David Lammy, the culture minister, said: 'I am currently taking expert advice on how to bring forward legislation to help put right these historic wrongs.' The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) confirmed that it would be launching a public consultation shortly.
The move comes nearly six years after the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport's report, Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade, recommended that 'where a claim has been upheld and restitution is seen as appropriate by all parties, it is essential that legislative barriers to such restitution be removed'.
When this was put to the DCMS, a spokeswoman said: 'It is important to remember that restitution is a complex and sensitive issue. There have been only two cases where the Spoliation Advisory Panel has recommended restitution - in one, the museum decided to offer an ex-gratia payment and in the other a long-term loan is being negotiated.'
Lammy's statement follows a recommendation in April by the Spoliation Advisory Panel that £175,000 should be paid to the heirs of art collector, Arthur Feldmann, whose four drawings by old masters were seized by the Gestapo in 1939 and ended up in the British Museum's collections.
The government made the payment on behalf of the museum after the panel judged that the British Museum was not legally liable or morally to blame.
A spokeswoman for the British Museum indicated it would be supportive of a change in the law enabling the return of spoliated objects. And she said it was 'very keen to work with the DCMS to draft these new powers'.
Norman Palmer, an expert in law relating to cultural property and institutions and a member of the Spoliation Advisory Panel, said that there were a number of options open to the government including a statute allowing a particular museum to deaccession a particular object.
A spokeswoman for the DCMS said: 'Issuing a consultation document does not guarantee a place in the legislative timetable.'
Patrick Steel
The move comes nearly six years after the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport's report, Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade, recommended that 'where a claim has been upheld and restitution is seen as appropriate by all parties, it is essential that legislative barriers to such restitution be removed'.
When this was put to the DCMS, a spokeswoman said: 'It is important to remember that restitution is a complex and sensitive issue. There have been only two cases where the Spoliation Advisory Panel has recommended restitution - in one, the museum decided to offer an ex-gratia payment and in the other a long-term loan is being negotiated.'
Lammy's statement follows a recommendation in April by the Spoliation Advisory Panel that £175,000 should be paid to the heirs of art collector, Arthur Feldmann, whose four drawings by old masters were seized by the Gestapo in 1939 and ended up in the British Museum's collections.
The government made the payment on behalf of the museum after the panel judged that the British Museum was not legally liable or morally to blame.
A spokeswoman for the British Museum indicated it would be supportive of a change in the law enabling the return of spoliated objects. And she said it was 'very keen to work with the DCMS to draft these new powers'.
Norman Palmer, an expert in law relating to cultural property and institutions and a member of the Spoliation Advisory Panel, said that there were a number of options open to the government including a statute allowing a particular museum to deaccession a particular object.
A spokeswoman for the DCMS said: 'Issuing a consultation document does not guarantee a place in the legislative timetable.'
Patrick Steel
