Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]

I am sorry that the Minister did not feel more enthused by the opportunity to do at least something in future on an international stage that will be bereft of European activities. She will surely have many gaps in her diary, since she is a doughty warrior in the European space—and here we are offering her on a gold plate a wonderful opportunity to make her name in cultural matters. I am, however, very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, for his support and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for understanding the reasons behind the amendment. I still think that it is a good idea. My noble friend Lord Howarth agreed with it, although the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, sees problems wherever he sees words that might be used to delay his precious involvement in the Bill. I keep assuring him that we are not out to stop the Bill, but we would like to improve it, which is what lay behind the amendment. Reading too carefully the words on the Marshalled List would reveal that we had a bit of a struggle with the clerks to get anything in the amendment, and of course the noble Lord is right that it would not do what it sets out to do, but nor was it intended to—which is rather a bad thing to say. What we are trying to get at is that there is an agenda here. If we are to do this, let us do it properly and pick up some of the points that we understand to be defective in terms of full implementation of what we all want. If there is a way to do that at some future date, we perhaps should do it. In the interim, the point has been made and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.