Zoological Society of London (Leases) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 19th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on the progress made on the Bill, which has all our support. Of course we should extend the lease. To echo the point that has been made about London zoo, it is 200 years old—the oldest zoo in the world. It had humble beginnings, I am sure, as a sort of entertainment for the public, and it has become an incredibly important conservation charity of great global importance. While my hon. Friend was speaking, I thought of how, as barbarism took over the world, learning and culture retreated into the medieval monasteries. It is almost as if the endangered species of the world have been saved by some of these zoological institutions, and are then able to return. It was interested to hear about the species that have been saved or preserved—kingfishers, tigers, the quagga. Well, I am sorry to hear that the zoo did not in fact help to save the quagga, but at least it has some photographs of it, which is encouraging. I did not know about the mountain chicken, and I had no idea of the story of Winnie the Pooh. I am only sorry that Winnie did not stay on Salisbury plain, which is part of my constituency, where we would have given him or her a happy life. It is a very good thing that Winnie ended up in London zoo, and we can all be very proud of that.

I commend the Bill. The zoo is an historic institution, which is one of the reasons we should be so proud of it, and it has a very bright future. I was encouraged to hear from my hon. Friend about the plans for the zoo. I was not aware that Matthew Gould had taken over as chief executive. I knew him slightly when I was a civil servant at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and he was in charge of the nation’s digital policy. It is amazing how people move around in our elite. Why should he not be running the zoo? He is obviously doing a great job, and I commend the plans for it that I hear about, and the skills that he brings from his background. I am interested and inspired by what I hear about the modernisation of the zoo; it is looking forward, and using digital skills and immersive technology to give visitors an enhanced experience that gets them closer to the reality of the natural habitat that these animals come from, and to which we hope that they or their descendants will be able to return.

What I hear is encouraging. I totally agree with my hon. Friend’s argument that to raise the capital that is needed for long-term investment on the site, the investors who finance that work will need certainty that the zoo will be around long enough. This change is the right thing to do, and I echo the point that it would be nice if the zoo was there in perpetuity with a freehold. I commend the Bill. I am pleased that Members across the House support it, and I will be happy to do so myself.