Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Vastly excessive numbers, such as in certain parts of this country where there are problems with deer, have an impact on woodland and the very proper campaigns by the Government to reforest the country. In many cases professional hunters do the cull, rather than having people firing crossbows at animals, which can then linger for several days. Cecil the lion was mentioned. That case caught the attention and imagination of the British public, and it focused them on this issue and they made it clear that they do not want this practice to continue.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, but there is another factor to consider. The elephants taken out are the big leaders of the tribe. That has a significant effect on the gene pool. There is already some evidence that elephants with smaller tusks are surviving and therefore, contrary to natural selection, changes are taking place to their appearance. Also, some hunters do not seem to accept that, although some are solitary, many animals live in social structures. We saw that with the death of Cecil the lion and we see with elephants that the social structure and cohesion of elephant herds are completely disrupted. That applies to other creatures as well. Hunting is to the detriment of gene selection and the development and maintenance of groups of species.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly support my right hon. Friend’s Bill. As in the title of the Bill, these people are after trophies. They will not select the weakest in the herd or the pride. They will go for the one that looks the most magnificent on their wall or wherever they want to display it. Therefore, they are taking out the strongest, weakening the gene pool and having exactly the opposite effect on conservation. That is another reason why we need to send a strong message and support my right hon. Friend’s Bill.

[John Spellar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The negative impact on the species as a whole has to be considered, especially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, because we are seeing real reduction in some species. We are getting below the critical mass necessary to sustain the genetic variation of a healthy species.

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[Clive Efford]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he has done on this issue. Is not the answer to the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) that the Bill deals with the import of trophies to the UK, and says nothing about Botswana?

[Henry Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. As I said, this is import legislation; its territorial extent is Great Britain. It is about what we choose to import to this country, and a clear majority of the British people do not want the body parts of endangered species imported here, because they care about these majestic species and want them to continue to exist, for the sake of their children, grandchildren and many generations to come. The idea that killing an endangered species saves an endangered species is absurd and should be called out for what it is.

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[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), but I cannot say that I agreed with a single word of his speech. He quoted David Attenborough, but David Attenborough has described trophy hunting as “incomprehensible” and certainly does not support it. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for presenting the Bill, to the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for his earlier work, and to our departed friend Bob Blizzard, who did an enormous amount of work on this issue when he was a Member.

I wanted to make this short contribution because I had the privilege of going on safari when my wife and I visited Africa. It was the trip of a lifetime. If I ever have the chance to go back and do it again I do not think it will be the same trip, because the first experience of seeing these magnificent beasts in their own habitat is something you never forget. I want to impress that on the people who seek what I suppose is the “thrill” of murdering these beasts.

Within two hours of arriving at our camp, we were in a truck being taken to look at the wildlife. As we sat in that open-sided truck, a lion walked past the bottom of it; I could look down and see its back as it walked past me. I sat there and thought, “What the hell am I doing here?” There is no cage around the truck, but you trust entirely the stranger you have just met—the guide who takes you around—while a wild beast only a couple of metres away walks calmly past the truck.

The experience of getting close to those animals is something never to be forgotten, but the most memorable experience was seeing, beside the Chobe river in Botswana, a herd of elephants feeding at dusk, talking and grumbling to one another as they ate the reeds on the river bank. We got quite close to these huge beasts, and felt entirely safe. Indeed, we felt that we were privileged to be so close to them in their natural habitat.

The idea that anyone would go into that environment with a gun and slaughter those animals is beyond me. If you want to experience wildlife, don’t go murdering it; get up close to it and experience it in that way. I ask Members to imagine this for a minute. There were probably about a dozen people in our truck. If every one of us had a gun and went out slaughtering these animals, the effect across the species would be enormous, but when large numbers of us go to these countries armed with cameras rather than guns, the effect on their economies is enormous.

We have heard arguments today about being racist towards African countries, but it is not just about African countries. I have not heard anyone say we are being racist to Canadians by not wanting polar bears to be imported. In the words of David Attenborough, this is incomprehensible.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Efford]

I am going to give way once, but I do not want to take up too much time.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

The Canadian Government have not written to object—it is the African countries that object to this. I hope that was clear from what I said earlier.

[Clive Efford]

I am sure it was, but the hunting fraternity only contributes to a very tiny bit of those countries’ economies. What we seem to have heard today is an argument that without the enormous wealth of the people who go trophy hunting, conservation cannot be afforded. I just do not accept that that is a reasonable argument. Of course, people can pay; I would pay an enormous fee for the privilege of going to see these animals in their own habitats—and leave behind that fee in order to pay for conservation. There are ways that we can contribute to conservation that way outstrip the money that Members on the Conservative Benches have been talking about.

Let us be honest: the majority of the people who talked the Bill out in the other place were hereditary peers. That is the truth of it. The enormously privileged wealthy, calling this idea, which has enormous support from all the people, socialist—well, because it has the support of the people, it has to be socialist, doesn’t it? It has to be socialist, because commoners want it! How could the Conservative party possibly support a measure that is so socialist in its fundamental objectives? It is complete nonsense, but there is a species that perhaps we should be metaphorically hunting to extinction: the position of the hereditary peers and their ability to vote on laws in our country. That is an outdated anachronism that has to come to an end, and the person who starts that hunt will have my full backing.