EXPORT bans would be placed on works of modern art to protect Britain’s heritage under proposals being drawn up by the Conservative Party.

Only last week Charles Saatchi, the brother of Lord Saatchi, the Tory co-chairman, sold Damien Hirst’s pickled shark for £7 million to an American despite concerns at the loss of one of Britain’s most important contemporary works. Under the Conservatives’ proposals, outlined to The Times yesterday, Mr Saatchi could not have sold it overseas without a licence.

Hugo Swire, the Shadow Minister for the Arts, said that the current system was inadequate because it allowed paintings and sculptures, however significant, to be exported if they are less than 50 years old.

He tabled a question yesterday asking if the Government intended to intervene to ensure that Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, otherwise known as the shark, does not leave British shores. He told The Times: “There is an anomaly here. Just because something is old, does not mean it is precious. This Government is letting the shark just swim away even though it is one of the most important works by an important contemporary artist.”

Mr Saatchi has seen a huge return on the shark, having bought it for £50,000 in 1991. It is now expected to be donated by its anonymous buyer to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Saving such works, Mr Swire said, was all the more crucial considering that the Tate missed out on receiving the shark and other work by so-called Young British Artists (YBAs), including Tracey Emin and the Chapman brothers, in Mr Saatchi’s £200 million collection.

It emerged last month that Sir Nicholas Serota had not taken up the collector’s offer of a donation because he had assumed that it was just a loan.

The Tories believe that a number of masterpieces by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud sold recently should never have been allowed automatic export.

David Barrie, director of the National Art Collections Fund, the charity that helps public collections to acquire works of art, said of the Tories’ proposal: “This is an interesting idea. We certainly are concerned about the difficulties that face museums and galleries in securing great contemporary works of art, many of which disappear overseas.”

Its impact on the livelihood of artists and the art trade would need to be carefully thought through, he said.

A change in the export laws is among issues that will be outlined in an arts policy document to be published before the general election expected in May. Mr Swire is also proposing to set up a central pot of money to allow museums and galleries around the country to save important works of art for the nation.

He recalled that when he was at the National Gallery two decades ago, the acquisition budget was a mere £2.75 million. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, which sold for a record £22.5 million in 1987, was among works that were beyond the gallery’s reach.

Now, he said, public collections are so short of funds, they do not have an acquisition budget at all. In contrast, the Parliamentary Art Collection boasts a budget of £150,000 for new works. “That’s more than most museums,” he said. “That is ludicrous.”

Museums and galleries have long campaigned for tax breaks for donors, modelled on proven systems in America, Australia, France and elsewhere. The Tories are responding with proposals to to encourage philanthropy and save the nation’s dwindling heritage.

Tax breaks, Mr Swire said, would ensure that works enter British institutions rather than the Getty Museum in California or the homes of wealthy individuals. “We are creating a culture of giving,” he said, pointing to Ireland, which allows tax incentives for owners if they lend their work to an institution for a number of years.

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