a long history of demoralising communities. The Opposition spokesman mentioned the Nineveh period, but I have to say that in this country the Vikings started it. Recently, in Syria, we have seen the continued destruction of places such as Palmyra. Indeed, the Bill has been introduced as a result of that continuing catastrophe. It is, however, not the first catastrophe to have taken place.

The Government say that the Bill will ensure that the UK can act, and be seen to act, legitimately according to international law in response to such crises. Baroness Neville-Rolfe said in the other place that the Bill will mean that a UK national who is fighting with Daesh in Syria can be prosecuted in relation to

“theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property”.

I do not quite share her confidence. I recently wrote to the Home Office to ask how many UK nationals had travelled overseas to engage in terrorist activity and had subsequently returned to the United Kingdom. In response I was told that

“around 850 linked individuals have travelled to engage in the conflict since it began, and just under half of those have returned.”

I went on to ask how many people had been charged with terrorism offences committed overseas on their return to the UK in each of the last three years, and was told:

“The number of individuals suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism or criminal matters who are arrested and then formally charged is recorded and collated in the Home Office Quarterly Statistical Bulletin which was last published on 22 September 2016. These statistics do not disaggregate arrests, charges and convictions relating exclusively to overseas returnees.”

So the answer is that the Home Office does not know. I am not sure how it would be possible to identify a UK national fighting with Daesh in Syria and prosecute them in relation to

“theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property”

when the police are not able to prosecute jihadis returning from Syria.

The Bill is particularly important to me because it is very important to a large number of my constituents. Cyprus has witnessed its cultural and religious heritage fall prey to the policy of pillage, destruction and desecration instituted after the illegal invasion of the island in 1974, and during the subsequent and continuing occupation. Churches, chapels, monasteries, archaeological sites, libraries, museums and private collections of religious art and antiquities in the occupied areas of Cyprus have been systematically looted. The art treasure market of the entire world has for years been flooded with Cypriot antiquities from the occupied part of Cyprus. Sculptures, ceramics, figurines, statuettes, tools, weapons, frescoes, religious paintings and other works of art from Cyprus are routinely found at auction houses around the world, in particular here in London. I sought to intervene on my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) to gently remind him that London is not only a centre of antiquities; it is likely to be a significant place for illegal antiquities, too. Research undertaken by The Guardian found the illegal market to be flooded with antiquities, and there are various reasons why the Government have not been able to stop it.

Since the 1974 invasion of Cyprus, 77 churches have been converted into mosques after being stripped of all icons and church furnishings. The others have been pillaged, destroyed, used as stables, warehouses, garages, arsenals, mortuaries, hotels, art galleries and night clubs or simply abandoned to their fate. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and I know this very well, having visited many of these locations. That number, however, does not include 50 sacred buildings whose condition is still not known because they are located in zones under direct military control, and others that have been demolished. Numerous archaeological sites in the area have not escaped theft and despoliation either.

Other reasons for alarm are the removal and selling of mosaics, frescoes and thousands of icons, which are now practically lost in the international market of smuggled art works. This phenomenon is unfortunately common to many areas of the middle east, as they experience war and conflict. One of the more clamorous examples is the church of Panagia Kanakaria, which held a work of art of inestimable value. Its apsidal mosaic from the Justinian period was one of the few images in the eastern Mediterranean that had survived the fury of the iconoclasts. In 1979, it was removed, stolen and broken up. It represented Christ in the arms of the Virgin seated on a throne, surrounded by the archangels Michael and Gabriel and thirteen medallions with the faces of Christ and the apostles. Four pieces re-emerged in Europe in 1988. A Turkish art dealer, Aydin Dikmen, offered them to the American antique dealer Peggy Goldberg, who in turn offered them to the Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. The museum was savvy enough to realise there was something wrong and went to the American authorities. I am pleased to say that these pieces have now been returned and can be seen in the Byzantium museum in Nicosia, which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate and I have also visited. That is just one example of destruction and illegal sale. At this point, I would like to congratulate my constituent Dortos Partasides on his work documenting churches on the island. His invaluable work documents the destruction that has occurred over many years.

Returning to the Bill, London is one of the world’s largest antiquities markets and is considered a natural destination for looted goods. There have been UNESCO conventions on antiquities since 1970. At the beginning of the year, the UN Security Council banned trade in artefacts illegally removed from Syria since 2011 and from Iraq since 1990 in an effort to stop the funding of terrorism groups. Enforcement in countries such as Syria is near impossible for obvious reasons, but in the destination countries, including the United Kingdom, it is up to law enforcers to establish when those objects left conflict zones.

Just as I am concerned about the prosecution of theft and vandalism of cultural artefacts, I am concerned about how the Government intend to legislate on what constitutes “an illegal antiquity”. A common practice by smugglers is to claim that an antiquity has been in their family for a long time, and so it could not have been smuggled. They also sometimes say, “I bought it at auction, and there is no paper trail.” Or they could say it came from a private collection in Jordan or Lebanon a couple of years ago. How do the Government propose to prove that any of these treasures were smuggled out during a conflict?

That said, I support the Bill, which will greatly assist in not only tackling further looting, but ensuring that stolen property such as that stolen from Cyprus will be returned to its legal and rightful owners, because it will make it an offence to deal with cultural property that has been illegally exported from territory occupied during an armed conflict and it will provide powers for the forfeiture or seizure of such cultural property.