Zoological Society of London (Leases) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Randall, on his introduction of the Bill and on this rather joyful debate. On Report in the Commons, my honourable friend Chris Bryant MP stood up, said “I concur”, and then sat down. I intend to say slightly more than that, but we on these Benches do indeed concur.

I want to say two things. We all have our favourite animals. I have spent 50 years living in London and have visited the zoo for 50 years. I have been a member, on and off, for all that time, taking my children and their friends, my nieces and nephews, and now my grandchildren, great-nieces and great-nephews to the zoo, and I intend to continue doing so. For some reason, members of my family are particularly fond of the warthogs. I personally love the penguins, and we all really like the tapirs. We all have our favourites in London Zoo. I just hope that this debate, and the enthusiasm, passion and pride that we all have in the zoo, will be conveyed back to the staff and all the people who work there, including the researchers. They should know how much they are loved by everybody.

The second thing I want to say, which has been explained extremely well by many noble Lords, is about the importance of this very small Bill to the zoo and its future. I thank the zoo for its briefing on this. The argument that the creation of the world’s first multidisciplinary nature campus, bringing together universities from across the UK, the USA and beyond, can be achieved only if the 150-year lease happens and secures the zoo’s future seems absolutely to make the case and we do not really need to say anything more. The Bill has our full support and, I hope, a fair wind.