I thank the Secretary of State for doing so. It is characteristically generous of her, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and the House are grateful.
The Hague convention is based on the consensus that cultural property, moveable and immoveable, is central to identity. Such items embody a society’s past and encapsulate its ideas and often its ideals. Because of the
consensus on the importance of cultural property, attacks on it in recent armed conflicts have drawn the attention of the international media. Daesh’s destruction of Palmyra and al-Qaeda’s demolition of mosques and mausoleums in Timbuktu have, quite rightly, sparked international outrage. For those who live in areas of armed conflict, the destruction of cultural property adds another layer of pain to the process of recovery in terms of both money and morale. Cultural property is a precious resource. When conflicts are over, monuments and their equivalents are key to kick-starting tourist-related industries, so cultural property can be crucial to economic regeneration.