Ivory Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Cormack is an extremely experienced parliamentarian, but his arguments would be a little more convincing if he avoided describing my noble friend the Minister’s response as obdurate.

One of the complaints that we hear about the House of Lords is that we are far too London-centric. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to the suggestions of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, about the Northumbrian pipes. Perhaps there is something that the Minister could do—some special arrangement. I hope that my noble friend will think about that.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and I thank her for bringing this amendment forward. Throughout most of my adult life I have had much pleasure from hearing the Northumbrian pipes. They are a sweet sounding, relatively quiet instrument—often played indoors—and were the musical instrument of many shepherds and farmworkers in the area that I used to represent. Subsequent generations of pipers have often come from other walks of life—teachers who have been in a variety of professions—but the core of people on whom the musical repertoire of the pipes has depended, and whose tunes are recorded, came from the farming life of Northumberland.

I want the Minister to understand how important this is to us and how strongly we are pleading for him to do something about what is now seen as a threat, particularly to the new pipers—young people and, sometimes, those in retirement—who have to acquire an instrument. We are talking about an instrument of which there are not large numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, mentioned how many thousands of violin and cello bows there are in this country. The sets of Northumbrian pipes are numbered in hundreds—not thousands—and it is quite hard to acquire a set now that there are so few remaining craftsmen who make these instruments. Most of the people who are involved in this activity are not wealthy and if the supply is artificially restricted by the exclusion of so many instruments which were made before 1975 and have ivory content, it would be a very serious threat.

I confess that I have difficulty understanding how the 20% exemption could be applied in the area of Northumbrian pipes, although the Minister gave me a moment of hope when he referred to integral voids, such as the area of an interior of a drawer in a chest of drawers. My mind immediately went to the bag in which the air is pumped in from the bellows, which the piper operates with his or her arm. The bellows could at least be inflated when the judgment is made as to what the integral void is and whether it passes the 20% exemption. Describing that illustrates how worrying it would be if we have to depend on such a concept in order to get a reasonable exemption, which I am sure most people, looking at it rationally, would realise was necessary and was not a coach and horses.

What worries me is that there has been a lot of engagement and discussion with various trades and activities about this Bill. Not all of it has led to the outcomes that some would have desired, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has pointed out. I am not convinced that there has been enough engagement yet with Northumbrian pipers and those who are concerned for their welfare. I want the Minister to give us some assurance that he will try to ensure that that engagement takes place and that, by the time we reach Report, there is some way of dealing with this problem. I know that there is pressure not to amend this Bill so that it sails back to the House of Commons, but we are a revising Chamber and it is our job to discover if there are areas where the Bill does not meet the practical requirements of our society. If it is necessary to make a small amendment to the Bill better to meet the needs of Northumbrian pipers, the Minister must be ready to make that amendment, unless he finds a non-statutory way of achieving it. I have not yet seen that, so I think we will need an amendment at a later stage and I hope the Minister will apply himself to the task of finding a solution.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

My Lords, I apologise for jumping the gun earlier—perhaps I should say for coming in on an upbeat rather than a downbow. I support Amendment 26A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which is very precise. I reiterate that there are several hundred thousand bows in the United Kingdom alone that have either ivory or mammoth faces weighing less than 1 or 2 grams, which is really minuscule. Some of these will be 200 years old and as musicians buy and sell bows regularly, this volume of permits will have to be redone every few years. The resources required for that would surely be much better directed towards the problem itself, towards protecting elephants and prosecuting the criminals who try to make money out of ivory. I say to the Minister that I completely understand and endorse the desire to make the Bill strong and as watertight as possible but surely there has to come a point, when we are talking about such a tiny thing that does not threaten living elephants in the slightest, where we have to apply common sense.

Lastly, I know there was a meeting of some of the ivory team at Defra, and they indicated to a bow maker that they would not be entirely against this. I can give the Minister more information on that if he would like it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beith]

I am grateful to the Minister for making that suggestion. I put it to him that one of the things that he and his officials might explore when they meet the society is how many instruments, and what proportion of the total stock of instruments in existence, would be affected if the law remained as is currently proposed, and whether that could be affected by any amendment in a helpful way.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The noble Lord and I are on the same page. That is exactly the sort of requirement that I think we should have so that we can understand the points that noble Lords have made.

Some Northumbrian pipes may contain over 20% ivory and therefore may not meet the musical instruments exemption. I obviously cannot commit to this, but having heard what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have said, is it possible that they could be considered under the rarest and most important items exemption, for instance, because of what the pipes mean in the community? I emphasise that the 20% measurement is applied to the whole instrument, including in the case of the pipes, the bag. I asked this question this morning: it does not include the inflated bag, but it does include the bag. I hope that detail is helpful.

I am a great champion of local traditions. This provision would not stop the pipes being played or enjoyed. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, has said, the ability to pass on and to donate these instruments so that the next generation can enjoy those that are not under 20% is still available. On that matter, not just because it was raised by the noble Baroness but because I recognise that I want the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society to feel that it has had a proper hearing, I will ask for that meeting to take place.