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12.52 pm
The Minister of State, Department of National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat): I begin by saying how grateful we are to my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire (Sir A. Grant). He decently and properly paid tribute to those who have done so much in the past. It is worth placing on the record the fact that, traditionally, this sort of Bill is not easy to get through Parliament, for all sorts of technical parliamentary reasons. My hon. Friend mentioned the Bill introduced by Lord Perth and said that it had foundered because of a lack of parliamentary time.
I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend on his handling of the problem relating to metal detectorists. There was a great deal of misunderstanding about how the Bill could affect them. Time after time, my hon. Friend has made himself available to speak to and reassure them. Now, with his final--I hope and presume--declaration that the Bill will in no way harm metal detectorists, I am sure that the fear among that fraternity can be laid to rest. It is a tribute to my hon. Friend that he has managed to take a potentially problematic part of the Bill through the House without contention.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove(Mr. Thomason) raised a couple of important points with which I will deal later. More generally, the question whether bronze should be included is being considered. In fact, if the Secretary of State finds that certain classes of objects should be added, he will have the power to do so by order--by affirmative resolution, I think.
My hon. Friend was also concerned that somebody would find a hoard, part of a hoard or an object of value and not declare that within the 14 days specified in the Bill, thereby being in breach of the law. My hon. Friend can be reassured that written into our previous debates, both in the Chamber and in Committee, was the provision that any reasonable excuse--such as, "I didn't realise it was an ancient bit of a sword," or, "This was part of a hoard of valuable coins"--will be taken into account, no doubt under Pepper v. Hart or whatever, by the courts. Although my hon. Friend can be reasonably sure that both his points will be covered, I shall deal with them in rather more detail shortly.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central(Mr. Fisher) made an important point on portable antiquities. The reason why I might take slightly longer to address this point than my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire did is that, although the Bill is important, it is only one part of the Government's strategy, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged by implication.
It is extremely important that, on Third Reading,I explain the Government's view--as opposed to my hon. Friend's view of his Bill--as outlined in the portable antiquities document which, as the House knows, we published in February and on which we are consulting until, I think, the end of next month, given all the points that were raised in Committee on whether such and such an object would have to be reported, how we would ensure that we have a record of the provenance of various discovered objects, and how all such points are taken into account.
I should like to respond to two points that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire raised: first, the criticism that the Bill does not go far enough, and, secondly, the question of rewards, which was a matter of great concern to hon. Members on Second Reading. I know that the Country Landowners Association has raised it again.
My hon. Friend mentioned the concerns of the National Art Collections Fund that the scope of the Bill is too restricted. In order to answer that very important point, it might be helpful if I explained to the House the proposals set out in our recently published discussion document on portable antiquities, since it is vital to realise that the initiative complements the Bill.
The Government believe that it is important to distinguish between two quite separate aspects of the problem: the public acquisition of finds, and the recording of them. Treasure trove, in effect, gives museums the right of first refusal to certain finds, providing that they can find the money to pay full rewards for them. The Bill addresses the anomalies of the archaic law of treasure trove. On the other hand, there is widespread agreement that the reporting of finds, so that they can be properly recorded, is of key importance--more important in some ways, as I am sure my hon. Friend would not mind me saying, than the public acquisition of them.
Understandably, given parliamentary constraints, the Bill will make only limited adjustments to the classes of objects that are legally required to be reported, and there will continue to be no legal requirement to report other important categories of find. For that reason, we have published a discussion document on portable antiquities, which contains proposals for a voluntary scheme for the recording of all archaeological objects found in England and Wales.
The Government accept that the present arrangements for the recording of portable antiquities are, on the whole, not working well and that there is an urgent need for action to record such objects, as they are irreplaceable and of great importance to the nation's heritage.
We believe that portable antiquities are important for two main reasons: intrinsically, for what they tell us about the people who made and used them, and as evidence for the existence of hitherto unknown archaeological sites. Unfortunately, much potential knowledge to be gained from finds is lost, because arrangements for their recording vary greatly in quality across the country. Increasing concern is being expressed by archaeologists and others that important archaeological information, arising from the objects themselves or from the opportunity to carry out investigations, is being lost in this way.
We recognise that the great majority of metal detector users practise their hobby responsibly, especially those who belong to clubs affiliated to the National Council for Metal Detecting. Many readily co-operate with museums and archaeologists--a professional opinion can add greatly to the interest of an important find. However, it remains very unsatisfactory that, for the majority of cases, there are no arrangements--formal or otherwise--for finds to be recorded. The Department believes that the excellent arrangements in place in a few areas provide a pointer to what we should be trying to achieve over time throughout the country.
The document states that, although most archaeological objects are found today with metal detectors, by no means all are. We would therefore need to look at the arrangements for the reporting of archaeological objects, even if metal detectors did not exist. It also states that to deplore the loss to our knowledge caused by the lack of arrangements for the reporting of finds is not a criticism of finders but simply highlights the weakness of the current reporting arrangements.
Just as we have made it clear that the proposed reform of treasure trove will not contain any restrictions on legitimate metal detecting, so our proposals on the recording of archaeological objects will seek to involve metal detectorists as far as possible. Metal detectorists rightly point out that they are responsible for finding most of the archaeological objects that come to light, so the Government hope that they will welcome the opportunity to have their finds recorded more easily than is possible at the moment. Metal detectorists would also, of course, benefit from having their finds identified, and it is worth stressing that the proposals would not in any way extend the rights of museums to acquire finds.
The discussion document looks at the relative merits of voluntary and compulsory systems for the recording of finds. Under a voluntary system, the Government would draw up, in consultation with representatives of museums,
archaeological organisations and metal detectorists, a voluntary scheme for the recording of archaeological objects found in England and Wales.
We believe that, if the scheme is to be effective, it will need to be accompanied by a campaign of education to encourage finders to report their finds. One of the advantages of such an approach is that it would not require primary legislation, so, providing that general agreement for it could be obtained, it could be introduced with the minimum of delay.
A compulsory system, on the other hand, would require primary legislation, and that would cut across the approach behind the Bill. There must also be severe doubts whether a statutory requirement to report all archaeological objects would be effective, given that it is unlikely that there would be a consensus behind such an approach. A recent survey estimated that there are 30,000 metal detectorists finding perhaps 400,000 objects of archaeological significance each year.
Last year, the Council of British Archaeology established a standing conference on portable antiquities, with the aim of bringing together all the leading archaeological and museum bodies to reach a consensus on these issues. At its first meeting last year, the standing conference approved a resolution urging the early reintroduction of the Treasure Bill into Parliament, together with the introduction of a reporting scheme for archaeological artefacts that were outside the scope of the Bill.
I am drawing those two points together so that everyone can understand what we have done, why we are doing it and the time scale within which we are doing it. I believe that the standing conference will acknowledge that considerable progress has been made in both those directions. It had its second meeting on 1 May, to which my Department sent a senior official as an observer, and I have been encouraged to learn that it unanimously backed the idea of a voluntary scheme for the recording of all archaeological objects.
I mention that point to show that there now seems to be a consensus in the archaeological and museum world on the best way forward. There has not always been agreement, and the fact that there is now general support from archaeologists and museum curators for a limited reform of treasure trove, combined with a voluntary recording scheme, means that progress will be that much easier. We should recognise that the new approach means that the archaeological world has moved substantially in favour of a spirit of co-operation with metal detectorists and away from earlier attempts to ban or restrict the activity. I like to think that my Department has helped to move that process along.
I understand that some antiquities dealers have already said that they would welcome a voluntary scheme, but would resist a compulsory scheme. I know from discussions that officials from my Department have had with metal detectorists that they would also participate in a voluntary scheme, but would probably oppose a compulsory one. For those reasons, I believe that there is every likelihood that a voluntary scheme will win general support. Our provisional view is that it would be right initially to go for a voluntary system, while recognising that there might be a need in the long term to move towards a legal requirement if the voluntary system proved to be ineffective.
I stress that those conclusions are only provisional, as the consultation period for the discussion document does not close until the end of June. Nevertheless, I hope that, if agreement is forthcoming, we may be able to take the proposals forward during the autumn. At the same time, we shall also consider how such a scheme might be funded. The House will understand that we felt that it was best to obtain agreement on the principle of a voluntary approach first.
I stress that we view these proposals as being as important in their way as the Treasure Bill. I have set them out in some detail, because I would like to assure the National Art Collections Fund and others that we are giving the issue a high priority.
I now turn to the question of rewards, which my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire mentioned this morning, and which many hon. Members mentioned on Second Reading and in Committee.I believe that the Bill strikes a fair compromise between the interests of finders and landowners, which are not necessarily the same.
I understand that the view has been expressed that the Bill will compulsorily deprive landowners of their property. That is highly misleading. At present, the legal position concerning title to discovered objects that are not treasure trove is very ambiguous, and in recent cases, both finders and landowners have been able to assert their claims.
Under the existing law of treasure trove, any gold or silver objects that were buried with the intention of recovery, and whose owner is unknown, become the property of the Crown. The Bill will widen the number of objects that can be claimed by the Crown only in a very modest way.
The current practice is that the Crown offers treasure troves to museums, which must pay the finder a full reward if they wish to keep them; otherwise, the objects are returned to the finder. At present, landowners are not eligible for rewards under any circumstances--not even if the finder has been trespassing, so long as he has reported his find promptly. Under the Bill, rewards will still be payable when museums wish to acquire treasure, and it will make landowners and occupiers eligible for rewards for the first time. It will also give them the right to be informed of finds of treasure reported to have been made on their land.
The Country Landowners Association, whose support for the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire said, is most welcome, has asked for clarification on how rewards are to be allocated under the Bill. As my hon. Friend said, the CLA is concerned in particular about the possibility of trespassers receiving rewards, Some of the hon. Members who spoke on Second Reading felt that it should be written into the Bill that under no circumstances should trespassers be rewarded.
However, I endorse what my hon. Friend said about the need to retain some discretion in the payment of rewards. In the Department, we know from experience that many of the cases that arise are not straightforward. There is a real risk that a provision stating that under no circumstances would finders who were trespassing be
eligible for rewards, would be a serious disincentive to the reporting of finds. It could therefore drive many finds on to the black market, and possibly lead to their being exported without a licence, which would achieve nothing.
During the Committee stage on Lord Perth's Bill in another place in March 1994, my colleague Lady Trumpington said:
Those are the principles that will guide us.
Detailed guidelines on how the Secretary of State will pay rewards will be set out in the code of practice provided for in clause 11, which will be drawn up in consultation with interested parties--for example, bodies representing landowners, metal detectorists and museums. As a further safeguard, the code will have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament through the affirmative resolution procedure before the Bill can take effect.
Obviously it would be wrong for me to anticipate here what may come out of the consultations on the code of practice. However, I can say that we envisage that landowners and occupiers will be eligible for rewards under certain circumstances--for example, if the finder has clearly been trespassing.
I can reassure the Country Landowners Association that where there is clear evidence that a finder has been intentionally and knowingly trespassing for the purpose of searching for treasure, we would not expect him to be eligible for a reward. However, in the great majority of cases, in which the finder has permission to be on the land, we expect that the Department would comply with any arrangement made between the finder and the landowner over the division of any reward.
Before leaving that part of the Bill, it is important to stress that clause 11(5) does not mean that rewards will routinely be split equally between finders, occupiers and landowners. As I have said, our general approach will be to respect agreements made between finders and landowners. Finders normally make an agreement to split any reward equally with the landowner as a condition for receiving permission to search on their land, and the Government would like to encourage that as an example of good practice.
Before I conclude, I shall remind the House of the main points of the Bill. Its chief purpose is to clarify exactly what type of find should be reported, and what will be classed as treasure. At present, that is unclear, and is the cause of much confusion.
The Bill is therefore essentially a technical measure intended to deal with the worst anomalies of the current law, and to streamline the present rather cumbersome administration of treasure trove cases. However, the Bill's successful passage will have a symbolic importance beyond the significance of its individual provisions, as it will represent the first piece of antiquities legislation ever passed in this country.
The problem with treasure trove, of course, is that it was never intended as an antiquities law. As hon. Members will know by now, only objects made of gold or silver that have been deliberately buried with the intention of recovery and of which the owner is unknown fall within the scope of treasure trove.
There are four main shortcomings of treasure trove. First, many very important single finds that may have been lost rather than buried intentionally, such as the Middleham jewel, are excluded, and many assemblages that have been scattered by ploughing may also fail to qualify if there is no evidence of their having been buried together.
Secondly, the possibility that certain deposits, particularly from the iron age period, may be votive in nature has recently caused great confusion. Thirdly, the requirement that only objects that are substantially gold or silver can be treasure trove is also the cause of much confusion, and has led to many hoards being split, which is patently absurd. Finally, objects not made of precious metal that are found with items of treasure, such as pottery or engraved gemstones, are excluded.
The Bill attempts to deal with those problems in three ways. First, and most important, it will change the definition of treasure by removing the need to prove that objects must have been intentionally buried, by making it clear exactly how much gold or silver objects must contain in order to be treasure, and by including objects found in association with finds of treasure. Secondly, it will streamline the system of administration by making it much simpler to determine what is treasure, and by removing the need for coroners to summon juries to treasure inquests. Finally, it will make the law enforceable, by providing a new offence for the non-declaration of treasure.
The Bill will certainly not allow people to look for treasure in graves--a worry that was certainly expressed in Committee, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire will remember. Graves are fully protected by law, and licences are needed to open them. The point is simply that objects covered by the new law discovered at an unknown burial site will now qualify as treasure. It is also misleading to state that this Bill will encourage criminally minded finders rather than discourage them. The Bill will, in fact, make the law more enforceable by closing a number of loopholes in the present law.
Equally, however, innocent finders who fail to report treasure because they did not know that they should have done so--a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason)--will not be penalised under the Bill. Clause 8 requires finders of treasure to report their finds within 14 days, but it also states that any person who has a "reasonable excuse" for failing to report his find to the coroner will have a defence against
prosecution for non-declaration. That will protect, for example, a farmer who discovers an object that subsequently turns out to be treasure while ploughing, or a workman who discovers an object while digging a trench and fails to report it because he did not realise that he should have done so.
The Bill also has great flexibility. Clause 2 contains a provision that gives the Secretary of State the power to add or remove categories of object from the definition of treasure set out in the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire said, that provision will make it possible to review the operation of the new system after a period, and to make such adjustments as might be found to be necessary without having to introduce primary legislation.
The Bill also provides safeguards against the arbitrary use of those powers by the Secretary of State, by stating that any change to the definition of treasure should be made by a statutory instrument that would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure by both Houses of Parliament.
The Government feel that the most encouraging sign for the future lies in the fact that, as I said, there appears to be a growing consensus among archaeologists and metal detectorists in favour of co-operation. I feel that my Department has an important role to play in fostering such a spirit of co-operation. A recently published book on metal detecting prominently displays the following message on its back cover:
That is from a book by Andrew Palmer, entitled"The Metal Detecting Book", which was published in 1995.
Equally, I believe that archaeologists are increasingly willing to acknowledge the contribution played by metal detectorists in bringing archaeological finds to light, and actively to seek their co-operation in excavations. Taken together, this Bill and the proposals in our discussion document on portable antiquities represent the best chance yet of securing improvements to the current arrangements for the acquisition and recording of portable antiquities, which we recognise are less than ideal.
Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Cambridgeshire for his hard work on this important Bill, and thank Opposition Members for their support. I hope that it goes speedily through another place.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
Railway Heritage Bill
"I cannot emphasize too strongly that our paramount objective is to encourage the reporting of finds. We clearly need to ensure that adequate incentives to finders are preserved under any new arrangements. At the same time we want to discourage wrong behaviour."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 March 1994;Vol. 553, c. 733.]
"This book promotes responsible behaviour among detectorists and advocates the recording and reporting of all finds."
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