Fur Trade

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I want to bring word from the far north of Scotland to all who are here today, and perhaps I had better clear the decks by confirming hon. Members’ worst suspicions: I do live in a house in a very remote part of the highlands that contains, I am afraid to say, some animal trophies. Worse than that, I am old enough to remember when well-off ladies wore fur coats. They were made from skins that were probably farmed in those days. My aunt had a fur coat, although I doubt that she paid for it, such was the precariousness of her finances.

That is my background. I now want to give hon. Members a short physics lesson. If we take a rod of glass and rub it with a piece of silk, it takes a negative charge. If we rub it with something else, it takes a positive charge—I am sure that we all did this in physics lessons—and if we put it near little bits of paper, it will pick them up. What shook me at the age of 12 or 13 was what we rubbed it with, which was cat skins—pussycats; moggies. In the physics lab at my state school there were cat skins, and as a young lad I thought, “This was somebody’s cat; it was a pet, surely. What on earth is going on?” So at that age I was put off the whole idea that has led to today’s debate.

I take great comfort from what other hon. Members have said—I will be brief, because I know that many Members want to speak. I am referring to the widespread support for a ban. It is just as deeply felt in the remote parts of Scotland as it is in Camden, the west country or Yorkshire. Believe you me, that is true—I have had a shedload of correspondence about it. Even last week I was contacted by a lady who comes from a crofting background on Skye, Alexandra Smith. One would think that a crofter, out in the sticks, would know about the rougher end of life, but she, a good Sgitheanach lady—a Sgitheanach is a Skye person; that will test Hansard—said to me, “Please speak in this debate. This practice is abhorrent. I hate it and everything else that is cruel to animals: transporting animals, fur farming and”—

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I just want to make a very quick point. Does my hon. Friend agree that it makes no logical sense that there is special protection, in the form of an EU ban, for cats, dogs and seals while other animals are left unprotected? If the logic applies to them, it should apply to the protection of all animals.

[Jamie Stone]

I absolutely agree. My good and right hon. Friend is quite correct. One thing that we should be proud of in this country is our well known love of and care for animals. We should never forget that. If the Government can see their way to a total ban, perhaps we will set an example to the rest of the world and do away with this horrific and hateful practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend makes a point, but if he looks at this matter dispassionately he will see that, although we banned fur farming, the major countries that do the large-scale fur farming have not followed suit. So, yes, we can act and, yes, that would close off to all but the illegal trade the market in fur in this country, but we have to do far more in terms of world leadership to help those countries that have a fur farming sector, to show them how they can move away from it, how they can support the creation of new jobs and how they will not see a black hole in their economy if they ban it. So, let us lead by example, of course, but let us also use the soft power that the UK has.

[Jamie Stone]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that banning fur farming in this country while still buying fur has the smell of hypocrisy about it, whereas a total ban would surely take us to the proper moral high ground, and that in the scheme of things that can appeal to other people and so our influence might well percolate out?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and a total ban is one of the weapons in the arsenal that one can deploy. It would be bonkers for us to exhort people to stop farming fur if we were still seeking to import it—that is absolutely right. I suggest to the Minister that now—20 years down the timeline set out by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner)—is the time to take that next inexorable step of a ban on UK imports. Having done that, in a timely way, it should not be a matter of thinking “job done”, popping open the Pol Roger, the prosecco, the cava or the drink of choice and saying, “Aren’t we good?” The task then moves to the next stage—the two stages could run in parallel—of convincing those countries that still farm fur that it is time to stop. In the 21st century, the human body does not need another animal’s furs to keep warm. We have ways of doing that and of displaying our disposable wealth other than by wearing the pelt of an animal on our backs.