Parthenon Sculptures
Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, based on numbers so far, it is the turn of the Lib Dems.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, the Greek Government have been trying to negotiate the return of the Parthenon marbles for decades, and we need to acknowledge that they are an integral part of Greece’s cultural heritage. A museum has been purpose-built near the site of the Parthenon where the sculptures were originally displayed for 2,000 years. The noble Lord on the Conservative Benches put his finger on it: the British Museum is stuffed full of artefacts from around the world. In fact, I understand that there is much that is not displayed in the basements and vaults. Maybe it would be an opportunity to bring some of those artefacts out if the museum returned the Parthenon marbles to Greece.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I can only reiterate that we have no plans to legislate to do that at the moment, but we genuinely understand the strength of feeling, as does the British Museum.