Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to ratify the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols.

The Government, along with the British Red Cross, has pledged to facilitate the UK's ratification of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and believes ratification of the Convention and its two Protocols will strengthen our commitment to the protection of our own heritage, and highlight our respect for the cultural property of other nations. However, as yet it has not been possible to secure the parliamentary time needed to pass the relevant legislation.