HL Deb 15 July 1969 vol 304 cc240-52

8.18 p.m.

LORD GLENDEVON rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the light of the Third Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (H.C. 316), they are satisfied that the Board of Trade are sufficiently aware of their duty to protect the public interest in matters of this kind. The noble Lord said: My Lords, my Question arises from the publication of the Third Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. That Report arose from circumstances following the sale by auction at Aldwick Court, Wrington, of a picture by the Siennese painter, Duccio, between March 26 and 29, 1968. The picture was bought by a dealer named Weitzner for £2, 700. Mr. Weitzner sold it for £150, 000 to the Cleveland Museum of Art, but an export licence was refused, and on October 3 the National Gallery bought the picture for that same sum of £150, 000.

My Lords, suspicion had taken root that the picture had been bought by the illegal activities of a "ring". There were talks in the Board of Trade, about which I shall say more in a moment. These culminated in a complaint being referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner by two Members of Parliament, Mr. Anthony Royle and Sir John Vaughan-Morgan. The main complainants upon whose behalf they referred to the Commissioner were Mr. Leggatt and Mr. Agnew, two greatly respected dealers on the Executive of the Society of London Art Dealers, Mr. Leggatt himself being Chairman. They complained of damage done to the London art trade as result of the dilatoriness and maladministration of the Board of Trade following information which had been given to it.

They complained further as a result of a statement made by the President of the Board of Trade on November 6, 1968 which said: We would have been greatly helped in our inquiries if we had not met a wall of silence on the part of many people.

This complaint, in its turn, was added to as a result of a further statement by the President of the Board of Trade on March 18, 1969: The only information of any substance or significance concerning the Aldwick Court sale which my officers have been able to obtain has been provided by people who were in a position to make that same information available well before the time limit for any prosecution had expired, but who made no move to do so."—[Official Report, Commons. 18/3/69, Col. 216.]

This was reasonably held to imply that the Society of London Art Dealers, and Mr. Leggatt and Mr. Agnew, had deliberately withheld information from the Board of Trade until the time limit had expired.

What were the facts? I realise that your Lordships will have read the Commissioner's Report, and so I will give a précis of what I believe to be the important facts as shortly as I can consistently with my duty. On a date in April, 1968, Mr. Leggatt, of the Society of London Art Dealers, spoke to Mr. Royle, Member of Parliament, about Mr. Weitzner's activities with Italian art dealers. Mr. Leggatt did not specifically mention at that point the Aldwick Court sale or the Duccio. He had, in fact, received legal advice not to do so. Then in May, the following month, Mr. Agnew, Mr. Leggatt's colleague, informed Sir John Vaughan-Morgan, the other Member of Parliament concerned, about Mr. Weitzner's general behaviour in London auction rooms. Again the Aldwick Court sale was not mentioned.

On May 13, the two Members of Parliament wrote to the President of the Board of Trade and asked for an interview. On May 29 he saw them. The Members of Parliament passed on the complaint of Mr. Weitzner's general behaviour. There is some doubt as to whether the actual sale of the Duccio was mentioned in that particular conversation, but it is not, as the Commissioner points out, a particularly relevant point because the Board of Trade knew at that time that Mr. Weitzner had purchased this picture.

The President's brief for that meeting on May 29 included the words: If Sir John Vaughan-Morgan has any evidence of a report involving Mr. Weitzner he should report the matter to the police.

Of course, no Minister is in duty bound to speak literally to his brief. These of us who have been Ministers know that prefectly well. But, equally, a Minister has to take responsibility for what he does or does not say. In fact, the President of the Board of Trade, for some reason, did not make this fact clear; he did not mention it at the talk with the two Members of Parliament. What he did say was that he would investigate Mr. Weitzner's activities, and on June 14 letters were sent by the Board of Trade to the Secretaries of the Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute and of the British Antique Dealers' Association asking for comment on the suspicion that then; was an Italian ring operating, not mentioning, perfectly understandably, anybody by name, but using the phrase "a foreign dealer".

In passing, I would say that it seems a little odd, surely, for a Department to deal with such a very vital and potentially tricky matter as this by means of a departmental letter. There seem to be better ways of getting in touch with people. Anyhow, both bodies replied within a few weeks that they had no evidence of this happening.

Mr. Royle and Sir John Vaughan-Morgan, between the end of Jul) and August 2, wrote to the President suggesting that he make further inquiries and that the Society of London Art Deaders and Sotheby's and Christie's should be consulted. On August 6 the President, or the Board, wrote to the Society of London Art Dealers and to the other firms suggested. Sotheby's and Christie's replied that they knew there were these rumours but that they had no evidence to support them. Then there was a telephone conversation on August 22 and during that conversation a meeting was fixed for September 30 between the Society of London Art Dealers and the relevant officer in the Board of Trade, whose name was Mr. Broomfield. S.L.A.D.—the Society of London Art Dealers—could not manage an earlier date. During that conversation S.L.A.D. told the Board of Trade (and this is not denied) that their information would relate specifically to the Duccio sale.

That meeting took place. Mr. Leggatt and Mr. Agnew were present, with some of their colleagues on the Executive Committee of S.L.A.D. The importance of the date is simply this: that it was beyond the time limit for any prosecution over the auction of the Duccio should the evidence have come forward making that possible. The Parliamentary Commissioner, in his Report, refers to the omission of the Board of Trade to note the time limit as having been made in good company, in so far as those who had arranged the meeting with them also failed to note it. I maintain that it was the duty of the Board of Trade, and therefore of the Minister to know of the time limit. Their gross carelessness in failing to do so is not in any way mitigated by the fact that the Society of London Art Dealers did not note it either. One should not be expected to do a Government Department's elementary duty for it when one is dealing with it and asking for its protection. One must trust the Department—once, at any rate.

I come to the role of the Board of Trade and the impression of that role given to the complainants. They are two different things, unfortunately. In November, 1968, the Board of Trade defined their role in a brief for the President, who was to make the Statement already mentioned in another place on November 6, as follows: While the Board of Trade have an interest in the law relating to auctions, as part of their general responsibility for trade and commerce, it is not their responsibility to investigate particular offences in this field. The Board's inquiries earlier this year were thus directed towards establishing whether the Auctions (Bidding Agreements) Act was working satisfactorily or was being widely evaded, and the Board are continuing with these inquiries, following up the leads provided by the publicity arising out of the Aldwick case. Should these inquiries bring to light evidence of offences, whether under the Act of 1927 or otherwise, it will be brought to the attention of the Director.

The President did not give this important information in his Statement. It was not in fact given until March 12, 1969. by the Minister of State, in a Standing Committee.

Then the President himself took it up on March 18, when he said in the House: We have a general responsibility for supervising the law relating to auctions. That is our sole responsibility. Any question of prosecution or criminal proceedings is not a matter for the Board of Trade. That is a matter for the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions …"—[Official Report, Commons (Col. 218.).]

He then said that anyone who had evidence which might lead to criminal prosecution should inform the police or the Director.

My Lords, I have dealt, I hope not unfairly, with the slackness of the Board of Trade over the time limit. That was bad enough. But the President's misleading of the complainants over the role of his Department was, if possible, worse. The Times, I think, on June 27, well described his Department's conduct here as a half-hearted attempt to exorcise a function they did not believe they possessed".

What a way to run a great Department of State! The President should, and could, have made the position clear in his interview with Sir John Vaughan-Morgan as far back as May, 1968. He did not do so until March, 1969.

This was not all. Having misled the complainants, S.L.A.D., as to his Department's true role, the President added insult to injury by gratuitously suggesting that they had deliberately withheld material evidence from him. The Commissioner completely rejects this accusation. It was a most unhappy charge to make or to suggest. I do not, of course, accuse the President of bad faith! It would be impermissible to do so; and in any case I would not wish to. But he made a most wounding aspersion upon the integrity of deeply respected men. He will, I am sure, make a personal apology to them.

My Lords, I have told your Lordships the facts which I believe matter most. There is one other upon which I have not dwelt; it is less important than the others, but it is another good example of tactless administration by the Board of Trade. The Department allowed the purchase of the Duccio by the National Gallery to go through without a word to the Gallery of the unsatisfactory possibilities connected with the original sale. I am sure that the President will apologise to the Society of London Art Dealers and their officers for what he wrongly said of them. He has made a mistake, and it does one no harm to admit it. Whether or not he will also feel that he should apologise to Parliament for the utterly careless way in which this whole matter was conducted is a matter for him. The responsibility is his, and his alone. I know him to be the last person to deny that.

Finally, the Government can be said to have performed one creditable action in this whole context. It was they who established the office of Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. Without it, it is highly probable that the conduct of the President of the Board of Trade and of his Department would have been pushed under the carpet. Now it cannot be.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, in being so quick off the mark in getting this Question put down and in arriving first of any Member of either House at the winning post. It is probably not surprising in a former quarter-miler. Having said that, I am not really sure that this is the right place to debate the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report for the first time. The noble Lord has reminded us that this matter was raised by two Members in another place, and I would say with all due deference to them that they have fulfilled a public service in doing so. The noble Lord was critical of the President of the Board of Trade when the President was not here himself, although I know that my noble friend Lord Brown will be able to defend his Department. The noble Lord took us all through the Report but he did not really tell us the whole story of this affair.

The whole saga of the Duccio is one of lost opportunities. Some of these were the fault of the Board of Trade, but not all of them; and I think it most unfair to blame the Board of Trade for everything that went wrong. This is also the story of the discovery of a very important painting at a country sale in March, 1968. What is interesting is that it was not lost in the last century but must have been fairly well known. There was a label on the back, according to the National Gallery catalogue, showing that before it went into the Bridson collection it was formerly in the collection of James F. Hutton of Manchester and it appeared in the Hutton sale at Christie's in 1890—or a painting very similar to it.

I thought it might be interesting to find out how much it fetched and I telephoned Christie's this morning. They courteously looked up their old records and told me that Lot 156, the Duccio as identified by the National Gallery, fetched £3 10s. Of course, the National Gallery had a chance of buying it then, but they did not. It had been exhibited in 1878 by Mr. Hutton at the Arts Treasures Exhibition in Manchester as a painting "assigned to Duccio". At the beginning of this century it passed into the collection of Mr. Bridson and the last owner, Mr. Bridson's son, died in 1967 at the age of 89.

Of course, the late Mr. T. R. Bridson could have made a will, but he did not; he omitted to do so. The administrators of the Bridson estate could have taken expert advice about the attribution and the possible value, but they did not. They could have sold it in London at Christie's or Sotherby's with an adequate reserve and correctly catalogued, but they did not. Alternatively, they could have offered it to the National Gallery in lieu of death duties, but what they decided to do was to sell this extremely important painting of great quality with the rest of the contents of Mr. Bridson's home, Aldwick Court. They called in a country auctioneer from Gloucestershire and the painting was catalogued by this firm. One of the experts, it is interesting to note, is also the producer of the. well known T.V. programme, "Going for a Song". They made a vital mistake and catalogued this great painting as "Sienese school, 15th Century", although is was inscribed on the back as "Duccio Senese" in probably a 19th century hand. The under-bidder was the Bristol City Art Gallery, but it appears that they were unwilling to go beyond the small sum of £2, 700 which the painting fetched in the open auction.

Of the two people who gave evidence and information to the Sunday Times, which was included in the interesting article of October 27 last year, on; was a dealer who had realised that the painting was important, and, according to the Sunday Times article had entered into a partnership with Mr. Weitzner to buy it. Unfortunately he had to go abroad and was very disappointed to find that the deal done with Mr. Weitzner had turned into something quite different, although I am not suggesting that the dealer who gave information to the Sunday Times was involved in the ring; quite the contrary.

The other dealer who gave evidence was a representative of Leggatt. He was having lunch at the aptly named Paradise Motel at Wrington, and he said that after the sale he saw people he alleged to be members of the ring asking for a room for a meeting. If Leggatt were at the public sale it is a pity that they did not bid for the painting. There is no reason why they should have bid if they did not want it, but if more people had been bidding at the public auction, as well as there being an adequate reserve, what happened would not have happened.

Most unfortunate of all was the fact that a representative of the National Gallery was not there. According to the auctioneers, they circulated catalogues pretty widely and the catalogue had a photograph of the painting in it. Most of the leading dealers in London seem to have received catalogues and were at the sale, but the National Gallery was not and one wonders why. The Gallery had the chance to buy the painting for £3 10s. 0d. in 1890 and could have got it for under £5, 000 in 1968.

My Lords, I think that really all those who are critics of this affair have been arguing from hindsight. The painting is attributed to Duccio now and it is clearly a Duccio. It has a market value now with all the publicity probably far in excess of the £150, 000 which the National Gallery paid for it after Cleveland had offered this amount, but at the time of the sale the value was only potential. To everyone at the sale the price did not seem unduly low, except to the specialist who bought it and any possible associates of his. The administrators of the Bridson Estate had every right to dispose of the late owner's property in this curious way, although I suppose now they wish they had acted otherwise.

So my Lords, we have had a culmination of what must have been a great deal of disappointment to a number of people and all this seems to have been heaped on to the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade has been criticised in the Press and here this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, for not realising that any illegal proceedings under the 1927 Act must take place within six months. But as the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, reminded us—although I do not think he gave enough weight to this—they are in good company: all the complainants, the Society of London Art Dealers and their legal advisers and the administrators of the Bridson Estate and their solicitors, everybody forgot about it.

I know that the Board of Trade are to blame, but everybody is human and that particular official of the Board of Trade only made a mistake that everybody else had made. The Board of Trade were also criticised for not warning the National Gallery and in consequence it is said that both the National Gallery and the late owners' estate suffered financial loss. This is answered by the Parliamentary Commissioner in paragraph 42 of his Report. He points out that it is very doubtful whether sufficient evidence would have become available to lead to legal proceedings, certainly during the qualifying period. I think this has been the result of an unfortunate chain of circumstances, but I think it can be an object lesson and a warning for the future. I hope that, because of this, all owners in future, if they have important works of art and other treasures, will seek specialist advice and ensure that the works are put up at auction with adequate reserves.

I hope that our Galleries, particularly the National Gallery, will keep their eye on country sales, and will look at the catalogues and at the paintings if they suspect that there is something of value. All the dealers were there; the Bristol Art Gallery was there, but not the National Gallery.

Last, but not least, I think all concerned should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the relevant Act of Parliament so that, as the noble Lord, Lord Glendeven, said so rightly, the qualifying period of the new Bill at present going through your Lordships' House, as introduced by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will be observed. Fortunately, this allows for a period of five years so that if anybody goes to sleep they will have rather longer to wake up. I hope sincerely that this enchanting little masterpiece will not for much longer be treated as a political shuttlecock. It would be an unworthy fate after all the vicissitudes it has gone through in the last 650 years; and I am glad that it has at last found a good home amongst its sisters, all the other Duccios in the largest collection outside Seina here in our National Gallery.

8.49 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN)

My Lords, I am sorry that it is not possible, for reasons which I will explain in a moment, for me to go very deeply this evening into the particular matters dealt with in the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report. I believe your Lordships will readily understand why this is so. Briefly, the Parliamentary Commissioner has investigated the matter in which my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade was directly involved at a number of points. He was involved in the meeting on May 29 last year with right honourable and honourable Members of the other House, and in subsequent correspondence with them, which is relevant to the question of whether or not people were misled as to the Board of Trade's role in the matter. He made statements in another place concerning a "wall of silence", which the Parliamentary Commissioner views as misplaced as regards certain complainants.

The critical views which the Report expresses thus clearly affect my right honourable friend personally, as well as affecting his responsibility for the Department. I am sure that the House will recognise how undesirable it would be for me to make any comment on these matters until the right honourable gentleman has had the opportunity of stating publicly his reaction to the criticisms which the Report contains. Indeed I myself deplore the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, insisted on raising the matter in this House in the way in which he has done. I know that my right honourable friend is anxious to react publicly to the criticism in the Re- port as soon as possible, although, as the House is doubtless aware, the Report is now before the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.

LORD GLENDEVON

Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to interrupt, since he has referred to me. What I could not but be impressed by—

LORD BROWN

The noble Lord will realise that he is entitled to ask questions of me, but not to make further statements.

LORD GLENDEVON

Yes, The preface of the question is to say that what impressed me (I will ask the noble Lord whether he realises this) was that the activity in terms of the President's desire to make a statement before I did seemed to come to light, and swell, only as a result of my putting down the Question

LORD BROWN

The noble Lord is putting much too much on his own wish to raise the matter in this House. The President was anxious to have a public discussion about this matter quite apart from the noble Lord's wish to raise the matter in this House. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will understand if I confine my reply rather narrowly to what I take to be the basic point which the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, is making—namely the role which the Board of Trade properly play in the matter of auction rings, and their discharge of that role.

The role of the Board of Trade is clearly stated in paragraph 34 of the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report, where he quotes the words which my right honourable friend used in another place on March 18: We have a general responsibility for supervising the law relating to auctions. That is our sole responsibility. Any question of prosecution or criminal proceedings is not a matter for the Board of Trade. That is a matter for the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions"—(Col. 218) and as my right honourable friend went on to say, it is the duty of anyone who has evidence which might lead to criminal prosecution under the Auctions (Bidding Agreements) Act 1927 to draw such evidence to the attention of the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions. In short, while the Board of Trade have an interest in the law relating to auctions, as part of their general responsibility for trade and commerce, it is not their responsibility to investigate particular offences in this field. It is their responsibility to see to it that the law is in as satisfactory a form as possible; and to judge whether the law is working satisfactorily or being widely evaded.

My Lords, the Board of Trade are fully conscious of that responsibility and are satisfied that it is properly discharged. As part of that responsibility, as was stated in another place on November 20 last year, the Board of Trade took the lead in an inter-departmental group of officials who made a careful study of the auction law and its working some two years ago. The conclusion they reached—and I do not think that anyone familiar with this subject would disagree in the least—is that the real difficulty in dealing with auction rings is not so much the state of the law as the difficulty of discovering evidence of what is, in its very nature, a hole-and-corner affair. None the less, the study pointed to certain improvements to the existing Act which might usefully be made when time could be found; and this study has enable the Board of Trade to be of considerable help to the sponsors of the Bill, which your Lordships considered in Committee last week, to amend the 1927 Act into as satisfactory a form as experience enables us to make it.

That is the field of Board of Trade responsibility. Investigation and prosecution of particular offences is not; nor does the amending Bill now before this House provide that it should be. That is a job for the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions—as it should be and at all times has been. It is a perfectly normal division of responsibility in the field of criminal law. No one, for example, expects my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and his officials to pursue dangerous drivers who offend against the laws he has sponsored.

So, my Lords, there is, as I say, a certain area within which responsibility properly rests with the Board of Trade, and it is of our performance within that area that I can properly speak. Within it, you Lordships may rest assured that the Board of Trade's responsibility is fully discharged.

I should like to make just one comment on a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, when he said, referring to the Board of Trade, that "one must trust the Department, once at any rate". That is an extremely offensive remark, and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw it before the debate is finished.

LORD GLENDEVON

Certainly not.

LORD BROWN

My Lords, I hope that I have deal adequately with what seems to me the basic point of the noble Lord's Question. I well appreciate that the House might have wished me to deal in detail with the points examined in the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report; but I believe that the House will equally appreciate that, for the reasons I explained earlier, it is not possible for me to do so on this occasion.