Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-238)
PROFESSOR NORMAN
PALMER, DR
DAVID GAIMSTER
AND MR
JAMES DOWLING
4 NOVEMBER 2003
Q220 Chairman: Please
forgive me, Professor Palmer, but I do not believe I have, in
my recent experience, come across responses so exquisitely phrased
which, nevertheless, do not lead me to believe with confidence
that anything whatever is going to happen. "Is achievable
within the foreseeable future but whether it will be remains to
be seen". I acknowledge entirely that you are not responsible
for action or inaction, you can make recommendations, but taking
into account all the years that have gone by ". . . achievable
within the foreseeable future but if so remains to be seen"
does not exactly strike me as a landmark in progress in this controversy.
Professor Palmer:
It is a little early to determine whether there is to be a landmark—
Q221 Chairman: Please
stop me interrupting you. I am absolutely overwhelmed with admiration
for you, Professor Palmer, and I am not being rude. "It is
a little early to determine . . ."—that is brilliant.
Professor Palmer:
Surely you would agree with the proposition that, logically, we
cannot say yet whether recommendations which have not been released
until tomorrow are going to be accepted or not?[5]
Q222 Chairman: Absolutely.
I am dazzled. I feel I am intruding on some arcane ritual in seeking
to get this information. It is not your fault, I understand this
completely; it is the fact that we have got three government departments
not one of which seems actually to be able to bring itself to
do anything. This is not what this Government was elected to do,
but then, of course, that is not your responsibility. Could I
ask you two other questions then? Please forgive my exasperation
because it is not exasperation with you; if I had any hair I would
tear it, but that is a different matter. I understand that Professor
Chalmers provided a minority report. Is it possible for you to
elucidate the differences between the main consensus and the NHM?
Professor Palmer:
I do not have Sir Neil Chalmers' permission to do so, I have no
objection to doing so personally, but I think perhaps I should
ask the officials whether this would be an appropriate course
to take or not. [6]
Chairman: I do not know
where to go from here actually. You have got me absolutely baffled
and stymied, which I suppose is an achievement of a kind. Mr Flook,
perhaps you can build on this.
Q223 Mr Flook: Professor
Palmer, the Working Group came up with a number of recommendations.
Have you costed those?
Professor Palmer:
No. We are waiting for the Department to cost those. We have some
figures which have been given to us about the cost of a human
remains advisory panel.
Q224 Mr Flook: Do
you want to expand on that?
Professor Palmer:
We are told that if the parallel were adopted of the Spoliation
Advisory Panel the cost would be about £4,000 per meeting.
Q225 Mr Flook: How
many meetings would you expect in a year? They work on annual
budgets, I am told.
Professor Palmer:
Yes, it is extremely difficult to tell. We do not know whether
the existence of a human remains advisory panel would encourage
people to settle claims without reference to it, or whether it
would lead to a spate of claims at all. We do not know whether
museums would accept references to this panel or not.
Q226 Mr Flook: What
is your view?
Professor Palmer:
My view is that they would, in the main, yes, certainly.
Q227 Mr Flook: They
would—?
Professor Palmer:
They would accept references to it.
Q228 Mr Flook: So
in coming to your conclusions you have not had any detailed discussions
as to the costs?
Professor Palmer:
No.
Q229 Mr Flook: It
seems to me, from what people have been talking about up until
now, including yourself, that one of the issues is that the Government
are not doing whatever they are not doing because there may be
cost implications. If cost implications are one of the biggest
hurdles, have not any of you when looking at these things looked
at how they could get over that hurdle and had a discussion about
costs?
Professor Palmer:
It is not so much a question of cost as a question of proportionality.
We have looked at the matter of proportionality—in other
words, whether it is justifiable having regard to the gains and
benefits that will be derived from it to set up such a committee.
Q230 Mr Flook: That
does not seem to drive the Government in other areas, so I am
surprised it necessarily drives it in this area.
Professor Palmer:
It is a little early to say whether it is driven or not but we
do devote a section in our report to an analysis of this question
of proportionality and we make it very plain that this is not
simply a matter of economic benefit and disbenefit. Whatever atmosphere
of frivolity it may have been appropriate to introduce on this
Committee, we are dealing with extremely serious matters that
touch the very heart and spirit of some people. We are dealing
not only with matters of morality, ethics, spirituality and religion
but the scientific mission of some museums to push back our knowledge
about the dawn of humanity. These are the sorts of benefits and
questions which we think a human remains advisory panel would
be needing to consider. That, we submit, is not simply a question
of economic gains and disbenefits.
Q231 Mr Flook: It
is one as far as the Government is concerned, spending taxpayers'
money to be able to match your aims.
Professor Palmer:
Yes, quite so.
Q232 Mr Flook: So
whatever you may say and may advise, there will be a cold calculation
done somewhere in a room as to whether or not your recommendations
can be taken forward. To put it another way round: that cold calculating,
civil servant, advising a minister, will have a view as to what
you are advising—was there somewhere a meeting where you
are going to be able to say "We can afford this"?
Professor Palmer:
Of course, yes. We are intelligent, practical people.
Q233 Mr Flook: What
was the figure?
Professor Palmer:
We did not arrive at a final figure but we certainly were concerned
throughout to come up with proposals that were economically practicable,
realistic and viable. [7]After
all, look at what we have proposed: that there should be legislation
permitting museums to release their possession—ownership,
if you like—of human remains. It is difficult to put a cost
on that. What we did with the Illicit Trade Advisory Panel was
to make proposals and then the Government, again, costed them.
We did not think they were extravagant.
Footnote by witness: A
concern to avoid the duplication of costs was one of the factors
informing the Working Group's proposal that its recommendations
regarding a new regulatory authority to oversee museum holdings
of human remains be assimilated within the more general regulatory
authority proposed in regard to medical institutions by the Department
of Health.
Q234 Mr Flook: If
the Government has costed them, what are the costs?
Professor Palmer:
If the Government has costed them I am not aware of the costings
at which it has arrived. [8]
Q235 Mr Bryant: A
very quick question. Bearing in mind what you have just said about
the significance—and I think all of us on the Committee
would accept the spiritual and religious aspects of this are very
important to many communities around the world—Mr Flook
seems to be suggesting you are asking for a blank cheque, but
it is not a very big cheque, is it, really? If there were 20 meetings
in a year it is £80,000.
Professor Palmer:
If there were 20 meetings in a year, yes. There have been, I think,
four meetings of the Spoliation Advisory Panel in two-and-a-half
years, and I do not expect that the number of meetings of the
human remains advisory panel would be substantially in advance
of that. We are, incidentally, I should say, dependent on the
evidence which we are given and that is the only figure which
we have—£4,000 a meeting. I understand a fairly substantial
part of that is legal advice as well because it has been considered
necessary for the Spoliation Advisory Panel to have an independent
legal adviser outside the Treasury solicitors.
Q236 Mr Bryant: If
I am not reading between too many lines here, you seem to be therefore
suggesting that, in answer to your own question of proportionality,
if we were talking about £20,000 or even £40,000 then
that would be money extremely well-spent.
Professor Palmer:
Yes, I would certainly think so. I think that would show respect
towards the issues and towards the people whose concerns are involved.
Q237 Derek Wyatt:
Can I move on to the second area, which is spoliation? I have
had some interest for a while now in Ethiopia and the Maqdala
treasures which were looted in 1868. Do you not feel that if you
are going to have a national committee for looking at human evidence
there should be an equal one for looking at stolen treasures which
are categorically stolen? There is no doubt or fuss, they have
definitely been stolen, they were definitely looted and they went
to the highest bidder (it is well-documented) and the Ethiopian
church would like them back.
Professor Palmer:
I would need to consider the arguments on that. My job has been
to consider human remains, spoliation as such, as a member of
the Spoliation Advisory Panel, and the contemporary illicit trade.
I have however heard it said, and I can see the force of the logic
behind it, that the time might be coming when it might make sense
to have a national repatriation panel, whatever it might be called—national
claims advisory body—which might consider all of these matters
in the round, perhaps even look at them comparatively and relatively.
However, I emphasise I have not reached a settled view on this,
this is a matter I have heard suggested and it might be a matter
of resources. If it were to be the case that we were going to
have separate panels on spoliation, human remains, sacred objects
(which is another possibility) then there might come a time eventually
when all the strings might be drawn together and it would be effective
and intelligent to have a single body.
Q238 Derek Wyatt:
It does not seem to me that there is much of a momentum if you
have only had four meetings in two-and-a-half years on your first
one; it seems to me that that is just being cynical at the outset,
that there should be many more meetings. In this instance, the
Ethiopian church has been to see the British Museum—they
are hidden, they are not even on show, they cannot be on show
and they are not allowed to be on show. What is the purpose of
having them in a drawer that no one can access? You can say that
there is this thinking and so on, but who is driving this in the
Government?
Professor Palmer:
Let me, first of all, say that the number of meetings to which
I referred of the Spoliation Advisory Panel, which is there to
deal with claims, is a sufficient number of meetings to deal with
those claims. [9]
There has been an increase in the number of claims which have
come forward recently and we might, therefore, see an increase
in the number of meetings. Nevertheless, I do not think there
has been any suggestion that it has not met often enough to deal
satisfactorily with claims. I am by no means suggesting that if
there were a national claims advisory panel it would meet on any
particular number of occasions a year or not; that is entirely
a matter for dealing with the flow of claims. I must say, this
is a long way down the track and it is not something on which
I have, certainly as far as the Department is concerned, any authority
to speak. What I am giving you is purely my personal opinion.
Chairman: Professor Palmer,
it has been a treat having you here. You have certainly given
us a number of issues on which we can question the members of
the Government who are going to come before us next week. We are
grateful to you indeed. I see from your CV that you have an enormous
number of activities to which you devote yourself. I would suggest,
if you can find the time, you conduct master classes in how to
deal with select committees. Thank you very much.
5 Footnote by witness: At this point Mr Bryant
made observations which suggested that he agreed with Professor
Palmer on this point. Back
6
Footnote by witness: At this point Mr James Dowling, DCMS,
indicated [to the Committee] that it would be appropriate for
Professor Palmer to comment on the minority and majority positions. Back
7
Back
8
Footnote by witness: The Chairman of the Working Group
advised officials of DCMS in 2002 and 2003 that, if DCMS wished
the Working Group to refer to specific resource implications,
the Working Group would look to DCMS to provide relevant data. Back
9
Footnote by Witness: The figure of four meetings in the
first two-and-a-half years referred to the period during which
the Spoliation Advisory Panel considered its own constitution
and procedure and resolved the claim relating to the Griffer painting
(see above), following which there was a considerable lapse of
time before any further claim emerged for consideration by the
Panel. Back
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