Ivory Bill (Third sitting)

Anna Turley Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Rutley]

I will seek some inspiration to ensure that the hon. Member for Workington, which is an incredibly nice part of the world—

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will help the Minister out, to allow the transaction to take place. I was interested by his reply. Is he essentially saying that by ruling themselves out of undertaking any transactions, organisations that have a genuine interest in acquiring something will under no circumstances be able to apply to register or purchase it, even if they are transparent about wanting it to be part of their collection? Given that only a small number of institutions specialise in the specific areas that we are considering, we may rule out some of our best museums from being able to undertake that process or purchase a valuable item.

[David Rutley]

I will first answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Workington, and I am sure inspiration on that technical point will come shortly. On ensuring that the waiver fits into the process, it will not actually be in the Bill, but it will be in the binding memorandum of understanding that we will agree and sign with those institutions. On that other technical point, I will get some inspiration shortly.

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[David Rutley]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. We are trying to do this for the elephants, so we want to ensure that our approach will provide greater transparency. The balance we need to strike is also about privacy. The technical difficulty is that these items, as we have heard, are small in number, but quite easily identifiable, so could quite easily be linked to individuals.

The approach that I would like to put to the Committee, and that we are looking to take forward, is that we will look at broad categories, which—although I call them broad—will be about specific types of items. That will help us better to track the sorts of items that will be covered under the exemption. I hope that those reassurances are strong enough for members of the Committee.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the Minister’s response, but does he agree that if we have to come back for subsequent legislation, having as much evidence as possible laid before us in the House will enable us better to scrutinise and create further legislation along these lines? I ask that particularly in the light of responses from the Government that indicate a concern just to get the Bill through and then potentially to widen the scope later on. Surely having more evidence on the success and application of the Bill will enable us as parliamentarians to improve future legislation.

[David Rutley]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We are trying to get the right balance between privacy and transparency. That is a real challenge in lots of legislation. I also point out that items that are registered, as opposed to certified, will come under clause 10. We will publish data on those items as well.

We are looking at ways of making it as transparent as possible, but the issue with the rarest and most important items is that they are more easily identifiable with an individual than items in some other categories, which is why it might be more difficult in this area than in others. I hope that explanation is helpful. We will do everything we can to try to bring transparency. We are very committed to doing that, and I will work with officials, while the Bill is in Committee and beyond, to see how we can make that more definitive.

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[Sue Hayman]

It may be, as the hon. Gentleman’s previous very kind comments may be. One never knows.

I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment, because it would not change the focus of or detract from anything in the Bill. All it would do is provide clarification, the need for which I thought was universally accepted when we were taking evidence.

[Anna Turley]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Earlier this week, we heard powerful evidence that the sizes are pretty similar, pretty standard. The amendment would cover 90% to 95% of portrait miniatures. The witness we heard went so far as to say that putting this in the Bill was “very sensible”. That is a direct quote, and it is high praise indeed for some of our legislation to be described as sensible. I think that this provision is the way forward. It is very difficult to see any objection to having it in the Bill.

[Sue Hayman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is right: the expert said that this would be a “very sensible” thing to do. I hope that the Minister recognises that the amendment is designed to support the Bill by making it generally more effective and giving owners of items a better understanding of exactly what kind of exemption certificate they should apply for, so that the process can move forward much more smoothly.