Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I would like to speak about male obsessions. I am currently trying to climb every Munro in Scotland, a male obsession that is a tradition of this House; consider the noble Lords, Lord Smith of Finsbury and Lord Elder. This summer the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is about to complete every Munro top—282 Munros and another 300 bits of Munros—in great glory. Why do we do it? We do it because it is there. If any land-owning Scottish Peer of the realm has an obscure bothy that I could borrow, I might get to every one myself in the not-too-distant future. It is a benign obsession, although if I used an urban tradition and tagged my name on rocks on the top of every Scottish hill and mountain—“Lord Mann was here”—it would be seen not as benign but as a problem. Doubtless some quasi-privileges committee would throw me out of here for bringing the House into great disrepute, and rightly so.

Those obsessions are unstoppable. There is a football programme on sale today. Only one is known to exist in the world. It was discovered under floorboards in Leeds recently—a Leeds City 1906 programme. There will be men—I know them—bidding for that. Owning every Leeds United home programme since 1955, I would quite like to have it myself. My wife will be delighted to know that I will not be bidding, because there would be a bit of a domestic if I spent the £5,000 or £10,000 that would doubtless be required to fulfil that obsession.

However, if a Billy Bremner stocking tag from 1974 became available, a large number of people would attempt to purchase it—that is the nature of obsession— and they are not all men of course. I have never actually seen women buying at a football programme collectors’ event, but there will be one or two; it is not entirely men, but there is a psychology to collecting.

I will go to Wrexham at some stage to maintain my membership, which is an entirely theoretical membership, of the 92 Club. I have been to 91 of the 92 Football League clubs and Wrexham has just rejoined the Football League. I have not been there, but I will go, as will others. That is an obsession.

The trophy hunting mentality works in exactly the same way. It cannot be satiated; it is not possible. Those who are collecting will continue collecting not just in Africa but worldwide—the snow leopard or anything else that moves and breathes—because they feel they have to. If I was to take that spray can and tag every Scottish mountain, we would have to use our laws to stop me. That is precisely the logic of this Bill: some people cannot help themselves, so we have to do so for the better good of society and the planet.