A former Conservative culture minister will chair a new body aiming to return the so-called Elgin Marbles to Greece, the BBC can reveal.
Lord Vaizey, culture minister from 2010-2016, says he is confident “a deal is within reach”.
On Thursday, the House of Lords will debate an act which restricts museums from disposing of objects in their collections.
The government said it had no intention of changing the law.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said: “The British Museum is prevented by law from removing objects from its collections, except in some narrow circumstances.The government has no plans to change this act.”
The Elgin Marbles are currently housed in the British Museum.
In a statement, the museum said: “We will loan the sculptures, as we do many other objects, to those who wish to display them to the public around the world, provided they will look after them and return them.”
Deepening public access and understanding, creating new ways and opportunities for collections to be shared and understood right across the world, and forging connections between the present and the past, remain at the core of what the British Museum seeks to achieve,” they added.
Asked recently about a potential deal that could lead to the return of the sculptures to Athens, Prime Minister Liz Truss said: “I don’t support that.”
The fate of the Parthenon Sculptures, as they are more frequently becoming known, is the most high profile in the hotly contested debate about whether museums should return items in their collections to their countries of origin.
For years, Greece has lobbied to bring the sculptures home. They were removed from Greece’s Parthenon temple in the early 19th Century by the Scottish soldier and diplomat, Lord Elgin.
The British Museum has always said that only the government can decide their fate, though the government says the “collections are a matter for the trustees”.
Now an advisory body plans to campaign for a “win-win” deal as a poll shared exclusively with the BBC appears to show the majority of British people support sending the Marbles home.
Lord Vaizey is joined by other founding members on the advisory board of the Parthenon Project, an organisation founded by the Greek businessman John Lefas.
The board also includes two other Conservative peers, the renowned author Lord Dobbs and Baroness Meyer.
They’re joined by Stephen Fry and the journalist Sarah Baxter.
The former Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne, now chairman of the British Museum, said earlier this year a “deal is to be done”, though the current Conservative administration appears less keen.
A poll of nearly 2,000 people, commissioned by the Parthenon Project, suggests while 16% of the British public think the Parthenon Sculptures should stay in Britain, 54% think they should be returned.
The strongest reason for supporting the return was because they “rightfully belong to Greece”. (BBC)
