Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Bill
Public Bill Committee, 14 May 2003.
Standing Committee F
Clause 1 - Offence of dealing in tainted cultural objects
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
May I say what a pleasure it is, Mr. Hurst, to serve under your chairmanship? I thank the Government business managers for having assisted us in securing an early Committee sitting.
Clause 1 sets out the terms of the offence of dealing in cultural objects that are deemed to have been tainted. The necessity for such an offence in English and Welsh law has been highlighted by the recent situation in Iraq, where we saw that cultural objects could easily be removed at times of instability. Most of those cultural objects were removed from museums, but far more dangerous is what happens next. Most of the objects removed from those museums are well known and well documented and it will be difficult to sell them on. Far more prevalent will be the looting of archaeological sites outside the mainstream and the public eye; that material can be sold on far more easily because it is not so well documented or catalogued.
The offence created under clause 1 is explicit. The prosecution must demonstrate that an individual has dealt dishonestly in a tainted cultural object. People are naturally concerned that they could be liable to prosecution for a new criminal offence and I praise those representing dealers in the art and antiquities trade who served on the Ministerial Panel on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects—known as ITAP, or the illicit trade advisory panel—for not trying to block the creation of the offence. Instead, they engaged constructively in shaping it. We may not be able to answer all of their concerns today, but I hope that we can go some way in response to the legitimate questions that they raised.
Part of our response lies in ensuring safeguards for people accused of the offence who have behaved reasonably. The safeguards in clause 1 are that the individual must know or believe that an object is tainted and that there must be an element of dishonesty in the offence. Anyone who takes reasonable steps to ensure that the object that they are buying is not tainted will have a reasonable defence. The Bill is squarely targeted at those who deal dishonestly in such material and not at the legitimate dealers, who work to codes of practice involving sensible checks on the provenance of material offered to them.
It is worth mentioning that the trade is demanding improvements to the databases that dealers use to check whether material is likely to have come from an
illegitimate source or to have been stolen. I entirely agree with the pressure for better systems of notification, not least because it is important to the operation of the clause. Better sources of information are clearly good for dealers who wish to trade honestly and legitimately, but they are good also for the authorities should they need to make a case against someone who has traded dishonestly. It would be easier to prove that a person knew or believed that an object was tainted if the databases that list the tainted material were more easily accessible.
Finally, Anthony Browne, chairman of the British Art Market Federation, has devoted a lot of time to highlighting a number of concerns and they merit a response. Some of them will be dealt with in later clauses, but one is relevant to clause 1. We need to clarify what would happen if an object turned out not to be tainted, even though it was believed to be so and a dealer had been caught. My understanding is that it would be treated similarly to the offence of handling stolen goods, where prosecutions are not proceeded with if an object that was thought to have been stolen turns out not to have been. I hope that the Minister can give us some guidance on that matter. I hope also that the Committee will agree to the clause standing part.
Robert Key (Conservative, Salisbury)
I welcome the clause. I support it for two reasons. First it represents unfinished business. I was a founding Minister at the Department of National Heritage in 1992, so it certainly represents unfinished business for me. At the time, we were concerned about several issues. We were preoccupied with the wider art market, London being such an important international centre, and with a number of archaeological matters, notably metal detection. This will help to clarify the situation. Perhaps the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), whom I congratulate on his Bill, will touch on that.
My second reason for supporting the clause so warmly is that I can hardly do otherwise as Member of Parliament for Salisbury, with Stonehenge, the world heritage site, and Old Sarum in my constituency. One never knows when something else is going to turn up, as in the classic case of the Amesbury archer, when a housing development revealed a remarkable bit of buried treasure.
I have consulted Andrew Lawson of Wessex Archaeology, Peter Saunders, curator of Salisbury museum, Roy Canham, the county archaeologist for Wiltshire and Paul Robinson, the curator of Devizes museum, the home of Wiltshire archaeology and natural history society, all of whom concur with the Bill. I intend to say as little as possible because it is so important for this legislation to reach the statute book. I warmly commend the Bill. We are all grateful to the Minister for expediting this important legislation.
Shona McIsaac (Labour, Cleethorpes)
When the Bill was published at the end of last year and on Second Reading in April, a great many people thought that it was somewhat quaint—a fringe matter that was not of wide interest. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said, the seriousness of the issue has been demonstrated graphically on our television screens
following the conflict in Iraq. On Second Reading, we highlighted the fact that looting is at its most prevalent at times of conflict or political instability.
I am happy to be a sponsor of the Bill. I support the clause and hope that the Bill proceeds through all its stages without any impediment. It is about stealing history and knowledge. Given its seriousness, it must reach the statute book as soon as possible.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam on introducing the Bill and all those who have had an input, the Ministerial Panel on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects in particular. I echo the words of Anthony Browne and his colleagues. I also congratulate the Government, not only on the measures that they are taking to expedite the Bill, which I hope will quickly pass through the House and come into law, but on having signed up to the 1970 UNESCO convention and on the help that they have given—through the British museum and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—to the authorities in Baghdad trying to track down looted treasures, which the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) mentioned and which make the measure all the more urgent.
I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key)—this is unfinished business, long overdue. He, more than many, knows the downside of the absence of such measures. He spoke of some sites in his constituency, but did not mention the threat of having yet more gargoyles knocked off his cathedral, which is of concern to all of us. The sale of illicit antiquities is big business, be it through looting to order—as might have happened in Baghdad—or otherwise. I spent some months doing a survey of Mayan burial sites in the jungle in Belize and found many sites that had not previously been catalogued or discovered but had certainly been looted. We shall never know the contents of those graves; they will go uncatalogued.
It is important that the prosecution should bear the balance of the burden of proof in demonstrating whether a person who is charged with handling tainted goods knew or believed that they were tainted. That burden of proof is much more difficult when one is dealing with experts and professionals in cultural artefacts, who will have a greater expectation of holding a reasonable doubt that the artefacts in question are tainted under the definitions in the Bill. I am therefore slightly concerned that the provisions need to be tested in the courts. It is important that we do not get the balance in relation to the burden of proof wrong. We do not want to legislate in haste only to build up problems later.
As a brief example, some years ago I was up the Khyber pass in Pakistan with a friend. We chanced upon a small curio shop, as one does, where, in contrast to all the gun shops that we had been urged to visit where we were offered AK47s at a knock-down sum and urged to try them round the back, we came across an 1870s Lee Enfield rifle propped up in the corner. It was a smart weapon and had had the locking mechanism removed, although that could easily have been restored. My friend thought, ''I'll have that,''
handed over a few dollars and took it. He then had a bit of a problem getting the rifle through Karachi airport security, but eventually he did. The officials there maintained that my friend could not take the rifle out of the country because it was more than 100 years old, whereas he maintained that it was British and that it was going home. In the end he won the argument, although he was not allowed to have the rifle personally on the plane and it was entrusted to the captain.
If the law were applied to that case, there is a strong suggestion that that gun would be tainted. It got into the possession of the curio shop owner, who would have bought it from local Pakistani or Afghani militia. They in turn could have come into possession of it only by stealing it from a British soldier who was out there during the second Afghan war—it is the property of the British Government—or doing a deal with that British soldier and buying it from him. That would also have been an offence, for which that soldier would have been court-martialled accordingly. It is therefore highly likely that that gun came into the possession of the curio shop owner as a tainted good under the definition of the Bill, unless the British military had presented it as a gift to the people of Afghanistan or Pakistan, which is unlikely. The story is an interesting aside that throws up some of the concerns of my friend, who is now living in Singapore and having more problems shrugging off SARS threats. He may be prosecuted under the Bill, although it is not retrospective, so he is okay for the moment—they might get him the next time.
The explanatory notes rightly set out stiff penalties for people who knowingly handle tainted goods. However, the regulatory impact assessment says, under explanatory note 37, that
''the level of prosecution is estimated at probably not more than one every two to three years'',
which is therefore of negligible cost to the Exchequer. If the authorities are not going to be serious about prosecuting such cases and think that they will come up only once in a blue moon, the provisions will not be much of a deterrent. Given the incidence of such trade in cultural objects, I would hope that there would be cases every one to two weeks, not once every two to three years. We must be serious about enacting the law and ensure both that it will deter people from carrying out such practices and that those who go ahead regardless are hauled before the courts. That is one marker I put down over why the penalties are so stiff if the regulatory impact assessment in the explanatory notes implies that we are not as keen to prosecute as fully as the Bill suggests.
Other than that, the Bill has the full support of Her Majesty's Opposition. I shall speak more briefly on subsequent clauses to ensure that it is passed in the time allotted today.
Roger Casale (Labour, Wimbledon)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Hurst. Once again, I welcome the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam on promoting it.
I do not have a specific constituency interest, although as the hon. Member for Salisbury said,
there are important constituency concerns as we all have heritage sites in our constituencies. An example that springs to my mind is Merton priory, which is a 12th-century monastery that was dissolved and looted under Henry VIII. In modern times, it was concreted over and it now lies underneath one of the largest supermarkets in Europe. Looting of cultural objects is a problem that has been with us for a long time and it affects each of our constituency interests.
I wish to address a matter related not to my constituency but to my work as chairman of the all-party British-Italian group. Italy has about 60 per cent. of the world's heritage cultural objects, and there was some debate on Second Reading about the looting of objects from Italian archaeological sites. Italy has been at the forefront of international efforts to combat the trade in illicit cultural objects, and it quickly signed up to the 1998 UN convention on the matter, and to subsequent European conventions. Four years ago, I had the privilege to lead a delegation from our Parliament to the Italian Parliament, where we looked at issues related to the fight against organised crime and, in particular, at the steps taken by the Italian Government to counter money laundering.
One image that we may have is of the petty criminal or tourist picking something up and putting it into their bag at an archaeological or artistic site. That happens, it is wrong, and we must try to stop it. However, I understand that the Bill aims to deal with the far greater racket that is linked to organised international criminals. Proceeds from the looting of artistic and cultural objects are second only to the proceeds from the trade in drugs. When we examine the sources of funds that are laundered through banks and the international money system, we see that this is a very lucrative trade. It is increasingly being used to finance other illicit activities, including the drugs trade, and to finance the activities of international criminal gangs. It has also been linked to terrorist activities, a matter that was raised on Second Reading.
I am making those points during our discussion on clause 1 because it is the point in the Bill where the focus moves from the illicitly traded cultural object to the person who is trading in such objects. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam, who is promoting the Bill, said that he did not think that it would be difficult to ascertain whether a person who was trading in those objects had malicious intent. We do not want to catch bona fide art dealers or others who have been unwittingly trading in looted objects. We must make sure that we catch the big fish—the people who are doing it with malicious intent. We must not only ask whether they knew that an object was looted but look at what other activities they are involved in.
We must consider the Government's recent legislation to expropriate the proceeds of illicit crime. We must seek the opportunity to override some of the banking secrecy laws, and we must consider whether the person is not only trading in illicit goods but using the proceeds from that trade, perhaps by illicitly laundering the money and using it to finance other
illicit activities. When confiscating the cultural object from that person we must consider also confiscating some of the proceeds of the illicit trade.
In conclusion, I believe that organised criminals carry out an increasing amount of the trade in illicit and looted cultural objects in a cold-blooded and systematic way. I do not believe that we will have any difficulty retrieving the objects, and, in many cases, it will not be difficult to establish the criminal intent of somebody who is in the frame for this offence. I support the clause.
Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)
Like other hon. Members, I support the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam. It is necessary, and it is exceptionally well and cleverly drafted. That is not something that I often have the opportunity to say in a Committee Room.
This debate seems to have been something of an archaeological travelogue, so I may as well place on record the fact that I represent Skara Brae, Maes Howe and more chambered cairns and brochs than the average archaeologist could shake a towel at. We also have our 12th-century cathedral. Slowly, over time, we have learned to live with its modernity. I am aware that the Bill extends to England and Wales but not to Scotland, so I speak with some hesitation. I hope that once it has found its way on to the statute book, as I sincerely hope it does, Scottish Ministers will find an opportunity to enact a similar provision north of the border.
I listened with some interest to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). May I offer him a word or two of reassurance regarding his colleague's rifle? It seems to me unless it had been excavated at some stage or had formed part of a building, it would not be a tainted cultural object. Although I always think that any admission of lawlessness from the party of law and order—as the Conservatives would have us believe they are—is interesting, I think that the hon. Gentleman and his friend can sleep easy on this occasion.
Kim Howells (Labour, Pontypridd)
It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee and especially to be part of the proceedings on such an excellent Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam on securing Committee time for this important measure.
I said on Second Reading last month that I was delighted that we had had such a wide-ranging debate on the Bill, because it is one that concerns many people. Since then there has been considerable publicity and concern about the looting of archaeological sites, monuments and collections in the aftermath of the war against Saddam Hussein, and about the attempts to smuggle stolen items across the Iraqi frontiers and on to the international black market. That very unfortunate outcome of the war highlights the Bill's importance.
Although the Bill is not retrospective, it will make it an offence dishonestly to deal in and unlawfully to remove cultural property. It will act as a disincentive to those involved in damaging and looting sites for commercial gain. It will reduce the risk that this
country will become a marketplace for looted antiquities from anywhere in the world. The Government recognise the Bill's importance as a cornerstone of their programme of measures designed to help to conserve and protect the cultural heritage of all countries, especially Iraq.
All those who have spoken—led by the hon. Member for Salisbury, who is a real expert in the field—have noted that their constituency contains archaeological treasures; indeed, there is hardly one that does not. I was going to make a flippant remark about the fact that I have an archaeological treasure that is very precious to my constituency—the ruins of Welsh rugby. For that matter, I probably have more burial mounds in my constituency than one could shake a towel at, but I shall not go into detail.
I enjoyed the story by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about the Khyber pass. It was a good way of testing our knowledge of the Bill. However, I must agree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) that the rifle would not be a tainted cultural object—unless some structure had been built on the Khyber pass, and the rifle had been used as a lintel for holding up a doorway, but we shall not go into that now.
As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam made clear, the core of the Bill is subsection (1), which makes it an offence for a person to deal in a cultural object if he knows or believes it to be tainted. The requirement for the prosecution to prove that the person is acting dishonestly when dealing in the cultural object provides an important safeguard, and I know from this afternoon's contributions that there are worries about the issue. Including a dishonesty element in the Bill ensures that an offence is committed only where a person has acted in a way that is dishonest according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people, and where he realised that his actions would be regarded as dishonest.
A second important safeguard is the requirement that, to be guilty of the offence, a person must know or believe the cultural object to be tainted. A person who, for example, produced evidence showing that, before dealing, he had made reasonable inquiries that indicated that the object was not tainted will not have committed the offence. That would be the case even if it transpired after the dealing had taken place that the cultural object was in fact tainted. The fact that a person would be guilty of an offence if he believed the cultural object to be tainted follows the original recommendation of the illicit trade advisory panel.
That does not mean that an offence would be committed where a person believed an object to be tainted when it was not. That is an important point to bear in mind. There is a parallel with the offence of handling stolen goods. An element of that offence is that the person concerned knew or believed the goods to be stolen. It is clear that no offence of handling stolen goods can be committed unless the goods were stolen. In other words, the offender must know or correctly believe the goods to be stolen. Similarly, under the Bill, there will be no offence unless the
person concerned knew or correctly believed the object to be tainted.
Under subsection (2), the prosecution will not need to prove that a person knows or believes an object to be a cultural object. It would place an unduly heavy burden on the prosecution to require proof that the alleged offender knew that the object was a cultural object. Knowledge or belief that an object has been illegally excavated or removed must in itself imply a degree of knowledge in respect of its cultural significance. Why else would such an object be protected by local law?
The offence is triable either way. Under subsection (3)(a), a person who is found guilty of an offence under the Bill is liable on conviction in the Crown court to a prison term
''not exceeding seven years or a fine (or both)''.
Under subsection (3)(b), a person is liable on conviction in a magistrates court to a prison term
''not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum''—
currently £5,000—''or both''.
Those penalties are not insignificant, but they correspond to the seriousness of the crime. They are greater than those for offences under listed buildings legislation and under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, but offences under that legislation do not require proof of dishonesty. The penalties imposed by the Bill are analogous to those imposed for dealing in goods that are subject to an import or export restriction under section 170 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. I hope that my explanations have made it clear why I support clause 1.
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
I am grateful to all hon. Members for their support.
The hon. Member for Salisbury spoke about metal detectorists—is that a neologism? There has been some debate about whether the Bill is aimed at people who use metal detectors, but that is certainly not the case. Metal detecting is a legitimate activity provided that the permission of the landowner has been sought. It should not take place on scheduled ancient monuments. If, as happened recently at Yeavering Bell in Northumbria, detectorists from the wrong side of town, commonly known as nighthawks, deliberately metal detect on the sites of ancient monuments such as those in Wiltshire and try to sell what they find, anyone who buys it will be caught under the Bill. For the ordinary business of metal detecting, other provisions such as the Treasure Act 1996 come into force, and the activity is not outlawed by the Bill.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made an interesting contribution. He picked up on the question of looting in Latin America. That is relevant to the question whether someone knows or believes that an object is tainted. One of the most significant recent developments has been the creation by the International Council of Museums of its red list procedures. The red list defines the categories of material, initially from west African
counties, that are likely to have been looted. ICOM recently extended the red list to Latin America, the announcement taking place after a meeting in Colombia.
That sort of procedure is important; it is the other side of the coin. Having a red list means that the material becomes widely known; it is a statement that such material is likely to have been looted. It then becomes reasonable to expect a significant degree of checking—rather more than in the case of material that has not been so clearly and publicly identified. In the current situation, one would expect people to carry out a more thorough check on the provenance of certain types of material from the middle east than under normal circumstances. That is a reasonable test to apply.
The hon. Gentleman wondered whether the rifle that he mentioned had been given as a gift to the people of Pakistan. I suspect that it would have been given posthumously if it was related to the Afghan wars of that time.
That is all that I need to say. I echo my thanks to all members of the Committee, who have supported the Bill thus far.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 - Meaning of ''tainted cultural object''
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I beg to move amendment No. 1, in
clause 2, page 1, line 16, leave out from the beginning to end of line 17 and insert
'the removal or excavation, or any failure by any person involved in the removal or excavation to comply with procedures required in respect of that removal or excavation constituted an offence at the time it occurred.'.
Both amendments to clause 2 are probing amendments. It is a question of getting the Bill right. In principle, it is better to table an amendment because the Committee can debate it and give specific reasons as to whether it should be accepted, or the Minister can give an undertaking to consider the point with a view to returning to it in another place or on Report. That is often better than a general debate on clause stand part.
The amendment is from members of the illicit trade advisory panel. It would add the words ''the fabric of''.
Alan Hurst (Labour, Braintree)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is quoting amendment No. 2, and we are debating amendment No. 1. He will find that the amendments have been printed in the wrong order on the amendment paper.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
Thank you, Mr. Hurst. Notwithstanding that, my opening comments apply also to amendment No. 2. Both amendments are from the advisory panel.
Subsection (2) is awkwardly worded, and that may lead to arguments among smart lawyers about its
meaning. We should concentrate on the illegality of the circumstances in which an object is removed. We must clamp down on people who excavate and remove valuable objects from archaeological sites without permission. Those people may then put the objects on the open market. As it stands, the clause could involve anybody for committing a crime that is quite unconnected with the act of removing an artefact. Was a mechanical digger used for excavation stolen? Was the person connected with the excavation the subject of a money-laundering action or a prosecution for tax evasion? Those matters are separate from the key charge of whether it was legal to remove the artefact.
We should concentrate on the object and its removal, not the legal status of the person or persons connected with the removal. If an object was removed and sold legitimately, but it was removed by a person who was guilty of other offences, it would, technically, be tainted.
Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)
I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman's argument. Subsection (2) (b) takes account of that point because it deals with illegality connected to the circumstances in which the object is removed. Perhaps I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's point. If so, he may need to explain it in greater detail, because it appears that the Bill already covers it.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and it is those sorts of technicalities that I hope the Minister will be able to address. I hope that he will be able to say that the clause would not give rise to the events that I am suggesting.
Someone could legitimately remove a cultural object from a site in Italy, for example, and legitimately sell it on the open market. That object could end up in London, in the possession of a legitimate art dealer. However, the circumstances in which the object was removed could pertain to the fact that the person who removed it from the site was the subject of criminal proceedings for some other matter. That is the act that could lead to it to becoming a tainted good, and that is the problem. The amendment says more specifically that it is the act of removal that counts in deciding whether a good is tainted, not the circumstances of the person.
Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)
I agree with the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on this matter. The circumstances in which an object is removed or excavated constitute the offence. I do not claim to be a clever lawyer—although I was a lawyer before I came here—but the Bill makes it clear that it is the circumstances of the removal, rather than the person doing the removing, that contribute to the tainting of the object.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
Before the sitting was suspended I had accepted an intervention, and I think that I can respond to the points that were raised. To understand the key point about the amendment, we must move
forward slightly to subsection (3)(a), which makes it clear that an offence is committed regardless of whether the excavation took place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere. To return to the Italian example, we would, in effect, import Italian law and impose it on the unsuspecting dealer in London who had come into possession of what would be defined as a tainted object. The object would presumably become tainted in perpetuity, regardless of whether it was excavated and sold on the market perfectly legitimately.
The person responsible for the excavation may, under Italian law, commit an offence that is unconnected with the excavation. He may, for example, carry out the excavation as a tax scam or as part of a money-laundering operation, or even using a stolen excavation machine. However, the object may be put on the open market legitimately. The person who comes into possession of it in London would not know, and could not be expected to know, that the person with whom it originated had committed other criminal acts. Under the present wording, however, he would be guilty of receiving a tainted good.
That is why the amendment would more tightly define the act of the excavation, clarifying that it must be illegal in itself. Such excavations should not be carried out in the first place. The amendment would separate them from other acts, which may be illegal—under the laws of other countries, in this case—and which may be committed by someone connected with the excavations, although the excavations themselves may not be illegal. I am not a lawyer, which is part of the problem, but I seek through this probing amendment to prevent lawyers from having complicated arguments in complex and expensive legal cases.
Through our probing amendment, we are looking for a keener definition of when an illegal act is committed. The person who would be prosecuted for handling what would become a tainted cultural object would have no knowledge, or could not be expected to have any knowledge, of offences that did not directly influence the removal of that object. I want the Minister to give us an assurance that prosecutions will not proceed on that rather less justified basis.
Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)
Since I ceased to make my living from practising as a court lawyer, I have become increasingly enamoured of the idea that we should try to avoid legislation that gives rise to lengthy and complex legal debate. However, the provisions before the Committee are fairly straightforward, although they stand to be complicated by the amendment.
The words
''in the circumstances in which the object is removed or excavated''
make it fairly clear that the taint—what used to be called the vitium reale—derives from the act of removing, not from a character fault or any wrongdoing in other respects on the part of the person responsible for the removal.
Let us consider for a second the expanded rationale that the hon. Gentleman gave the Committee. He said that we should avoid prosecutions in relation to dealings in otherwise perfectly legitimate artefacts.
There would be a danger of such prosecutions if the amendment were made. It says that
''the removal or excavation, or any failure by any person involved in the removal or excavation to comply with procedures required in respect of that removal or excavation''—
it is a matter of style, but I would put in another comma there—
''constituted an offence at the time it occurred.''
Let us consider the circumstances in which a perfectly lawful excavation has taken place, and somebody unrelated to the immediate excavation has subsequently had to apply for an export licence or for registration of the fact that the artefact has been excavated. Under the wide provision in the amendment, the object would be tainted by the failure of a person involved in the removal or excavation to comply with the procedures required. The amendment risks widening the scope of the clause unnecessarily. The Bill is clear and concise, and there is no scope for debate.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I query whether applying for an export licence has anything to do with the removal or excavation of the object, which would have been a separate process.
Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)
Perhaps the export licence is not a good example. However, some post facto requirement, such as registration, which is not unknown, would relate to the removal or excavation of an item. There is a fairly obvious and direct connection. The Bill is perfectly adequate. Expanding for the sake of expansion is not a good idea. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing the amendment.
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for having tabled the amendment, because it is worth debating the matter. I have had extensive debates and I am grateful to Professor Norman Palmer, chairman of ITAP, and to Anthony Browne of the British Art Market Federation for their efforts to explain their concerns and suggest alternatives. I am not persuaded by the amendment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland says, there is a difficulty with introducing new problems into the scope of the clause.
My discussions highlighted a specific group of offences that could trigger tainting but which we would not intend to cover—those under health and safety legislation, which one can imagine being breached in the course of an excavation. An amendment that introduces the concept of failure to comply with procedures required in respect of removal or excavation explicitly points towards health and safety offences as something that would trigger tainting. That is not our intention.
We have a difficulty in trying to narrow down what we are seeking to achieve, because we are, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham points out, relating the offence to all sorts of other jurisdictions. People need to understand how heritage protection law works in other jurisdictions and I hope that we can help them to do so. UNESCO has a major role in
trying to create a database, so that people can be aware of the legislation of other countries. We cannot be too prescriptive if we are creating an offence that can be triggered by a range of breaches of different people's heritage legislation. The Italian example, which the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Roger Casale) mentioned, is a good one. Italy has comprehensive heritage protection legislation, which works differently from that in the United Kingdom. Scotland, too, has different legislation. For example, its concept of the removal of archaeological objects is much wider than that in England, where scheduled ancient monuments have protection but objects outside them do not. I understand that, in Scotland, the removal of anything could constitute an offence.
Roger Casale (Labour, Wimbledon)
I am not an expert in Italian law. My understanding is that that legislation originates from international directives, conventions and agreements such as those that have been mentioned—for example, those UNESCO took from the EU. How those provisions are implemented in each case will differ and there will be definitional questions. However, we must not lose sight of the important international context of much of the work. We are not inventing this legislation in a vacuum. Much work has been done on which we can draw and which will also help us with some of the difficulties with different jurisdictions and co-ordination between different countries that have mentioned.
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
It is helpful of the hon. Gentleman to remind us that we seek to implement the legislation in an international context and of the important role of UNESCO.
I hope that the Committee can make it clear that we do not intend the offence to define objects as tainted simply through their association with an illegal activity that is not directly related to heritage protection and the trade in illicit cultural objects. Such matters will to a large part depend on the common sense of the prosecuting authorities. However, it would be helpful if the Minister could also clarify that what I describe is not the ministerial intention. The Bill's existing wording, with the reference to circumstances, should then stand. It is helpful to point out that we do not want extraneous offences to be dragged in. That is not the intention of any member of the Committee or the panel, or of those who drafted the original wording.
Kim Howells (Labour, Pontypridd)
Although I understand the concerns that led the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to table the amendment and I wholeheartedly join him in resisting the notion that we should line any lawyer's pockets, his concerns are unfounded. The amendment would unnecessarily restrict the definition of a tainted cultural object and introduce uncertainties in the scope of that definition.
Under subsection (2), a cultural object is tainted if an offence is committed because of the circumstances in which it is removed or excavated. Drafted thus, the tainting of an object is not limited to those cases in which the removal or excavation of the object itself constitutes an offence. That is to ensure that the offence that the Bill creates covers not only conduct
that breaches local laws that prohibit the removal or excavation of cultural objects from monuments but those cases in which the conduct is in breach of laws that protect property generally—for example, theft.
The amendment would reverse that by apparently reducing the range of offences that are capable of giving rise to the tainting of an object under the Bill. It is unclear what the precise effect of the amendment would be, which is in itself a reason for the Committee not to support it. The effect would clearly be to include an offence that is triggered by the removal or excavation of a cultural object. However, in contrast to the current text of the Bill, which is clear, it is not clear whether offences such as theft would be included, where the process of removing or excavating can lead to the commission of the offence, even though the fact of removal or excavation is not an intrinsic element of the offence.
The second part of the amendment creates additional uncertainties. It enables the tainting of an object when it is excavated or removed in circumstances in which any person concerned fails to comply with procedures that are required in respect of the removal or excavation. However, it is not clear precisely what would be covered by the term ''procedures'' in that instance. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland drew attention to that. Let us consider, for example, a case in which an object cannot be removed without a licence. In such a case there is likely to be a stipulated procedure for applying for the licence, as well as for granting it. It is not clear whether the amendment would apply where a person had gone through the required procedures of applying for the licence but no licence was granted to him for the removal of the object. In any event, it seems questionable whether this element of the amendment will add anything in practice. It is likely that any removal or excavation without having complied with necessary procedures would make the removal or excavation illegal and therefore fall within the first limb of the amendment.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for expressing the concerns that have led to the amendment. There seems to be a concern that the Bill as drafted would allow the tainting of cultural objects where the offence has only a limited connection. It is important to bear in mind that a person can be convicted of an offence under the Bill only where his dealings are proved to have been dishonest. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some comfort. Also, the words used in subsection (2) clearly require the process of excavating or removing the object to form part of the offence in some way. Offences that are wholly unrelated to the process of excavation or removal—such as a breach of foreign export laws, a breach of local VAT regulations, an assault on an archaeologist or damage to excavation equipment—would not taint the object. For those reasons I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I said that this was a probing amendment and I am grateful for those definitions of what would not be caught. I do not wish to detain the Committee. We need to move on, and in those
circumstances I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I beg to move amendment No. 2, in
clause 2, page 2, line 3, after 'of', insert 'the fabric of'.
The first amendment on the Order Paper concerns the definition of what constitutes part of a building. That seems to be a common-sense and straightforward amendment. However, I gather that it has fallen foul of the parliamentary draftsmen because of the terminology used in this legislation. It is important to get it right. It is a probing amendment, but there is an important point at stake.
I gather that the problem was not raised with the Ministerial Panel on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects after it was set up in May 2000. If it had been, that panel would have consulted groups such as English Heritage and other learned bodies about how it should be tackled. Although there have been consultations with the Department on this subject, certain people whom it is assumed have been consulted—I name one, Salvo—have not been consulted on quite a few matters in the Bill. It is important that we get the matter right for all concerned. To make clearer the definition of part of the building, I propose that we add the three words ''the fabric of'' before ''the building or structure'' in subsection (4) of Clause 2.
I shall refer to two brief cases. In the case of Lord Haselrigg, the owner of a country house at Nowsley, the local planning officer visited his listed building some time ago and said that certain paintings that Lord Haselrigg wished to sell were also covered by the listing and could therefore not be sold. Subsequently, an expensive and lengthy court case took place over whether the paintings were listed as part of the fixtures and fittings of the building. I believe that Lord Haselrigg's case was upheld, but not before an awful lot of lawyers had earned an awful lot of fat fees to argue the technicalities of the case. The test that is applied is an antiquated one of Victorian terminology called the degree and purpose of annexation test.
A second case concerned Leighton hall, a stately home in Wales, which is a Grade 2 listed property with important Pugin interiors, originally made for John Naylor who commissioned the building of the house. The owner attempted to sell three chandeliers and a Wagner clock. Even though the original owner had purchased those items after the house had been built, the Victorian Society objected to the sale, saying that the items were part of the building and should not be removed from it. In that case, they found against the owner, even though the objects were added after the building had been built.
There is a concern that certain people, perhaps a particularly zealous member of the Victorian Society, would try to make the case that certain parts of the furnishings within a building constitute the fabric of building. I have nothing against the Victorian Society—many good folk up and down the country belong to it—but owners who are quite legitimately
trying to sell paintings or chandeliers could be limited. Owners are usually selling items in order to pay the outrageous levels of death duties imposed by this and other Governments, but that is another matter; they may be selling them in order to keep their stately home in good order. Even if cases do not succeed, they will result in much expense and legal wrangling. It must be made absolutely clear what constitutes the fabric of a building.
There are similar cases. How do we regard some of the Pugin furniture within the Palace of Westminster? Many would regard it as part of the fixtures and fittings. If an over-zealous Speaker—in league with the Serjeant at Arms—decided to flog off some of that furniture, he might be challenged on whether it forms part of the fixtures and fittings of the building. That is an interesting argument, but in the case of paintings and chandeliers, it is quite clear that they do not constitute part of the building. If the term was ''fabric of the building'', I think that such items would not be deemed to constitute part of the buildings.
Kim Howells (Labour, Pontypridd)
Does the point about what constitutes the Palace of Westminster indicate a discourse within the Conservative party about a means of raising funds?
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
In the few short years before the next Conservative Government comes to power, the economy will have reached such a parlous state that we may have to resort to such alarming measures to put the economy back on an even keel, and I am sure that the next Conservative Government will do so in short order.
I do not want to stray from the important point and take us beyond the two hours that we have been allotted. There are many other examples of such items, such as King Arthur's table in Winchester. It has been in Winchester for many centuries and although its origins have not been properly discerned, many would say that the table constitutes part of the building in which it hangs. Arguably, however, it is quite separate from the fabric of the building—it certainly was not there when the building was built. There are many examples of how it may be quite legitimate to differentiate between what is part of a building—for example, the gargoyle that was carved on to Salisbury Cathedral at the time of its construction—and what has later been added to adorn the appearance of a building.
Shona McIsaac (Labour, Cleethorpes)
I can see what the hon. Gentleman is getting at but does he not agree that context is vital when we are dealing with cultural objects? He is arguing that certain things could be removed from a building, resulting in the loss of that context. That is what worries me about his amendment.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
What constitutes context is a highly subjective matter. There are various other measures that restrict owners of property disposing of items from a certain context. I am addressing an entirely different matter. Paintings and chandeliers are two perfectly good examples. In most circumstances, they could not be described as part of the fabric of the building. Context is raised under entirely different laws.
I cannot see a downside to adding the closer definition. It takes nothing away and it makes it no easier to destroy buildings of great archaeological or architectural interest. A lintel from Stonehenge would patently be part of the building, but some of the articles that I have mentioned are not part of the fabric.
Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)
May I suggest one possible disadvantage? Each case will be judged on its facts and circumstances. As the law stands, the courts are required to decide whether an article is a fixture or a fitting and therefore whether or not it is part of the building. If we introduce the term ''fabric'', the courts will have to decide between the three categories. That is surely a downside.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
Proceedings under case law built on the definitions in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 have gone either way. I would hope that by inserting ''fabric'', case law could quickly build up, which would allow a definition of ''fabric'' as part of a building rather than something added to it. As it stands, people could be prosecuted, or cases could be brought against them that would prove expensive, if in perfectly good faith they tried to sell a part of a stately home such as a painting or a chandelier that was not part of the home when it was constructed—which is the point of listing the building.
This is a probing amendment and I would be delighted if the Minister gave some keen definitions of why the trap that I have described would not occur. I believe that amendment would add to the Bill. Those who support the amendments want the Bill to work. We are not trying to water it down—quite the reverse. The danger is that vexatious cases could arise if we do not have the tighter definition that I propose in the amendment.
Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)
I do not want to detain the Committee; I know that every member wants to make progress. However, the hon. Gentleman seems momentarily to have lost sight of the purpose of the Bill, which is to strangle the trade in looted cultural objects. Regardless of whether it is a chandelier or lead from the roof of a palace, I believe that we need the wider definition.
I shall make my point briefly. We are told in the e-newsletter of the Society of Antiquaries that the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has expressed concern that it is not only great cultural objects such as paintings or Roman statues that need to be protected—the Bill would protect such items—but that
''there is a worrying trend towards the theft of humbler bidding materials. Where once thieves targeted the lead on church roofs, they now strip Cotswold barns of roofing tile, demolish dry stone walls for their limestone, steal bricks from estate walls (as happened at Melton Constable just before Christmas last year), and lift paving slabs from the very streets of historic towns.''
It also says that the theft of paving slabs has been fuelled by garden makeover programmes on television.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
All the items that the hon. Gentleman mentions are clearly part of the fabric of buildings. Lord Hazelrigg did not loot those paintings:
they were legitimately purchased by his predecessors and he had every right to sell them without their being considered part of the fabric of the building. There is a clear distinction.
Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)
I differ from the hon. Gentleman. Which part of what building were the dry stone walls? Which part of what building were the 40 paving slabs removed from around the war memorial in All Hallows' churchyard in the London borough of Camden? They were not part of the fabric of the church, but they should have been protected, because they were part of the structure. The Bill refers to cases
''where the object has at any time formed part of the building or structure''.
If we include the words ''the fabric of'' the building, we narrow the remit of the Bill too far.
Robert Key (Conservative, Salisbury)
That is an important point. Does the fabric of the building include the curtilage of a building, which is a precise legal definition that is used in other legislation? If it includes the curtilage, it would include dry stone walls and gargoyles.
Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)
I take the hon. Gentleman's point. However, we do not have to make that definition, or run the risk of judges making a definition that we do not want, if we do not include ''the fabric of''. Although I understand the reason why the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has tabled the amendment, it would undermine the objective of the legislation, so I hope that he will withdraw it.
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
I have spent more time considering this amendment than any other part of the Bill, so it is worth allowing it a reasonable amount of time in Committee. I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for having put the case and allowed us to debate it.
There is a common understanding of the objective of this part of the Bill, but concern about how it might work in practice. The objective is to prevent people from hacking off pieces of important buildings and selling them on. The inspiration behind it was, from the point of view of ITAP, the damage done to buildings such as ancient Cambodian temples that were cut away over many years—the ITAP report has on its front cover a picture of sculptures that were part of Angkor Tom temple in Cambodia. We know where the thinking started, but we have to work out how to apply it in the UK, as it has to relate to the listed building legislation that defines how buildings are protected.
Material that has been taken from a listed building without consent has the potential to be tainted, as an offence will have been committed and it will fall within the scope of the dealing offence. It is therefore important to clarify the scope of the material that the Bill intends to incorporate. We have before us two proposals on how to define that scope. The original wording says that an object must be part of the building, and the proposed wording is that it must be part of the fabric of the building. I understand that the intention of the amendment is to make it absolutely clear that only material that is a physical part of the building is covered. Clearly, portable material such as
furniture, wall hangings and free-standing statues that are in a listed building is not covered by either definition.
The hon. Member for City of York made the point that we are not trying to deal with furniture. There is no suggestion in either wording that furniture or free-standing objects are likely to be covered. I understand that there is case law that stems from consideration of listed building consent cases, which relates to the wording that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has set out. He mentioned two such cases. They require two tests to be applied when considering whether consent is needed: the degree of the attachment of the object to the building and the purpose of its annexation to the building. Those tests are defined and they are evolving in case law.
There have been cases that have tried to establish when listed building consent is required. That provides a rationale for the application of the dealing offence. Essentially, if an object were deemed to require listed building consent for its removal, the same test would mean that such an object would be removed without such consent. In practice, that means that a dealer would in doubtful cases have to ask the potential vendor of an object whether he had listed building consent for the removal of the object or clear advice from the local authority that no such consent was necessary. If he had not sought such consent and there were good reasons to believe that consent would be needed, the dealer would run the risk of knowingly dealing in a tainted object if he bought it. The onus would fall back on the vendor. If he either sought advice and was informed that no consent was needed or obtained the consent, he would be free to sell the object and a dealer would be free to buy it without risk.
The proposed wording, adding the words ''the fabric of'' is initially attractive in that it appears to define more closely the object as needing to be a physical part of the building. My understanding is that there is no body of comparable case law that involves the concept of part of the fabric of the building that will apply in the present case. If the amendment were passed, we would have to define the concept anew. Rather than clarifying matters, that would introduce an element of uncertainty into the Bill.
When faced with the choice between the two, I feel that on balance the argument falls in favour of the original wording, which picks up on some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland made. That is not least because the Bill provides a workable test for the vendor and dealer to follow, namely that of seeking advice from the local authority in accordance with listed building regulations. Although there are still some difficult cases that might require legal arguments to resolve, most instances are much more clear cut than those that have been cited. Above all, the provisions allow for a simple course of action for the dealer in such cases, which is to secure from the vendor an assurance either that no consent is deemed necessary by the local authority or that such consent has been sought and obtained.
There would be no such simple course of action in the case of the proposed wording: potentially, different tests from those under listed building regulations would be applied under the Bill's wording in relation to the fabric of the building. That would create more business risk for dealers because they might have to deal with complex court cases to define whether an object that was deemed to have been illegally removed under listed building legislation, given that the test showed that it was part of the building, was or was not part of the fabric of the building for the purposes of the offence in the Bill.
I therefore respectfully suggest that it would better for the dealing trade to avoid the uncertainty that would be caused by trying to maintain two separate definitions—one to do with whether an offence has committed by breaching listed building legislation and one for whether the item in question forms part of the fabric of the building, thereby causing the dealing offence to kick in. It would be much more straightforward to evolve a simple body of law around ''part of a building'', rather than to try to maintain the two separate definitions. I appreciate that that is contentious, but the mechanism of going back to the local authority to inquire—as anyone who wants to make alterations to a listed building should do—will offer the greatest protection to dealers.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
I think that in my earlier comments I made the substantive case as to why the single test of the wording ''formed part of the building'' is the appropriate one. We were talking in the context of the UK. It is also important that we clarify how this legislation will work in the international context before we move on. My understanding of the way the Bill will operate is that there are two conditions if an object that has been removed from a building is to become tainted. The first is that the offence was committed in another country and the second is that it also passes the part of a building test in our legislation. If a third country had its equivalent of the listed building legislation that covered all objects such as furniture, free-standing statues and so on, those objects would nevertheless not be covered by the Bill. The fact that they were removed from another country in a way that constitutes an offence is not enough on its own to be covered by the Bill. Two tests would be applied. First, that the offence had been committed and secondly that the objects formed part of the building.
The aim is to give certainty to people trying to trade in that area. They can understand that if they acquire some goods, from Germany, France or wherever, that may or may not have been part of a building, they need to apply the tests to understand whether they are at risk under this legislation and they should look at the comparable body of UK case law, which defines part of a building. If an object is outside that—if it falls into the category of furniture, free-standing
objects and so forth—they will not be at risk and do not need to worry about the application of this legislation. It is important to clarify that matter because some other countries will have a much broader definition in their listed building legislation and I do not include that concept of part of a building.
Kim Howells (Labour, Pontypridd)
The hon. Gentleman has done an excellent job of tackling the concerns raised by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I will be brief.
On removing features from buildings and structures, subsection (4)(a) provides that an object will become tainted only if it has at any time formed part of a building or structure of historical, architectural or archaeological interest. That means that the illegal detachment or amputation of structural, architectural or ornamental elements of a building or structure—fireplaces, mantelpieces, doors, door-hoods, floors, panelling, painted wall plaster, roofing and so on—will be tainted. However, the removal of objects that may be contained in and even integral to the function of the building will not be tainted. I hope that that is clear. Some examples of objects that will not be covered are chairs, tables, mirrors, and works of art that are hung in a building.
To give an example, the Roman Venus from Newby hall near Ripon would not come under the scope of the offence since the statue has never been attached to the building, even though it is integral to the architectural design. The Bill seeks to close the loophole whereby, although it is an offence to remove integral parts of a listed building or structure, whether they be statues hacked from the fa¢ade of a cathedral or fireplaces ripped out of a Georgian mansion, it is not a crime to sell them on.
I understand that there has been some concern in trade circles, which has been repeated this afternoon, that the Bill might cover portable furnishings. I therefore repeat the words of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam and state categorically that we do not believe that there is any justification for that concern. It is certainly not the intention to include such objects within the scope of the Bill. The requirement that the object must have ''formed part of'' the building or structure is sufficiently clear to exclude objects that are in no way integral to the form or structure of a building. Much will depend on circumstances, but in that respect the Bill aims to make as clear a distinction as possible between fixtures that are integral to a building or structure, and furnishings that are not.
The introduction of the term ''fabric'' would appear to reduce the scope of the criminal offence, but in a wholly unpredictable manner. It would also run the risk of excluding objects that should be covered by the Bill. I considered two definitions of ''fabric'', one from my slim but concise Oxford dictionary—6th edition, 1976—and the other from the newer, ''shorter'' dictionary, which is actually much longer than my concise version. The definition of fabric in the newer Oxford dictionary is,
''the basic structure (walls, floor, and roof) of a building''.
It is strongly arguable that that definition would exclude such objects as architectural sculpture, panelling and fireplaces, and in so doing would seriously undermine the scope of the Bill.
The purpose of the amendment is to reduce the types of object removed from buildings that would fall within the scope of the offence created by the Bill. Although it seems clear that the amendment will have a narrowing effect, the wording that is used makes it unclear as to the precise extent to which it will have such an effect. Given the dictionary definition of ''fabric'', however, there is a risk that the amendment will have a substantial narrowing effect and leave unprotected many objects such as statuary, panelling and fireplaces, which ITAP clearly intended should be protected.
For those reasons, I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham will withdraw the amendment.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
I am grateful again to the Minister and to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam for giving greater definition to what they do not see as being brought within the scope of the Bill. However, I still have my doubts. The cases to which I alluded show the dichotomy in relation to the application of some of the past definitions.
There is also the problem of the way in which the definitions in the law of countries overseas would apply in this country. It is my understanding—I am sure that the Minister would agree—that if an especially draconian set of laws defining what constitutes part of a building were brought into force in another country and tainted goods from there ended up in the UK, the UK definition of the building or structure would apply, rather than the definition applied by that other country. That is an important point because we can argue long and hard about the way that definitions should apply to the UK, but we are talking about objects that might have originated overseas, where legislation may be different.
Kim Howells (Labour, Pontypridd)
The hon. Gentleman is seeking comfort on this matter and I can give it to him. The test is whether an item forms part of the building in the ordinary and natural meaning of those words. It is not a question of whether the removal is contrary to another country's definition.
Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)
The Minister has indeed given me comfort. However, it is an important point and I do not think that we have fully gone over that ground today. It is ground that is nectar to many lawyers. This is, none the less, another probing amendment. We have had a useful discussion on definitions by which people would not be caught by the wording of the Bill. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 3 to 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6 - Short title, commencement and extent
Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)
The clause makes it clear that there will be no retrospective application of an offence. I hope that it is also clear that that should not be seen as giving a green light to any objects already in circulation for which prosecution may be appropriate. I would like to place that on the record, having spoken to the Metropolitan police art and antiquity squad, who said that they did not want the legislation to be seen as stating that other material should not be pursued, for example, under legislation relating to the handling of stolen goods. I hope that that is clear.
As this is a delegated matter, it does not apply in Scotland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland pointed out. However, we should be able to secure a commitment from the new Scottish Administration that they will introduce parallel legislation should we be successful.
Thank you, Mr. Hurst, for your chairmanship. I would like to thank all Members for their support for the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.
Committee rose at two minutes to Four o'clock.