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4 Apr 2003 : Column 1232—continued
2.5 pm
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh): It is a pleasure to speak on the Bill, which was so clearly presented by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan). The Bill has supporters on both sides of the House, including the all-party group on archaeology, ably represented by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) who made a well-informed contribution to the debate—as did the promoter of the Bill.
The Bill can trace its own cultural heritage back to the previous Parliament, when the then Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport conducted an inquiry into all aspects of the illicit trade in cultural property. The Committee's report, published in July 2000, recommended creating an offence of trading in certain categories of stolen or illegally excavated cultural property.
The Committee's work was complemented by the establishment, in May 2000, by the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, of a ministerial
advisory panel on the illicit trade in cultural objects, otherwise known as ITAP. As we have heard, the panel was chaired by an eminent barrister and, in December 2000, it recommended a similar criminal offence. ITAP defined the offence as to
- "dishonestly import, deal in, or be in possession of any cultural object, knowing or believing that the object was stolen, illegally excavated, or removed from any monument or wreck contrary to local law".
Mr. Francois: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I understand that the provisions will apply only to items stolen after the Bill comes into force; it would not be retrospective in the way that he suggests. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend has recorded an important point to which the Standing Committee will doubtless return.
We understand that, like us, the Government are broadly sympathetic to such a measure, but that constraints on parliamentary time have meant that it has not been possible to enact it. The Bill would remedy that.
The Bill makes it an offence for a person or corporate body knowingly to acquire or dispose of, import or export a
- "tainted cultural object . . . of historical, architectural or archaeological interest".
- "it is removed from a building or structure of historical, architectural or archaeological interest where the object has at any time formed part of the building or structure, or . . . it is removed from a monument of such interest".
- "the United Kingdom or elsewhere,"
The Bill also encompasses a variety of types of location for which it provides protection. It potentially covers theft from situations as diverse as ancient monuments, archaeological digs, iron age hill forts, maritime shipwrecks and military battlefields. As someone with a strong interest in military history, I am especially pleased to see the latter two categories covered. I happen to believe that naval shipwrecks and battlefields, as places that recall the ultimate sacrifice, are worthy of particular respect.
I want to provide some practical examples of how the Bill might operate. During the second world war, my father, Reginald Francois, served for a time at Scapa
Flow, the great natural harbour in the Orkneys, which was the principal base of the then home fleet of the Royal Navy. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, the battleship HMS Royal Oak was torpedoed by a German submarine. She still lies at the bottom of the harbour as a war grave. Moreover, in 1919, shortly after the conclusion of the first world war, a number of capital ships of the German high seas fleet were deliberately scuttled. They still lie on the sea bed at Scapa Flow. Official diving expeditions regularly visit those ships, as is right and proper. However, there are sometimes unofficial expeditions, when attempts are made to remove artefacts, some of which might ultimately come up for sale to less-than-scrupulous private collectors.I can give a land-based example from the heart of my constituency—Rayleigh castle, the oldest castle in Essex. On occasion, individuals have attempted to remove small items from what is left of that fortification. I am therefore pleased to welcome this measure this afternoon—both as the Opposition spokesman and as an hon. Member with constituency interests. The Bill will help to protect sites in my constituency.
Importantly, the Bill does not seek to impose a restriction on the trade, import and export of cultural objects per se. To seek to create a much wider restriction would prove unworkable and, in any case, would be likely to fall foul of international law. The United Kingdom enjoys a specialised, yet very important, trade in legitimate cultural objects. That trade should not be put at risk by overly restrictive legislation. In that regard, the Bill requires a relatively high burden of proof. I think that it was deliberately designed to do so. In order to gain a conviction under this legislation, the police—or, in certain circumstances, Her Majesty's Customs and Excise—working with the Crown Prosecution Service, would need to prove that the accused knew or believed that the object was tainted and acted dishonestly in the acquisition, disposal, import or export of the object. It would therefore be difficult, for example, to convict a person who had purchased a tainted cultural object but had done so in all good faith that it had been acquired legitimately. Nevertheless, where such tests are met, the Bill—which carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years—would, we hope, have sufficient deterrent effect to reduce the number of incidents of such cultural crimes occurring in future. That sentence means that the measure is by no means toothless.
The regulatory impact assessment relating to the Bill suggests that its provisions would not be overly burdensome. As the explanatory notes that have helpfully been prepared by officials in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport point out, the impact of this legislation on charities or voluntary organisations is likely to be minimal. The businesses primarily affected will be those operating in the areas of art, fine architecture and the antiquities trade—including dealers and auctioneers. However, importantly, the Bill should help to regulate that trade for legitimate businesses, thus providing protection for them to carry on their lawful business, while making it more difficult for unscrupulous and illegal traders to operate. That must be welcome.
Michael Fabricant: Does my hon. Friend accept, too, that legitimate businesses and traders in those objects
always check their provenance and, therefore, because they would not knowingly trade in objects that come within ambit of the Bill, they will not be affected by it?
Mr. Francois: That is exactly my understanding of how the Bill is designed to operate, and it must be good that it seeks to uphold the integrity of those who act within the law and to punish those who work outside it.
Taking account of all those factors and in wanting to reiterate the important point that a number of my hon. Friends made about the Elgin marbles, I wish to say that, overall, this is a worthy and relatively non-contentious Bill. Her Majesty's Opposition are therefore pleased that the Bill is being given a proper Second Reading on the Floor of the House. Finally, as this represents my debut at the Dispatch Box, I am doubly glad to wish the Bill well as it passes towards its consideration in Committee.
2.15 pm
The Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting (Dr. Kim Howells): I congratulate the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) on a very fine debut at the Dispatch Box. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) on securing time for this important Bill and, indeed, on the manner in which he introduced it. I am also grateful to hon. Members for the fact that we have had a wide-ranging debate, in a relatively short time, on an absorbing subject that concerns so many across the political spectrum.
I should like to draw the House's attention to the background to the Bill and to the Government's most recent statement on protecting and sustaining the historic environment. In "The Historic Environment: A Force for Our Future", the Government express our commitment to protecting both the international heritage and the cultural legacy of this nation. Of particular concern to us in recent years is the well-documented rise in the international illicit traffic in art and antiquities. Apart from threatening the integrity and commercial stability of the United Kingdom's art market—a point made a few moments ago by the hon. Member for Rayleigh—that activity contributes, through plundering monuments and sites, to the wholesale destruction of the world's archaeological and architectural heritage.
The increasing number of private culture consumers and the rise of culture tourism on a global scale have combined to open up new markets and stimulate demand. New technology has also revolutionised the means of detection and destruction. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) wanted to say more about that, and she certainly could have talked about the fact that the bulldozer, sticks of dynamite, power tools and metal detectors, which have been mentioned, have replaced the pick and the shovel—sometimes with disastrous results.
Far from injecting hard currency into hard-pressed local economies, local people usually receive very little in return for destroying their own cultural heritage. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes listed places that are poor by any standard but have great cultural treasures that ought to benefit the people of those areas, and we must do everything that we can to help them.
Asset-stripping that finite resource is, by definition, economically unsustainable. Not only are we concerned about the violent separation of major archaeological finds from their geographical and social context, but we are now more aware of the link between trafficking in antiquities and other illegal and, indeed, organised criminal activities—notably, of course, drug smuggling, money laundering and the corruption of impoverished bureaucracies overseas.
Meanwhile, London, by virtue of its long-established commercial function, has become known as a centre of the global supply network in stolen and unlawfully removed cultural property. The pattern of movement and dispersal through a chain of dealers is a regular practice and details of provenance—as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) told us—can become lost in the process, and it is very important that we address that. Licit and illicit antiquities become hopelessly mixed, and looted artefacts acquire a patina of legitimacy, as dealers and auction houses can ultimately sell them without provenance.
Despite the many positive steps in this country, particularly in London, towards self-regulation, it is widely acknowledged that many antiquities surface on the London market without any declared previous history or archaeological context. The British antiquities market depends for its continuing success on the standards and perceived integrity of its participants. Indeed, the auction houses and established galleries, have a strong business interest in the elimination of the illicit market. Dealers' associations affiliated to the British Art Market Federation maintain that their members have made considerable efforts in the past decade to distance themselves from such traffic, including, for example, by adopting voluntary codes of conduct under which participants undertake to the best of their ability not to import, export or transfer the ownership where they have "reasonable cause to believe" that an imported object has been stolen, illegally exported or illegally removed or excavated.
In July 2000, the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), conducted an inquiry and published a report, "Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade". The inquiry brought together the opinions of national Governments, archaeological bodies, the antiquities trade, journalists, cultural groups, police and other law enforcement agencies. The Government welcomed the Committee's recommendations on proactive measures to prevent the UK from being used as a haven for illicit traffic in cultural property. Following the recommendation to introduce a criminal offence of
- "dealing in cultural property in designated categories from designated countries which has been stolen or illicitly excavated in or illegally exported from those counties after the entry into force of the legislation, with a defence in law based on the exercise of due diligence as defined in that legislation",
- "to the extent it is not covered by existing criminal law, it be a criminal offence dishonestly to import, deal in, or be in possession of any cultural object, knowing or believing that the object was stolen, illegally excavated, or removed from any monument or wreck contrary to local law".
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