Examination of Witnesses (Questions 720
- 731)
THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2000
MR ALAN
HOWARTH CBE, MS
ISABEL LETWIN
AND MR
HUGH CORNER
720. Let us have a Minister leading.
(Mr Howarth) I hope that I have demonstrated a useful
lead by setting up the Panel to examine particular cases and to
advise on the policy implications of what they find. It does not
seem to me sensible for anybody in my position simply to insist
on introducing whatever legislative or other policy changes they
wish on a caprice, however decent a caprice. We need a proper
basis of information and judgement upon which to decide what in
detail and in practice we do to get it right, so that we can then
be useful. Rhetoric is only the beginning of the whole process.
721. Minister, I must say it as politely as
I can, but I wonder what Ministers are for.
(Mr Howarth) Ministers are for taking decisions. This
Minister will be very willing to take a decision when he has the
basis on which to take a decision.
Chairman
722. Mr Graham Greene, the Chairman of the British
Museum Trustees, did not say it would be generous to give people
their own property back. Mr Graham Greene did not say that it
was a hypothetical question which he did not wish to answer. Mr
Graham Greene said that if it was established that the British
Museum was in possession of objects looted from the Nazis, to
which a valid claim could be established, he would want to give
them back, but could not give them back because the law would
not let him give them back. Therefore, the implication was that
he would like the law changed, so he could do what he felt was
right.
(Mr Howarth) I am glad he said that.
Miss Kirkbride
723. I would like to ask a little bit about
your Department's view on cultural property and where it should
reside, not in terms of the Elgin Marbles, but due to the fact
that one of the reasons why we find it difficult to sign up to
international conventions is the view that certainly the Italian
and Greek Governments take of the wide protective nature of their
cultural property, that everything has protection, which if we
were to adhere to in international conventions, their rules on
this creates even bigger burdens because of their policing of
their cultural property. Do you have any view on whether or not
the Government would like to see a more narrow definition of what
should be protected in other countries, which would ease the burden
internationally?
(Mr Howarth) Yes, I do. It is a very important dimension
to this discussion. It is something that we were touching upon
just now in the discussion about the Portable Antiquities Scheme
and the Treasure Act. I drew the contrast that in this country
we have chosen to be selective and only to insist that a small
proportion of truly pre-eminent items should be, so to speak,
national treasures, which should be retained in this country.
This is because we think that if you try and regulate everything,
you simply produce a perverse reaction. People do not respond
well to it and so you get smuggling and other kinds of illegality.
That is part of the difficulty that we have in some of the Mediterranean
countries.
724. Is that the reason why the Department and
Home Office have so few resources actually to police a situation,
which you believe is unpoliceable?
(Mr Howarth) We must, as I said earlier to Mr Fearn,
devote an appropriate quantum of resources when we are absolutely
clear what the problem is that we are addressing, and what we
think are the best strategies for addressing it. But you would
need infinite resources to deal with the problems that are generated
by regimes that are so restrictive that they almost drive people
into illegal and, you might say, improper behaviour.
725. So what measures have taken place between
our European partners and the two big countries, Italy and Greece?
Are there any negotiations taking place at official level to encourage
them to take a more realistic view as to what they can protect?
(Mr Howarth) It is a very delicate matter. We have
to consider how far it is for us to suggest to them what their
own domestic rules and regulations ought to be. It may be wise
to proceed very, very tentatively in that. But then they ask us
to assist them with enforcement and we are entitled to say that
it is not easy to enforce a regime that may be unrealistic in
its aspirations. We and my officials attend international meetings.
We are fully engaged in these discussions.
726. What kind of pressure is there and how
do you justify the fact that what may be branded as an illegal
export in another country is legally imported here?
(Mr Howarth) It is something I am very uncomfortable
about. It is a particularly important issue which I want us to
examine. I am sure that your Committee, Mr Chairman, will have
views on this. I am uncomfortable personally with the notion that
it is legal in this country to import and deal in items that have
been illegally exported from other countries. I do not like that.
But we need a hard practicality about what we might be able to
do. There are issues about extra territoriality that are not going
to be easy to resolve. We have just been talking about Greece.
It is not really for us to determine what the regime should be
in other countries and, equally, it is not easy for our judicial
system to pass judgements on offences that may have been committed
in other countries. It may be useful if I asked Ms Letwin, who
is the Department's legal adviser and knows a great deal about
these matters, if she would wish to add anything.
(Ms Letwin) No, I think that is fine.
727. But it is a conundrum that it is your Department's
responsibility. How do you face this conundrum? The fact that
we want to do something here, import something here illegally,
although we do not really like the fact that it has been illegally
exported, because we feel there are laws which are too inadequate.
(Mr Howarth) UNIDROIT is, of course, one of the principal
means that has been adopted in the attempt to address this issue.
This is an issue that we need to form a clear view on and I very
much look forward to receiving the Select Committee's advice on
this as on other matters.
728. You do not know either?
(Mr Howarth) I do not know yet.
729. If I may ask you about databases. Obviously
with the extension of IT and the internationalisation that permits,
what views do your Department have about the use of databases
which might, in fact, be required of art dealers, so that there
is due diligence on art dealers to maintain proper records? Obviously
there is an historical problem now, so you have to start making
them. But how would your Department view going about that process?
Do you even think it is the way forward?
(Mr Howarth) I should be keen that we would make the
best practical progress we can. I agree with you that new technology
opens up possibilities that were not there before. One certainly
sees them. The Museums and Galleries Commission made the recommendation
that serious work be put in hand to construct a national database.[11]
I think it is in their submission to you. Already, as I mentioned
earlier, Re: source, successor organisation to the Museums
and Galleries Commission, has commissioned a feasibility study
which will report in August. Whatever database we might be able
to assemble, drawing from museums and galleries as well as libraries
right across the country, and perhaps also extending the database
to cover works of art and antiquities that are in other hands
too, I believe Re: source can do something very useful.
They would also need to work with the Art Loss Register and Interpol
system and whatever counterpart systems there were in other countries.[12]
Technology now does enable that kind of networking to be entirely
feasible, as I understand it. It is a very important opportunity,
which we must seize as quickly as we can.
730. Would you like to see it made a legal requirement
not just on galleries but on dealers?
(Mr Howarth) Codes of practice may be better. I certainly
think we could make it the norm that dealers would participate
and, of course, they already do quite extensively with the Art
Loss Register. There is always the problem with rogue dealers,
whoever they may be—and we are repeatedly told that there
are crooks around in London, although we are not told who they
are, where they are—although the police may have some ideas—but
there is always the difficulty about these systems in that those
who want to pursue an illicit trade are not going to conform,
so it comes round to the question of: how do you catch them? You
don not, and I think this may be your view too, assist yourself
by having so demanding and oppressive a bureaucratic system that
you ask people to confirm to that, so they are more-or-less driven
to non-compliance.
731. When Scotland Yard came here, they were
in favour of a more rigorous approach to keeping data on record.
They presumed that would be the remit of the Home Office. Would
it be your remit or the Home Office's remit to do this kind of
thing?
(Mr Howarth) The Home Office and the
law enforcement agencies are represented in the official Working
Group that I have set up. The practicalities of collaboration
between any system that the Home Office may develop, and any system
that Re: source, (acting, in a sense, on behalf of DCMS),
might develop, are among the considerations that we are looking
at.
Chairman: Thank you very much. This session
is now concluded.
11 Note by witness: The recommendation related
to a single source of advice and information. Back
12
Note by witness: They may also wish to work with other
commercial databases. Back
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