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Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I thank Members of the Committee who have taken part in this short debate on the matter of how cultural objects are defined. I thank my noble friend Lord Renfrew, in particular, for raising the issue of what happens to cultural objects that are of less than 50 years' creation as it has elicited from the Government a careful explanation that the dummy order that we currently see will not necessarily be the order that the fully grown baby will suck when the consultation paper is produced. We are reminded of the dangers of passing enabling legislation when we have been unable to get to grips with the full detail of what the Government are trying to achieve, even when we may fully agree with the Government's objectives with regard to cultural objects.
I was particularly intrigued by the Minister's description of the difficulty in defining fossils. Quietly, as ever, my noble friend, my Whip, Lord Luke, came to the Government's aid. His suggestion is quite easy in that it is anything over 50 years old. I thank him very much; I have now become a fossil. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 4:
- Page 1, line 6, at end insert "and may mean the prohibition or regulation of their loan to a person, company or institution located outside the United Kingdom"
The noble Baroness said: The purpose of the amendment is to examine the meaning of the word "export" within the operation of the Bill with regard to cultural objects. It is a probing amendment to ask the Government how the Bill will cover the situation when a person or an institution such as a museum decides to lend an article to a person overseas or to an overseas
museum. Will the Government's policy on the granting of export licences vary according to whether the loan is made by either an individual or a museum? Or, is the policy approach the same regardless of who the lender may be? Will their policy about granting an export licence in such a circumstance be different if the loan is on a short-term or a long-term basis? Does the Department for Culture, Media and Sport operate a definition of short term and long term?Will the decision-making process of the DCMS be influenced by the fact that the loan involves a payment to the person or body lending the item? Does the question of access to the cultural object in its new place have relevance? For example, will the exhibition of the item be open to the public in general or only to invited guests?
Two examples come to mind. The first is with regard to the Royal Armouries. I note that a Written Answer on this subject from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, to the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, has been published today. I tabled Questions for Written Answer in December, following a newspaper report that the Royal Armouries would be asking the Government's permission to make a long-term loan of a number of items to an institution in America. It was said in the press that the loan would be made in exchange for payment and that it would, in effect, mean the permanent removal of the objects from this country. It is a potentially controversial issue that could have widespread ramifications throughout the museums world.
The wording of my Question was also prompted by the Written Answer made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, to the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, on 4th December when she said that she had been consulted about the Royal Armouries plans for the long-term loan of items from the Royal Armouries under Section 21 of the National Heritage Act 1983 in exchange for payments. It was the Government's use of the word "payments" that may have led to the difficulty. The noble Baroness went on to say that the amount of money that the Royal Armouries would receive in respect of the loan had yet to be determined.
Subsequently I had a meeting with the Master of the Royal Armouries, Mr Guy Wilson, and I am now aware that the RA believes that the wording of the Government's Written Answer may, however unintentionally—I accept that it may be completely unintentional—have given a misleading picture of the financial arrangements that are intended to underpin any loan that may take place to the Owsley Brown Frazier Historical Arms Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
As the Minister will be aware, the proposal is to create a Royal Armouries exhibition platform within a new museum dedicated to fostering greater understanding of the subject of arms and armour. The belief is that success in that project will help to fulfil a key aspect of that museum's mission statement, which is,
- "to promote in the United Kingdom and world-wide the knowledge and appreciation of arms and armour".
As I understand it—I return to the moot point of payments—the Royal Armouries would not receive payments in the commonly understood meaning of the word; in other words, that would not involve hire, rent or profit. It says that the exhibition will be funded on a strict cost-recovery basis under the terms of its existing loan policy. I understand that that reflects the current export licence arrangements operated by the Government, which limit loans to three years.
In addition to that, I am told, an agreement is being drafted that would enable the Royal Armouries to develop a membership and retail business based in Kentucky. It says that it is anticipated that that will increase self-reliance and lead to the improvement of the services that the Royal Armouries currently provides in the UK. Can the Minister say whether that is indeed his understanding of the proposal? Does that kind of arrangement still fall within the remit of the Bill?
My second example is, of course, that of the Elgin Marbles. I have already said to the Minister that I could not resist raising that issue today. The Minister will be aware that there is a coalition of Members in another place who want the Elgin Marbles to be sent to Greece for the period of the Olympic Games. Indeed, on Tuesday of this week, the Minister's honourable friend in another place, Mr Edward O'Hara, introduced a Bill that raises the whole profile of the Elgin Marbles yet again. It also raises questions about the powers of trustees in the care and control of their exhibits.
Could the powers conferred on the Government by the Export Control Bill be used to allow that loan to be made or pressure to be put on the British Museum by the Government to make the loan? Will the Government today give an assurance that they will not put such pressure on the British Museum and that they will not agree to the loan of the Elgin Marbles to Greece if it were legally possible for that loan to be made?
The robust stance taken by Dr Robert Anderson, the director of the British Museum, is most welcome. Members of the Committee will have seen his article in The Times on Tuesday, 15th January. He wrote:
- "The first responsibility of the museum is . . . to keep the objects safe for present and future generations".
The British Museum has been robust. Can the Government be equally robust? Have they received a request from the Greek Government for the loan of the Elgin Marbles during the Olympics? If not, will they undertake to reject it out of hand if such a request is made? Do they agree with me that the trustees of cultural institutions are normally in the best position to determine whether items held under their guardianship should or should not be exported, and
that the Government should not interfere in that process unless it is clear that important issues of national interest are raised? I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The amendment is specifically drafted to cover cultural goods but the point that it raises covers all goods, including arms. When the Minister replies, would he be so kind as to tell the House whether the word "exportation" in subsection (2), which would be altered by the amendment, means the same as the word "removal" in subsection (6)? I hope that it does. If it does not, I suspect that we may need to consider the amendment much more carefully. I hope that he will tell the Committee that exportation means "removal on any terms", whether that involves loan, licence, free use or whatever else. If it does not mean that, the ways round arms control restrictions will be very wide. There are tricks that those who are determined to play them can get up to; they include not selling goods but giving them on free loan or through another arrangement. That is as relevant to arms as to cultural objects.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I rise to add a curious historical footnote to the speech of my noble friend Lady Anelay. I attended the EU cultural council when it was introducing the directive about legitimate and illegitimate exports of works of art from one EU country to another. It so happened—I believe that I was the only person who noticed this—that the threshold for that legislation was set at such a level that the Elgin Marbles were precisely on its cusp and would not have been affected by the provisions. I acknowledge that there has been massive inflation between 1816 and the 1990s, but it was a very curious coincidence that that should have been so. I have to say that I did not have the moral courage to tell Melina Mercouri, who was at that stage the Greek cultural Minister, of the nature of the coincidence.
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