Backbench Business

Debate between Lord Mann and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 8th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[John Mann]

It is estimated that there is a 40% reduction in the giraffe population. It is such a crisis for our world, which we share—we do not own it—and which we choose to concrete over, calling it economic growth. We choose to pretend the world is purely ours, but our species will not survive if we cannot cohabit with other species. In our selfishness we are putting future generations’ lives at stake, through our failure to act.

The hon. Member for Stafford is the expert on matters to do with Africa—I endorse that. He is wise in his advice to Government, and I am sure the House backs him in that. However, we can go further. There are little things we can do. Every delegation of MPs leaving this country should have a briefing about these issues in their hands, and should raise them in Africa and Asia. I raised with one of our ambassadors in central Asia the matter of the snow leopard. There are no elephants in Tajikistan, but there are snow leopards—more than anywhere else in the world. There are good people there, but there is no briefing from the Foreign Office, and the subject is not raised at ministerial level there. It is not being pressed, because it has not been part of our priority. Well, it needs to be. We have the people: we have senior royals and experienced, eloquent MPs. We should be able to do something about it.

Let us see trading standards acting in each part of the country, to find and to prosecute. Let our MPs, our ambassadors or anyone else we have abroad talk with the countries that will benefit if their indigenous species survive and thrive. Let that be significantly higher up the agenda—ours and theirs. Let the Government glory in their manifesto commitment, which is popular. There may even have been the odd vote—in constituencies other than mine—that went to their party for its wisdom in that respect. Let the policy be enacted, and swiftly, so that when we go into the negotiations on the convention on international trade in endangered species and press our case, it is on the basis that we have taken action domestically.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that too often manifestos contain commitments, such as the commitment to a ban on wild animals in circuses, but that despite ample parliamentary time in which to discuss the issues there is endless delay, further consultation, and no concrete action from the Government?

[John Mann]

The fact of the matter is that people vote, so we spend a lot of time listening to every single request.

I want to make a final point to those who are following the debate, and those who are enthused to do something from outside Parliament: I want to get the people to rise up and make demands of us, turn the arguments into numbers, and put pressure on me, the hon. Member for Stafford and every other Member of Parliament. We need a rising up in the country, to say that we are going to do something and are not prepared to sit by—as we have all done in our lifetime—while there is a disastrous decimation of species, and while species that were not endangered in my childhood become critically endangered. Let us turn the tide and put on the pressure. I say to the Minister: be a hero.