HL Deb 18 January 2001 vol 620 cc142-3WA
Baroness Gould of Potternewton

asked Her Majesty's Government:

When they will publish the Government's proposals in response to the claim concerning the "View of Hampton Court Palace" by Jan Griffier the Elder at the Tate Gallery. [HL399]

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts has received the report, which is published today as a Parliamentary Paper, of the Spoliation Advisory Panel's examination of the claim in relation to the Griffier painting in the Tate Gallery. We welcome the panel's report and we will implement the recommendation which is addressed to us.

In setting up the panel we recognised the duty to do what the Government can to play its part in righting these historic wrongs and the need to ensure that questions of ownership of works of art arising from the terrible events of the Nazi era are resolved. Although the report makes clear that the family, who wish to remain anonymous, have no legal title to the painting, and that there is no criticism whatsoever of the Tate Gallery, we accept the panel's advice that there is a moral strength to the claimant's argument and that, in the spirit of the Declaration of Principles agreed at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets held in December 1998, this justifies an ex gratia payment of £125,000.