British Museum Act 1963 (Amendment) Bill 2008-09

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This Bill was on the Order Paper 16 October, to resume the adjourned Second Reading from 15 May, but there was not enough time for debate on that day.

Summary of the Bill

At present the British Museum is prevented by statute from disposing of objects in its collections except in very limited circumstances. The Bill’s purpose is to amend the British Museum Act 1963 to enable the British Museum to transfer to another institution, for public exhibition, any object from its collections, in certain circumstances, where public access is guaranteed. Those circumstances are:

• where the object would be more widely accessible to visitors than in the British Museum
• where it would be more appropriately displayed in the recipient institution than in the British Museum by reason of its historic links
• where the object came to form part of the collections of the British Museum in circumstances which make its retention in the collections undesirable or inappropriate.

The Bill confers a general power but its sponsor envisages only one situation in which it might realistically apply: to repatriate the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

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