Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are ever so grateful to the Minister.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the Minister not agree that one of the best ways to prevent the illegal hunting of endangered species overseas is ever tougher controls on the illegal import of bush meat to the UK? What is he going to do to take that forward?

[Richard Benyon]

We are very concerned about bush meat and importation, and that is why we have protected funding for the work taking place at ports and airports, and for the expertise that we have, on the matter. There is also a very good case, which we have made in Britain, for being much stronger on the export or import of rhino horn which, as we know, is putting that species at very severe risk of extinction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry]

On the substantive issue of the theft of lead, the Church remains convinced that making cash scrap metal transactions illegal is the single move that will have the greatest impact on reducing that crime, and it is pleased to see that proposal gaining wider acceptance. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday that the answer

“lies in looking at how the scrap metal market is currently regulated.”—[Official Report, 23 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 296.]

I undertake to investigate in detail my hon. Friend’s specific point about Hambleside Danelaw, and I shall write to him.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the greatest tragedies about the loss of metal from war memorials, whether they be on Church property or elsewhere, is that there is currently no central record kept of the people whose names are recorded on them? Will he undertake to ask the Church Commissioners to work with the Imperial War museum, and indeed the Ministry of Defence, to provide a central register of those whose names appear on war memorials?

[Tony Baldry]

I would hope that in the run-up to 2014 to 2018, the centenary of the first world war, churches across the country will not only work on updating, conserving and repairing war memorials but give thought, as many communities are, to updating the records of those who lost their lives in the first and second world wars. The theft of inscriptions from war memorials is a detestable offence, and a further example of the need to tackle the theft of metals as urgently as possible.