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Repatriation of Historical Objects

Although I respect the hon. Gentleman's views, he perhaps does not appreciate my argument, which is that a coherent story about the history of the world is being told within the British Museum. As the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar knows, a long-standing principle in the UK supported by successive Governments is that politicians do not interfere in the management of museum collections. I hope that all hon. Members participating in today's debate continue to support the arm's length principle, which means that museum trustees are responsible for managing the collections in their care. The Government have great faith in their ability. Changing that principle would be a dangerous and retrograde move, allowing cultural and artistic decisions to be determined by political views and prejudices. Museum trustees have a statutory duty to protect the nation's collections. Section 3 of the British Museum Act 1963 imposes a duty on the trustees of the British Museum:""to keep the objects comprised in the collections of the Museum within the authorised repositories of the Museum, except in so far as they may consider it expedient to remove them temporarily for any purpose connected with the administration of the Museum and the care of its collections."" The trustees of our national collections are thus legally responsible for their collections. Leaving the question of whether an object should be de-accessioned to the trustees' discretion is consistent with those legal principles. A further issue is that the legal position on restitution is that the British Museum Act prevents the museum from removing objects from its collections. Other national museums have similar statutory restrictions. We have looked at whether it would be appropriate to lift those statutory restrictions and under what circumstances. As hon. Members probably know, we have done so in two instances: the law was changed in 2005 to allow nine named national museums to de-accession human remains if they considered it appropriate to do so; and we had the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009, which allows 17 national collections to return items lost or stolen during the Nazi era following a recommendation by the Spoliation Advisory Panel. The latter was a private Member's Bill, but the Government considered that allowing restitution to take place in those specific circumstances was supported by a strong moral case. I now want to deal with the particular issues raised by the Lewis chessmen. As the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar knows, my views are clear. However, as my officials always remind me, decisions relating to the Lewis chessmen and other objects in the collection of the British Museum are a matter for the British Museum trustees and not for me as a politician. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider my next point. Nowadays, most scholars who have examined the chessmen generally agree that the most likely place of manufacture was Trondheim in Norway. The closest stylistic links for the decoration of the chessmen are to be found in the art and architecture of 12th century Trondheim and Scandinavia. In the 19th century, part of a queen, similar in style to the Lewis pieces, was discovered in Trondheim. Dr. David Caldwell, who is the keeper of Scotland and Europe at the National Museum of Scotland, visited Lewis recently with a team of researchers in preparation for the touring exhibition of the chessmen in 2011. He said publicly:""We certainly…believe the pieces are Scandinavian in origin, perhaps made in a workshop by several masters in a city like Trondheim.""