Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar]

Well, we are a broad church—if Members on the Government Benches wish to join the cause of socialism, I welcome them. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; some issues divide us on non-political grounds and Members from different parties end up in the same camps, and many of those issues are subject to free votes. This issue unites us, and it unites us with the British people. It should have been sorted out ages ago. It is really a shame that we have to be here today. I do not in any way resent it, because this is the right thing to do, but this legislation should already be on the statute book.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). Today feels a bit like déjà vu. We are back here again, but that sends a message to our friends in the Lords that we will not give up. This legislation is the right thing to do. It is an abhorrent act to go to another country and kill an endangered animal in order to stick its head on a wall. It seems like something from a totally different century. The fact that we are back again, fighting for the right cause and standing on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before us sends an important message to both the House of Lords and the country.

[John Spellar]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that; he expresses particularly well his point that trophy hunting is like something from a previous century. Its time has passed. Life moves on and society moves on.

As I was describing, it was interesting in the interviews I did that none of the commentators could respond when I asked, “How can you defend someone who wants to travel a distance to shoot a giraffe, stand on its corpse and bring parts of it back to this country?” Nobody seems to be able to answer that question. I am not saying it was ever right to do that, but what is absolutely clear now is that the British public are certain that they do not want any part of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Dean Russell]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on this issue. I reiterate that it is absurd that we are back here, because this House agreed unanimously to take this Bill through. My constituents, who are very far away from many of the countries in which this practice happens, are absolutely passionate about ending it. However, as has been stated, this Bill is not about the practices in those countries; it is about what we import to our country. If we do anything, we should make sure that we end this abhorrent act of importing the carcases of endangered animals for people to stick on their wall.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been stalwart in supporting me in this campaign. He is absolutely right to remind us again about what the legislation does; it is about what we choose to import or not to this country.

The Bill applies to the importation of endangered species’ body parts, no matter where in the world the animals were hunted, so it would also prohibit the importation of trophies hunted from polar bears in Canada, as the right hon. Member for Warley said. We do not hear people claiming that we are being racist against the Canadians because we choose not to import endangered polar bears. We need to remind ourselves what the legislation does.

I could speak with passion on this principle for hours, but I am conscious of parliamentary procedure, and I do not want to detain the Bill’s passage any further. I once again call on hon. and right hon. Members from across this elected House to send a clear message: we in this country choose not to import the body parts of trophy-hunted endangered species to Great Britain.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 17th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I will be brief, because I know many hon. Members would have loved to speak in the debate today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for this Bill and to my hon. Friends the Members for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) and for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for doing something that has enabled this important Bill to safeguard animals to go through. We have seen an outpouring of support for the Bill across the nation, from hon. Members, the Government and the general public. I pay tribute to them all and thank them. I am sure that, like me, many hon. Members have cancelled constituency events to be here to support the Bill; I support it wholeheartedly and I thank the House for supporting it too.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Shark Fins Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 20th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way on that point. I remember speaking on Second Reading of this Bill and applaud her for getting it through to Third Reading.

Currently, to be crystal clear, those involved in shark finning get sharks when they are very close to the boat and pull them on. They cut off their fins in a horrific way and then throw them back into the water. With no ability to swim, the shark effectively becomes a torpedo, drowning as it falls to the ground, which is just so cruel and abhorrent. The number that this happens to is incredible—the figure is literally in the millions. Does the hon. Lady agree that, by ending that abhorrent act through the Bill, we will be ensuring that the ecosystems in our seas and oceans are much better supported?

[Christina Rees]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support on Second Reading and today. His graphic description is absolutely right. It is an abhorrent practice. The stats show that 73 million sharks would have to be killed each year to match the volume of fins illegally traded on the global market. That is between 1 million to 2 million tonnes, which is unbelievable.

The import and export of detached fins has already been banned in Canada, India and the United Arab Emirates. It is time that we followed suit. As a nation that cares deeply about the sustainability of our oceans, we must not be left behind on this issue. On Third Reading today, I hope that we can agree that the Bill will deliver a significant improvement to safeguard the future populations of our sharks. I am pleased to commend the Bill to the House.

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.

Shark Fins Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I wanted to speak in this debate to show my support for the Bill. It is such an important Bill to get through, and I hope it will proceed rapidly.

I will not speak for too long, but I noticed this morning, when I was double-checking the speeches for today, that this week I have been listening to “Jaws” on Audible as I drive in to Parliament every day. That is probably because of my huge respect for the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees), who is such an incredible campaigner and constituency MP; clearly she must have had an effect when we talked about the subject previously. I raise that not so much for humour, but because when we look at people’s assumptions about sharks, they are usually very wrong and often come from a perspective of what is in the mainstream media. Books such as “Jaws” are phenomenal, and the film was brilliant too, but they had an impact on popular culture and, rightly or wrongly, on how we view sharks.

Sharks play some incredible roles within the sea. The idea of cutting off the fin of such a beautiful creature as a way to make money, allowing it to effectively drown or die from not being able to move, is abhorrent. Never in a million years would we think it would be okay to do that to any other animal. We would not cut the legs off a sheep or cow so that we could eat just those parts, and then leave it to die in incredible pain.

These are majestic creatures who serve a role within the sea and the ecosystem. I understand that culturally there are those who eat shark fins, but this Bill will solve the issue by ensuring that that abhorrent act comes to an end. I know my colleagues have given some incredible statistics, but I will mention one that I found. I hope I am not repeating this, but it staggered me, and I had to read it a few times to check I was not wrong. If hon. Members do not mind, I will read it out so that it goes into Hansard:

“It is not known exactly how many sharks are killed or wounded each year by the practice of finning. The most recent, reliable estimate of the number of sharks killed worldwide by finning was around 97 million in 2010, within a broad range of between 63 million and 273 million. An earlier estimate put the figure at 73 million in 2006.”

If I have understood that correctly, it is an incredible number, especially if we remember that every one of those sharks is a majestic creature that has had its fins cut off and been left to drown and drop to the ocean floor, no doubt for others to come in and have a feeding frenzy.

The Bill says clearly that it will be prohibited

“to import shark fins, or things containing shark fins, into the United Kingdom as a result of their entry into Great Britain”,

or,

“to export shark fins, or things containing shark fins, from the United Kingdom as a result of their removal from Great Britain.”

Effectively, it aims to stop the import of fins on their own and prevent this abhorrent act.

I will leave it there, but I wanted to stand for a moment and say that this is an incredibly important and humane Bill, and I know that is in line with the way the hon. Member for Neath acts and works within this place.