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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the All Party-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan-Reparations's report entitled Laying Ancestors to Rest, published in March 2025, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of reviewing the Human Tissue Act 2004 to require the repatriation of human remains over 100 years old.

Museums are independent of the government and are responsible for decisions relating to the care and management of their collections, including the return of human remains, therefore no such assessment has been undertaken.

However, DCMS has previously issued Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums which encouraged museums to establish an advisory framework to assist in determining repatriation claims and provided a set of criteria which need to be taken into account in assessing claims. Individual museums publish policies on their approach. We are considering how best to update the guidance, which is now 20 years old.

A number of museums, including the Natural History Museum, the Horniman Museum, and the Pitt Rivers Museum, working in close partnership with the communities or countries of origin, have returned human remains.

Separately, the Museums Minister met this month with DHSC to discuss broader issues of human remains including those relating to the Human Tissue Act 2004.