Image: Lisa Nandy (CC BY 3.0 UK Parliament)
Lisa Nandy hints at government’s approach to repatriation in a move which could make it easier for national museums
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy could be set to make it easier for national museums to repatriate objects to their country of origin.
Ministers are already looking at the repatriation of precious objects from British museums, Nandy revealed in an interview with The Guardian published today.
The publication reports that discussions have now begun between the government and institutions including the British Museum, after its chair George Osborne approached Nandy.
According to the interview, Nandy hopes to make the government’s approach to repatriation “consistent”.
National museums such as the British Museum are bound by tighter regulation than most during the repatriation process. The British Museum Act prohibits the British Museum and the Natural History Museum from disposing of any items in their collections, with the exception of a few specific and limited circumstances.
The potential return of the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum to Greece has, therefore, become emblematic of political will on the wider approach to repatriation; in past decades described by governing parties as both legally impossible and politically advantageous.
Last year Osbourne told museum trustees at an annual dinner it would “look for a partnership with our Greek friends that requires no one to relinquish their claims, asks for no changes to laws which are not ours to write, but which finds a practical, pragmatic and rational way forward.”
However the political football was touched when, in the same month, a meeting between then PM Rishi Sunak and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was cancelled just hours before it was to take place.
Reports since suggest that while the new Labour government is open to a deal, there are no plans to change the historic legislation.
