Ivory Trade

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for tabling this debate today and for giving us the opportunity to discuss how best to protect the dwindling elephant population from illegal poachers. I, too, welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who made a passionate maiden speech and is clearly going to make an important contribution to shaping our policy on this and other issues in the years ahead. I look forward to working with him.

I had hoped that this last debate of our winter term would be an opportunity to discuss something about which we could all agree, but, as it has gone on, I have found myself mired in the complexities and nuances that a number of noble Lords have raised. It has led me to conclude that the only way in which we will address the need to have some sort of ban on the ivory trade and to stop the slaughter of elephants is to have something that is operable, simple and deliverable. The more I listened to noble Lords, the more I felt that the Government’s initial approach, which was to have a simple answer on this, is the way forward; otherwise, we will end up with something that simply cannot be policed. This is the real challenge for us.

On that basis, your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that we are very much in favour of the ivory ban that is now the subject of the Government’s consultation. It is an issue that we have championed for some time and we very much welcome the Secretary of State’s determination to act on this cruel and unnecessary slaughter and the terms in which he has so far expressed the debate. As a number of noble Lords have said, this is an issue that also has huge popular support, with a recent survey showing that three-quarters of the UK public want a ban on the trade in ivory.

As a number of noble Lords have recognised, we are facing a crisis of elephant conservation, as elephant populations across Africa continue to decline. The Great Elephant Census, published in August 2016, showed that 144,000 were lost to ivory poaching and habitat destruction in less than a decade. Many of those elephant killings are carried out by illegal poachers. It has become big business for criminal gangs, who do not countenance local people or conservationists getting in their way and often have their own ways of dealing with them when they come across them. So they are not nice people. They are drawn by the huge profits available from the growing south-east Asia market and by those who successfully manage to disguise new ivory for antique ivory, which is creating an ever growing demand. That is the crux of the problem: how do we differentiate between the two? There is a real concern that, if this trend continues, African elephants will no longer exist in the wild and sightings for our next generation will be reduced to zoos and safari parks. I do not think that anybody wants that. It would be a tragedy for such magnificent and intelligent animals.

We welcome the new determination of the Government to take action on our domestic ivory trade and to play our part internationally to halt this cruel trade. Of course, as a number of noble Lords have said, this is a global issue, which can ultimately be resolved only on the international stage. I am sure that our Government will continue to play a role in the various multilateral discussions that cover this trade, particularly the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

However, we know that a number of African countries, including Zimbabwe and Namibia, are keen to reintroduce a trade in ivory. I hope that our Ministers will continue to resist this pressure. I also hope that we have learned the lesson from the previous CITES decision to permit two one-off sales of ivory stocks, which subsequently reignited a poaching crisis and made matters worse. Next year’s international conference on the ivory trade is a critical opportunity for the UK Government to show leadership; it is a one-off opportunity for us to take leadership on an international stage and set the scene for how this issue should be dealt with globally.

I hope that our Ministers will congratulate the Chinese Government on taking a heroic stand in banning ivory sales despite the country’s historic cultural identity with carved ivory art. At the same time, I hope that Ministers will send a message to President Trump that they abhor his decision to reverse the ban and allow big game trophies, including elephant heads and tusks, to be imported into the US again. Of course, it is no coincidence that his sons have been pictured with big game that they have killed, but it is a huge setback to the cause of animal conservation.

In the UK, the Government’s current consultation on the ban is due to finish in December, as we know. I am sure that the Minister will be able to update us on the progress being made and I hope that he can reassure us that the Government have received widespread support for the initiative and that their commitment remains strong. It is clear from today’s debate that all noble Lords recognise the need to protect our dwindling elephant population through a ban on imports of new ivory. The issue of debate is what, if any, exemptions should remain for the trading of existing ivory stocks. For our part, we support a clear ivory trade ban and the end of the distinction between ivory carved before and after 1947. As noble Lords will know, this proved impossible to police and ended up distorting the ivory market, with an influx of fake antiques.

We know that some auction houses are still unaware of what is legal and illegal under the current framework, as illustrated by the fact that Christie’s was fined in 2016 for offering unworked elephant ivory for sale. The truth is that many auction houses do not have the skills or the training to identify the age of an ivory carving. Examples were given of some auction houses that have that expertise, but it certainly is not true of all auction houses and dealers around the country. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, in a recent survey of 72 auction houses, about 180 ivory lots, 90% were unable to provide satisfactory proof of age. This is going on all the time and the skills simply do not exist at the moment.

At the same time we expect rather too much of the National Wildlife Crime Unit and UK police forces in terms of the skills that they need to detect and eliminate fraudulent activity in ivory sales, including imports and exports. We believe that we need a simple and clear set of rules that does not allow ambiguity or loopholes in order to prevent the UK market from being a transit for illegal export to Asia. It is only by closing the markets that we can stop the poaching.

We understand the need for some small, practical exemptions, such as antique items with less than 5% ivory by volume, musical instruments containing less than 300 grams and antique miniatures. We also support the proposal that museums should be allowed to acquire and exchange ivory items, provided that they are not able to find their way back into private ownership and hence back on to the market: that is another challenge for us.

However, we cannot support the view expressed by several noble Lords today that items of artistic, cultural or historic value should be exempt. That is a real challenge: who is to determine which pieces meet that description? Self-certification is clearly open to fraud and a licensing system, as some noble Lords attempted to describe, would be cumbersome and would rely, again, on skills that auction houses simply do not have.

Other noble Lords talked about trying to define a work of art, but again, the case has been made that that is a subjective judgment. Very often it is about fashion—what is on trend or is valued in one year or one decade may change in the next. We feel that such a definition would be rather too vague and would make the ban meaningless in practice. At the end of the day, artistic merit is surely in the beholder’s eye and could be ascribed to any piece of carved ivory: we would have a real problem trying to police that definition.

I am also not sure that I accept that a trading ban would lead to the pieces being destroyed. If, as noble Lords have argued, they are of artistic value, then surely they will continue to be admired, regardless of any monetary value. Indeed, they will be passed down the generations or, if that is not possible, offered to museums, where they can have a wider audience and a wider enjoyment. On this issue, unusually, I tend to agree with Michael Gove, who said in launching the consultation:

“Ivory should never be seen as a commodity for financial gain or a status symbol”.


That is at the heart of the matter.

I know that this is not what a number of noble Lords want to hear, but sometimes we have to make tough decisions—decisions that can be implemented and policed. We believe that a ban on the commercial trade in ivory is a necessary prerequisite to tackling the slaughter of elephants. Anything less than that will create new loopholes which will undermine the whole point of the legislation.

It is great that the Government are thinking about taking action on the ivory trade, but I am still unclear, as were several other noble Lords, what mechanism will be needed to take the ban forward. If the consultation goes well, as I am sure it will, would such a ban need primary legislation or can it be enacted via secondary legislation? Can the Minister shed some light on what the timescale would be to follow this up? I do not wish to put a dampener on this point, but the Government have form on making promises on animal welfare issues that are not followed through. I am sure that the Minister will disabuse me of this, but I hope that he can reassure me that, if the consultation goes well, it will be acted on.

However, in closing, I reaffirm our support for the Government’s policy as declared so far and very much hope that they will hold firm to a complete ban, with a small number of exemptions of the kind that I have mentioned. I look forward to working with the Minister to make that ban a reality.