Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith]

With the leave of the House, I rise to thank Members across the House for their speeches and their support: my right hon. Friends the Members for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) and for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson), and the hon. Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) and for Newport West (Ruth Jones). We may disagree on the matter, but I respect the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin).

I thank the team at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Lorraine Platt of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation. I also thank Eduardo Gonçalves for his work on this area.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his brilliant work in promoting the Bill. Does he agree that although we talk about trophy hunting, these are not trophies? They are a physical representation of the fragile ego of the people who do cruelty to animals. By banning trophy hunting imports, we are not affecting what countries are doing to support themselves; all we are saying is that we do not want these representations of fragile egos imported into our wonderful country.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support, and I endorse every word. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading so that it can go into Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for the incredible work that he has done to introduce the Bill. I remember that a few years ago, before I was an MP, I was invited to an event organised by Nic Careem in this place to watch the film “Born Free” with Virginia McKenna. In that, we saw the role that conservation played in society many decades ago, the majestic nature of lions and other animals in the wild, and the contribution that they make to our world, not just in their economic value but in their value to our society and the world at large—to nature itself.

We are in a world where we need to be more mindful of the planet, and we talk often in this place about climate crises, but what is the climate there for and what is the world there for? It is for us all to live on it, and that includes our animals too. I have never had the luxury of visiting Africa, but we can see from afar, and people can see when they go there, not only the role that these predators play in the ecosystems of their local environment and in nature itself but their pure elegance and amazingness. So the idea that somebody would want to go that land, a foreign land for many of these trophy hunters, to stalk out an animal invisibly and in a cowardly way, in the bushes, or from afar with a long lens— or perhaps we could be talking about an animal trapped in a cage—and kill it simply in order to put its skin or head, as happened in the past, as a trophy on their wall, shelf or floor is cowardly, vile and utterly unnecessary. As I mentioned, we talk about “trophies”, but these are not trophies. At the extreme, this is done purely for fragile egos to prove somehow that they are stronger than a lion or more powerful than an elephant; they are killing these beautiful creatures for a trophy—really? Do we want to allow over many decades, and continue to allow in the case of some in this Chamber, although I have great respect for all on these Benches, people to bring trophies of that vile act back to this country? That just seems morally wrong and utterly abhorrent.

For hundreds of years, we saw these trophies and we saw animals killed or captured so that people could bring them to this country, perhaps for education or perhaps because of a misunderstanding of the role they play, but the world has changed dramatically in the past decades. Instead of shooting an animal with a rifle, people can now shoot it with a camera and they have the opportunity to bring their brilliance in life to the world, not in death to one household or perhaps one building. This is about understanding what role we play in society and the message we send from this country around the world about what is right and what is wrong. I completely understand that we need to make sure that things are sustainable for individuals in communities, and that they have the power to have economic input and pursue their livelihoods. But the idea that people, especially from western countries, go over there, kill their animals and take them back as dead body parts to their own homes as trophies, while not helping those villagers and those countries, and not helping those people in a sustainable way, just does not sit right with me. That is why this Bill is so important.

Ultimately, this Bill prohibits bringing hunting trophies to this country. It enables us to put that position in law, to stop people being able to take advantage of this practice, not just when they go out there and kill these animals themselves; it stops them encouraging others to kill animals on their behalf, in order to bring those so-called “trophies” back to this country. There is a positive bit that is so important in this Bill and it reminds me of a private Member’s Bill I spoke on a few weeks ago. That Bill was about shark finning, an awful, abhorrent act where fishermen will cut off the fins of sharks, leaving them just to nosedive, with no ability to save themselves, and drown in the deep. When I spoke in that Bill recently, it was an opportunity to change the way this country views animals, and it was about body parts and not just the full animal. That is also one of the powerful parts of this Bill: it is about hunting trophies, meaning

“the body of an animal, or a readily recognisable part or derivative of an animal”.

I commend the Bill to the House and my hon. Friend for the work that he has done, because the Bill, which has support from across the House, will make a huge difference to conservation and to the moral standing of this country. It sends a signal around the world that when things are wrong, we will stand up even for those who do not have a vote, such as animals.