Oliver Dowden asks which statues should come down: Slave Trader Robert Geffrye
Labour MP for Cardiff Central, Jo Stevens, now thankfully back in Parliamentary action after suffering from COVID-19, has raised with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, the current and important issue of why the Government is proposing a potential 10 year sentence for damaging statues, significantly longer than those which are often given for sexual offences such as rape.
Dowden’s response avoided that point-mentioning the sentences for the most serious offences (not that they aren’t all serious clearly) but then moved on to one of his favourite subjects. Statues.
Dowden is an enthusiast for putting up more statues and he has said so several times recently. Nothing has actually happened but he has blocked a community supported plan to remove a statue of the slave trader Robert Geffrye from the front of the Museum of the Home in Hackney and situate it elsewhere on site.
Well done to Jo Stevens both for raising the matter and underlining the unsatisfactory, at best, position the Government is taking
Jo Stevens
I thank the Secretary of State for his words. I know that he has a very well-publicised interest in the nation’s heritage, particularly in statues, telling museums and gallery experts how to do their jobs through the policy of “retain and explain”, so perhaps he can explain today what input his Department had into the Government’s legislation this week that provides for longer sentences for hitting statues than those that have been given for raping women.
Oliver Dowden
I really wish that Members in this House would take a more temperate approach towards this. The hon. Lady knows full well that the most serious violent and sexual offences, including grievous bodily harm with intent to rape, already carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The purpose of what we are introducing in respect of statues is to help protect statues that have tremendous emotional value—for example, the Cenotaph and others—but that may have quite low financial value.
If it is now the Labour party’s position to oppose “retain and explain”—that may be the case; I have heard from the Leader of the Opposition that he thinks that some statues may need to come down—perhaps she could explain which statues she thinks should be removed from this country’s glorious heritage.
Hansard 18th March 2021
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