My Lords, I have sat in the other place and this House now for some 48 years. I do not think I have ever been more depressed by a Bill put forward by a Government to which I give support. I do not think that I have ever heard a more obdurate
reply from the Front Bench. I beg my noble friend—I have always regarded him as a friend in every sense—to have a little bit of the pragmatism and flexibility which have been defining characteristics of the Conservative Party and, I believe, of all good democrats through the ages.
I have to confine my remarks to Amendment 17—the one that deals with miniatures. My noble friend the Duke of Wellington indicated to me, so that I knew in time to wind up, that the miniature that he examined this morning, and which he has offered to show to my noble friend, is significantly larger than the limit prescribed. Frankly, it is no good to say that the exemption covers 90% of miniatures. When people buy a miniature, they are buying a work of art because they want to own that particular image because of the subject or the artist, and sometimes both. They are not buying it because it is painted on velum, ivory or anything else. They are buying it for the picture. It just so happens that for a couple of centuries many of the best miniaturists painted on ivory and some of the finest miniatures in our national and local collections and in private collections in houses open to the public are painted on ivory. Some of them—among them some of the very best—will be bigger than the limit prescribed in the Bill.
This way madness lies and I beg my noble friend—whose invitation to withdraw the amendment I shall to accept—to talk to my noble friend the Duke of Wellington and others between now and Report and to see that the case we are advancing in your Lordships’ Chamber today is not nonsensical but has at its heart a love for our national heritage and for these objects and miniatures that form a very important part of it. This is not a question of doing damage to any elephant. All the elephants on whose ivory the miniatures are painted are long dead. With a heavy heart, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.