I declare that I am president of the British Antique Dealers’ Association and that I have also been advised by the British Art Market Federation, the Antiquities Dealers’ Association and LAPADA, all of which have made written representations on this Bill. I concur with the comments of my colleagues that the art and antiques industry is fully supportive of the principles and aims of this Bill.
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Turning to the amendments in my name and those of colleagues, clause 17 relates to the most important point made in the submissions from the art and antique trade. Members have spoken before of the need for certainty in law—that is the point that needs to be clarified—so that well-intentioned and honest dealers and auction houses are clear as to exactly what is permitted. That is even more important when, as others have said, there is the possibility of a criminal conviction. The concern is over the level of knowledge of wrongdoing required before a dealer or auctioneer can be judged to have committed a criminal offence—what I understand lawyers call the mens rea point—and whether that has been expressed with an appropriate level of clarity in the Bill as currently worded.
Clearly no one objects to the word “knowing” in the relevant subsection. If a dealer knows that cultural property was unlawfully exported from an occupied territory, they are guilty of an offence. The problem lies with the additional criterion for committing an offence when someone has “reason to expect” that an item was unlawfully exported. Despite carrying out appropriate provenance checks on an item of cultural property, a dealer or auctioneer might, just prior to exhibiting it at an auction or antiques fair, receive an unsubstantiated allegation that it was illegally removed from an occupied territory.