Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-289)
HOME OFFICE
11 NOVEMBER 2003
Q280 Derek Wyatt: If I can push you,
that sounds like two and a half years' time.
Caroline Flint: I hope not.
Q281 Derek Wyatt: We have had three
and a half years of meetings that have gone nowhere, so the issues
you are raising now must surely have been raised in these meetings
previously. They are not new issues, are they?
Caroline Flint: I think you have
seen the business plan that DCMS put together and they produced
in May this year. We have also had from PITO their outline of
how they think it should be run. It is not so much about deciding
what it should do, but it is just about some practical implementation
of how it will happen and I am as keen as anybody to get this
up and running because it does seem to me that the basic reasons
for having it are agreed and it is just a question now of evaluating
the two proposals we have got on the table and moving ahead on
this and then obviously finding the money for it. I would be keen,
for example, if we can make a decision before March next year,
but some of that does depend on both CoPAT and the Met being able
to put forward a detailed business case for their options for
the independent consultants to have a look at and agree with.
If the pilot does not show anything new or it seems to be running
successfully, I do not see why you have then to wait more time
if there do not seem to be any hitches in the system. If we have
something for ten months as a pilot and if it is working all right,
then we can move ahead to full implementation.
Mr Wilkes: I would agree with
all of that. I think we can get something up and started fairly
quickly, but it will take time to develop. When CoPAT presented
their proposals to the Advisory Panel last week, the Advisory
Panel certainly welcomed them in principle, but had some real
issues about exactly how it would work, how it would be funded,
what data would be put on there, how it would be put on there,
who would have access, so there are still a lot of issues to be
resolved unfortunately, but we are really keen to take them forward
and get the database up and running as quickly as possible.
Q282 Alan Keen: I certainly would
not argue with what you said earlier, that crime involving cultural
objects is not one of the number one priorities that the police
service has, but we have always been extremely impressed by the
very small unit of police who specialise in this sort of crime.
I cannot remember whether they said that it will be increased
in size. Is that the case or are they just suggesting that it
would be a good thing to have more resources? Are you aware of
the current situation for expansion?
Caroline Flint: As far as I am
aware, there are some issues at the moment that they are upgrading,
for example, their technology, which obviously is quite important
in this area as well, so there is an upgrading in terms of technology
they are using and obviously having more information on a database,
you have got to keep ahead of the times in terms of the technology.
Also I think there would be some staff implications, but then
I think the other aspect of this which was a sticking point early
on is the agreement by the Met that it actually helps them if
there is some organised access from the industry to the database
in and of itself, so, as I said before, designated organisations
or persons will, therefore, be able to check out if something
that is currently in their possession or which they have come
across is something they should be worried about as to whether
it has been stolen and how it got there. I think some of those
operational aspects can help in terms of the staffing as well
so that obviously if someone from the industry identifies something
on the database as a stolen article, it is then that they can
obviously say to the police, "Right, this is where we need
you to investigate this operationally. Here's the article and
this is where we got it from". As far as staffing, that is
the situation on that, but there would be some need for some additional
staff in the unit and I agree with you that they have a very specialised
unit and within the boundaries of how they work I think they do
a very good job.
Mr Wilkes: The other area they
need staffing for is because they have increasing areas with other
forces where they need to deal with enquiries and material sent
to them by the forces and put that on the database.
Q283 Alan Keen: I was asking some
questions of Customs & Excise just before you came in because
in 2000 during the last inquiry there did seem to be a difference
in perception, and we were not sure what was fact and what was
not. Customs & Excise said they had not really been given
any solid evidence at all about there being a strong connection
between drugs and serious crime and cultural artefacts.
Caroline Flint: I think that is
a fair comment from Customs & Excise. We know there are links,
but the extent of them has not really been thoroughly examined
in the sense of how large it is in relation to organised crime.
I do not know if you have got anything to add to that.
Mr Wilkes: No. We have anecdotal
examples of trading in cultural items being linked but no strong
evidence on the total extent of the problem.
Q284 Alan Keen: Some of my contributions
are not really helpful to the inquiry, but it is worth mentioning
that there is the story (I am not sure where it came from) of
an alert over a large statue of a heron being translated, when
it got to the county force, into a four foot herring! It crossed
my mind that if it was one of the original fish from AD30 or whatever
it was it would have helped to explain the story of feeding all
those people. If it was one of those items would it not have been
worth an awful lot of money?
Caroline Flint: I think one of
the issues raised in some of the earlier reports was whether there
was more information we could gather in terms of the insurance
industry and in terms of the people who own objects in the UK
having them stolen and then putting a claim in for them, whether
there is any information from those sources that could add to
our general knowledge in these areas, but one would have hoped
that if there had been a claim against something that had been
stolen that would be picked up because it would be reported to
the police anyway. It is about closing some of these gaps and
seeing if there is any information we can pool together to give
us a better picture of this. As Steve said, hopefully the database
will help forces outside of London to be a bit clearer about where
they can go and also for the database to have some additional
resources and staff being able to give better guidance to forces
about what they should be looking out for and joining up the dots.
Q285 Rosemary McKenna: Is there any
work going on in police forces or in any centralised area within
the Home Office on that very subject? When I asked the Metropolitan
Police about the recent theft from the home of the Duke of Buccleuch
in Scotland which was kind of portrayed as a theft because it
was a piece of art that somebody particularly wanted, they suggested
that was not the case, that it was to be used in the future as
a source of income. In another way it was a crime because it was
either to be used for ransom or insurance purposes or something
that would bring money to the criminal and not, as people have
suspected for some time, stolen to order. Is there any way you
can gather information?
Mr Wilkes: I do not know of anything
off the top of my head. Maybe this is something we could follow
up.
Q286 Rosemary McKenna: I think it
is because it seemed to me that the Metropolitan Police were saying
that this could be an increasing incidence. It was something quite
different from the kind of art theft that most people envisage
when they think of art theft.
Caroline Flint: I think the difference
is between someone asking for something to be stolen so they can
look at the object and appreciate it compared to the idea that
an organisation would see acquiring such an object and selling
it on and adding to the money for whatever activity they are undertaking,
terrorism or some other criminal behaviour. Also, with the legislation
that has gone through Parliament we are cracking down on issues
concerning financial accounts. So if people can have assets not
in cash and not in bank accounts but in objects, that is an issue
we need to be looking out for as money laundering laws bite and
the more work we are doing with the financial sector to track
down dodgy accounts the better. One offshoot of that could be
people looking to have assets not in the traditional sense of
bonds or cash. To be honest with you, that is not something that
we have a particular unit looking at but we cannot take our eye
off the ball in terms of any future developments.
Q287 Chairman: Minister, this is
in no way a personal criticism of you because you are a pretty
recent arrival at the Home Office, but as has been pointed out
by Mr Wyatt, we issued our report early in the year 2000. We made
a number of recommendations. Some of those recommendations relate
to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and we will be having
the Secretary of State before us later this morning. The fact
is that not one single recommendation that we made three and a
half years ago has been carried out. It has been acknowledged
by the Metropolitan Police, when we met them and the statistics
show this in any case, that this illegal trafficking is one of
the three worst in the world, the others being drug trafficking
and this is used for the laundering of drug money, and the other
is armaments. It is acknowledged that London is one of the world
centres of the art trade, it is worth £4 billion a year.
It is acknowledged that London is one of the major centres for
this illegal trafficking. The police are anxious and have been
anxious right through from our previous inquiry to have this official
database. Nothing of any kind has happened. The memorandum that
has come to us from the Home Office dated November 5 says you
had a series of meetings, working parties, etcetera, etcetera,
but at the end of it all not one single piece of specific action
has been taken. Surely this is inexcusable.
Caroline Flint: Obviously when
I came into this I was keen to look at the trail of events as
well. I cannot make any excuses for that, Mr Chairman. It does
seem as though there have been a series of meetings of all the
parties who could have put something into the pot on this in terms
of solutions and along the way there seem to have been a number
of obstacles that should have been foreseen. I do not want to
prejudice any outcome in terms of the two options we have currently
on the table from the Met and from CoPAT. The most practical way
forward from my point of view would have been if the Met could
have been seen as a major player in terms of expanding their service.
I understand that the block there was that at that time the Met
wanted a closed database, they did not want to have access outside
of themselves and so that was a sticking point in terms of running
the system. That seems to have been turned around now and we have
had an acknowledgment from the Met that they are prepared to have
open, if regulated, access outside of the police service to the
database and that is good. There was another issue of conflict
in that two organisations on the working party that Charles Clarke
set up were also interested in competing for the database and
then there were issues about whether they should be on the working
party or not and there were procurement issues. As I said, there
are a number of reasons why it has not happened, but that does
not of itself justify the fact that nothing happened. We seem
to have two options that show a way forward which we can hopefully
come to some resolution on and I will try and do my best to get
that executed as quickly as possible, but we need to make sure
from the Home Office point of view that DCMS are happy with that
framework for how we go forward on this and we will work together
to try and get that done as quickly as possible. I was very interested
in the trail of events as well and I think any progress was very
slow and maybe some of the hurdles should have been pre-empted
and moved on quicker from.
Q288 Chairman: I accept your goodwill
and although it is patronising to say so, I exculpate you from
this mess, but the fact is that it is a hopeless mess. It is three
and a half years since we issued our report. This trade is not
some piece of fancy frippery, it is not the illicit sale of the
odd Gainsborough or something like that, it is a huge international
criminal activity which, even if one did not care about the illicit
trade in these objects, fuels the drug trade, which is one of
the major objectives of the Government and the Home Office. The
whole of the Government machinery is utterly ineffectual. The
Met have two or three people; Customs & Excise, which is not
your responsibility, have nobody trained to deal with these issues;
and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, heaven only knows
what goes on in that building because it is not any kind of action.
Here we are, we have the Home Office, it is a major department
of state, it is not some little tiddler, which is what the DCMS
unfortunately regards itself as, it has got immense powers, it
has the power to legislate, it legislates all the time. We have
two Bills from the Department before this House now. What conceivable
guarantee is there that if we make a recommendation in the next
two or three months or whenever it is that the database should
be set up you will not go trundling through this cumbersome procedure
that results in nothing? You mentioned Charles Clarke, I cannot
remember the number of offices that Charles Clarke has held since
he took this action in paragraph 3 of your note. As I say, it
is like a steward on the train when something goes wrong, you
are the person who is here and therefore you are in the firing
line even though it is not your responsibility. Can you give us
a guarantee, if we make a recommendation within the next few weeks
that this database be set up and be set up by the Home Office
and be an official database, that it is your intention to do it
and it will happen next year?
Caroline Flint: It is our intention
to get it up and running next year. I cannot disagree with what
you have said. What I want to be sure of and what I have asked
officials to assure me of is that the two options on the table,
both the Met option and the CoPAT option, are options that actually
both Home Office officials and DCMS officials feel are valid ones.
I do not want to be in a situation, if we are moving forward with
these two options, where suddenly someone turns round and says
it is back to the drawing board again. We have had a lot of going
back to the drawing board in relation to this issue. In terms
of my brief, I am trying to make sure that the advice I am getting
is that these are two viable options. There are issues with both
of them that need to be looked at and there are issues about procurement
in there as well, but we are satisfied that there is a case for
one or the other being the way forward. In order to show our goodwill
the Home Office is providing the finance to have these independently
assessed and we will move forward with supporting the pilots next
year. I am trying to make sure that this database can be up and
running next year and be part and parcel of trying to deal with
the illicit trade of goods in this area. We are committed to getting
that sorted out. At the moment, in terms of getting the proposals
from the Met and CoPAT, we have been told they will need until
February to put those in to us for independent assessment. If
they could do that earlier than that then that would be great.
In terms of any pilots, if they show that they are working well
then I do not see why the pilots need to go on just for the sake
of it, especially if we can then say we are happy, it is working
in practice as well as it worked on paper, let us move on. I do
not know if there is anything from the official side you want
to say to back up that these are the options we feel we are going
to make a decision on and I hope they are, I hope the advice I
am getting is right on that because I do not want to be back to
square one.
Mr Wilkes: These independent consultants
will be really helpful because I have not really had the capacity
or skills in my team to put enough effort into this database.
So getting some independent consultants in to get to the bottom
of all these issues will really help us make the final decision.
Q289 Chairman: If I may, and once
again without being patronising, let me give you a tip and that
is this. You mentioned in the course of your response to me "the
advice I am getting," but advice is a recipe for protracted
inaction. Ministers tell civil servants what to do and I suggest
you tell them rather than wait for their advice because their
advice will keep you going until you move on to your next job,
no doubt a promotion and somebody else takes your place.
Caroline Flint: Mr Chairman, I
can assure you that I am making sure the advice they give me stands
up to my scrutiny, but I have also told them I want this sorted
out asap.
Chairman: Thank you. We are very
pleased to see you.
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