My Lords, I will deal with Amendments 5, 6, 8 and 9 in this group, and start with Amendment 5. Clause 2 represents a feature of the Bill that has resulted in the largest number of concerned comments from people who handle antiques, so it is no coincidence that we have today several amendments that address this clause.
The dateline chosen for Clause 2—for objects of,
“outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value”—
is, as I say, causing considerable concern. According to Clause 36(3)(a), only cultural objects made before 1 January 1918 would be eligible for an exemption certificate. It is mystifying that 1918 has been used for this exemption when it appears that even an ordinary upright piano made in 1965, with keys faced in ivory, would qualify for exemption, yet a great work of art created by a leading artist from the 1920s or 1930s would not. As things stand, no items from the Art Deco movement
would gain an exemption certificate. Art Deco is greatly celebrated in the fields of architecture and artistic design, and in 2003, the Victoria and Albert Museum devoted a major exhibition to the subject.
The Minister in another place has previously expressed the desire not,
“to unduly affect artistic and cultural heritage”.—[Official Report, Commons, Ivory Bill Committee, 14/06/18; col. 98.]
Is my noble friend the Minister aware that modern British art of the 20th century, by artists both living and dead, is a thriving, distinctively British and well-respected genre? On 20 June, the auctioneer Christie’s devoted its entire day’s sale to the subject. The sculptor Richard Garbe worked in a number of different media in the 1930s, including bronze and ivory. His monumental work includes sculpture in the collection of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, and many of his works would be considered pre-eminent by the panel that considers acceptance of historical objects in lieu of tax. The effect of the 1918 cut-off date would be to prevent his great works being sold or exported by their owners.
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Since objects for which an exemption certificate is being sought have to pass the inspection of a prescribed institution, there is very little chance that a work by Garbe would be by an impostor. Many such works will already have full provenance, describing the art galleries where they have been displayed previously and their previous ownership, particularly if they formed part of a well-recognised private collection.
The Clause 8 exemption for musical instruments allows the continued sale of musical instruments dating from as recently as 1974. If the intrinsic features of the ivory contained in post-war musical instruments are not seen as having a direct or indirect connection with modern-day poaching, it is difficult to see why a moving sculptured tablet, fashioned by Eric Gill in the 1920s, should not be afforded the same protection.
Having 1947 as a common dateline for the Clause 7 and Clause 2 exemptions would be logical and sensible and would recognise the great contribution of 20th century art to the cultural life of the United Kingdom. For those reasons, therefore, I am intrigued to know why 1918 was chosen, and I do urge on the Government a rethink in respect of this anomalous date.
I turn to Amendment 6. As things stand, the restricted way in which Clause 2 has been couched means that ivory carvings containing an amount of ivory incapable of meaningful reworking, such as small Japanese netsuke, have to meet the “outstandingly high” quality criteria. I question why this needs to be the case.
Perhaps I should first debunk one oft-repeated myth—referred to on Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, at col. 1147, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, at col. 1157—that the United Kingdom is the world’s largest legal ivory exporter. Indeed, my noble friend the Minister referred to the United Kingdom, in the debate on the first group of amendments today, as one of the largest exporters. The ivory export data submitted by the Animal and Plant Health Agency to CITES in respect of 2016, unlike data for the previous year, categorised
ivory carvings under two headings. Of a total of 5,050 commercial and personal exports of worked ivory items, an incredible 4,284—that is, 84%—comprised piano keys. This represents about 82 pianos. The Government do not publish a breakdown of the remaining 766 worked ivory items exported that year, but doubtless these will include portrait miniatures, antique furniture with ivory inlay as well as solid ivory carvings. Of the items that were not piano keys, 367 were destined for China and Hong Kong. That year, Belgium exported sufficient raw ivory tusks to China and Hong Kong to create more than 20,000 small carvings and trinkets.
I understand that Hong Kong’s official stockpile of ivory tusks and worked ivory amounts to the equivalent of between 1 million and 1.5 million ivory carvings. The TRAFFIC report about the trade in antique ivory recorded a considerable drop in the number of objects made in ivory offered for sale in London between 2004 and 2016, and a fall of 47% in respect of like-for-like visits to the same antiques markets, streets or premises. That does not suggest that the presence of antiques for sale in the UK is fuelling a market for objects made from ivory, whether for home purchase or overseas consumption.
Regardless of whether some exports of low-value large ivory carvings may have been bought for recarving by workshops in the Far East, the same cannot be said of small carvings such as Japanese netsuke. They are already too small to be worth purchasing with the intention of turning them into something else and invariably have a hole passing through them, which would also make recarving pointless. As I said, our ivory export numbers are small, so the UK is not supplying large numbers of these to buyers in the Far East. Likewise, objects that incorporate small amounts of ivory mixed with other materials, such as small pieces of inlay in wooden Vizagapatam boxes from India, will never be reused, and these objects are not sought by buyers in the Far East.
Amendment 6 would continue to require all objects that contain 10% or more ivory to come under scrutiny and be issued with an exemption certificate. However, where the finite ivory content is less than 30 cubic centimetres, the item would not need to meet the “outstandingly high” criterion. Assessors would simply confirm that the object predated 1918 or 1947. Small trinkets bought 30 years ago in East Africa would not pass that test and would not be granted a certificate.
On Amendment 8, the question of religious items fashioned from ivory was raised on Second Reading, and rightly so. Many antique ivory items have religious relevance, the most obvious being ivory crucifixes. The inspiration of faith has drawn many artists to generate some of Europe’s most significant works of art. Great religious paintings come to mind, but within the field of sculpture, there are many thousands of representations of biblical scenes carved from ivory. The very early ones—15th century pieces—would undoubtedly fall under the “outstandingly high” heading, but there are many works from later centuries that have been finely executed. And we should not forget other religions. Hindu gods are frequently represented in ivory—a material that was readily available in India from its own indigenous Asian elephant. In Judaism, the handles on the end of the antique wood poles that help unroll
the Torah scroll sometimes incorporated ivory. All of these items are devotional in nature, and, with this amendment, the Bill would recognise an entire field of human creativity inspired by religion.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 9. Under the Bill as drafted, unless it is a musical instrument, any antique object containing 10% or more ivory would have to pass the test of being,
“of outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value”.
It is not entirely clear just how many items the Government envisage would fall into that exemption, but we have been given the impression that very few would do so. It may be helpful to give just a few examples of the types of objects of historical interest that contain 10% or more ivory and which would appear unlikely to meet the Government’s proposed test. Red and white Victorian chess pieces, for example, are often contained in the drawer of a Victorian chess table—my noble friend referred to those earlier. These are of the classical type drawn by Tenniel in his illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. Reference has also been made today to Sheffield sterling silver English cutlery with carved handles. The list also includes Victorian needle cases and pin boxes; Georgian theatre tokens which gained the possessor admission to a particular seat or box for the season; 18th-century fans with ivory sticks and painted paper leaves; and Anglo-Indian sewing boxes and tea caddies, particularly those made in the 18th and 19th centuries in Vizagapatam on India’s eastern coast—the East India Company often arranged their supply to the UK. The list is pretty endless and a source of enormous concern to many people who value our heritage.
Does Parliament really need to restrict, in the way proposed, the sale of objects not connected with the trade in poached ivory? An individual who does not wish to purchase an antique containing ivory has the right not to do so. Equally, a person who owns an antique silver tray with ivory handles may feel uncomfortable converting it into money. That is their choice. Without a pattern of evidence showing that there is a link between the demand for ivory as a commodity in the Far East and the sale of genuine antique objects such as those that I have described, is it really Parliament’s place to tell the owners of those items that they can no longer sell them, or indeed that antiquarians can no longer buy them? After all, these are objects that it would be perfectly possible to have checked by those who have specialist knowledge.
We need to understand, too, that the objects at threat from an overly restrictive Clause 2 include the cultural inheritance not just of Europe but of Asia—including the great civilisations of India, Japan and China—and of Africa. Though many ordinary tourist souvenirs may have come from Africa, there are plenty of examples of the continent’s own great art, including its indigenous population’s commentary on the colonial era. That is exemplified by West African Loango carved tusks, such as those from the 19th century, depicting vignettes of life at the time they were carved. These show images of enslaved Africans, as well as missionaries and colonial officers. They serve as a reminder of past injustices and it would be perverse if they were to be lost to future generations.
There is also considerable concern among those who appreciate our cultural and social history about the ultimate loss of the objects that fail to meet the Clause 2 exemption test. There appears to be a lack of understanding about what is likely to happen to these objects, particularly the quirky and interesting items. Such objects provide us with a commentary on our past. I am sure that existing owners will continue to look after them, but when they are no longer able to do so, perhaps because they have to go into a care home, or when they die, what fate will then befall these objects? It is absolutely certain that the museums of this country do not have the capacity or the funds to accept or care for every single antique incorporating ivory that may be offered to them. There is no guarantee that the children or relatives of owners will be interested in historical objects—so how will they deal with their inherited items? Like any item that holds little interest to a younger generation, many of these historical objects will simply be put in the dustbin.
It is well established that when no financial value is associated with an object, it will most likely be discarded. Carrier bags are a good current example. As with real estate, when an antique retains a monetary resale value, that helps to ensure that its owner maintains and cares for it. Objects that are 100 years old certainly need looking after, and there are specialist colleges and institutions whose raison d'être is to restore and conserve them. Are we really saying that we want these objects, which help to describe our social and cultural history—objects that originate from an earlier era—to be thrown into the dustbin of history? Surely we are all sufficiently well informed these days to recognise that a silver teapot would not be made with ivory insulators today, but we can understand that 90 years ago ivory was the plastic of its era. It is perfectly possible to appreciate and continue to buy and sell historical objects that happen to incorporate old ivory while appreciating that we do not wish to make such items today.
To rectify these concerns, the exemption certificates could be extended to cover objects that are of a standard suitable for acquisition only by qualifying museums—that is, by UK-accredited museums or members of the International Council of Museums. The Bill already defines the meaning of qualifying museums and so, who better than museum curators and other specialists, who handle antique objects on a regular basis, to judge whether an object containing ivory has the qualities that would be required for acquisition by any of these government-recognised and properly constituted museums?
It has been suggested that the term “museum standard” is too subjective, but it is no more subjective than the existing wording,
“outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value”.
The proposal does not change the subsection (3) factors that must be taken into account by the Secretary of State and the prescribed institutions when deciding whether to grant an exemption certificate. The Clause 2 exemption would remain a very narrow one. It would mean that low-grade tourist souvenirs, such as letter openers and carved African figures from the 20th century, or mass-produced items of the type that could be
bought in the ivory-carving shops of the Far East, would not be on sale in the UK. It would also mean that we are respecting our history. Owners of legally acquired objects such as a silver teapot with an ivory handle could be able to sell their possessions. Art collectors, who may have put part of their pension investment into antiques incorporating ivory, would not suddenly find that they are without funds for their retirement. I beg to move.
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