UK Rules Out Law Change to Return the Parthenon Sculptures
For more than four decades, Greece has asked Britain to send the Parthenon Sculptures back to Athens. On Tuesday, November 3, the UK government made clear that the law keeping them in London is not about to change, even as pressure for a deal keeps building on both sides.
The answer came in the House of Lords, where peers questioned Baroness Twycross, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). "The Government do not have any plans to change the law or introduce legislation to permit the Parthenon sculptures to be returned permanently," she said.
The minister added that the government has made no assessment of proposals for a permanent return. She said it welcomes the British Museum's talks with Greek ministers about a "constructive partnership" and sees decisions on the collection as a matter for the museum's trustees, who act independently of the government.
What the British Museum Act 1963 says
The sculptures belong to the British Museum's trustees, and the British Museum Act 1963 sets strict limits on what they can do with the collection. Trustees may only dispose of an object if it is a duplicate, a printed item made after 1850 that they hold in copied form, or something they judge unfit to keep that can go without harm to students. Later laws added narrow exceptions for objects looted in the Nazi era and for human remains less than 1,000 years old.
Because of that, the British Museum says it cannot simply hand the sculptures over. It has said it would consider a loan to Athens, but only if Greece acknowledges the museum's ownership and gives a binding undertaking that the pieces will come back to London.
There is one small opening. DCMS will look at Sections 15 and 16 of the Charities Act 2022, which deal with charities giving up property or making payments on moral grounds, as part of a post-implementation review due in February 2027. The minister stressed, however, that there are no plans to review the British Museum Act itself, and no such measure was included in the King's Speech.
Peers push for a change
Several members of the Lords pressed the minister to go further. The Earl of Clancarty asked for a limited amendment to the act and drew a comparison with Picasso's Guernica. Lord Dubs asked about Section 5(1)(c), the clause covering objects the trustees consider unfit to be retained. Baroness Chakrabarti asked how Britain would feel if its crown jewels were held abroad, and Liberal Democrat Baroness Hussein-Ece pointed to the purpose-built museum waiting for the sculptures in Athens.
Others urged caution. Viscount Hailsham warned that a change could set a precedent for claims on other collections, and the Earl of Effingham noted that the British Museum draws more than 6 million visitors, who can see the sculptures free of charge.
Lord Addington raised the Bayeux Tapestry, which left France for the first time in its history in September 2026 on a loan to the British Museum and is due back by July 2027. The museum's director, Nicholas Cullinan, has pointed to that exchange as a possible model for the Parthenon Sculptures, and the exhibition has drawn more than 200,000 visitors so far.
Why Greece says no to a loan
Greece first made a formal request for the sculptures in 1983, and in 1984 it took the case to UNESCO's intergovernmental committee on the return of cultural property. Athens rejects any loan arrangement, because borrowing the pieces would mean accepting that the British Museum owns them. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis repeated that position in September 2026, arguing that Britain would never accept a divided Bayeux Tapestry.
Talks between Greek officials and the museum stalled that same month. In October, Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said no talks were taking place and that Greece now speaks of the reunification of the sculptures rather than their return. British Museum chair George Osborne then floated a rotation plan, with the pieces spending time in both Athens and London, an idea Greek officials quickly turned down.
Greece already has a home ready for them. The Parthenon Gallery at the Acropolis Museum displays the original sculptures held in Athens alongside plaster casts of the pieces in London, with the monument itself visible through the glass walls. Recent returns, including the Fagan fragment from Palermo and three fragments from the Vatican Museums, have been added to the display.
What happens next
Lord Elgin removed the sculptures from the Acropolis in the early 1800s, while Greece was under Ottoman rule, and about half of the surviving frieze is now in London. For now, they stay in the British Museum's Duveen Gallery. Any permanent return would need Parliament to change the law, and the government has now said twice in recent months, in a written answer on September 10 and again on Tuesday, that it has no such plans.
The February 2027 review of the Charities Act is the next date to watch, along with any new round of talks between the British Museum and the Greek government. Greece, for its part, has made clear it will keep pushing for the sculptures to be reunited with the rest of the frieze in Athens.
Photo: Txllxt TxllxT / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
