ELGIN MARBLES

Early day motion 1373, tabled 1 June 1998 by Gordon Prentice (Labour). Signed by 24 members.

That this House notes that on 4th June 1996 over 100 honourable Members of this House in the previous Parliament appended their names to an EDM congratulating Channel 4 on the quality and success of its Fifteen to One special programme about the Elgin Marbles and noting that in a subsequent telephone poll 92.5 per cent. out of 100,000 respondents voted in favour of the return of the Marbles to Greece; notes that, in that EDM, those honourable Members considered that, although there may have been plausible arguments in the past for the retention of the Marbles in the British Museum, they believed the case for their return was transcendent and that they called upon Her Majesty's Government to enter into immediate negotiations for this purpose with the Government of Greece; and considers that the passage of two years and the election of a new Parliament has not diminished the case for the return of the Marbles to Greece, a secure democracy and fellow member of the EU, for which the Parthenon and its frieze is central to its national and cultural identity.

Signatures by party: Labour 22, Labour/Co-operative 1, Liberal Democrat 1.