Ivory Bill

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

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

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to speak on this important Bill, following on from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), and to continue to highlight just how Britain is taking the lead across the world in protecting the special and diverse wildlife across our planet. From oceans to the illegal wildlife trade, the Government are showing the environmental leadership that other countries across the globe can emulate and learn from.

There are, sadly, so many species of wildlife across the earth that need our protection from all manner of viruses, diseases, human poaching and destruction of habitat. The poaching and hunting of elephants for ivory is decimating elephant numbers, maiming and killing those sentient animals in the most cruel fashion, and fuelling serious and organised crime which has led to corruption in many of the states where elephants are poached.

The forests of central Africa are the hardest place to study or protect elephants, but it seems they are the first to be hit by poachers. Over the last decade, their number has declined by almost a third. I will not repeat the many statistics already shared with the House, but as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire just said, the statistic that 20,000 elephants are being lost every year should shock every person listening to or reading this debate.

The demand for ivory in the far east has been the primary driver of the renewal of killing over the last two decades. In the last four years, the wholesale price of raw ivory in China has tripled and reached a $2,100 a kilo. It is unacceptable for nations to stand by as elephants are killed in their hordes for their ivory. I am proud that, in order to protect elephants for future generations, we are introducing one of the world’s toughest bans on ivory sales. The maximum available penalty for breaching the ban of an unlimited fine or up to five years in jail seems appropriate, but we must ensure effective enforcement. This tough action will send a message to poachers and countries across the world that Britain is not prepared to stand by while the poaching continues unabated.

While I fully support the Bill and protecting the African elephant, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) about extending its provisions to Asian elephants, the rhino and the narwhal. It is important to consider that when we get into Committee. This is a one-off opportunity to highlight those particular mammals.

I want to raise an issue regarding the exemptions in the Bill. It is good news that there will be exemptions for musical instruments created before 1975 and items with less than 10% ivory content created before 1947—two years when steps were taken towards reducing the ivory trade—as well as those rare items and portrait miniatures that are at least 100 years old. Sales to and between museums will also be allowed, which, thanks to the Bill’s registration process, will help us to catalogue these historic items, which are part of the world’s artistic heritage.

The WWF has been clear that it does not believe that the exemptions will have a negative impact on the poaching of elephants or the illegal ivory trade. I also note that the exemptions in the USA, which are more relaxed than those in the Bill, have already resulted in a significant decline in the ivory trade across the pond. Given all that, as well as the Chinese ivory ban, which came into effect a few months ago, and the consequent fall in the ivory price, we can have every hope that the Bill will contribute to a reduction in the poaching of our wonderful elephant.

With this in mind, I would ask the Minister to consider one further narrow exemption that I as a Northumbrian MP believe is important for our musical heritage and which should be included in the scope of the exemptions for older musical instruments. In the north of our great country, the pipes—bagpipes and Northumbrian—have been a military and cultural part of our heritage for centuries, and pipers have a particularly long history in Northumberland. The Northumbrian pipes are a physically smaller and perhaps less terrifying musical instrument than their bigger cousin north of the Tweed.

The Northumbrian Pipers’ Society is extremely concerned, as am I, that this excellent Bill will inadvertently risk doing severe damage to our piping tradition and therefore to our regional musical heritage. The retrospective nature of the proposals on musical instruments containing ivory, which will make it unlawful to sell or hire instruments made with any ivory in them after 1975, even though they were made perfectly legally and were exclusively made using antique or CITES-licensed ivory, will, according to some estimates by key pipe makers and figures in the tradition, result in at least 500 to 600 sets ceasing to be marketable.

I must declare an interest: my daughter is a Northumbrian piper and owns a set of pipes that contains ivory. I do not know when it was made, and we do not intend to sell it, since we hope to perpetuate this musical Northumbrian tradition by passing them down the generations, but this is no less of an issue for all that. We bought them from a family whose grandfather had died and none of whose children had learned to play. We have been the happy recipients of a musical instrument and a county tradition.

Most of our Northumbrian pipe makers are retiring, including the amazing David Burleigh from the village of Longframlington in my constituency, and the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society relies heavily on second-hand sets to fill the gap and be sold on to those of the next generation, such as my daughter, to continue this ancient musical tradition. It would be a huge error to inadvertently suffocate one of our country’s finest musical traditions—it is the only instrument indigenous to England that has an unbroken history of performance—by missing a small exemption to this Bill, which I do not believe would have a negative effect on the poaching of elephants since we are talking about pipes made by recycling old or ancient ivory.

I think it fair to say that extending the exemption to cover all sets of Northumbrian pipes made before and during the Bill’s passage would not in any way encourage poaching or feed the illegal trade in ivory, given that the ivory concerned comprises very small pieces that could not realistically be reworked for sale in any other form. I should be delighted to meet the Secretary of State to discuss the matter in more detail, and to find a way of protecting the great tradition of those instruments and the heritage of Northumberland.

Apart from that one issue, which I call on the Government to consider further, I am delighted to support the Bill and to ensure that the UK leads the world in tackling the scourge of the illegal wildlife trade. I want the children of the future to watch “The Jungle Book”, which is my favourite film—[Laughter.] Confessions, Madam Deputy Speaker! I want those children to see the wonderful herd of elephants on Jungle Patrol, and to know that they are seeing a representation of a living, thriving animal community, not an extinct species.

[Several hon. Members rose—]