Ivory Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely agree. The Bill is designed to ensure that we have appropriate ways of guaranteeing effective enforcement, including appropriate penalties. There will be civil and criminal penalties, if the Bill is passed, and those who break the law will face fines of up to £250,000 and criminal sanctions as well. That is only right if the deterrent effect is to be sufficient to ensure that people are not tempted to engage in the perpetuation of this evil trade.

One critical point that was made during the consultation was that, while those in the antiques and art markets are determined to do everything they can to close down the loopholes and to end the illegal trade that has contributed to poaching in Africa, there is an acknowledgement worldwide that there need to be some exemptions. Those exemptions must reflect decisions that have been made by past generations on the use of ivory and the way in which it has been deployed for artistic or cultural reasons in order to produce certain specific artefacts at specific times that have a particular value.

During the consultation, we looked specifically at exemptions for portrait miniatures. These are tiny but, in historical and cultural terms, hugely significant examples of fine portrait work from the 17th and 18th centuries, and they are valuable not because they are painted on ivory but because they are examples of exquisite artistic endeavour. Similarly, we except that there may be a range of items, including furniture, that are of genuine aesthetic merit and of which ivory forms only a small component. We propose to exempt items with a de minimis content of ivory, which no one is buying and selling because of the ivory but of which the ivory is an integral part.

Another exemption that we propose to introduce is for musical instruments. In the past, pianos, bagpipes and other musical instruments including violins required a proportion of their overall composition be ivory. There are now replacements available, so we no longer need to use ivory in any of those instruments, but will continue to respect the needs of the musical sector to have access to—and to be able to sell and buy—historically significant musical instruments from the past.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Would the Secretary of State accept that his commentary ought to be slightly amended, because we do not all recognise that historic ivory should be kept? Some of us think that this is an excuse for a continuation of the trade and that it creates loopholes and opportunities for those who wish to poach to masquerade their products as historic ivory. In fact, a bit like collections of shrunken heads, certain things were done by past generations, but in today’s more enlightened world, we do not need to keep those things. Some of us would rather see all ivory banned.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point and he is absolutely right. This is one of the reasons why we are introducing this legislation. There are occasions on which people attempt to pass off as works of artistic or cultural significance items that do not have that significance. They attempt to exploit a loophole and create an excuse or an opportunity to carry on this wicked trade. That is why the exemptions are so tightly drawn, and it is also why the onus is on any individual who wishes to sell an item to prove that it meets the stringent criteria. That switch changes the obligation and places it on the seller.

In the past, it was possible for someone to say—perhaps not genuinely—that they had no idea, and that they thought the item in question was artistically worked and of appropriate provenance and an appropriate age. They could say, “I had no idea. I am terribly sorry.” Those loopholes, excuses and opportunities will end with this legislation, because individuals will have to pay in order to demonstrate that the item they wish to sell meets one of the criteria. This will be a matter that we can debate in Committee, and of course we are now living in more enlightened times, but I believe that some items fashioned in ivory reflect the historical, cultural or artistic importance of a particular period or artistic movement and that we need to respect that, using a clearly high threshold.

I have mentioned that there will be exemptions for portrait miniatures, for musical instruments and for items such as furniture of which ivory forms only a small part. There is one other area. If an item is of truly outstanding historical or cultural significance, and if, for example, a museum wishes to ensure that an item of such significance can be bought and appropriately displayed, that will still be possible if the appropriate steps are recognised and met.

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[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

This action to tackle the international trade in ivory is welcome, if not long overdue. As I have already confirmed to the Secretary of State, the Opposition will not oppose this Bill, but we will seek to improve it in Committee. Labour’s 2017 manifesto pledged an outright ban on the ivory trade, which was reaffirmed in our recently published animal welfare plan. There now exists widespread cross-party recognition that a comprehensive ban on the sale of ivory is needed. As we have heard, despite a ban on the sale of new ivory having been in place for over 40 years, the decline in elephant populations demonstrates that the ban has simply not stopped the illegal trade.

The illegal wildlife trade has grown rapidly in recent years, and is now estimated to be the fourth largest transnational illegal trade, worth around £15 billion a year. The illegal wildlife trade drives corruption and has also been linked to other forms of organised crime, such as arms trading, human trafficking and drugs. It is shocking that the number of elephants in the wild has declined by almost a third in the past decade, with about 20,000 a year being slaughtered—an average of around 55 a day.

While Britain is not a country of highest concern in our contribution to the global illegal ivory trade, there is evidence that the UK legal ivory trade is being used to launder illegal ivory, which is then legally and illegally shipped to Asian countries. While ivory sales have declined since 2004, a 2016 survey by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, found that the UK was still a net exporter of ivory, and there was also some discrepancy in the numbers. The UK reported that only 17 raw tusks were exported to other countries, but importing countries reported that 109 tusks had arrived from the UK. TRAFFIC also found that UK ivory traders were often unclear about the laws around the legal ivory trade.

Our priority must be to protect elephants and all the other endangered species, as mentioned by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), that are hunted for their ivory in Africa and Asia. We have all seen pictures of devastated elephant carcases left strewn around, often with a young calf left by its mother’s body, mourning her loss. Such pitiful scenes remind us just what is at stake and why this Bill is so vital. We must send a clear message at home and internationally that the only ivory that we will value is on a live elephant in the wild. A more comprehensive ban on ivory, building on China’s decision at the end of 2017 to close its domestic ivory market, is a step towards giving the UK greater credibility in seeking to persuade other countries in Asia with a history of ivory trade—Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Laos and Myanmar—to commit to closing their domestic ivory markets. I will be grateful if the Secretary of State can confirm today what action he is taking in that regard.

As well as the wide support for the ban from charities and politicians, the public also feel passionately about this ban. The Secretary of State mentioned that there were more than 70,000 responses to the Government’s consultation, making it one of the largest consultation responses ever seen by DEFRA. There is now broad consensus that the legal domestic ivory markets contribute to illegal poaching in two main ways: by fuelling the demand for ivory and by providing a hiding place for illegal modern ivory to be laundered through the legal market. However, despite the broad consensus in favour of a ban on ivory sales, there is also agreement, including from the WWF, that we need the exemptions that the Secretary of State outlined.

There will be an opportunity to debate some of the finer points of the Bill in Committee, but today I will touch on some key questions. We have heard about enforcement, and it is important that the Bill is properly enforced through adequate resourcing. It must be clear that there will be oversight and penalties, including imprisonment as well as heavy fines.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), the Secretary of State said that he would look to strengthen and resource specialised enforcement to combat illegal ivory dealing, particularly on the internet, and I would be grateful if he could elaborate further on exactly how he sees that being funded and resourced.

We also need further clarity on several of the definitions in the Bill’s list of exemptions. We have already heard about how we need clarity on what “museum quality” means in respect to musical instruments, art and portrait miniatures. There will undoubtedly be further questions on the de minimis rule, as well as on how we will close any loopholes through which the system can potentially be abused, such as by using the proposed replacement certificates.

Can the Secretary of State clarify whether he plans to issue any new sentencing guidance along with this new legislation? It is important that the judiciary have the right level of information and training to issue the appropriate sentences, which will then act as an effective deterrent.

The need for international co-operation on ending the ivory trade cannot be overstated, and the Secretary of State has talked about some of that work. The Opposition look forward to hearing more detail on the Government’s specific role and on the action they will be taking.

[John Mann]

As the leader of the Labour party has offered the Elgin marbles back to Greece, will my hon. Friend give a commitment that, if the countries from which any ivory in a British museum was originally extracted would like that ivory back—even if the purpose is to destroy such ivory—the next Labour Government will give back those ivory objects?

[Sue Hayman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his interesting contribution. I am more than happy to discuss that with the Leader of the Opposition.

Labour has always been the party of animal welfare, from banning foxhunting and fur farms in the UK to introducing our landmark Animal Welfare Act 2006. Our 50-point animal welfare plan, unveiled earlier this year, offers a comprehensive and ambitious set of proposals for advancing animal welfare standards, based on the latest science and understanding. Animal welfare policy must be taken seriously, must be comprehensive and must never be based on just a campaign of the month. As hon. Members will know, the Conservative party made promises to ban the ivory trade in its 2010 and 2015 manifestos. After it failed to act, the pledge was then quietly dropped from its 2017 manifesto. I am proud that Labour’s last manifesto called for a ban on ivory sales, and I am pleased that the Government have finally chosen to follow suit.

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[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party welcomes the fact that robust measures to help to protect elephant populations for future generations are one step closer to becoming law and being realised. Today is a good day in Parliament, for this is the right thing to do and we are getting on with achieving it together.

I am pleased that work on the Bill has included widespread consultation with experts, including the environmental groups and charities that see the desperate plight of the decline in elephant populations and the carnage of poaching. They have worked so very hard, and I pay tribute to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Stop Ivory, the Born Free Foundation and Tusk, to name just a few. The general public overwhelmingly support a ban on ivory, guiding Parliament, as they always do. We must be mindful that we are simply the representatives of the people’s voice. With the 70,000 responses to the consultation, the people have spoken, and we must listen.

Musicians and representatives of the antiques trade have contributed to the process, stating that the preservation of ancient ivory is important, but fundamentally ivory belongs to elephants and rhinos—to nature, not to mankind.

[John Mann]

In respect of the stacks of ivory that the Scottish Government have in their museums, will they be prepared to destroy those horrendous objects or to offer them back to the countries from which they were originally poached?

[Dr Cameron]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am well aware that he is keen to destroy our ancient bagpipes, or perhaps to send them back to Scotland, where they belong. [Laughter.] That is certainly an issue for the Scottish Government and they will take it forward.

The cross-party support for the Bill is absolutely astronomical. People often ask whether we spend all day in this Parliament arguing just for the sake of it. I have to remind them that some of the very best work, which is often not reported on—the majority of our best work—is completed with cross-party agreement. The Bill is a perfect example of that. It forms part of our party’s manifesto commitments and also my personal pledge to my local constituency in 2017.

I wish to touch briefly on several issues that will require further consideration in Committee. The wording “rarest and most important” appears to have been altered to “rarity”. There is concern that the test may have been toned down. We hope that the wording will remain as strong as possible. Guidance is required alongside the Bill to ensure that adequate safeguards are in place for its implementation. An annually published register would assist, to determine how many items have been issued each year with exemptions and to ensure the veracity of this crucial legislation moving forward. Safeguards are needed for the issuing of exemption certificates, as they could be replicated to sell illegal items.

Also, we need assurances that the assessor will be employed by the institution doing the assessment rather than appointed, so that they have no conflict of interest in commercial trade. A definition of portrait miniatures is needed. New legislation must be enforceable, and it is important that there is permanent funding for the national wildlife crime unit so that that can be in absolutely no doubt. Finally, sentencing guidance will need to be timeous to ensure that those who seek to ignore this critical legislation and who engage in such atrocities against nature are punished severely from the get-go.

When I was in Kenya with the International Development Committee, I had the privilege of visiting Nairobi national park and the Sheldrick elephant orphanage, where I spent time with the valiant rangers who protect baby elephants whose mothers have been killed. They were tiny little elephants that came up to my waist—and unfortunately I have quite short legs, so the House can imagine how tiny those little elephants were. They needed nurture to survive, but had been taken from their mothers and their natural environment, ravaged by the greed and destruction of mankind. I pay tribute to those involved in the vital work to rehabilitate those elephants and get them back into the wild.

The SNP will support the Bill in Committee and at its subsequent stages. Today, we turn a corner, working together for a future in which elephants survive and continue to stride proudly across the savannahs of our natural world, for future generations.

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[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Let me add my congratulations, too. As I told a group of constituents in this very Chamber this morning, my role as a Back-Bench MP is to highlight the idiocy of the Front-Bench spokesperson who should be immediately sacked for failing to listen to the wisdom that I offer, or immediately promoted to greater things for their infinite wisdom. I offer the Secretary of State the opportunity not to have his career spiked by suggesting that he listens to me on this question of museums and artefacts.

I offer the Labour Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), my willingness to sit on the Bill Committee in order to ensure that the detail of the Bill is sufficiently clear to meet the purposes and the wishes of the House. I am sure that the shadow Front-Bench team will be delighted to have me in some Committee Room for a period of time on such important matters. None the less, I volunteer to do it, and I look forward to receiving the call.

As well as congratulating the Secretary of State on bringing forward, very appropriately, this piece of legislation, I also must congratulate two women Members of Parliament who have campaigned on this matter very assiduously over very, very many years. I am now desperately trying to remember their exact constituencies. I am talking about my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). They have both worked assiduously, and both have challenged their own parties to ensure that progress is made on this matter. That is not always the easiest thing to do. I pay tribute to them. Their role has been important.

Of course, one can have quibbles, and that is what Bill Committees are for—or Committees of the whole House if one does not have the opportunity to serve one’s country in that way—in order to strengthen and improve any Bill. There are some small issues to deal with. However, with due respect, I shall not give my own Front-Bench team such an easy time by merely referring to our party leader when it comes to discussions on our policy. We are a very democratic and open party and autonomy is given to the Front Bench. Therefore, in the Bill Committee, I am anticipating that my party will look at the question—let us call it the Elgin question—of what happens to artefacts. I am not just referring to the Scottish Government; there are local authorities across the country that could be doing things as well. I am not saying this to add humour to the debate. The situation with the elephant species and our responsibility to the planet has reached a critical point. That has been cited by all the experts, and, of course, the most famous of all of those in this country is David Attenborough. I seem to recall him saying that we are at the last 1% of time in terms of the population of these great species.

Frankly, if we cannot deliver on this, we do not deserve to be parliamentarians. We have a moment and a chance to do something, and we must take that chance not just with a piece of legislation, but with what goes beyond it. This matter needs to be addressed, along with two others. The first of those others is cyber-crime. The Government are currently investing lots of resource in cyber-crime—and correctly so. Cyber-crime involving the trade in endangered species, not least in ivory, is phenomenal. I pay tribute to the work that eBay has done to ban ivory from its sales. There are also many other ways in which the internet is being used for trade. I think that we could be wiser and sharper. At the conference in October, trade must be a vital part of the agenda, because, by definition, international co-operation can be the only effective way of dealing with such cyber-crime. We can lead the way as well by tweaking our legislation and by improving our resource.

The other matter that I wish to address is in relation to our international development work. The Batwe, the forest dwellers, are, without question, the poorest people on the planet, and yet, as the custodians of the forest for millennia, they are a perfect group of people for protecting the forest elephants in particular. The small numbers of the Batwe who remain are vastly unemployed and live in the most pitiful of conditions on the edge of the forest in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Uganda. There is an opportunity to do something that would be both humanitarian and effective. With the Bishop of Durham and other parliamentarians, I have had the honour and privilege of visiting the forest with an income and making a critical contribution to protecting such people and to renewing their traditional way of life. The two things come together very smartly, but straightforwardly. There is also an opportunity to experiment modestly, but urgently, to see whether that works. It would be significant if there were a country willing to accept our assistance.

My next point has been mentioned by the Secretary of State: the use of the British Army in ranger training. I have actually just approached the Royal College of Defence Studies and suggested co-operating on writing a paper on this. Such training has been done successfully in Malawi and in Gabon, but we also have a vested interest. We could give the Parachute Regiment, for instance, a training opportunity in an area of danger. For example, they could use drone technology in training rangers—whether military, civilian or a combination—in countries that want to do that. That is a huge training opportunity in these less conflictual times.

It is far better to carry out such training in large countries such as Tanzania, Botswana or Zambia, or wherever there is a country that wishes to receive such training. We win in a very significant way by training our military. Where else? We do drone training on Ascension Island because we cannot find anywhere big enough in this country to do it. Yet, that technology would clearly be transformational if it were given to rangers who were trained to use it.

I had the privilege of opening and assisting at the US embassy’s annual technology challenge, which addresses the issue of dealing with wildlife crime through technology. The event takes place annually in London, and allows entrepreneurs from the IT sector here to develop products to assist in countering wildlife crime using the most advanced technology. It is a brilliant initiative by the Americans. There is a combination of factors, and we can use our skills there. We can facilitate the development of those skills in countries that want them and that can quite clearly see the economic benefit of doing so in terms of direct jobs and the tourism potential. Far more importantly, this is about national identity and national pride. This is about indigenous species in countries in both Asia and Africa that are in danger of being wiped out, so it seems that these measures would be an easy win.

We could put in considerable resource compared with what was there before—in fact it would actually be minuscule in terms of what we are doing anyway, because we already have to train our own people. We have that training ability and we have the ability to pass it on. And I would go further. Some of the best ranger trainers and counter-poacher rangers in Africa are ex-British military and this would be a great opportunity for those who have served our country to develop skills, particularly if they pass them on.

I recommend those policies to Labour Front Benchers as well. With that, let me recongratulate the Government on their brilliance and look forward to assisting them in realising their goal.

[Several hon. Members rose—]