Artist’s Resale Right Regulations

My Lords, when the Minister started his speech and talked about concessions, I thought he was going to come clean with the House and explain the massive concessions he has made in agreeing to this regulation and this directive. But the truth is that this is yet another massive cave-in to the European Union at the expense of Britain’s true interests. What is so depressing about the whole saga, which, as my noble friend Lord Brooke says, has been dragging on for up to 10 years, is that this Government earlier recognised the damage that the directive could cause to the London art market and fought London’s corner very hard indeed. The Government then recognised the importance of the art market to London. London has, I believe, 24 per cent of the world’s art auction market—far more than the rest of the European Union put together, and 40 per cent of the total British art market is imported specifically for sale here in Britain. But this whole sorry saga shows that the much-vaunted strong voice in Europe is nothing more than what the Times yesterday called in its leader the ““bleat and retreat””. The Government were always against the directive. I understand that the Prime Minister personally got involved in trying to stop it being put into law, and, at one point, threatened to use the veto. But, in the wonderful world of the EU social model, one country’s competitive advantage is another country’s competitive disadvantage and must be, therefore, harmonised—that is to say, eliminated—and hang the economic and social consequences. This directive was subject to the qualified majority voting procedure, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Brooke. To stop it the Government needed to find enough allies, which they did, but unfortunately that blocking minority alliance failed to hold, and here we are this evening passing the regulation into law. What price our much-vaunted seat at the top table? It is more like a high chair in the corner, of absolutely no consequence. The Times leader that I mentioned earlier ended by saying that Parliament,"““which tends to let EU-based regulations slip through, must act to protect Britain’s status as a global centre for artists and art””." I have news for the Times: Parliament cannot change so much as a comma or syllable of these regulations. To do so would be contrary to EU law, which is supreme—so much for our parliamentary sovereignty and democracy. The final pathetic note in this sorry story was struck by members of the London Assembly the other day when they proposed that their mayor, Ken Livingstone, should try to persuade New York and Zurich art markets to introduce the droit de suite there. I imagine that that was just before they went down to the garden to talk to the fairies about what they wanted for breakfast. This again demonstrates with complete clarity that when it comes to European legislation neither this place nor the other place has any role to play whatever. We have no power, the powers lie in Brussels; and shame on us for agreeing to that. If my noble friend Lord Brooke decides to vote tonight on this amendment, I will be the first to vote in his Lobby.