I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those comments, and I am sorry for my oversight in overlooking his Committee's report. I am grateful for that report, for the earlier work of the Committee under its previous chairmanship and for what he and his Committee have had to say on the issue.

As I was saying, Lord Janner took this issue up with the next culture Minister who dealt with the matter—I think that we are now on our third—my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking. In a letter of 18 December 2007, she said:

"The Government is strongly persuaded by the moral argument for changing the law in this area and that seems to have been the overriding view from the consultation responses. I...have asked officials to look into options".

In a hand-written note at the end, she said:

"I will write to you again when I have identified a suitable slot and satisfied myself that we have an appropriate and properly constituted proposition. I hope you welcome this news".

In another letter to Lord Janner of 30 May 2008, my right hon. Friend said:

"I am happy to reassure you that a team of officials at DCMS are working on this issue and are making good progress...There are...a number of policy issues to determine".

Again there was a hand-written note at the end, which said:

"I am working hard to achieve progress in this area."

In the meantime, in 2008, the panel heard a claim for two pieces of porcelain from a Viennese collection, one of which was in the Fitzwilliam museum and the other in the British Museum. The one in the Fitzwilliam museum was restituted, but the panel felt it could not recommend the restitution of the second piece because it said that there was no sign that the Government were going to change the law, so it awarded an ex gratia payment. Even the then Minister thought that the inconsistency was untenable, and issued a press statement saying that the law should be changed.

In the summer of 2008, we got on to our fourth Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage, who is in her place—and it looked as though the Government were going to resolve the issue in the anticipated heritage Bill. We were hoping that that would be in the Queen's Speech, but that did not happen. That is why I have introduced my Bill today, some four years after the issue first arose as a result of the High Court case, during which time we have been in limbo in respect of so many of these items, which, in each case, belong to somebody else and are stuck in our national collections.

The best estimate is that about 20 certainly looted items are in UK museums, but there could be more. The process of research by families is ongoing and it can take quite a while to locate an item and document a claim, but of course not every rightful owner may want restitution. Some might, whereas others might settle for an ex gratia compensation payment or might simply want a public acknowledgement of the rightful ownership by the gallery or museum concerned. But it should be for the rightful owners to decide the fate of the object, not the institution concerned, once ownership has been decided to the satisfaction of the Spoliation Advisory Panel and on its recommendation to the Minister.

My Bill would provide a process, with appropriate safeguards, to achieve that outcome. It aims to work by agreement and by consensus. If there is a huge dispute, it would not work and the item would not be returned. The process is straightforward. The item claimed is referred to the panel. If the panel finds the object to be spoliated, it makes a recommendation for restitution to the Secretary of State, if it thinks that that is the proper remedy. If the Secretary of State accepts that restitution is appropriate, he or she can trigger a power—not a duty—of de-accession to the museum concerned.

The Bill also contains safeguards. It does not override any special conditions or trust under which an object may be held. That would require complex legislation and I baulked at even attempting that because it would not be appropriate for a private Member's Bill. It is limited to a finite and definitive list of institutions, which are set out in clause 2. It also has a 10-year sunset clause to provide, on the one hand, sufficient time to facilitate claims and identify objects and, on the other, to provide some long-term certainty to the public collections concerned.

Above all, the Bill is strictly limited as to time, place and perpetrator of the original deprivation of the object from its lawful owner. It is not a Trojan horse for the Parthenon sculptures—that is my next Bill—or for any other artworks or cultural items. It is a discreet, modest measure, limited in scope and time to rectify decades of injustice, and I commend it to the House.