Lord Boateng (Lab)

My Lords, this Question and its answer are not to be confused with, and set no precedent in relation to any issue with, the Benin Bronzes or the Elgin marbles, important though they are—they also demand a just and equitable resolution. This Question is about a shared and common humanity, basic common decency and the sanctity in death of the human body in all its parts, in any shape or form, of any age, race or religion. It is about respect for diverse belief systems and the spiritual longing in us all for rest and resolution. The trade in human body parts is an affront to all of the above and is, literally and figuratively, an abomination. The retention of those human parts in any shape or form, without the option of return or decent disposition according to the wishes and sacred rites of their community of origin, is deeply offensive. The question was put this way by one affected person: “How would you feel knowing that one of your family members is in some strange place and more importantly hasn’t been afforded the right burial? This has an impact on the psyche of a group”. This question was put some years ago by Ned David, then chair of the Torres Strait land council. He was recalling the comments of an elder among his people. It is a good question, and I wonder how any of us in this Room would answer it. How would the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, answer it? One of his ancestors was a governor in Virginia—at that time the site of numerous skirmishes with the native indigenous peoples of the state. Another was a soldier in the Russo-Turkish war. If history had turned out another way, could the noble Earl’s ancestor’s scalp have turned up for sale in a public auction in Oxfordshire—the site of numerous attempts to auction human body parts—or on the world wide web where, I fear, scalps are on sale to this very day? If, on a visit to the Ottoman Naval Museum in Istanbul, a quite remarkable museum that I have been to on a number of occasions, he was to find his noble ancestor’s skull in the shape of a goblet—because that is the reality for many people in this day and age—how would we feel? The offence is real and the hurt continues from generation to generation. This abominable trade must stop, and the continued retention and objectifying of the remains of indigenous peoples in our public collections, against the will of their descendants and the originating communities concerned, must cease. The legislative and other obstacles to their return should be removed. I hope the Minister’s answer will give us some cause for hope that this will now happen, albeit belatedly. As a first step, the guidance issued to museums by the department needs to be strengthened so there is a presumption in favour of the return of human body parts, whether modified or not, on request by the affected persons and originating community groups, and we need a national data base so that we know what is held in our public collections—because at the moment we do not. Will the Minister undertake to do that and convene a group of experts to advise her department on the way forward on this and other issues affecting human remains, and will Ministers ensure that the voices of indigenous communities affected are heard in this process? Will the Minister agree to meet, with me and other interested parties, some of those indigenous groups when they visit Britain, as I know they intend to, in June and October this year? The Government of which I was a part sought, almost a quarter of a century ago now, to give effect to a joint statement by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain and the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, saying that we “recognise the special connection that Indigenous communities have with ancestral remains, particularly where they are living descendants”. There has been insufficient progress since that statement was made by the two Prime Ministers, albeit the Minister’s distinguished predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, produced some excellent recommendations and charted a way forward, which sadly was not followed up by the subsequent Conservative Government, despite several opportunities to do so. I hope that the expectation is that the Minister will give us some indication that, in response to this grievous and continuing wrong and this gaping hole in legislation, the need to implement our international obligations will be met and recognised by this new Labour Government. But the good news—and there is good news—is that despite this dismal tale of theft, disrespect, and the continuing retention of the parts of fellow human beings in public institutions and their hideous and deeply offensive sale as objects of curiosity in public auction and on the world wide web, there are some outstanding examples of good practice to be found in the work of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and of a number of charities that have worked over many years to address this issue. The Honouring the Ancient Dead initiative, or HAD, offers museums the opportunity to register the human remains that they hold, and the work of Survival International and the organisation Routes to Return are cases in point—plus the work of campaigning journalists, such as Patrick Pester, who have exposed the worst excesses of this odious trade. We can build on this good practice, and I hope that the Minister’s answer indicates that our Government will do just that—but the bad practice needs to be addressed also, by museum trustees themselves now, as a matter of urgency. They should not have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to change their current practice and interpretation of all too often ambiguous law to do the right thing. Chief among these recalcitrants, as in other matters, is the British Museum—forever seemingly on the defensive and on the back foot, and ripe as an institution for long-overdue reform. Take this as an example: the museum’s returns policy starts with the presumption that the collection will remain intact. As a result of that, it has refused to hand over several—indeed, there are seven—preserved Māori tattooed heads, as well as the skulls of two named individuals from the Torres Strait Islands that have been decorated for use in divination. One of the descendants of those persons from the Torres Strait Islands said this: “They are bastards, mate, bloody bastards. I can’t say anything good about them, man. They’re just—well, they’re the British Museum. I guess no one tells them what to do, eh? There’s not an ounce of humanity in that group. They’re bloody thieves. They stole it. They nicked it. There’s no way in the world they have any right to hold on to those remains”. I conclude with that. Those are the words of an indigenous person affected. We need to hear them. We need to give effect to our signing of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. We need to make ourselves an example of best practice, which we can do with the good will, talent and expertise that is to be found in the museum sector in this country. I hope that, in her answer, the Minister will enable us to build on those relationships and that capacity so that we have a sense of pride in a common humanity—in a shared past and a lived present that is a source of pride rather than a source of shame, and which is rooted in respect for the bodies of our ancestors.