Ivory Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, that is not the issue. The problem is that we simply do not have the resources to go around carbon-dating every single piece of ivory on the market. That is why we have to find some way of restricting it. If not, people will put their own classification on the ivory; sometimes it will be correct and sometimes it will be incorrect. We do not have the wherewithal or the facilities to manage that effectively. That is why the Bill is before us today: it gives us a structure for managing what ivory is coming on to the market and a more authenticated version of whether it is legitimate.

I take issue also with what the noble Lord said about the consultation. Around the Chamber, there are noble Lords who represent a number of the elephant charities whose members care passionately about the issue, but if we were to ask anybody in the street what they thought the priorities were, I think that the vast majority would say that they cared more about the elephants than the issues that he is raising today. That is the reality; the noble Lord has a very niche view of it, but I think that most people care more about seeing elephants and other animals living at peace in the wild.

The issue is not whether people own ivory. The noble Lord put great emphasis on sequestration and confiscation, but that is not what this Bill is about; it is about the buying and selling of ivory. People can own all the lovely pieces that he was talking about; they can pass it down through the family, but it is only when they want to buy or sell it that it becomes an issue. The Bill does not stop people valuing, loving and caring for family heirlooms. It is only the commercial market that is under question.

There are very good reasons for our trying to put in the Bill tightly worded exemptions—we shall talk about those shortly. The restrictions have to be extremely tight and the rarest and most precious items have to be recognised and distinguished. Not all items produced prior to 1918 are beautiful or valuable. There would be that cut-off date, but to allow all ivory unrestricted circulation in an unrestricted market would skew the market and undermine the wider intent of the Bill. The very existence of such markets would encourage fraud in a similar way to that which made the 1947 date unworkable. With a free flow of pre-1918 ivory, I think that everybody would start to reclassify ivory and the whole date would become blurred.

I am summarising—I am sure that Minister will do it better than me. We had a huge debate on this at Second Reading. I did not persuade the noble Lord; he did not persuade me, and I think that we will carry on the debate as the Committee proceeds. At the end of the day, it is about priorities. As far as I am concerned, the priority is the elephants living in the wild. On this issue, the noble Lord has his priorities wrong.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, due to illness in the family, my noble friend Lady Bakewell is not present for this part of Committee, although I believe that she will be along later. In her absence, I want to intervene briefly in support of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has started off Committee in fine, eloquent style, but the phrase “coach and horses” springs to mind as a result of what he had to say. The noble Baroness is absolutely right: the kind of amendment that the noble Lord is putting forward would serve only to introduce further ambiguity and uncertainty into a Bill which has been designed to make sure that we do not have the ambiguities and uncertainties of the current legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, had it absolutely right: the difficulties in identifying the difference between pre-1947 and pre-1918 ivory are rife. John Betjeman disapproved strongly of fish knives—

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

I draw the noble Lord’s attention to Clause 7, for example, which already contemplates differentiating by date. The Government are obviously aware of a way in which this can be done.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will deal with that issue as far as this amendment is concerned, but to introduce further differentiation into the Bill is extremely unhelpful, particularly in the light of its intentions and the fact that the CITES convention will take place later next month. I do not think that that would be a particularly good symbol.

I am the proud owner of a set of fish knives—I do not believe that John Betjeman would have approved of them. I am firmly in the category that the noble Lord, Lord, Cormack, has identified as being caught by this provision. I am very relaxed about it. I do not believe one should be able to trade, deal or sell that kind of commodity. It is the sort of thing you pass on to your descendants. I very much hope this provision will remain part of the Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in saying that I very much look forward to the early return of my noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham and, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for later stages.

My noble friend’s amendments intend to allow pre-1918 ivory objects to be bought, sold and hired within the United Kingdom, regardless of whether they meet one of the exemptions. Indeed, my noble friend—and this has been raised already—used words such as “confiscation” and “loss of ownership”. These measures precisely do not affect the right to own, gift, inherit or bequeath ivory. They are precisely not for that purpose.

As this is the beginning of Committee stage, I reiterate the overriding purpose of this Bill. Its intention—and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also made this clear—is to introduce one of the strongest ivory bans in the world, with narrow and limited exemptions, to curtail the demand for ivory that currently threatens the elephant with extinction. As your Lordships know—a number of noble Lords have referred in different ways to the public consultation—there is overwhelming public support for this ban. I say to my noble friend in particular that we have worked extensively with conservation NGOs, the arts and antiques sector, and musician and museum sectors to help shape this Bill, and we believe it is a proportionate response.

The exemptions outlined in the Bill have been included to allow limited dealings in ivory to continue where they are unlikely to contribute to the poaching of elephants. To allow all pre-1918 ivory items to be bought, sold and hired, regardless of whether they meet one of the exemptions, would significantly undermine the aim of the Bill and the carefully balanced package of exemptions. My noble friend is, of course, conversant with Clause 2, which we will address in more detail later. We have specifically created an exemption so that pre-1918 ivory items that are of outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value, and which are the rarest and most important examples of their type, can continue to be traded.

I suggest to my noble friend that his other amendment concerns the offences of buying or hiring ivory as the owner within the UK only. Subsection (4)(b) concerns selling and hiring ivory as the lender both in and outside of the United Kingdom. My noble friend and my noble friend Lord De Mauley have raised a number of issues about the antiques sector. A 2016 report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, on the UK’s domestic ivory trade, showed that consumers of UK antique ivory are increasingly from Asia, particularly China, Japan and Hong Kong. This constitutes a change since the last UK ivory market report in 2004, which found that most buyers were from Europe and the United States. This worrying shift demonstrates that the UK antique ivory market is increasingly connected to the Far East, where the demand for ivory is highest, further fuelling the demand for ivory, and its social acceptability.

I also want to refer to a point in the discussion between the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and my noble friend Lord Cormack. As I mentioned at Second Reading, the 2010 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime concluded:

“The trade in illicit ivory is only lucrative because there is a parallel licit supply”.


This is precisely why we are having to introduce a ban, with only tightly drawn exemptions that are unlikely to continue to fuel the illegal trade and poaching of elephants. To allow all pre-1918 ivory items to be traded would further perpetuate the demand for ivory and undermine the effectiveness of the ban. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said: we have got to bear down on the situation in which 20,000 elephants a year are being slaughtered. We saw only last week reports from Botswana of this slaughter continuing, and the status quo at the moment is simply not acceptable. This country has to lead. We have a responsibility to lead. We are one of the world’s largest exporters of ivory and we must act. So, for the reasons I have given, I am not able to support my noble friend’s amendment and I respectfully ask him to withdraw it.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 23, at end insert—
“( ) Except in regard to sections 8 and 9, the exemptions referred to in subsection (6) do not apply in circumstances where the dealing in question has taken place online.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the sale of otherwise exempted items comprising or containing ivory from taking place online. This, alongside other measures in the Bill, would help to prevent illegal trade of ivory. The online ban would not apply to the items exempted under sections 8 and 9.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, there is ample evidence that illegal ivory trading frequently takes place online. The arguments against committing online trading have been rehearsed many times: the difficulty of policing online transactions; descriptions of ivory being disguised to avoid search-term filters; and the near impossibility of checking every parcel dispatched from the UK.

Surely all online dealing in ivory should be banned. Allowing only physical sales, combined with the exemption certificates and registration process, would considerably reduce illegal trade and make the enforcement authorities’ job far easier. A recent study published earlier this year by the University of Kent illustrates the problem. It found that, in fact, barely any ivory or other illegal wildlife products are being sold via the so-called dark net, where there is a flourishing criminal market in drugs and firearms. Instead, the researchers found that ivory is being sold openly on conventional auction sites, including eBay. Traders have exploited the previous complex rules, which were meant to restrict the trade in Britain to pre-1947 antiques but can act as a cover for the sale of items fashioned from poached elephant tusks.

Despite perfecting a prototype software scheme that can pinpoint potentially illegal ivory with 93% accuracy, the University of Kent team has been told by law enforcement agencies and wildlife protection groups that they cannot afford to fund its deployment on the front line. I very much hope the Minister will be able to look at that allegation by the University of Kent and give a response. Dr David Roberts, a conservation scientist at the University of Kent and co-author of the study into illegally traded wildlife, has been quoted as saying:

“The surface web is being used by criminals because they have found they can trade there for the most part with impunity. Unlike those selling drugs or guns, they don’t feel they have to move to the darknet. What is frustrating is that tackling this online trade does not seem to be priority. It falls between boots-on-the-ground enforcement against poaching in Africa and reduction of demand in south east Asia. We have had enforcement agencies and campaign groups say they would like to have our software as an enforcement tool but they don’t have the funding to progress it further”.


The fact is that the illegal wildlife trade is a rapidly evolving environmental crime that is expanding through e-commerce. Because of the nature of the internet, the detection and enforcement of online illegal wildlife trading has proven to be difficult and time-consuming, often based on manual searches through the use of keywords. This is aggravated by the fact that, as a result of scrutiny, traders in elephant ivory now use code words to disguise the trade, thus adding an additional level of complexity. Rather than blatantly advertising items as “elephant ivory”, online traders use alternative key words recognised by buyers, at least some of whom are likely to know that they may be purchasing illicit items.

In his letter after Second Reading, the Minister said—I will quote extensively:

“Several Noble Lords have called for a total ban on all online ivory deals, I understand the concerns that differentiating legitimate and illegitimate sales online can often be difficult, but we believe it would be disproportionate to ban online sales, given that existing regulations on other products such as alcohol and medication, which do pose a threat to human health do not have their online sale banned. The Bill has been drafted from the outset with both online and physical sales in mind. The Bill makes it clear that it will be an offence to cause or to facilitate a sale of ivory that either does not meet an exemption, or has not been properly registered or certified. This will apply equally to any website or online forum which hosts or facilitates an illegal sale. It will be the responsibility of any online forum to ensure that ivory items sold on its site are legitimate in exactly the same way we will expect of a high street shop or auction house”.


Those are very reasonable words and I am sure that the Minister was being utterly genuine when he talked about the need for proportionality. However, what assurance can the Minister give about the energy devoted to enforcement online? How will the online dealing ban be enforced in practice? Will the resources be in place? Otherwise, surely it will be necessary in due course, if not now, to have an online ban if it is seen simply to be the easiest way of ignoring the legislation and engaging in dealing in these ivory items.

I am pessimistic that any enforcement situation can cope with the sheer volume of trade online and be able to distinguish online between legitimate and illegitimate sales. I do not believe that the alcohol and medication examples that the Minister has given should be brought into account. This is a much more difficult situation. It is much more difficult to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate sales of ivory than in either of the two other cases that the Minister has cited. I hope the Minister will rethink the Government’s decision not to include online sales. I think an insistence that all sales were physical would make life a great deal easier. I beg to move.

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

My Lords, I wholly support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. However, one serious aspect that may have been overlooked is a nasty little market which may escape the whole of this affair, and that is the casinos’ use of roulette balls. This is a very big, constantly renewing market. The life of a roulette ball in ivory is only about five weeks and they cost £100 each. They can only be obtained from the Far East at present through the dark market.

I do not know what the solution is, but we should not be ignorant of this big market. It is likely to continue and will be very persistent. The only alternative for a casino is to use a Teflon ball, which is fine but it bounces too much. It is too easy to use a Teflon ball which has a steel interior which can then be mixed up with a magnetisation of the roulette wheel’s rim and give easy distortion for fraud. This is why casinos do not want Teflon balls and they do want ivory balls. We should be on guard against this because it is going to be a big, dark market.

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[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend is quite right. If a forum is domiciled overseas, it will be up to enforcement to look at those advertising their wares and those who are looking to buy those items. However, we should also consider that in due course, the items for sale online will either be registered or will have an exemption certificate. We will be able to see clearly whether those items are legitimate, and that additional level of security for buyers and sellers is the most important thing when it comes to online sales.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. In particular, that last sentence was extremely important in the circumstances, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made the same point: that that will be the essence of the online sale as well. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his intervention and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her positive words. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, the amendment is meant to do what it says on the tin: certain of the exemptions are exempt, and certain others are not, and Clauses 8 and 9 are excluded from the ban on online sales for a purpose.

To come back to what the Minister said, I am of course reassured about the provisions of the Bill, and it is precisely the resources and the activity around enforcement which are absolutely crucial. A provision about banning online sales is not disproportionate if enforcement is inadequate. If enforcement is adequate, then of course it would be disproportionate, but this is in a sense designed to prevent the mischief of online sales taking place without adequate enforcement. I look forward to the letter from the Minister. In particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned the National Wildlife Crime Unit and other aspects of enforcement, and I very much hope that they will be fully apprised of the importance of making sure that online sales are scrutinised and that these keywords—these coded words—are understood and combated in accordance with the research from the University of Kent. This is not some figment of the imagination of those who are against ivory poaching but respectable research, and we should pay heed to it. I look forward to the letter from the Minister and obviously I reserve the right to come back on Report if necessary. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.