Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, I have listened with great interest to the discussion on this important Bill, introduced by my noble friend Lord Sherbourne, and I speak on behalf of the Government in support of it today. Yes, it is a short Bill, but I have a bit to say about it.

I join my noble friend and other noble Lords in congratulating my right honourable friend Theresa Villiers and many others in the other place on enabling the Bill to reach this point. It enjoyed strong cross-party support in that place. I trust that your Lordships will agree that, as my noble friend Lord Polak said, the issue that the Bill seeks to address cuts across all political and other divides and unites us in our determination to bring justice to the families of those who suffered persecution and loss.

The widespread and systematic seizure of cultural property in territories occupied by, or under the control of, the Nazis and their allies has, for over half a century, been recognised in international declarations as warranting particular recognition and deserving special treatment. The scale of forced transfer of cultural property under the Nazi regime was unprecedented. Figures regarding the scale of the loss can be only speculative. However, it has been estimated that between 1933 and 1945 some 650,000 works of art were stolen from their rightful owners. Although the majority of these were not of museum quality, a small number found their way into national collections across Europe.

Most of what was taken were paintings of the type owned by successful, but perhaps not extremely wealthy, families, domestic silver and household artefacts, and books and religious items. We hear a lot about Old Masters and similar prized works of art seized from the wealthiest collectors or most successful dealers, but in fact they make up only a fraction of the numerically more significant theft.

Such was the scale of the looting that took place that, as early as 1943, 16 countries, including the UK, signed a declaration committing them to do everything in their power to halt the theft of cultural objects in territory under enemy occupation or control. In that same year, the allies established the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives programme to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. A group of approximately 400 service members and civilians, mostly from the US and the UK, came to be known as the Monuments Men, as your Lordships will remember, and they were based at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. They worked with military forces to safeguard historic and cultural monuments from war damage and, as the conflict came to a close, to find and return works of art and other items of cultural importance that had been stolen by the Nazis or hidden for safekeeping. My noble friend Lord Pickles emphasised that, in addition to their terrible crimes, the Nazis were involved in systematic theft, or perhaps we should call it systemic theft. He is right.

For almost 50 years after World War II, as people focused on rebuilding their lives, the implications of the loss of cultural assets received little attention from the international community. Little research was done and claimants were left to continue their search alone. However, with the end of the Cold War, new archival sources became available and the subject of Nazi-looted art was given new attention. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked about co-operation and I will say a little about that.

In more recent times, international awareness has continued to grow. The 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets saw a consensus reached on a number of non-binding principles with respect to Nazi-confiscated art. These principles highlighted the need to identify art that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted, to publicise this information and to encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for resolving ownership disputes. The conference recognised the need to reach a fair and just solution in such cases.

Compared with other European countries, very little looted art found its way to the UK during and after the end of World War II. Of course, that is no excuse for complacency, and since then our national museums have undertaken detailed research of their respective collections to identify any objects with an uncertain history dating back to the years 1933 to 1945. This research is held on a recently upgraded online database, which is actively maintained by editors from the 47 contributing UK museums, and it is co-ordinated by the Collections Trust.

National museum directors also established a working group in 1998 to examine the issues surrounding the spoliation of art during the Nazi era and to draw up a statement of principles and proposed actions for member institutions. That has recently been updated. In 2000, the Government established the Spoliation Advisory Panel to provide advice to claimants and institutions on what might be a fair and reasonable outcome in response to a claim. Since its establishment, the panel has advised on 20 claims, and 13 cultural objects have been returned. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, that is indeed a low figure. The resolving of a dispute is never an easy matter and, by its nature, the process invariably leaves one of the parties disappointed. Despite that, the Spoliation Advisory Panel’s advice and method of operation is widely respected here and internationally, and I would like to thank the members of the panel for their excellent work.

As we have heard, in its early years, the Spoliation Advisory Panel was unable to recommend the return of a cultural object, even where it found that the family had a strong moral claim to it. This was because of statutory restrictions preventing national museums from removing items from their collections except in a very small number of instances. In such cases, the panel’s only available option at that time was to recommend compensation or an ex-gratia payment.

The Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009 allows 17 national institutions in the UK to return items lost during the Nazi era where this follows a recommendation by the panel and the Secretary of State agrees. The legislation recognised the fact that the Nazi era is unique in the scale and nature of the loss and the fact that it represented a systematic campaign to eradicate a whole people and their culture. The 2009 legislation was subject to exacting scrutiny and was significantly amended and clarified during its passage through Parliament. It is compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998.

Since the Act was introduced, five cultural objects have been returned under the legislation. It represents a major change in the way that claims for items in national collections are resolved, and allows the families of those who were unfairly deprived of their property to have it returned. It is not difficult to imagine how important that can be for the families; the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, spoke about this. There is no comfort that can be given for the loss of family members and the knowledge of their suffering, but the return of personal possessions, of which artwork is just one form, can offer some small connection and personal bond with those who perished.

I listened with care to the short anecdotes from my noble friend Lord Pickles. I would like to offer a quote from a family who successfully recovered some paintings lost during the war. It is not, by the way, related to a case considered by the Spoliation Advisory Panel, but it illustrates the point well:

“The return of our family’s paintings continues to fascinate, shock, elate, sadden, enrich and change our lives. It is hard to express how much this means to us”.


It may also be helpful if I provide a short case study on how the 2009 Act has been used in one of the five cases that I mentioned. In 2014, the Spoliation Advisory Panel considered a claim for the return of an oil painting, “Beaching a Boat, Brighton”, by no less a man than John Constable, in the possession of the Tate. The panel concluded that the painting was owned by a Hungarian art collector in 1944 and was most likely looted when the German army invaded Budapest in March of that year. In their statement of case to the panel, the claimants described how the painting was of particular significance to their family from a sentimental and emotional point of view. It was reported that the original owner and his family had,

“suffered grievously during the German and Soviet occupations of Hungary; they lost all their possessions, while several members of the family were subjected to acts of violence because of their Jewish ancestry. Some family members were murdered in Hungary by antisemites or murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau … The restitution of the Painting would thus constitute a significant act of symbolic reparation to the family for the sufferings it was forced to endure during the war because of its Jewish origin”.

The panel recommended that the painting should be returned to the claimants in accordance with the provisions of the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009. The return of the painting was delayed to allow the carrying out of further research following the discovery of an export licence for the work from 1946. However, in 2015, the panel issued a further report, updating its earlier advice and confirming that the work should be returned. The painting has since been returned to the claimants.

The problem that the Bill seeks to correct is that the 2009 Act contains a sunset clause, which means that the legal powers are due to expire on 11 November this year. After that date, the institutions named in the legislation will no longer be able to return works of art to Holocaust survivors or to the families of those who perished in the genocide. The Bill would keep the legislation on the statute book by repealing Section 4(7), thus removing the sunset clause, as many noble Lords have said.

At the time of the 2009 Act, the Government considered that a time limit of 10 years would be a reasonable one for people to come forward with claims and for museums to have made significant progress in carrying out provenance research on works with gaps in their history during the Nazi era. It was described in Parliament as a safeguard allowing for a re-examination of the case. The Government made it clear at an international spoliation conference held in London in September 2017 that it remains an absolute imperative to correct the wrongs that took place during the Nazi era when it comes to cultural objects lost in such circumstances. This principle is not affected by the passage of time; arguably, the need is strengthened as memories start to fade.

Furthermore, although much information is available on the internet about the provenance of items in national collections, the completion of reports by national institutions into items with incomplete provenance during the relevant period is an ongoing task. As such, potential claimants may still be unaware of the location of any objects that used to be in the possession of their families. This was a strong and moving theme raised in the speech by my noble friend Lord Wasserman.

It is also worth bearing in mind that, owing to limitation laws, claimants are unlikely to be able to pursue a legal claim for the return of their property through the courts. That is because the Limitation Act 1939 extinguishes the title of the person from whom an object was unlawfully taken after six years. Referral to the Spoliation Advisory Panel is, in nearly all cases, the sole remaining route for pursuing the return of objects lost during the Nazi era. So I think we can be clear that while the approach taken at the time to the duration of the powers was reasonable, there are now very good reasons for applying an indefinite extension, and I reassure my noble friend Lord Polak that “indefinite” means just that.

The 2009 Act has worked well during its nine years on the statute book, resolving cases in a fair and balanced way, but, as we have heard, there is still much work to do. Earlier this year the Government announced that they had joined four European countries in forming a new network to increase international co-operation on identifying and returning works of art looted during the Nazi era, a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, might take note of. Those countries—Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands—have not set an end date for the consideration of claims, and I hope this House will agree that there are very good reasons why we should do the same.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, asked what due diligence procedures museums normally follow. He may know that museums are required to undertake due diligence into the provenance of items that they acquire or borrow. DCMS’s guidelines, Combating Illicit Trade: Due Diligence Guidelines for Museums, Libraries and Archives on Collecting and Borrowing Cultural Material, which I think is a pamphlet, set out guidance on procedures that should be followed in relation to loans and acquisitions. Due diligence undertaken by museums may include visits to the lender to discuss the objects concerned, taking expert advice on any items that have a potentially uncertain ethical status, checks with the Art Loss Register and obtaining warranties from lenders regarding their ownership of the items concerned.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked why the decision was taken in 2009 to undertake a sunset clause. I have probably answered that but I will say that at the time, the 10-year limit was considered to be right, bearing in mind the time of its coming into force—that is, 69 to 70 years from the end of the war in Europe. It was thought that that would be a reasonable time for people to come forward with claims. Clearly, that was not the case, and I am pleased again to emphasise that we have made the time period indefinite.

I conclude by making a few comments about the Holocaust Memorial, as it was mentioned by my noble friends Lord Polak and Lord Pickles and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. As the House will know, the UK Holocaust Memorial will be dedicated to the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust, and all other victims of the Nazis and their collaborators. It will honour and remember all victims and survivors of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, and educate future generations on the importance of fighting prejudice and persecution in all its forms.

To give just a little bit of background, the designs were first unveiled in October 2017 and have since undergone further development through much discussion with Holocaust experts, survivors and other victims groups, local residents, Westminster City Council, Historic England, Royal Parks and other statutory consultees. The UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation has also worked closely with other organisations and experts on the contents and approach. I believe that the proposals have been developed with great sensitivity to the existing context and character of Victoria Tower Gardens. The vast majority of the park’s green space will be retained and enhanced. Views over Parliament and the River Thames will be improved, with a range of accessible seating and a new boardwalk along the Embankment. I realise that this particular news is not in favour with everybody, but I wanted to give a little bit of information and detail.

That is really all I want to say. I therefore urge the House to support the Bill.