Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]

My Lords, while I quite understand the good intention in questioning this provision, I have some difficulty with the idea behind the amendment because the convention was ratified in 1954 and you cannot have retrospective legislation. This refers to artefacts brought into the country after 1954 that would be affected only if their provenance cannot be proved. That is where I have real difficulty, because one issue with illicit antiquities is that we do not know their provenance, so if they have been taken from a site—or, in the case of Syria and Iraq, looted, even—the actual context of those objects has been destroyed. While the objects themselves might be considerable works of art and were probably created as such, that does not mean they have value in their own right. They might have financial value, but there is a duty of care on museum staff or those dealing in this subject to make sure that such objects are not covered by this statute. There can be very few articles which could not have a 1954 provenance. Many museums would not accept articles which did not have a provenance going back before 1954, and while I understand the concern that has been expressed, the really big problem is making sure where these objects come from in the first place. One of the reasons Daesh is selling these objects now is that nobody is questioning where they came from.