UK Parliament / Open data

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, support the thinking behind Amendments 20, 26 and 27, particularly in respect of helping the police and Border Force discharge their duties. Having long experience as an insurer, I know that stolen items often spend time with the police or—certainly in one case that I can think of—Border Force, and for understandable reasons. With no intention on the part of the police but simply because they have no expertise in the handling of materials, problems arise. One example comes to mind immediately, where it was a case not so much of a policeman putting his foot in it as of his putting a foot through it—through a major canvas. Therefore, as the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Howarth, said, some guidelines would be very helpful to the policemen on the front line. The fine art and antiques squad at Scotland Yard is greatly reduced these days; it used to have inspector-level command but is now down to a sergeant. The number of people there is very few, so they cannot ring internally for help, where written help would be enormously useful in these matters.

Cultural objects of the type that we are discussing are usually exceptionally fragile and therefore much more susceptible to mishandling, either through the action of damp and water or simply through being roughly handled. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
773 c1527 
Session
2016-17
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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