Coroners and Justice Bill

I, too, welcome the government amendments in this group that give effect to the Minister’s pledge at Second Reading to establish a national coroner for treasure. I also welcome the amendments that would give effect to the Government’s decision to extend the period permitted for prosecutions under the Treasure Act, about which he spoke just now. However, despite what my noble friend said, I do not think that the Government’s response is yet comprehensive. I am sorry that he has not agreed to one of the other proposals that I made at Second Reading, which was more fully and better expounded by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. It is the subject of Amendment 74, which the noble Lord has just moved. I greatly look forward to hearing the observations on this amendment, as I hope we shall, from the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, who is the doyen of parliamentary archaeologists—or should I say archaeological parliamentarians? Proposed new Section 8A in Amendment 74 would extend the duty to report a find to anyone who came into possession of an object where they had grounds to believe that it was treasure and had not previously been duly reported. This was in the Government’s own draft Bill. The reasons for its omission from the Bill as finally published were explained by the Minister, Bridget Prentice, in Committee in another place on 24 February and again by my noble friend in his letter of 22 May, which has been copied to many colleagues. My noble friend said, ""We are not convinced that it would be practical to monitor this wider duty, and it would inundate the Coroner for Treasure with finds which are not treasure within the meaning of the Act or finds which have already been investigated"." I add my plea to my noble friend and to the Government to think again. He says that it would not be practical to monitor this wider duty. There are duties under a great many laws that we do not monitor—if we did, we really would live under a Big Brother state. The law should establish particular duties and offences, and then it is the responsibility of the citizen to abide by them. We need to close what some dealers and collectors unfortunately take to be a loophole. At present, the duty in Section 8(1) of the Treasure Act to report treasure rests solely with those who find the treasure in the first instance. Someone who subsequently comes into possession of an item of treasure and who may know or suspect that that item has been unreported may believe from reading the Treasure Act that they are in the clear if they hang on to the object, and indeed if they deal in it. I am advised that Section 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 makes it an offence to be in possession of stolen property—in the case of potential treasure, property of the Crown or perhaps of the landowner. However, the Treasure Act 1996, in contrast to most of our laws, allows ignorance of the law to be a defence. Only someone who can be proved to have intentionally broken the law is liable to prosecution. Currently, the administrators of the Portable Antiquities Scheme seek to advise anyone who finds himself in possession of unreported treasure—perhaps a dealer in antiquities or someone who inherits an object—to report it, but it is hard to reach everyone and advice is no more than advice, so it is a weak position. Some dealers may be genuinely hazy as to their legal responsibilities; others, I think, are deliberately evasive about the legal position. Either way, it is not satisfactory. For nearly three years, the British Museum has had an agreement with eBay to monitor its site for potential treasure. Of the 302 sellers of potential treasure questioned by British Museum staff, 6 per cent claimed that the find was an old find and therefore did not need to be reported; 2 per cent said that it was the finder’s responsibility and not theirs to report; 26 per cent said that the find spot was not known—that is a very important finding; 18.5 per cent said that the find was foreign; 16.5 per cent gave other reasons why the find need not be reported; 22 per cent did not respond at all; and only 9 per cent of those questioned said that they would indeed report. It is evident, therefore, that vendors are buying potential treasure finds without carrying out due diligence. If the obligation to report were widened, as this amendment proposes, then the duty of due diligence would be strengthened, and there would be a new pressure on dodgy dealers. I emphasise that there are wholly respectable dealers within the United Kingdom antiquities market. Worryingly and shamingly, however, a number of dealers and collectors in Britain are not respectable. I shall illustrate this from another context. We have recently read reports about illegal excavations in Afghanistan: 1,500 items are reported as having been looted there and intercepted at Heathrow. The National Museum in Kabul has put on an exhibition of artefacts recovered from Britain. It is a disgrace that there are dealers and collectors who are prepared to collude with this kind of looting, whether from sites of very important heritage abroad or of treasure in this country. We must deter such behaviour. We need to increase the powers of the police; we need to improve the practice and ethos of the antiquities trade; and we need to improve the reputation of the London market. Those would all be benefits of Amendment 74 and they would be important benefits, even if the coroner for treasure were to be inundated, as the Minister fears. In fact, I do not think that the coroner for treasure would be likely to be inundated. If this amendment were on the statute book, dealers would be deterred from acquiring items that might be unreported treasure. In any case, dealers will not want to report where they do not need to do so. They do not want to get bogged down in paperwork, and they do not want the delays and the blight on being able to sell as an item passes into the coroner’s limbo. In practice, 97 per cent of treasure cases are reported to a finds liaison officer employed under the Portable Antiquities Scheme and not directly to the coroner. These finds are then filtered through the finds liaison officer and British Museum experts. Another amendment might usefully state that a report can be made to a person nominated by the coroner for treasure and not directly and literally to the coroner for treasure. We should also supplement the stick with the carrot and extend the existing statutory reward scheme for reporting to third parties who report. The Minister says that, rather than have this amendment, a better course would be to improve awareness of the duties under the law. We should do that anyway. To that end, he says that his department will work with those who are involved with the Portable Antiquities Scheme—the DCMS, the British Museum, the National Council for Metal Detecting and the Council for British Archaeology. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, raised this question. Will my noble friend tell the House what the timescale for this consultation and co-operation will be? I understand that the DCMS has been saying that it cannot discuss the proposed way forward with the British Museum, which has a statutory duty to administer the provisions of the Treasure Act, until after this Committee stage debate. Why the delay? Will he commit his department to embarking on this process straight away? The first part of Amendment 74—the proposed new Section 8A—is supported by the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, which consists of 135 members of all parties in both Houses; by the Treasure Evaluation Committee, which was appointed by the Secretary of State to advise the Government and affirmed its support for the amendment at its meeting on 17 June; by UK Detector Net, an online forum for metal detector users which has 2,800 members; by the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London, a foremost school of archaeology; by the Council for British Archaeology; and by the Society of Antiquaries of London. I hope that it will also be supported by the Government. We can dispose very quickly of proposed new Section 8B, the second part of the amendment. This would give the coroner for treasure the power to require any person to hand over any object which, for the time being, the person had control of and which the coroner proposed to investigate as potential treasure. Bridget Prentice said in Committee on 24 February: ""There has never been a case under the current system where anyone has refused to hand over an item".—[Official Report, Commons, Coroners and Justice Bill Committee, 24/2/09; col. 299.]" Since then, such a case has occurred—a 14th century silver piedfort—and that case is now in the hands of the police. However, my noble friend, in his letter of 22 May, has satisfied me that paragraph 1 of Schedule 4, as amended by amendments in this group, will provide the coroner for treasure with the requisite powers. So I think that proposed new Section 8B should be dropped from Amendment 74 if we find it necessary to retable it on Report. However, I hope that my noble friend will undertake to consider carefully the case that we have put forward and himself table on Report an amendment proposing new Section 8A, perhaps refined, as a government amendment.