The potential merits of returning the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece

Matthew Offord Conservative, Hendon

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of returning the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece (a) on loan and (b) permanently.

Stuart Andrew Assistant Whip, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for International Trade) (Minister for Equalities)

The Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum are legally owned by the Trustees of the British Museum, which is operationally independent of Government. Decisions relating to the care and management of the museum's collections are a matter for the Trustees of the British Museum.

The British Museum, along with some other national museums, is prevented by law from deaccessioning objects in its collection. The British Museum has always said that it would consider any request for a loan of the sculptures to Greece – as it would any other object in its collection – as long as its normal conditions for loans are met.

The Government fully supports the position taken by the Trustees of the British Museum and has no plans to change the law.

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Janet Suzman, BCRPM's Chair, voices the wishes of all of the committee members when she suggests that consideration should be given to amending the law so that these specific sculptures may be reunited with the surving sculptures currently in Athens, to be displayed the right way round with direct views to the Parthenon, which still stands.  

The name of these sculptures is derived from the building they were torn from, and the surviving marbles displayed in the Acropolis Museum's top floor, glass-walled Parthenon Gallery, can be celebrated and curated for all of humanity, and for many more generations to appreciate.

Greece request since independence, has been for the reunification of these specific sculptures, and is wholly justified. Grece has never asked for all that was removed from the Acropolis, which is magnanimous, and it would  be equally maganimous to respond respecfully, and by paving the way to do so.