My Lords, I would like to follow up the important points raised by my noble friend Lord Touhig and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, with some questions to the Minister, if I may. Can she tell us a little more about the cultural property protection unit that is already being established in the Ministry of Defence? What is its budget, and what assurances can she give us as to the future resources that will be made available to that unit? We know that there is always fierce competition for resources within the MoD budget and that periodically that budget is subject to a squeeze. Some people might see this particular function as somewhat marginal to the main purposes of the MoD—although I would assert that, for a civilised country, the purposes with which the unit is entrusted are extremely important—and the resources of that unit could be vulnerable. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister could tell us a little more about its scale, its functioning and its resources, and reassure us that it will continue to function at full strength.
Can the Minister also tell us how the lines of communication will work? How will the services and expertise of that unit be made available to people serving in the field, and not only those under the direct command of our own Armed Forces? In addition—my noble friend Lord Touhig raised this important point in the debate on two of his amendments—how will it be able to communicate to embedded forces: the people who are,
“subject to UK service jurisdiction serving under the military command of the armed forces of another country”—
and to “private military contractors” or individuals working “within private military contractors”? I have a memory that private military contractors, and perhaps Halliburton in particular, were guilty of grievous and appalling violations of cultural property in very important archaeological sites during the Iraq war, so how in practice does the Ministry of Defence expect to exercise its influence to prevent a recurrence of such disasters? This might be an unfair question to pose to the Minister personally, but if she is not yet briefed on it she may be able to write, or perhaps her noble friend Earl Howe would be good enough to write to us on these matters.