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Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge): Is my hon. Friend saying that the Bill is purely for those who are expert dealers? Presumably, it would affect anybody who is dealing in tainted cultural objects. It could be someone who could not be expected to know an object's exact provenance and merit.
Tim Loughton: My hon. Friend is right. This must cover everybody. Only a small proportion of people making a supposedly respectable business out of this may be flouting the law. But at the same time, this is big business among criminal classes. In many cases, they are looting to order and know exactly what they are looting. Therefore, it applies to everybody, but we do not need to give a line of defence to people involved in criminal activities by which they could wriggle out of the terms of this highly necessary Bill.
Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury): My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) touched upon an important point, because we are dealing not just with big London dealers but with, for example, scrap reclamation yards. Under those circumstances, the definition of a cultural object is important. What is a cultural object? It could be a doorknob removed from an old house in this country; it is not just confined to Egyptian artefacts.
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Tim Loughton: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Some concerns have been raised in the press by those engaged in architectural salvage. We have examined the issue in great detail, and the panel has considered all the possibilities. The purpose behind the Bill is not to make criminals out of people who sell doorknobs that turn out to have come from a stately home of unique provenance and can be defined as cultural objects. The Bill is not
targeted against that sort of legitimate business. There are enough safeguards in the Bill to ensure that those involved will not fall foul of the proposed legislation. The experts who form part of the panel have taken all that into consideration, but it is a fair point for my hon. Friend to make.I support amendment No. 1. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that although his concerns are noted, the effect of amendment No. 3 would be to weaken the intentions behind the Bill and to provide a line of escape for those on whom we are seeking to clamp down.
Mr. Randall: The purpose of amendment No. 1 has been well explained, and I agree that it should be supported. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) that perhaps I had a slightly jaded view of the legal profession. I shall be careful because I do not wish to come up against members of it. If we removed subsection (2), it would make it easier for prolonged wrangling to take place. There are many opportunities. I can imagine hours of discussion over what is a "cultural object" and whether it is of
- "historical, architectural or archaeological interest."
Dr. Murrison: There is some confusion in my mind, and I suspect that there is confusion among those who might be affected by the Bill. What exactly do we mean by "cultural objects"? For me it means, for example, the treasures that are being looted from Iraq. What is less clear is what a cultural object means in the context of the United Kingdom. There is a scrap reclamation yard close to my constituency. It is an enormous site that deals in a raft of bits and bobs that people recycle and put into their homes. It is a big business. I am concerned about what the Bill would mean for that business. As I understand it, there would be an onus on the operator of the business to define in some way, or to be clear in his mind, the provenance of the various objects in which he is dealing. I agree that this is potentially a bean feast for lawyers as they define exactly what is meant by extraordinary terms such as "tainted" and "cultural". What is meant by "historical"? Does that mean an object from a listed building, for example? Another term is "architectural"; another is "archaeological interest". The definitions are complex.
Tim Loughton: I am interested in my hon. Friend's point. There are checks and databases for stolen and looted goods of cultural and archaeological interest that are open to reputable dealers, be they London art dealers or auction houses. They are open also to others involved in archaeological salvage. They are available for items above a certain value, and it is possible to check whether items have been looted. Those who are dealing in items of larger value can make a number of checks. That would prevent them from falling foul of prosecution.
Dr. Murrison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If it were to be a defence, and clearly defined as such, that checking on a database would prevent the sort of person
whom I have described from falling foul of the law, that would be fine. However, despite my hon. Friend's clarification, I am still not clear whether that would be the case.
Mr. Randall: I shall take as an example something in which I have a great interest. In Kosovo, many monasteries and churches have been destroyed. Undoubtedly, many of the icons have been removed. They may not be historical, but they are of religious importance. They would not be on any database, but in my opinion they would be tainted.
Dr. Murrison: I agree with that elegant description, and I am touching on precisely that. What is a cultural object? What is clearly a cultural object and what is not? For example, a door fitting or a piece of panelling from an elderly house in this country does not quite fit the bill, to my mind. However, it might well be on the database that has been described, whereas the truly cultural object given in the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) would not be.
Mr. Allan: I understand the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed about the architectural salvage industry, which have also been expressed to me. While the definition of "cultural object" is quite broad, the definition of "tainted cultural object" is quite narrow. For an object to be tainted, an offence must have been committed in its removal. In the context of UK buildings, that means that someone must have taken it contrary to listed building consent. The archaeological salvage industry does not have to worry about old buildings that are not listed. Material in old buildings that is taken without breaching listed building consent is not covered by the tainted definition, which as I have said is extremely narrow.
Dr. Murrison: We are getting closer to the clarification that I was seeking. However, there are important buildings in this country that, for various reasons, are not listed. For example, certain estates are exempted from being listed buildings. I am still not entirely clear about the matter because it is not defined in the Bill, and perhaps it should be. If we are talking about listed buildings—perhaps that is not a bad definition—I suggest that that should be specified in the Bill.
The Minister for the Arts (Estelle Morris): I join the debate part way through. I read the debates on Second Reading and in Committee. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) on introducing an important Bill. He has driven it through its many stages with great enthusiasm.
Like other hon. Members, and at the risk of repeating myself, which rarely happens in the House on a Friday morning, I support amendment No. 1 and resist No. 3. In some respects, they are different sides of the same coin. Amendment No. 1 adds protection and No. 3 goes too far. It would provide a bean feast for lawyers. In the context of amendment No. 1, there is an argument that the Bill already makes things clear. However, it is right to clarify the provision beyond doubt. If the object was not tainted, an offence could not possibly have been committed. That is a common-sense interpretation. It is useful to have it defined in primary legislation.
I think that the explanation of "cultural" provided by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam was perfect. If it is illegally excavated, that is by definition the point at which a criminal offence has been carried out. That answers the concerns that have been expressed about subsection (2). A person must know that the item has been illegally excavated, and why would it have been illegally excavated if it was not of cultural value? That is the important point. This is not a definitional debate about what is of cultural value and what is not. Illegal excavation offers the protection that individuals will need. Amendment No. 1 offers protection in the sense that if something was not taken illegally, it could not have been an offence.
Mr. Randall: I presume that when the right hon. Lady says "illegally excavated" she means illegally removed. To me, excavated means dug up.
Estelle Morris: Indeed. The Bill is about dealing with items that have been illegally removed as well.
I join the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam in supporting amendment No. 1 and resisting amendment No. 3.
Mr. Allan: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) for the spirit in which he moved his amendment and for indicating that he will not press it to a vote. I am also grateful to other hon. Members for taking part in the debate. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has been a tremendous supporter of the Bill throughout and he put the case for amendment No. 1 extremely effectively.
The hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) was right to raise those concerns. I put on the record an apology for not having sufficiently consulted the architectural salvage trade in the early stage of the drafting of the Bill. That was an oversight on my part. I have since spoken to Mr. Thornton Kay of Salvo and other architectural salvage people. They told me of their concerns, which are not entirely resolved. The hon. Member for Westbury expressed the remaining concerns. I believe that the Bill does not do what some people think it does, but it is difficult because of the way in which it is drafted.
The key to the narrowness of the Bill is not in clause 1, but in clause 2, which refers to illegal removal. In the context of UK law, for an offence to be committed there must be a breach of the law protecting ancient monuments or of the law on listed buildings. That is quite narrow, and I do not believe that the architectural salvage trade has much to fear. By way of further reassurance, my understanding is that in the case of architectural salvage, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the individual knew that an object had been taken from a listed building without consent. The onus is not on the individual engaged in architectural salvage to prove that he is innocent; the prosecution must prove that he is guilty and acted deliberately, knowingly and dishonestly. That is a considerable burden of proof.
One would expect a reasonable level of checking, and I understand that Salvo has a good code of conduct for the architectural salvage trade, which states that all
members of Salvo should carry out such checks. Anyone conforming to the Salvo code has nothing to worry about, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westbury for raising the matter and allowing me to put on the record my apologies for the fact that we did not have more consultation with the architectural salvage trade at an earlier stage.The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) was right to speak about non-experts. The prosecution that occurs every year or two is likely to be directed not at somebody engaged in the legitimate trade, but probably at the criminal gangs to which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) referred and which we know are operating in the field. The kind of deal that is likely to take place involves somebody arranging a deal with somebody in Afghanistan or Pakistan to import Buddhist scrolls and sell them on, or involves iconic material from countries such as Kosovo or Bosnia, where there is disorder. We want to target such people; we do not want them to be able to say, "I'm not an expert in the field, I'm not a dealer, I'm just an ordinary criminal, so I didn't understand that it was a cultural object." We do not want them to have such a defence. If the object was illegally removed and was tainted, we want to be able to get them for it.
I hope that, with those assurances, the House will accept that amendment No. 1 provides a useful tightening of the Bill, and that we do not need to remove subsection (2), as proposed by amendment No. 3.
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