Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lucas

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, funnily enough, that is a very good note on which to start. I will come to the specific amendment in half a second. But one of the things people do not realise is that the whole thing about trophy hunting—by the way, I do not go in for it at all, but I know something about herd management from deer in Scotland; not that I manage myself, but I know people who do—is that you do not want to shoot a young male coming along because it has a magnificent pelt. You want it to develop into a full-blooded animal, and when it is just past its prime that is when you cull it, for exactly that reason: the dynamics of the crotchety old male which is causing disruption. The noble Lord is absolutely right. If you are managing the whole thing properly to improve whatever it is people wish to hunt, it will be done in a much better and more sustainable way for nature as well.

It comes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said. The essential message is financial incentive. This is what I got from the delegates from Africa who came over, whom I also met. They want to be able to manage these things in order to get the funding, and incentive and local buy-in from the low-level population to support this in order to get the conservation side right. That is the trouble: it is all very well pouring aid in from the top, but sometimes it does not get anywhere near the bottom. It is much better to have stuff coming in to give the ordinary people on the ground an incentive to try to work in an environmental and conservation way. The objective is to conserve properly: you get your herd profiles right and then you do some hunting.

The reason this amendment is so important is that it is about the unintended and perverse consequences. The Bill says that you cannot import trophies

“on behalf of the hunter”,

meaning the person who killed the thing. If you think about it, if you are managing a herd, you will have deaths at all age profiles in the herd, and people are going to hunt for meat. Many of the animals that have been taken out for meat will have horns and other bits that are useful for creating mementos for tourists. I should love some reassurance that this is not banning the production of tourist mementos which are not trophies—they are not the thing that the person paid a fortune to go to kill, but what you might call by-products of the results of it. I am afraid you will have culling going on in the herd, and there will also be animals that die, so why cannot their body parts be made useful, for greater sustainable use?

These are not plastics, poisoning the planet; they are naturally produced things. It will be much better to make all sorts of products and ornamental things from them than from fossil fuels. If one of the unintended consequences of the Bill is that it prevents all use of all animal body parts, it really should be examined again. We are just wasting a whole natural resource there, and I am a great believer that we should be using natural products, not artificially produced plastic products, which are killing the planet.

The main thing is that we have to get the financial incentives in the right place, to incentivise at the bottom level, and we also need to use all the animal stuff. This great fiction that people just go out to shoot a few trophies and that these will be animals in their prime is not really how it should work.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I can see that this could be a very constructive Bill, particularly if we got back to our manifesto promises—to refer to what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said. The manifesto pledge was to ban imports from trophy hunting of endangered animals and, when we come to my Amendment 4, that is something I will enlarge on. This Bill goes a great deal further than that and, in doing so, as my noble friend Lord Swire said, it starts to create a very inappropriate relationship with the Governments of countries where trophy hunting takes place. We ought to be working with these countries to help them conserve the wildlife which they have—and which we would be terrified to have.

We in this country cannot even contemplate the return of the lynx, never mind the wolf. As for bears, certainly not, although they used to live here—never, not allowed. The pigs that escaped in the great storm are relentlessly persecuted. We have no concept of what we are asking these people to do in living alongside elephants, hippopotamus and rhinoceros, let alone lions and the other big predators. We should have such respect for and understanding of them, and we should be working really closely with them to enable that symbiosis to continue. If they are telling us that trophy hunting is part of that, we can ask them how they can grow through this and go beyond that, as well as offer real support in getting photographic tourism going and working on how we bring that idea back to the UK—not that it is the easiest, when we are all being told that we cannot fly any more. It ought to be a process where we are working closely with African Governments, not having them come here to protest what we are doing. This ought to be a process we are in together.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lucas

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will know how unhappy I am with the state of the Bill as it is. We are greatly disadvantaging British sellers of knives and doing almost nothing to control foreign sellers of knives. If we are after stopping knives getting into the hands of young people, sending them down a domestic route, where we know the person who has sold them and the courier who has delivered them and everything has been done in the open and properly, must be better than encouraging anyone buying knives to buy them abroad—indeed, making it almost essential—because only that way can they have them delivered to their homes.

If we were achieving something by the Bill as it is—if it was actually going to make things safer—I and, I suspect, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, would support the Government. But, as it is, we are just disadvantaging British business without making anything safer for anyone. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is a step in the right direction—I am sure the drafting will be improved—but the main thing is that I would really like to see the Government accept that they need to improve the Bill in this area and to undertake to do so in the course of ping-pong.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with everything the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has said. I also support this amendment, because it is a move in the right direction. To my mind, it does not go far enough because we are disadvantaging all UK distributors against all foreign ones. It just leaves a huge loophole—and personally I think the Government will be massacred in the press once what they are passing here comes to light—so I recommend they put at least this in.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lucas

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, in Grand Committee my noble friend and I had a discussion on this subject and he said that he would do his best to find me the evidence that the Government were working on that rifles that are targeted in this part of the Bill are capable of a higher rate of fire than ordinary target rifles. I have not received, as far as I can find out, anything from my noble friend.

My amendment is not intended to look at the process. After all, targeting only where the energy source is the gas from the firing of the previous cartridge leaves the possibility that a similar mechanism might be powered by electricity or clockwork. I think that the Government are saying that they do not want in common use rifles that are capable of a higher rate of fire than a standard bolt-action rifle. That seems reasonable, and if that is what the Government want to achieve, let us have legislation that achieves that and does not go at just the particular way a higher rate of fire—if there is indeed a higher rate of fire—is being achieved. That will allow us to develop a weapon that can be conveniently used by disabled people but which will be acceptable to the Government in the long term. That was very much why these weapons came into being. They were perfectly legally created but were adapted to the needs of particular shooters.

Let us have out in the clear, in legislation, that the basic thing that the Government want to avoid is fast-firing rifles. Let us ban them. Then something that does not have a higher rate of fire, in the Secretary of State’s opinion, can be allowed and created to meet need of these particular target shooters.

Under this subsection we are looking at a compensation payment of around £15 million, as far as I can discover, which is not enormous on the Grayling scale but is nevertheless a serious amount of money for the Government to focus on whether this is a justified expenditure or not. I would like to be sure that the rifles are being banned because they exceed a rate of fire that the Government find acceptable. If we are going to do it by the mechanism in this Bill because we have not got time to change anything else, let us at least see the evidence. What measurement of the rate of fire of these rifles have the Government made to justify spending £15 million? If that evidence is not immediately forthcoming, let us refocus on the underlying concern—the rate of fire. Let us make that the prohibited thing. That way, we can adapt to changes in technology as they come along and make sure that this bit of the Bill continues to achieve its intended effect into the future, and not just until someone finds another technological workaround. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I find it very sad that we wish to discriminate in legislation against people who cannot handle certain equipment in general—that is a general principle in life—and in this case rifles for competition. Some of them develop great skill. It gives them something to achieve and excel at. It is highly discriminatory and very sad that we have to discriminate against disabled because of a few concerns and an inability to think this through properly. I therefore support the amendment and really think we should put something like it through.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lucas

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and its very simple principle. We live in a complex world and this tries to lay rules on a complex system. The trouble is that rules can never work because they will never cover every situation. You have to go back to the basic principles and ethics behind what is being done. If we do not think about that from time to time, eventually the rules will get completely out of kilter with what we are trying to achieve. This is essential.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, clearly the Royal Society has been talking to other people. I hope that someone from there is listening and will be encouraged to talk to me too. I am delighted with this amendment and think it is an excellent idea, paired with Amendment 77A, which gives individuals some purchase and the ability to know what is going on. Here we have an organisation with the ability to do something about it, not by pulling any levers but by raising enough of a storm and finding out what is going on to effect change. Amendments 77A and 78A are a very good answer to the worries we have raised in this area.

It is important that we have the ability to feel comfortable and to trust—to know that what is going on is acceptable to us. We do not want to create divisions, tensions and unhappiness in society because things are going on that we do not know about or understand. As the noble Lord said, the organisations running these algorithms do not share our values—it is hard to see that they have any values at all other than the pleasures of the few who run them. We should not submit to that. We must, in all sorts of ways, stand up to that. There are many ways in which these organisations have an impact on our lives, and we must insist that they do that on our terms. We are waking up quite slowly. To have a body such as this, based on principles and ethics and with a real ability to find out what is going on, would be a great advance. It would give me a lot of comfort about what is happening in this Bill, which otherwise is just handing power to people who have a great deal of power already.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lucas

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 214. We all know that Ofcom has a great interest in traditional media. As we can see, not least from Clauses 70 and 71, we are happy to give Ofcom a panoptic role when this is required. My amendment is designed to give Ofcom a panoptic role in new media.

We are all familiar with algorithms, particularly in such contexts as a Google search. It is just a set of rules and procedures that gets us to where we want to go from wherever we happen to be. I do not know of any great harm currently being done by any algorithms, but we ought to be aware of the power these procedures have in our lives. They govern the choice of what people see on the internet. The potential for this to interfere with news flow is obvious. If you type something into Google, it decides what you get to see. In the context of a referendum or an election, the potential for altering the result is clear. It also has an effect when you are just looking round to see what is there. Google has had trouble recently with its response to people typing in “are Jews”; it was autocompleting that with the word “evil”. This has now ceased, but it shows what influence algorithms can have in directing people to particular sources of information—in this case, with particularly nasty implications.

The function of an algorithm is to discriminate, but how are algorithms discriminating? What do we know about what they are doing in terms of fairness, when it comes to race or gender, in the context of job offers, accommodation or access? Referring again—I am sure unfairly—to Google, there was an episode last year when, if you put “three black teenagers” into the Google image search, you got mug shots of prisoners; but if you put in “three white teenagers” you did not. How do we know the effects of these things on our lives? If people start trying to correct them, what effect will these corrections have?

Most of these algorithms—or at least the big ones—are run by large, dominant, international organisations. Who controls them? We think we have some idea but there is no predictability; there does not seem to be any effective system of governance, least of all by government or institutions. They are a law unto themselves and they will continue to be so, unless something fantastic changes.

Under these circumstances, we ought to know what is going on. We ought to have the ability to take a look and make sure that it is fair and as we wish it to be, as we do in similar areas of the old media and of life. I hope my amendment will enable Ofcom to do just that. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. There is a huge amount of power in the hands of search engines regarding the way they influence how people think. This could be used as a form of propaganda, as we have seen with the recent rows about fake news. From the point of view of protecting Britain, there could even be some security implications because of the way they could affect how people think. So it is quite a sensible power to have, just in case.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lucas

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

I shall say a few words because I would have added my name to these amendments if I had been a bit more alert about them. I think they are very sensible. Of the two, I think Amendment 55ZB is probably the more important, although opportunities for delay are always a problem, so I think Amendment 55ZA is sensible.

In the atmosphere we are going into where there is an awful lot of rejigging of authorities and shared services and procurement, there are a lot of shenanigans going on behind the scenes with people trying to wheel contracts this way and that and shuffling them through different routes. The Government might find it quite useful to have some outside eyes keeping an eye on what is going on here and there, not to penetrate commercial secrets or commercial confidentiality, but sometimes some practices are going on that bear closer scrutiny.

I think this could go some way to help open up some areas and possibly to assuage unfounded suspicions. Sometimes people develop conspiracy theories in a completely unjustified way. A freedom of information request could expose the fact that the person is barking up completely the wrong tree, but sometimes it may be justified. I think it is very sensible to include this, or otherwise you will have a raft of things taken outside the Freedom of Information Act that are very useful for keeping an eye on what is really going on in the way that we are putting so much through various other sectors.

[Lord Lucas]

I quite agree that this is something we need to watch. We have similar problems in the health Bill where, for reasons I entirely approve of, activities that used to be done by state bodies may in future be done by private ones. We need to make sure that that does not mess up our objectives on freedom of information, which are, I believe, and certainly should be, towards greater access to information rather than less.