Oral Answers to Questions
Pauline Latham Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Zac Goldsmith
I have had letters from the constituents of a number of hon. Members raising the same issue: off-road bikers causing wildlife mayhem in sensitive and fragile parts of the countryside. I of course commit to the hon. Gentleman to talk to the police and landowners and animal welfare charities to see what the best solution is. There is no silver bullet to solve the problem. It needs to be addressed, but it is not immediately obvious what that solution would be.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Canned lion breeding in South Africa is causing terrible angst for many people because these lions, barely two years old, are shot at point-blank range. That adds to the trophy hunting imports to this country. When is the consultation my right hon. Friend has mentioned going to begin?
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend is right: canned lion hunting is one of the grimmest of all human activities. It is hard to see any defence for it. There are concerns that, although it may not be a direct conservation issue, creating a legal trade in lion parts, particularly lion bones, provides a cover for the illegal trade, and we know that lion numbers have plummeted in the last 15 or 20 years. As she mentioned, we have committed to launching a call for evidence and, based on the results we get, we will take whatever steps are necessary to end or to regulate the import of hunting trophies.
Dame Caroline Spelman
I thank the hon. Lady for those very kind words, and indeed, with the full support of my staff, I did speak out about the abuse we face and that might perhaps be part of my legacy to this place; I hope sincerely that those who are returned will really do something about it, particularly by tackling the wild west of the internet where there is not sufficient regulation of what is expressed, although I commend the guidance given by the Church of England about how to navigate the internet wisely.
On the point raised, it is important to share the following information, because theft from churches, particularly of roofs, affects many colleagues. New guidance has been published by Historic England on non-lead metal roofs for churches, to deter the risk of metal theft. It is important to note that even a grade 1 listed building can be fitted with lead substitutes, which do not therefore attract the type of crime that I described at the beginning and is causing so much damage and cost.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Dame Caroline Spelman
The legal position is that 16 and 17-year-olds are entitled to have their banns published and to marry in church. I am sure that all Members who have been to an Anglican wedding will be familiar with the moment during the service when the priest asks whether anyone has an objection to the marriage. That is part of the marriage process. When a young couple are preparing for marriage, they are prepared by the priest for the very profound decision that they are making. However, those of such a tender age constitute only a very small percentage of the number who marry in Anglican churches.
Mrs Latham
May I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and reiterate that my right hon. Friend will be missed when she leaves this place?
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the international reach of the Anglican communion, the Church of England’s support for ending marriages between 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK would send a powerful message to other jurisdictions and faith communities around the world?
Dame Caroline Spelman
As I mentioned earlier, the Anglican communion covers a very large number of nations and a very large number of people whose cultural norms differ from our own, but aid agencies often handle the issue of child marriage very effectively through their health and education programmes. I particularly commend the work of the Mothers Union in this respect. Its members are active in, for instance, southern Sudan with finance and literacy programmes to ensure that families do not rely on dowry payments as a way to sustain themselves. Dioceses in Kenya work with the community to prevent child marriage, and there are similar arrangements in Ghana. The Mothers Union also has initiatives to tackle child marriage in the United States of America, because in 13 states there is no minimum age for marriage.
Trophy Hunting Imports
Pauline Latham Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered trophy hunting imports.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I am delighted that the relatively new Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who has championed many different environmental issues, will respond to this important debate. I am particularly delighted to have secured this debate on banning trophy hunting imports to this country: although the Government have already announced that that is their plan, I wish to check exactly what their policy will cover. It makes a change to take part in a debate in Westminster at the moment that, I suspect, has cross-party support.
Oren Lyons, the chief of the Onondaga, was invited to address the United Nations in 1977. He made a long speech about our responsibilities. When talking about who had been invited to speak at the UN, he said:
“I do not see a delegation for the four footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation. We must continue to understand where we are. We stand between the mountain and the ant, somewhere and there only, as part and parcel of the Creation. It is our responsibility, since we have been given the minds to take care of these things. The elements and the animals and the birds, they live in a state of grace. They are absolute, they can do no wrong. It is only we, the two leggeds, that can do this. And when we do this to our brothers, to our own brothers, we do the worst in the eyes of the Creator.”
We, the human race, have done wrong. Over the last few years, often through the greed of humans, we have brought to near-extinction many animals that used to exist in large numbers.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that it is a widespread view on both sides of the House that there is something nauseating and revolting about someone who would slaughter an endangered animal to use part of its body as a trinket or trophy?
Mrs Latham
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will touch on such things later, but they are absolutely abhorrent. As I said, this is a debate that we can all agree on.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Further to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), is she aware that a recent opinion poll suggests that 86% of people across the UK support a trophy hunting ban? It is not just this House that is united on the issue, but the vast majority of this country’s population.
Mrs Latham
That is an interesting statistic, because I think that would not have been the case 20, 30 or 40 years ago. The extinction of many animals and the talk about that—for example, David Attenborough talking about it—have raised awareness among the general population, which can be only a good thing. I am sure the Minister is listening intently.
Local people in different countries do not benefit financially from this appalling trade, just the big greedy bosses of the operations. Elephants, tigers, rhinos, gorillas, lions and many more species are endangered—even giraffes are affected. British big game hunters have travelled to every corner of the globe, from Africa to Asia, North America to South America, and across Europe, in pursuit of often-rare hunting trophies. The most popular destination for UK hunters is South Africa.
Thanks to the determination of the Government and the previous Secretary of State, the ivory trade will be reduced, which will hopefully have an impact on the poaching of elephants for their tusks. Although other countries did that before us, we have at last caught up. With respect to trophy hunting, we might get to the forefront, although other countries have in fact banned trophy hunting imports.
During this debate, I wish to concentrate primarily on lions. Once they roamed free across many countries in Africa, but now there are far fewer truly wild lions. Although killing a lion for sport is bad enough, I can almost understand why that was done when they were plentiful, but I find the new, popular canned hunting of lions especially offensive.
Imagine being born into captivity, stolen from your mother at the age of about two weeks to three weeks and sold by merciless breeders to face death at the hands of bloodthirsty tourists. Laughing, smiling tourists pose for photos with dead lions, and I have even seen a photo of tourists kissing next to that fabulous being. That is the face of the animal that was once hailed as king of the jungle.
For 11,000 lions in South Africa, there will not have been one day of freedom. At a young age, they will be shot by a hunter who cannot miss. Lions are bred in cages for the canned hunting industry at more than 300 farms in South Africa. There will be no chase, no escape, no mercy. It beggars belief that British hunters are among those propping up this desperately cruel industry. The lions are reared in cages and forced to breed too young, and their cubs are taken away from them soon after birth so that the mothers can breed again, but too quickly.
The cubs might then be taken to petting zoos where tourists—possibly unaware of the past or future of those cubs—are able to bottle-feed them. Some tourists are even able to walk with the young lions until they are about nine months old, when they become much harder to control. From then on, these immature lions are kept in small pens until they are about two years old.
These animals have trusted humans because they know no different. They have been bred in captivity. This trust is tragically misplaced. The lions are either let out of the cages and shot at almost point-blank range by the trophy hunter or are taken by truck into the bush to make it more like the kill of a wild animal. In this instance, the lions are allowed out of the truck and shot—again at almost point-blank range—although some are never let out of the cages and are actually shot while in captivity, through the bars, by these so-called trophy hunters.
These magnificent animals have had no freedom to roam and live as nature intended, thanks to an industry that is, believe it or not, legal in South Africa. This kind of hunting is often given a licence thanks to the sometimes-corrupt authorities turning a blind eye, or because the owners of these “farms” persuade them that it is being done in the name of conservation. That is simply a lie. It is a heinous activity that lines the pockets of greedy owners. Every time a trophy hunter shoots a lion, they have paid many thousands of dollars for the privilege. These lions are farmed in great secrecy to produce cheap, quick trophies for hunters. In some cases, the breeders themselves shoot the lions so as to sell lion bones in the far east for ritual medicines. It is easy to see that it is only a matter of but a short time before the only lions we will see will be those in zoos.
Shamefully, Britain still allows so-called hunter trophies to be brought into the country. Yes, lions’ heads may be flown into our airports by hunters who glory in adorning their walls with them. We need to make it clear that the UK condemns the killing of lions, as well as other threatened species. This should start with legislation preventing hunters from bringing back the heads, tails, feet, skins and other body parts of these animals to the UK. We need a clear moral response.
The Government should impose an immediate moratorium on the importation of trophies until legislation is made. There is no reason this cannot be done immediately. People’s lives are in danger when they speak out about this terrible practice, so we need to protect those who whistleblow about it. People might not be aware that there are three times more canned lions than wild lions in South Africa today. There are fewer than 15,000 lions left in the wild across the world. Indeed, our own Prime Minister mentioned this recently at Prime Minister’s Question Time.
Over the past decade, 10,000 lion trophies have been taken. Despite the very small number of lions, trophy hunting of adult males is still allowed in Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania. There is an absolute dearth of information that such activities are in any way sustainable or contribute to the conservation of the species in any way. In fact, it has been shown in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania that trophy-hunting concessions are now so devoid of wildlife, largely due to overhunting, that they cannot garner any further interest in tenders from trophy-hunting operations. There has never been a population count of lions in any trophy-hunting concession in any African nation that permits lion trophy hunting. It is no wonder that trophy-hunting operators are increasingly reliant on illegal hunts inside national parks, luring lions such as Cecil out of national parks, along with many other such transgressions on lion populations that should be strictly protected. The UK has put in place much funding to combat the illegal wildlife trade, but hunting transgressions on protected areas should be considered as one of the important illegal activities.
It is now abundantly clear that the future of wild lion survival in Africa is dependent on not more than four populations, which still have more than 1,000 individuals. Those populations are located in Northern Botswana; perhaps in the Kruger National Park in South Africa; in the Serengeti in Tanzania; and in the Selous in Tanzania. The estimate of 15,000 lions in total depends on an accumulation of small, scattered and isolated groups of lions across this very large continent. For example, there are 16 lions left in Senegal, 34 in Nigeria, 32 in Malawi, 34 in Angola and maybe 60 in Ethiopia.
This practice should stop and should stop now. Britain should not be allowing trophy-hunted imports of any species from any country. How can we allow zebra, rhino, lions or, indeed, any single animal from an endangered species to be brought in to go on someone’s wall at home or in the office when we are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers? Other countries have banned imports, but, so far, we have not banned them all. I am told we still allow some to come into this country. Why? That does not help conservation.
Shockingly, the infamous killing of Cecil the lion has encouraged British hunters to go to South Africa and shoot dead more big cats than ever. Experts had believed that worldwide revulsion at the shooting would mark a turning point for the endangered species and the start of a decline in trophy hunting. Instead, the number of British hunters targeting farmed lions and bringing home their body parts more than doubled in the three years after Cecil’s death, compared with the three years before, according to statistics from the global wildlife trade regulator.
This is not about telling African countries how to manage their wildlife. It is not even about laying down the law on trophy hunting to them. It is simply saying that the UK does not agree with killing lions, elephants and other threatened species for sport, nor with allowing hunters to bring back the heads, tails, feet, skins and other body parts of these animals to the UK.
Sir Greg Knight
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again; she is being very generous. Does she agree that a ban on import should also include the body parts being traded through Britain?
Mrs Latham
Yes, I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. We must put a ban on everything that makes more species endangered, and we should be regulating and being very careful about what we do or do not allow into this country. As I said earlier, we are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers.
The times we are living in and the threat facing all wildlife demand a clear moral response. Things need to change so that live animals are better for the economy than dead ones. I understand that the US had a total or near-total ban when Obama was President, but the current President has decided to release the pressure and to allow some trophy hunting. I understand that that is because two of his sons like trophy hunting. That is something that should not happen in America. It should not happen here. It should not happen in Europe. It should happen nowhere.
I am fortunate to have seen many lions and other endangered species in various African countries, but I want my grandchildren and their children to have that privilege too when they are old enough to travel. We can visit a zoo, but that is such a poor relation, compared with seeing a lion, or any animal, living in freedom in its own natural environment. David Attenborough has spoken about the animals in Africa and other places, and indeed in the oceans, and his programmes whet the appetite, but unless we stop all trophy hunting, those beautiful animals will disappear from our reach, as many very nearly have.
I have a series of questions for the Minister, following the Government’s welcome announcement at the weekend, and I know he will listen hard to them. Which animals will be covered by the trophy hunting imports ban? When will it come into effect? Every month we take to pass legislation means more endangered species getting closer to eradication and extinction. Which countries will be banned from importing trophies into Britain? If it is not all of them, greedy businesspeople will find a way around the ban by moving the dead animal to a country from which we do allow the import of trophies. Which countries do we still allow trophies to be imported from? Will animal parts, such as bones, hands, tails and so on, be covered?
What about trading through a country, which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) mentioned? Obviously, countries such as China value the body parts of these endangered species. I ask the Government to impose an immediate moratorium on the importation of trophies until legislation is made. Is there any reason why that cannot or should not be done immediately?
Can I be assured that the welcome announcement by the Government a few days ago will not result in just more consultation? There have been multiple consultations over a number of years, and the longer that that continues, the fewer lions there will be truly in the wild. I understand that the previous Secretary of State was holding a consultation—another one—and said that we had to listen carefully to both sides, but while we do that, more and more lions die. I thank the Minister for his passion on this and many other environmental issues, and I look forward to his positive response later.
Mrs Latham
I thank the Minister and all hon. and right hon. Members for contributing to this debate. It must be terribly hard for the Minister to be the poacher turned gamekeeper. He has a difficult decision, having now to stick with what he is told and what he has to do, but I hope that his passion will cut through some of the civil service speak and that he will get on and do it, because we are only temporary custodians of the wildlife and the environment of this planet. We really need to act if we want our grandchildren, their children and their children after that to be able to see these magnificent animals. We can play only a small part, but we can do a lot to persuade other countries to cease their activities. A ban on wildlife trophy imports into this country sends a hugely significant message that we care and want to change things. I commend this motion to the Minister and everyone else.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered trophy hunting imports.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pauline Latham Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The Government recently published the resources and waste strategy, which sets out our plans to reduce plastic pollution. We have already consulted on banning straws, cotton buds and stirrers, and are consulting on extending the carrier bag charge. We will shortly be publishing our consultation on key reforms to existing packaging waste regulations, which will include a deposit refund scheme for drinks containers and increasing consistency in the recycling system.
Mrs Latham
The “Countryfile” programme on Sunday showed that farms use huge quantities of very thick plastic, which apparently can no longer be recycled and is being kept on airfields. How can the Government ensure that this product does not go into landfill?
Dr Coffey
It is possible to recycle plastic bales, but I am conscious that the secondary market may not be well established. With the reforms that we will shortly be consulting on, my hon. Friend will see that it will be in the interests of producers to ensure that materials are recyclable, otherwise it will cost them more.
Ivory Bill (Fifth sitting)
Pauline Latham ExcerptsTuesday 19th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Ivory Act 2018 View all Ivory Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 19 June 2018 - (19 Jun 2018)
Sue Hayman
I know how the Minister appreciates it.
Several hon. Members, some of whom are members of the Committee and others who are not but took part in the Second Reading debate, have spoken about why they feel it is really important that we look at extending the Bill’s scope. They include my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, who I believe is paired today, the hon. Members for Mid Derbyshire and for North Dorset, who are both here today, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), and the hon. Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), for Witney, and for Southend West (Sir David Amess). They all raised the specific issue of extending the scope on Second Reading.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Although I agree that we need to look at going beyond elephant ivory at some point, we need to get this Bill through quickly, even though it is narrow. I would have preferred it to be wider, but it cannot be because we have not consulted on that. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be better to get the Bill through and to widen the scope at a later stage, as soon as we possibly can, rather than delay its implementation as it stands?
Sue Hayman
I agree that we need to get the Bill through very quickly, because of its important purpose. However, on consultation, I have taken professional advice from the Consultation Institute, and I declare an interest because I am an associate. Its advice to me, as a professional organisation that works with different Departments, is that consultation will not necessarily delay the Bill and prevent it from being ready before the conference that we are all looking forward to in October.
The Consultation Institute does not believe that it is illegal to move forward without further consultation, but if consultation was necessary, the Government could easily devise a quick consultation of no more than 14 days, by going back to the organisations that have already shown an interest in this matter through responding to the initial consultation. That could be done very quickly; there is no reason to delay the Bill by extending that consultation. The institute would be happy to work with the Department and endorse that consultation formally at the end, so that there would be no challenge. The Government have apparently done short consultations in the past as top-up consultations to something that has already taken place, as a piece of legislation goes through.
Ivory Bill (Third sitting)
Pauline Latham ExcerptsThursday 14th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Sue Hayman
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is right: the expert said that this would be a “very sensible” thing to do. I hope that the Minister recognises that the amendment is designed to support the Bill by making it generally more effective and giving owners of items a better understanding of exactly what kind of exemption certificate they should apply for, so that the process can move forward much more smoothly.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I endorse what the hon. Lady has said. It was clear in the evidence that a measurement was wanted. The whole point about the Bill is that we need clarity and absolute certainty so that everyone knows exactly where they stand. If an item were bigger than is suggested, it would not be considered a miniature, because a miniature is something small. Whether the measurements are in inches or millimetres, I do not mind, although like the hon. Lady, I do not really understand millimetres; I only understand inches. I am interested in what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say, but whether it is stated in the Bill or set out elsewhere as guidance, I would like the size to be specified if possible.
Ivory Bill (Fourth sitting)
Pauline Latham ExcerptsThursday 14th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Plectrums are surely independent from the musical instrument; they are something that somebody chooses to use. If they are 100% either mammoth or elephant ivory, they will not be able to be sold. It is highly unlikely that any musician will rely on selling those in order to fund his or her retirement, because they are such small parts. I would have thought that that is a bit of an irrelevance. I do not know if the Minister agrees.
David Rutley
In the scheme of what we are debating, it certainly is a small item. However, for those involved, it may be significant. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: if it is made of elephant ivory, it does not comply. However—we will debate mammoths at length when we debate clause 35, I am sure—mammoth ivory is not in the scope of the Bill as it stands, and therefore a plectrum will not be affected if it is made of mammoth ivory.
Ivory Bill (First sitting)
Pauline Latham ExcerptsTuesday 12th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
Q
Will Travers: That is an important question. Context is important; we all feel that it is important that whatever other considerations there are for non-elephant ivory-bearing species, they do not blow this legislation off course or delay it significantly. We all share the view that it would be a tragedy, to put it in informal terms, if we worked really hard to save elephants and other species were collateral damage in the process. But we need to consider a number of species.
We suggest that the Government commit to a rapid consultation after the Bill, to look at hippos, narwhal, hornbill—which are also facing extinction because their bills are a surrogate for ivory—walrus and not just CITES-listed species but non-CITES-listed species. We recognise that the trade—particularly the legal one—is entrepreneurial and will move to wherever there is an opportunity. Species such as warthog could come into the frame very rapidly as interest in ivory shifts from elephants, which are getting a huge amount of attention, to other ivory-bearing species.
In summary, we would like real attention to be paid to the issue, but we want to make sure that that does not in any way delay this process. That would be detrimental to what is under way.
Cath Lawson: We endorse that opinion. We are happy that the Bill as it stands, which allows for consideration of other ivory-bearing species at a later date, is sufficient. We would be comfortable with Will’s suggestion of expansion to non-CITES-listed species, too, but our concern would be that to include other non-ivory-bearing species at this point would cause delays to the Bill. With the illegal wildlife trade conference in October, we are keen that the Bill moves quickly through the legislative process.
David Cowdrey: Again, I endorse what WWF and Born Free just said. There should be flexibility in the Bill to include other species in future, but at this time the focus should be on delivering for elephant ivory, which the consultation was about and where a lot of the research was. That flexibility should enable the inclusion of further species should they be exploited and should there be a need to add them.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Q
David Cowdrey: I totally agree with that. We have all worked so hard to get to this point to deliver one of the strongest ivory bans in the world. The initiative that has been taken by all parties and the cross-party support shown on Second Reading have been superb, and there is an opportunity to provide that protection. As we said, as long as there is that flexibility, and consideration for other species, which can be applied in future, and as long as further consultations can be held and we can have those discussions, I would agree totally with that.
Cath Lawson: Yes, WWF would be happy to engage in that consultation process, but for it to be separate to passing the Bill.
Will Travers: Just for the Committee’s interest and information, we are talking about huge volumes of trade in non-elephant ivory. I have four figures that might be helpful. From 2007 to 2016—just under a decade—78,000 hippos and hippo products were exported by CITES parties. Hong Kong imported 60 tonnes of hippo ivory between 2004 and 2014. Between 2007 and 2016—those dates again—7,000 narwhal products were exported and more than 172,000 walrus specimens were reported to have been exported on the CITES trade database. Those are not insignificant by any measure—they are enormously significant. With that kind of volume now, as we have just mentioned, the shift away from elephant ivory could put insupportable pressure on these other species, which is why we would like to see an accelerated process for that after this process has been undertaken. That is a very helpful suggestion.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
Cath Lawson: From WWF’s point of view, I cannot comment on the legislative process but we would certainly want to see a consultation process around those species before inclusion in a Bill. That is why it needs to be a separate process.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
David Cowdrey: Those are all excellent points. The Bill will clearly close down markets in the UK. The more markets we close down, the more we deprive people of money and income. The price of raw ivory that was publicly for sale was $2,200 per kilo. After China introduced its ban, it went down to $1,100 and then down to $600. It is now about $450. There has been a massive devaluation in the price of raw ivory, making it a less viable option. Such things are incredibly useful.
With regard to help for communities, on Second Reading there was an interesting discussion in which Members talked about how some of the Department for International Development’s budget might be used. We have to consider a holistic approach. The communities are not isolated from poaching, and the impact of poaching on communities is not isolated from the illegal wildlife trade; they are joined up and hand in hand. There are good opportunities that exist with our overseas development budget to take a more integrated approach to delivering holistic aid and support and anti-poaching measures, to help build communities and tackle corruption.
The support with efforts through the DEFRA challenge fund grant, through DFID and the FCO’s interaction with other communities is also important. It needs to go hand in glove. This is a complex situation that you cannot just wave a wand or a Bill at. It is all part of a jigsaw that really helps, but our overseas aid is another part that we could potentially re-examine and look at, to provide better integrated aid.
Cath Lawson: The WWF would very much endorse that position. I do not think we need additions to the Bill, but we are supportive of wider conversations about looking at overseas aid for ecosystem-based funding, and looking at bigger-picture landscape approaches to some of the critical habitats where the illegal wildlife trade impacts on the survival of certain species.
Will Travers: I endorse everything that has just been said, and I totally understand that when it comes to spending the £13 billion or so a year in our DFID budget, in most cases we must be risk averse. However, for this sort of issue—I used this term before when I talked about it with Justine Greening three years ago—we need a sort of adventure capital fund. We need a modest amount of money with which we try innovative, new things on the ground or with partners, and try to deliver something that will change the game on the ground and speak to all the issues that have been raised, such as secure ecosystems, secure livelihoods, alternative livelihoods and food security at landscape level. Sitting right in the middle of that can be conservation. If the brief is whether we can make conservation work for communities and people, I think the answer is yes, but it needs not insignificant—although not huge—pump-priming to really get it going. That is where DFID, which is a completely different entity from the one we are talking about right now, could have a major role.
David Cowdrey: I agree about some of the technical developments and initiatives that the UK can take. I mentioned fingerprinting earlier, and across Africa most countries do not even have an electronic fingerprinting database. When we are dealing with international criminal syndicates and gangs, countries are not capturing the information, and they do not have the capability to share it with neighbouring countries. These are transnational crimes. We must consider how we can develop these countries in a way that provides practical enforcement and really helps them to develop.
We can help to defeat these international criminal syndicates, and simple investments that can be done through development grants or a challenge fund are really important. A national fingerprinting database for a country could cost as little as £60,000. Look at that as an investment and a way to help tackle corruption and crime, including not just wildlife crime but crime and terrorism. That has a massive impact across the world. In tackling the illegal wildlife trade, we must consider some of those simple enforcement measures that can make a game-changing difference on the ground for those countries.
Mrs Latham
Q
Cath Lawson: It is certainly something that we would be comfortable with. I mentioned an amendment earlier. At the moment the Bill includes CITES-listed species, but mammoth, as an extinct species, are not a CITES-listed species and never will be. One option would be to remove that caveat in the existing legislation, but that could be part of a later consultation process.
Sue Hayman
Q
Cath Lawson: During the consultation process, we did not advocate for additional species to be added. Our advice in the consultation response was to focus on elephant ivory.
Will Travers: We did comment on other species, and we did advocate that there should be consideration, which is what I believe clause 35 refers to. The definition of ivory in the Bill is ivory from elephant species. I understand why it is important to make sure there is consideration of other species, for which there has been no full consultation. We want to understand what is going on with hippo ivory, with narwhal ivory, with walrus ivory, with warthog ivory—non-CITES listed—and with extinct, non-CITES-listed mammoth ivory. There may be—I am just trying to think of the right way of expressing this—specific exemptions that would have been considered for inclusion specific to, for example, mammoth ivory that we would be discussing now had that been part of the overall process to start with.
Sue Hayman
Q
Alexander Rhodes: Without a shadow of a doubt.
Charlie Mayhew: Absolutely. The public, in whichever part of the world, who ultimately buy ivory do not necessarily differentiate where that ivory has emanated from. We have an opportunity here, in introducing this legislation, which as people have previously said is one of the toughest bans in the world, to send a message that ivory should now be socially unacceptable. If we can try to use this legislation, particularly with the upcoming illegal wildlife trade conference and attendees coming from all over the world, the rest of the world should follow suit.
Mrs Latham
Q
Alexander Rhodes: Yes. Perhaps as a bit of context around that, it is interesting to note that the crisis that was recognised just before the last London conference came about because of the professionalisation of poaching. Illegal organised crime stepped in and added elephant ivory to its inventory because there was no legal international trade and there was an opportunity. That took place in circumstances where, internationally, there was confusion, and there was no common position on whether elephant ivory should or should not be traded—that rift had been in place since 1989.
Over the four years since the London conference, strong consensus has been built internationally that the ivory market should be closed. Importantly, that has taken the form of two international resolutions, one at CITES and one at the IUCN, that domestic markets for ivory—that is what we are talking about—should close, as should some of the other leading markets for elephant ivory, such as those in China and the US, and we are looking forward, beyond there, into Europe. That certainty about the illegality of ivory has significantly changed in the price of ivory.
When we started looking at this issue at the time of the first London conference, many people said that closing markets for ivory was a stupid thing to do, because all it would do is drive up the price. They said that destroying stockpiles of ivory, or locking them up so that they could not be traded into the market, was a stupid thing to do, because it would just drive up the price, and that the more scarce you make things, the higher the price becomes. Interestingly, David mentioned prices earlier, and the change that we have seen during this period, and the effect of the measure, has been that, in China, the price of a kilo of ivory between the time of the last London conference and now has gone from $2,500 to $450. In some African countries there has been a similar collapse in the price of ivory paid to gunmen. That wider context goes to the point about clarity on the legality, or illegality, of ivory.
I tend to agree with what Charlie said, which is that if you say, “Ivory is banned”—this is called the Ivory Bill, and the basis on which it was built was a commitment to close ivory market—that is pretty clear, and it falls within the international consensus that has been built on elephant ivory. My personal view is that, yes, it would make great sense to expand the Bill to cover mammoth ivory and other types of ivory for species that are threatened as a result of this trade. Such a measure would disincentivise people from going and killing those animals, whether they are doing it cynically for their own profit or because it is the only choice they have on the table—that is possibly something else we may discuss.
The real question in my mind, however, is whether, if we start trying to expand the Bill now, we will lose the effect that we can get, and the UK’s role in that momentum, which is already making a massive change. I return to what David said, which is that this is perhaps more your area of expertise than ours, but I think that is the balance to strike.
Mrs Latham
Q
Alexander Rhodes: I am not.
Mrs Latham
So us doing something like that would set a further example to the world.
Alexander Rhodes: Without a doubt.
Anna Turley
Q
Charlie Mayhew: I am certainly not an expert in parliamentary process and the legalities of this, but if there was a way of extending the reach of the Bill to include those species without delaying the process, and without there being a threat of judicial challenge from any area, then we would all love to see that happen. Perhaps the issue really is where that challenge would come from if you were to extend the Bill to the other species. Representatives from the antiques trade will be coming in later today, and although I am not an expert in the area of antiques, I am not sure that they would object to hippo or walrus being included, because I suspect that their interest is in antique elephant ivory. I might be wrong on that, but it would be worth investigating. The point here is that we do not want to see anything that delays the progress of the Bill. The international momentum on the issue is very real, and we do not want to do anything to slow the process down, not least because we are losing 55 elephants a day to this illegal activity.
Ivory Bill (Second sitting)
Pauline Latham ExcerptsTuesday 12th June 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Ivory Act 2018 View all Ivory Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 June 2018 - (12 Jun 2018)
Dr Cameron
Q
Grant Miller: Certainly with the unit, and it is about the added value of our relationship with them. Border Force could exist and we would go out, detect and disrupt the trade. If we were to lose the unit, the capacity to then investigate and prosecute would be lost, but our key function would still continue, and we would detect and disrupt.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Q
Chief Inspector Hubble: Would you like to ask Grant his question, while I ponder my response to that one?
Mrs Latham
Q
Chief Inspector Hubble: If we find somebody who is selling a few items, we would probably work with local police to go and educate that person rather than go for a full prosecution, because part of our work is about prevention. Ultimately, it is not about locking up the bad guys; it is about there not being any bad guys in the first place. If we can work with people and prevent them from committing crime, that has to be a good starting point. If we have low-level criminality, we would approach and deal with it that way.
We have an ongoing investigation at the moment, which I cannot talk too much about. We did a warrant earlier this year where we recovered a significant number of CITES specimens, including ivory, and we are continuing to push that forward. Watch this space for the outcome of that one. Our workload and work remit are significant across the whole spectrum of wildlife crime, from the really low-level individual to the significant traders making lots of money from the illegal wildlife trade.
Mrs Latham
Q
Grant Miller: No, we are not. The Bill, as it is scheduled at the moment, would list those items as prohibitions, and Border Force’s role is to secure the border against all prohibitions. So that would naturally fall into our remit, and we would be in a position to police that, if that was Parliament’s wish.
Mrs Latham
Q
Grant Miller: No, it would not be a problem.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
Chief Inspector Hubble: Yes, we would still have to prove that they knew it was ivory and that they had then mislabelled it, knowing that it was ivory.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Q
Emma Rutherford: The suggestion of 6 inches by 8 inches for portrait miniatures—I have some with me, because it is always easier to show an object—is very sensible. I have three very typical portrait miniatures here, painted watercolour on ivory, which represent 80% of 18th-century portrait miniatures painted on ivory—this is the kind of size we are talking about. Six inches by 8 inches will cover 90% or 95% of portrait miniatures.
Mrs Latham
Q
Emma Rutherford: It is sometimes difficult to measure the actual miniatures because most of them are framed or cased, and we cannot get them out easily without damaging them. I would probably do it by sight of the ivory itself and not the frame, because the latter is probably unfair, given the differences in the scale of frames.
Mrs Latham
Q
Paul McManus: Correct.
Mrs Latham
There would be no new instruments with any ivory content, would there? When did that stop?
Paul McManus: We ceased in two real tranches: 1975 and 1989, when the two different types of element were made mandatory. That means that hundreds and hundreds of what we would class as vintage musical instruments are out there, belonging to musicians, and indeed representing their livelihood in many cases. But we ceased in modern manufacturing as the legislation came in. As an industry, we like to think that we have been very compliant with the right rules. We abhor the trade itself and have nothing but support for everything being done here, but equally passionately we support the exemption for these antique musical instruments that keep musicians in their livelihood.
David Webster: Absolutely. I cannot add to that. As we understand it, since ’89 there has been no use of ivory in the manufacture of accessories for instruments or of parts of musical instruments.
Mrs Latham
Q
David Webster: A musical instrument is a very personal item. For our members—musicians—it is probably the biggest investment they are ever going to make. In some cases, that investment needs to be of some value to them, for example if they need to retire due to ill health or they get to the end of their playing days and they wish to retire with some kind of dignity, which it is everybody’s right to do. The investment in that instrument is the most important thing they have. The ability to trade that instrument is the key to their being able to retire with some dignity and comfort, which is the right thing to do.
Mrs Latham
In terms of what they would pay.
David Webster: There is no one figure, but it is hundreds of thousands in some cases, tens of thousands in other cases and thousands in others. It all depends on the instrument, when it was made, who made it, its tonal qualities and who has played it before the current owner. You cannot pin it down to one particular price.
Mrs Latham
Q
David Webster: A Stradivarius. Some old and ancient cellos.
Mrs Latham
Q
David Webster: They might do. It might be in the bow. The very small amount of ivory in a violin or a stringed instrument would generally be in the tip or the frog of the bow, and it is a very small amount. There may be a little on the tuning peg. It could be an antique guitar.
Paul McManus: It can be pianos, too. In the 1960s, we had 40 companies manufacturing pianos in the United Kingdom. There are hundreds of old ivory-keyed pianos in circulation around the United Kingdom. They were made when other materials were not readily available. That all stopped back in 1975, but to take a good example, the largest piano auction house in the world is in the United Kingdom. It is called Piano Auctions Ltd. It sold nearly 500 pianos at auction last year, some 60% of which had old ivory keys. Frankly, it would not be in business if it was not selling them. The only alternative to the exemption—I know this would happen—is for piano shops to strip off those ivory keys, throw them in a bin and replace them with plastic ones. To me that would almost seem a double tragedy for the poor animal that gave up the ivory in the first place. Right down in the hundreds of pounds range, there will be an old piano that someone’s grandmother used to own that they are trying to move on to a school or whatever.
Mrs Latham
Q
Paul McManus: They can gift it, but lots of people are still trying to make some money from these products. There are hundreds of them around the United Kingdom. These are all one-on-one transactions. There is no trade here. These are just individual transactions between a musician and another musician. That is the way our industry works.
The Chair
Before I call Liz Twist, I want to say that members of the panel should contribute, even if you are not addressed by name, if you wish to. We can make this more interactive. If your contribution is relevant to the organisation you represent, feel free to make it.
Mrs Latham
Q
Hartwig Fischer: I am confident that museums in Great Britain and universities have enough experts to be able to deal with these questions and to come up with very sound judgments on the aesthetic or historical cultural significance of any object.
Dr Boström: I concur with that. We have world-renowned experts at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the history of ivory sculpture and objects.
Mrs Latham
Q
Dr Boström: We already have an opinions service, which is a public-facing service. Each curatorial department, on the first Tuesday of the month, has a public opinion session. We would certainly be able to offer the service through that. Whether a more robust service beyond that is needed, and what that might be, is one of the discussions that is on the table, I think.
Hartwig Fischer: In view of the importance of what the Bill addresses, I think provision should be made for those experts to give expert advice. There is an investment of time and expertise that should be covered, because it is during working hours.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Anthony Misquitta: As museums, we are not in the business of selling. We are not really entitled to sell. Once an item enters the collection of a museum, that is normally it. The term we use is de-accession and we have very narrow powers to de-accede. Certainly, once it is in the collection, we are not in the market to then sell it back into private ownership. Normally—99.9% of the time, and probably more than that—when it enters a museum’s collection, that is it forever.
Mrs Latham
Q
Anthony Misquitta: No museum will be selling to anyone, least of all an overseas institution. Speaking for the V&A, and I have seen the British Museum’s governing statute, I do not think we have the power—I know we do not, and I do not think that the British Museum does—to sell an item to an overseas institution, so I do not think that that would ever happen.
Mrs Latham
Q
Anthony Misquitta: They are loans. I have concerns about loans, which I would like to raise at some point, but no, once an item is in a museum, that is it.
Mrs Latham
Q
Dr Boström: In the rare cases that an object is de-accessioned, which is very rare and has so many strictures around it, it would always be through a third party. It would never be a direct sale to another museum; it would always go through an auction house or a dealer; it could never be directly to another institution.
Mrs Latham
Q
Dr Boström: To protect against inappropriate de-accession and sale. It is checks and balances.
Mrs Latham
Q
Dr Boström: Yes.
Mrs Latham
Q
Anthony Misquitta: Yes. The V&A, like the British Museum, has thousands of items on loan throughout the world at any given time. We also loan in items as long and short-term loans. As the Bill is drafted, on my reading a loan is “dealing”. That means is that we can loan a work—in the United Kingdom, for example, I do not think it will be a problem because we would loan a work only to another accredited museum; we would never loan it to a private individual.
On the international stage, we often loan our works overseas. ICOM is a dominant force in the international museum world, but it is not everywhere. For example, we have a very close relationship with an institution called the Design Society in Shekou, Shenzhen, in China. We have a long-term relationship and have loaned a number of items to that institution, but it is not ICOM-registered, so we have to worry about our commitment—these items are out on a medium-term loan of a couple of years. I have an anxiety that when the Bill is enacted, suddenly we will be acting unlawfully, because overnight such loans will become unlawful. It is fixable with some transitional provisions, but that is one of the anxieties that I have.
The other anxiety concerns loans from private individuals. At any given time, we have a number of very valuable loans from individuals—amazing works, amazing individuals who lend us their works, often for decades at a time—but those are loans in from individuals who are not accredited museums. So we have a large job on our hands, which is to identify all those works, to attempt to get certificates for them and to deal with a great deal of logistics in relation to such activity—that is achievable but will involve quite a lot of work on the museums’ part. Again, some generous transitional provisions may help ease that pain.
Mrs Latham
Q
Anthony Misquitta: The terminology used in the Bill is “dealing”, and the definition of dealing includes the word “hiring”. I am sure the intention is not to capture these loans, but as it is currently drafted the Bill does capture them.
Mrs Latham
Q
Hartwig Fischer: I would like to corroborate that. Lending is part of our key mission. We hold these collections for the public and share them as widely as possible. It is also part of our mission as national museums to project British values across the globe by engaging with other institutions by sharing knowledge and heritage. All our museums—ICOM museums included—are bound by an extremely strict code of ethics. Any museum dealing with another institution is bound to check the ethical validity of the other institution. To the best of my knowledge, all museums do that. Again, you have a number of codes and procedures in place to make sure that there is no breach. The fact that museums rank among those public institutions that enjoy the highest trust is evidence that this has worked and is reliable.
Luke Pollard
Q
“‘ivory item’ means—
(a) an item made of ivory, or
(b) an item that has ivory in it,
but does not include an item consisting only of unworked ivory”.
Can you help me understand how many of your collections include unworked ivory in this respect? Do you think that exemption is appropriate, or does it actually cover a much larger section of items in museum collections?
Anthony Misquitta: I do not think we are concerned by that. As a museum of art and design, we are not interested in unworked ivory; we are interested in worked ivory.
Dr Boström: That does not really pertain to us, no.
Anthony Misquitta: We are not worried by that distinction, because we work only in highly crafted art and design.
Hartwig Fischer: However, among the national museums is the Natural History Museum, which is one of the grandest and most important of its kind in the world, and it might have—it probably does—unworked ivory as part of its documentation of natural history. So yes, it is likely that our museums have only ivory that has been worked—carved, incised or what have you—but it might very well be that the Natural History Museum, in living up to its purpose and mission, has unworked ivory in its collections.
Ivory Bill
Pauline Latham ExcerptsMonday 4th June 2018
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Ivory Act 2018 View all Ivory Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said, this is good news. It is very rare to have good news that is supported by all parties in this House. I cannot say I disagree with anything that has been said by anybody on either side of the House, which is also pretty rare. I am delighted that the Bill has come before the House.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has shown huge leadership by pushing the Bill forward, and I think he will bring it in as swiftly as he possibly can. He is, of course, building on the work of other Secretaries of State before him, and particularly on the leadership of the right hon. William Hague—Lord Hague—and the former Prime Minister David Cameron, who said that we should leave this world a better place. I believe that by passing the Bill, we will do that.
Africa needs elephants more than it probably realises in many cases, because it needs the tourism they bring. Many people in the House have young children. I am fortunate enough to have five grandchildren, and I want them to see the elephants. My eldest granddaughter, who will be 14 next month, has seen elephants, but if the ban does not go through and other countries, such as China and America, do not support it in a more limited form, my youngest, who is only three, may not see those iconic creatures, which we all think are fantastic for every reason we can possibly imagine.
The saddest thing about elephant poaching is that it is the oldest elephants that are poached—because they have the biggest tusks, they are a target for the poachers. They are the wise ones of the herd, and they teach and explain to younger family members exactly how to behave. Unfortunately, we are getting some rather wild elephants that are delinquent because they have not had that training, so the sooner we can breed more elephants in the wild to keep the groups together and make those groups larger, the better. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, we need to keep the beautiful savannahs as they are.
Poachers kill many rangers, and I would like more Department for International Development money to be spent on training more rangers. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) spoke about using alternative technologies, and that is something that DFID could explore. We could spend more time training people in African countries to understand how they can best beat the poachers, who are pretty clever and ahead of the game. We need to beat them at it.
African elephants are important, but we need to look at other species with tusks that contain ivory, including rhinos and Indian elephants. We need to think hard about how we can include those species, but I do not want to water down the Bill. I want it to be specific, because it is important, but perhaps the Secretary of State will look at how he could include other species later, particularly to save the rhinos, which are on the verge of extinction.
There are many other things that we could do to help the world, including the rainforests. Tigers are endangered, as are gorillas, giraffes and many more animals. We need to save them from extinction because, as I have said, I want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be able to go and see those different species. It is important for all of us to give future generations that opportunity.
There are a couple more points that I want to mention, but I do not want to take too much time, because this debate is fairly short. It would be useful if DEFRA published a register showing how many exemptions have been issued under the historical, artistic and cultural definition every year, so that a picture could be built up of all the relevant artefacts, which would be verified by people who know what they are doing, such as the V&A and other museums. That register ought to be publicly available, and it would demonstrate a commitment that the exemption is for the rarest and most important items only, not just any old ivory artefact.
Several Members have mentioned the National Wildlife Crime Unit. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to announce permanent funding for the unit, as its existing funding expires in 2020. That should be part of the UK commitment to enforcement. I also hope that the Border Force CITES team at Heathrow will have sufficient manpower and resources, as it will be the frontline of our defence against illegal imports coming into the UK and organised criminal activity.
Finally, I would like to discuss Hong Kong. Although the Chinese support the ivory ban and, I am pleased to say, were ahead of us, I am told that in Hong Kong—I have a nephew out there—ivory continues to be passed off as mammoth tusks. It is perfectly legal to trade mammoth tasks, so will the Secretary of State work with Chinese leaders to try to shut down that market? Perhaps he could include a ban on mammoth ivory to close that loophole. People can test the difference between mammoth and elephant tusks, but what border agent or police officer would know about that? They would not challenge it, so we have to be firm and make sure that we close as many loopholes as possible to save these iconic animals that we all want future generations to see. However, I continue to congratulate the Secretary of State on moving fast; I would like to see him do more and move faster.
Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups
Pauline Latham Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mary Creagh
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution to the Committee, of which he is a fantastic, excellent and constructive member. He provides challenge as well as co-operation, which is how we get to a good place and find cross-party agreement.
I remember visiting Juba in South Sudan in 2012 and noticing that there was very little water there for people, and that all the aid workers and visitors were using plastic bottles. There was no waste infrastructure whatever. This is a really important problem, because we know that huge amounts of waste are thrown into rivers in Africa, India and the far east. We need to get that waste out of the rivers. How do we do that? We pay people to do it. It is not just kids in the UK who will collect 5p or 10p plastic bottles; people will do the right thing, but they need a cash incentive to do it. The United Nations has an opportunity to achieve that through the international climate fund. We all tend to think about that in relation to green energy and clean energy, but we need to look at how some of these climate funds are allocated and spent at supranational level, and at how our own UK aid budget could be used to help to set up systems to keep plastic out of the oceans. As I said earlier, there is only one ocean and we need to do more to protect it.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I recently went to Bangladesh, and along the whole beach the plastic litter was waist-high. The amount was huge. I have spoken to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development about this. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be a good idea to spend some of our aid money on paying people to clear up the mess? It is, after all, going into the same ocean that we use and that everyone else uses. That would help people to clean up their environment, which would also help their tourism, because people will go to a clean beach but not a filthy beach.
Mary Creagh
I agree with the hon. Lady. She makes an excellent point. Bangladesh is absolutely at the forefront of climate change, and much of our aid budget is going there to make homes more resilient, but resilience in communities is also about giving people a good, clean, safe environment to live in and ensuring that the poor have decent incomes.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I must apologise to the House and to the Minister for not being able to say for the end of the debate; I have a pressing engagement in my constituency. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on securing this debate. It is such a shame it is on a Thursday afternoon, when, like me, many people need to be in their constituency, because it is an important debate and the whole House should be getting behind it.
I was one of the MPs who tried to give up single-use plastics for Lent—like many, I completely failed. I did my level best. My husband even did his level nest. He does the shopping now. He took containers to the supermarket to get things without a plastic bag. He took brown paper bags. However, this was not easy. The one lasting difference it has made is that we have bought a yoghurt making machine and we do not buy yoghurt any more—we make it ourselves. However, it is extremely difficult to manage without single-use plastics. The hon. Lady talked about cups in the street, but I wonder whether she noticed the plastic bottles after the London marathon, which were dozens deep along the streets. That is wrong. We need to keep runners hydrated, but using single-use plastics to do so is such a waste of resources.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I was one of the MPs who took part in the London marathon. In a slight defence of the marathon organisers, I should say that they did trial paper cups along the route for the first time to try to reduce the plastics. The hon. Lady is right to put what she said on the record, but the organisers are probably mindful of that and that is why we had quite an innovative time this year.
Mrs Latham
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but there were millions of these bottles on the streets and that is a total waste of resources; after one quick glug, they were thrown away. When I came to London from Derby on the train this week, I saw notices at the station saying, “Keep hydrated. Carry a bottle of water with you.” However, the station had nowhere where people could fill a bottle up with water, although we are given bottles of water on the train. That is unacceptable because those bottles are not recycled.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
I, too, took part in the London marathon and I can tell my hon. Friend that having a bottle was far better than having a cup because when you are jogging along you are going to bounce a lot of liquid out of the cup. Would it not be a really important innovation if both the top and the body of the bottle were made of the same plastic, as that would make recycling easier?
Mrs Latham
That would make recycling much easier. In the future, if we have the machines that will take these bottles, lots of entrepreneurial young people will be going to get these bottles and getting the money back. That scheme is a good idea, but we need to change the way people behave; we need to stop them using these things. The London marathon is a difficult case, because people need to keep hydrated when they are running.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), children are really interested in this problem and they really care. They need to educate their parents, who tend to throw the rubbish out of the car window. We also need to continue this education when students get to university, because once they get there, they forget many of the lessons they learned when they were younger. We need to continue that education and make sure universities are places where both recycling and encouraging people not to use these plastics in the first place are very high priorities. I am not going to steal the thunder of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who is the Chairman of the Administration Committee, on which I serve, but I wish to mention the steps the Committee has taken and the recommendations of the House authorities, who have done an amazing job. We asked them to look at the problem within the House and they have gone a step further, and we are going to have radical change in this place. The House of Lords has agreed to this, too, so it will take place through both Houses. I am delighted about that, but I am sure we will hear the facts and figures later when my hon. Friend will be discussing this.
I also wish to commend the Foreign Office because it has made a big impact. It has introduced the latte levy and improved it, increasing it from 10p to 50p. The Foreign Office has got rid of plastic cups, crockery, cutlery, straws and single-use condiment sachets from all its London staff canteens. It is also providing reusable or biodegradable alternatives.
I am sorry I will not be here to hear the Minister’s answer on this because I am concerned about biodegradable products. I believe they just go into smaller pieces, animals still eat them and this is still going to cause a problem. If we can come up with innovative solutions, we can reduce the overall amount of plastic waste.
I read about a scheme where a community in the south-west took all its non-recyclable waste back to the supermarket at the end of one month. That was a huge amount of waste. The aim was to show the supermarket what a huge problem it is. We heard earlier about products such as Pringles, where the packaging is made of five different materials. I do not know whether some of these plastics are recyclable or not, because the logos are very confusing—given that I am interested in this subject, this is probably a problem for most people.
Instead of just us in this House changing our behaviour, every Department should be instructed to stop using single-use plastics. We cannot criticise other people unless the whole of government, in every Department, be it in London or in places such as the Department for International Development’s office in Glasgow, stops using this plastic. We will then be able to say to people, “We have put our house in order. Will you put yours in order?”
Time is short, so I shall finish by saying that instead of just not using the plastics, we ought to be investing money in trialling ways of reusing the plastics that are used. I understand that in Mexico houses are being built from plastic bottles. These houses are cheap and sustainable, and they will last for 500 years. We should invest in such alternative uses for plastics, if we have to have some of them, instead of just saying that we will burn them or put them into landfill if they cannot be recycled.
It is really important that the Government lead the world, and they need to lead from the front. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is incredibly keen on recycling and all things green, and I commend him for his energy and enthusiasm, but I am unhappy about the environment plan running for 25 years. I would like to see things happen much faster, and I would like the Government to look into investing in alternative technologies.
Several hon. Members rose—