Artist’s Resale Right Regulations

My Lords, I still cannot see that the provision in this context prejudices that; that is the legal view that has been taken. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, in what I thought was a rather objective assessment of the regulations. So far as other European competitors are concerned, it seems that there is no pattern. The current available figures suggest that Germany, Denmark, Greece, France and Hungary will all come under €1,000; Italy, the Czech Republic and probably Ireland will be about €1,000; Belgium and Spain are between €1,000 and €3,000; while Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal and Cyprus are at €3,000. Across Europe, people are taking different positions on this. The noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, raised the question of works of video art and whether they are covered by the definition of works of art. We do not think so, because we do not believe that they come in the category of graphic or plastic art, but there will be difficult borderline cases. We took the decision to use the definition in the directive so that there could be no accusations of gold-plating. It is not a very precise definition, but there cannot therefore be any queries about that. I am well aware of the recent criticism in the press, but many of the reports have been factually inaccurate and not based on the latest economic analysis, which we made available on the Patent Office website. Finally, I shall deal with another big question, which is why the Government have chosen to make the art market professional jointly liable for payment of resale right. If you take any look at the matter, that has to be the simplest means of operating resale rights. The art professionals are the people who have the experience in this, who can most easily deduct the sum of money, and would be expected to give advice on the issue to buyers and sellers. I cannot see any way that a counter-argument that someone else should do so could be made. If we did that, it would lead to a great deal more grief for everyone, including the art professionals. The Government firmly believe that our implementation will allow those artists who are most in need of financial support to gain from their creativity while minimising any risk of harm to the UK’s thriving art market. We have not gold-plated this directive and we have not gone beyond what is required within the directive. In fact, in setting the threshold at €1,000, we have not gone as far as the directive allows. In making our decisions, we have carefully excluded those cases where the rewards do not justify the costs. Paragraph 55 of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee report, The Market for Art, states,"““we do believe it should not benefit solely the richest artists. We recommend that the Government lowers the threshold at which the resale right applies from 3,000 to 1,000 euros””."