Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Lord Swire and Lord Turnbull

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I must take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Weir, because I do not think that these amendments that some of us are proposing this evening are designed to wreck the Bill. On the contrary, the conversations I have had with my colleagues, who take this issue very seriously, are all about improving the Bill, which is why I will support the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I think there is a better amendment coming from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, but I think this is a good amendment and this is the role of the second Chamber.

Without giving too much away, some of us have been lobbied quite hard over the past few days about the Bill and told, for instance, in that famous Whips’ argument, “If you don’t accept this, you will get something much worse”. Well, if we accepted that as a serious argument, there would be no point in having this revising Chamber at all: we would just accept all bad legislation coming from the other place and roll over and have our tummies tickled. We might as well stay away. The point of this House, if it is to have a point at all, is to examine legislation, reject bad legislation and, where necessary and feasible, improve the legislation. So, I utterly reject the noble Lord’s comment that this is designed to wreck the Bill.

I have various declarations to make. My first declaration is that I have no desire to shoot an animal in Africa, nor to bring a trophy home. In fact, I believe that if my wife were to wake up in the morning and find a kudu head at the end of the bed, she might react in the same way as if it were the severed head of a horse, to use an analogy from a film—which is quite a dangerous thing to do and was recently done rather poorly by President Biden.

However, the point is not whether I want to import trophies here from Africa or elsewhere. I set aside my own personal views and want to look at the legislation as it stands. The other two declarations I should make is, first, that I consider the Minister to be a close friend of mine—I do not know whether he will consider me in the same light after this—and I am afraid that for him it is a question of the cab rank principle of KCs that he has to accept whatever brief is coming his way. However, he is nothing but a serious conservationist, and I slightly wonder what is going through his mind privately—but we will not dwell on his grief: he will do this job in the entirely professional way that he handles so much of his brief, which seems to be a brief without beginning and without end.

However, the second and more serious point I want to make—this is a proper declaration—is that I am the deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, which is designed to grow intra-Commonwealth trade. We heard in the previous Statement about the rise of Africa and how the African Union will now be represented at the G20, and Africa is coming of age. Everyone is looking at Africa. Hopefully, the British Government and our allies will look a bit more closely and try to fill the void that has been left by some countries to stop the Wagner Group, China and others exploiting that magnificent continent.

I am therefore very conscious of the role of the Commonwealth and of the perception that in some way the Commonwealth is a hangover from colonialism and the British Empire. Manifestly it is not; you only have to look at the most recent accession countries to the Commonwealth to see that they have absolutely no historic connection with this country whatever. However, it is there, and we should accept that there is that lingering suspicion. I am therefore enormously sensitive and immediately alert to the possibility that anything we say or do in this country about developing countries, particularly in Africa, could be conceived or misconceived as some form of neocolonialism. I know there is a temptation, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, from the other side tried to paint this as an all-boys club gathering—I was rather amused that the next, excellent speaker was the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which put paid to that rather cheap accusation.

The point is that Africa is watching. As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said, we had a delegation of Ministers from some African countries. As a Minister I certainly would never have gone to an African country in the same way they came here to make these points. They came all this way to talk about what they wanted to do in their own communities, with their own experiences, and not the great principle of whether trophy hunting is morally right or repellent—which some people feel, and I absolutely accept that—but what it means to their local livelihoods and their local population. We should factor that in.

It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable that here we are, sitting on our well-upholstered behinds in the lovely gilt and leather confines of the House of Lords, telling people in Africa, in this century, in this day and age, how they should go about making their living. What an appalling idea that we could think that we could replace what they are trying to do by making this illegal, destroying that part of their livelihood and saying that we will replace it with aid. That is not what aid is meant for. It is not meant to make populations dependent; it is meant to liberate people, to encourage them to get up, do their own thing to the best of their ability and trade their way out of poverty. I will never vote for anything in this House which has an adverse effect on the livelihoods of people in those countries. We should think very carefully before we start telling those people what they should be doing.

[Lord Turnbull (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I was not able to speak at Second Reading; I found out that it was scheduled only after the speakers’ list had closed. However, I have read the Hansard for that debate.

Like others, I am now struggling to find a rationale for choosing which amendments to support and which to oppose. This is difficult, as the Bill is flawed. Its stated aim, found in the impact assessment, is

“to ensure that imports of hunting trophies to the UK are not placing additional pressure on species of conservation concern”.

This muddles up two completely different objectives, the promotion of conservation and limiting import of trophies. The link between the two is tenuous. Acting on trophies will do precious little to promote conservation. As the Bill applies only to imports into the UK, it will do nothing to curb the appetite of the legendary Minnesota dentist.