“Cultural property”

Part of Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:00 am on 15 November 2016.

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Photo of Tracey Crouch Tracey Crouch The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 10:00, 15 November 2016

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington for her contribution. The Clause defines cultural property by reference to the definition in article 1 of the convention, as we discussed in the debate on the amendments. This is a broad definition, covering a wide range of movable and immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people.

The convention provides a non-exhaustive list of examples, simply mentioning monuments, buildings, historical and archaeological sites, books, objects and scientific collections. We are clear that all cultural property must be of the greatest importance to all people to be covered by the definition; the punctuation should not be seen as limiting the definition to only the first items listed.

The definition includes buildings where cultural property is preserved or exhibited, such as museums, major libraries and archives, but is sufficiently broad and flexible, as has been said, to accommodate modern forms of cultural property, such as rare or unique film or recorded music, because the list of objects covered is not exhaustive.

Although the definition was drafted some time ago, it is sufficiently flexible to deal with the developments of the digital age. Changing it would risk the development of a definition in the UK that is inconsistent with the current international interpretation. However, I confirm and reiterate that the definition will cover only a very small and special category of objects.

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