Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to identify (a) stolen and (b) confiscated (i) treasures, (ii) art and (iii) other cultural assets that were lost during the Second World War.

The UK has endorsed the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art, which include identifying looted art and establishing mechanisms to consider claims for its return. Our national museums have undertaken detailed research of their collections to identify objects with uncertain provenance between the years 1933–45. The results have been published in a fully searchable spoliation database which is regularly updated.

HM Government has also established the Spoliation Advisory Panel which advises on claims for the return of cultural objects lost during the German Third Reich and which are now in UK collections. The Panel currently holds the Presidency of the Network of Restitution Committees on Nazi-looted art which works to increase the effectiveness of provenance research and the sharing of information on Nazi-looted art, in the spirit of the Washington Declaration.