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4 Apr 2003 : Column 1222—continued
Mr. Dismore: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of any moves in the European Union to harmonise laws protecting cultural objects such as those described in the Bill? As he says, one of the problems is the disparity between different countries. If everybody were to operate under the same regime, bearing in mind the international nature of the trade, it would make life an awful lot easier.
Mr. Allan: I am aware that conventions have been worked through quite successfully. In particular, the Granada convention on architectural heritage and the Valetta convention on archaeological heritage have been adopted by the United Kingdom. While those conventions do not have the legal implications of an EU mandate, in signing up to them we are necessarily signing up to certain responsibilities that will help to harmonise our common understanding of what we mean by protection of architectural and archaeological heritage. There are some very positive moves in that regard. I congratulate the Government on having made the UK a signatory to the UNESCO convention; again, we are committing ourselves to a path of common understanding of what kind of measures are necessary to protect heritage internationally. The Bill is intended to support the Department's work. Important harmonising work is taking place, but not through the scary, more politically contentious mechanism of directives.
As well as having databases of legislation and artefacts, we can assist dealers by working with the organisations that represent them on the codes of practice that they follow. Indeed, I have been impressed by the work, which has come through the panel, that shows the care that dealers take to ensure that they are not buying material with an illegal provenance.
I have set out the background to the Bill and the support for it and I should now like to describe as straightforwardly as possible its operation. It establishes the concept of a tainted "cultural object", which is
- "an object of historical, architectural or archaeological interest"
The penalties have been designed to mirror those for offences of handling stolen goods. To obtain a conviction, the authorities must prove that an individual knowingly traded in tainted objects. That provides an adequate defence for dealers who follow good practice in checking the provenance of the material that they buy. The impact of the Bill on reputable dealers will be minimal; they recognise that in their support for the measure.
However, the Bill makes it clear that anyone in the illegitimate market who considers trading in illicit antiquities cannot do that without considerable legal
risk. Inability to dispose of such material will act as a serious deterrent to those who would engage in looting archaeological sites or historic buildings.
Mr. Dismore: Wearing my lawyer's hat, I am worried that the Bill does not define "object" per se. Would "object" include human remains? The Select Committee report refers specifically to them. Would the Bill cover human remains? Would it cover earth samples from a site? They are potentially important archaeologically, but may not be included in the common or garden definition of "object".
Mr. Allan: The hon. Gentleman is right to mention human remains. That is a contentious subject to which other legal considerations apply. If the Bill progresses, such detailed tests can be applied in Standing Committee. We have tried to make the definition of what constitutes a tainted object as broad as possible. Although the Bill does not try to create a broad legal liability—it is specific in the measure—we tried to devise a broad definition of the objects. Clause 2(6) refers to remains. However, we would need to have a further discussion on the breadth of the definition and its application to human remains, and time will not allow that today. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can accept that response for the moment.
The Bill is urgently needed. This week, I received a visit from the police. It was most welcome because they were officers from SCD6—the art and antiquities unit of the Metropolitan police. Detective Chief Inspector Tristram Hicks and Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley provided helpful information on the scale of the trade that they are trying to tackle. They referred to the National Criminal Intelligence Service's threat assessment. In 2001, it identified art and antiques crime as a level 2 threat to national security because of the link between theft and transport of such items and organised crime. Terrorists do whatever organised crime does, and the lines between who carries out such theft are therefore blurred. However, it is clear from NCIS, special branch and FBI information that there is a link between the removal and transport of cultural objects and the funding of terrorism. The police gave examples of specific cases, which hon. Members may find informative.
In September 2001, the art and antiquities unit intercepted and seized £3 million of Bactrian art. We are not therefore talking about odd bits and pieces. The pieces are 3,000 years old and had been looted by members of the Northern Alliance and sold via Pakistan to fund the war effort against the Taliban regime. They are currently being held by New Scotland Yard, and are awaiting restoration when the Kabul museum has been rebuilt.
It is important to note that looting frequently takes place in conflict zones, and we clearly need to recognise that, in the context of what is currently happening in Mesopotamia, where a huge amount of cultural material will be looted. People from various unpleasant factions—I do not want to identify who they are now—will seek to market that material in places across Europe where they can command the best prices. The retrieval of that kind of material is essential to the nation-building exercises that have to take place in post-conflict zones, and I hope that the Bactrian art that is now being
held by Scotland Yard will make its way back to the museum in Kabul. I know that the Ethiopians have been very keen to retrieve a lot of their material so as to have a network of museums of which they can be proud, and I think that there will be similar demands in the future from other countries that have suffered conflict.In 2000, a valuable Indian stone frieze was seized from a London auction house by the art and antiquities unit. That piece was being sold by Sri Lankan terrorists to fund their war effort. In terms of the scale of what is going on, in the last two years 300 pieces have been seized from Egypt, many of which were fakes. There is an interesting mix between the fake trade and the genuine trade, in that people try to hide genuine pieces in boxes of fakes. Eight hundred pieces, with a value of between £3 million and £4 million, have been seized from Afghanistan, Pakistan and eastern Iran, and 20 pieces have been seized from India, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. I am told that Cambodia is no longer one of the major sources because everything that can be taken from there has been taken. That is a crying shame, because Cambodia is a nation that desperately needs to regain a sense of its national identity, having lost a lot of its very important material.
Two pieces, valued at between £3 million and £5 million, have been seized from Iraq, and three hundred pieces were seized from Italy, including a shipwreck that was destroyed by UK suspects. There are questions about how shipwrecks will be dealt with, because they are also covered by certain conventions, but I hope that material taken from shipwrecks will fall within the scope of the Bill. That is something that I want to tease out in Committee.
Michael Fabricant: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. On the subject of shipwrecks, he will be aware that there have been a number of programmes on television recently about divers going in and retrieving objects. What would be the position under the Bill of those shipwrecks that occur outside territorial waters and do not therefore fall under the jurisdiction of any single country?
Mr. Allan: That is another matter that I would like to tease out. My understanding is that shipwrecks have the status of protected sites and, if an offence were committed by removing material from a shipwreck within territorial waters, those objects would become tainted under the Bill. If that were to happen in international waters, however, those responsible would not be subject to any national jurisdiction. In those circumstances, the objects would not necessarily fall within the scope of the Bill.
I also hope that we can put a stop to the nonsense that occurs at the moment when material is brought forward by people who claim to have recovered it in international waters, when that is not the case. Such cases would clearly be a matter for a police investigation, but I hope that we would be able to prove that the objects had been taken from national waters, that the national legislation had been breached, and that the objects had thereby become tainted.
To finish off my list, two pieces from Yemen were seized, and three from Morocco. On the urgency of the Bill, I am told that, in relation to all the objects that I
have described that are suspected of having been looted, it has been possible to bring only one criminal prosecution to date. That is related to the difficulty of proving the offence of theft that took place in the first place. The Bill seeks to assist in such cases by allowing the prosecuting authorities to prove a breach of national heritage legislation, as opposed to having to prove theft. We hope that that will bring more objects within the scope of the legislation. I am told that there is one ongoing investigation in which the parties who had to be interviewed in order to demonstrate that theft had taken place were involved with the Iraqi authorities. That investigation has had to be put on hold for the time being.I hope that the House accepts the case for this legislation. It will make an important contribution to the protection of cultural heritage at home and abroad. It is well targeted, and limited in scope. It also has widespread support both inside and outside Parliament, and I believe that it is timely and urgently needed to tackle a serious and growing problem. I commend the Bill to the House.
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