Ivory Bill (First sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

Q That is interesting because the Bill has been a long time coming and it is great that we have got this far. To knock it off course would be perverse. As we have not consulted on all the other species, would the best thing be to get the Bill through and then all of you who are experts could meet Ministers to decide which species—particulary non-CITES species—ought to be included so that we do not have other species coming on to the endangered list simply because activity has been displaced? I assume that you would all be happy to consult Ministers once the Bill is passed to get that done as soon as possible.

David Cowdrey: I totally agree with that. We have all worked so hard to get to this point to deliver one of the strongest ivory bans in the world. The initiative that has been taken by all parties and the cross-party support shown on Second Reading have been superb, and there is an opportunity to provide that protection. As we said, as long as there is that flexibility, and consideration for other species, which can be applied in future, and as long as further consultations can be held and we can have those discussions, I would agree totally with that.

Cath Lawson: Yes, WWF would be happy to engage in that consultation process, but for it to be separate to passing the Bill.

Will Travers: Just for the Committee’s interest and information, we are talking about huge volumes of trade in non-elephant ivory. I have four figures that might be helpful. From 2007 to 2016—just under a decade—78,000 hippos and hippo products were exported by CITES parties. Hong Kong imported 60 tonnes of hippo ivory between 2004 and 2014. Between 2007 and 2016—those dates again—7,000 narwhal products were exported and more than 172,000 walrus specimens were reported to have been exported on the CITES trade database. Those are not insignificant by any measure—they are enormously significant. With that kind of volume now, as we have just mentioned, the shift away from elephant ivory could put insupportable pressure on these other species, which is why we would like to see an accelerated process for that after this process has been undertaken. That is a very helpful suggestion.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q It has taken a long time to get to the stage of introducing this Bill and I would think it will be a long time before the Government return to this issue. The figures you have given on other species are startling, and you say you want flexibility in the Bill to be able to amend it. Is there a way in which the Bill could allow for, perhaps, delegated legislation or some other way to revisit the issue without having to have an Ivory Bill mark 2, which could be quite a significant time down the road?

Cath Lawson: From WWF’s point of view, I cannot comment on the legislative process but we would certainly want to see a consultation process around those species before inclusion in a Bill. That is why it needs to be a separate process.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q We know the figures and the scale of the problem, so what would a consultation be aimed at trying to find out?

Cath Lawson: Similar to the process we have gone through for the Ivory Bill, looking at the impact of UK trade on those species, and implications further down the line in terms of limiting that trade.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q I suspect that the trade in ivory that comes from those species is not anywhere near as established as that of elephant ivory in terms of antiques, piano keys and things like that. That trade would be concerned with elephant ivory.

Cath Lawson: Yes.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q So I am not sure there needs to be so much discussion about trade when it comes to these other items. Where does the hippo ivory and narwhal ivory end up?

Will Travers: In trade.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Why is it being traded? Is it medicines, or is it for ornaments?

Will Travers: My understanding is that it is genuinely an alternative ivory that is used in decorative materials. It is used in inlays and in almost exactly the same way as elephant ivory is used except less so on the whole. Less so in a large carved tusk in the shape of little elephants, for example.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Exemptions in the Bill are all for existing items—in the case of musical instruments it is pre-1975, and much earlier for antiques—so I do not quite understand why there would be a need to reconsider exemptions for items from other species, if you are saying they are being used now. I do not get the moral justification for there perhaps being a different case for items made of ivory from other species. Why is it not exactly the same case as for elephants? Perhaps Lisa can ask more coherently than me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sue Hayman]

Q Is that something we can learn from? Would it be relevant?

Alexander Rhodes: Really importantly, it is something we can learn from and it is quite good that we can learn from what African countries have been doing in relation to that. Interestingly, we paid for it anyway. In the context of Angola, for example, where we are working at the moment, a challenge fund grant is paying for a programme of legislative reform review and prosecutor and judicial training.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Returning to what you said about a ban on any sales online, would that apply just to pre-1918 items, and not to the exemptions for items with low ivory content? I am thinking particularly of musical instruments. At the moment there is an exemption for pre-1975 musical instruments. They are quite often bought and sold online. People buy guitars, for example, from online shops. Would you be happy for that to continue where the ivory is not a crucial part of the item but it happens to have ivory decoration, or an ivory mouthpiece, for example? I do not think many pianos are bought and sold online, but they can have ivory keys.

Alexander Rhodes: The purpose of this is clarity and certainty, so my preference would be for it to be straightforward. If it is ivory, you cannot sell it, and you cannot deal in it, online. To add a little context, you are right, of course. Not only are musical instruments with bits of ivory in them bought and sold online but some inlay furniture is also sometimes bought and sold online. However, it is the overwhelming minority of musical instruments or pieces of furniture that contain ivory of that kind.

My personal preference, for clarity and therefore for certainty, would be for it to apply across the piece. Of course, if it applied only to part of the piece, that would still be better certainty than its not applying at all.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q I can see that it is an easier provision to put in the legislation, but we have the Musicians’ Union and others coming in this afternoon. They may well have something to say about it. Then there are people buying and selling their own instruments. I suspect that they probably would not have the slightest idea that the legislation existed in the first place.

Alexander Rhodes: That is the opportunity of the Bill and of October. It is also the opportunity coming out of the broad consultation with musicians. We have had great conversations with them.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Engagement at the Musicians’ Union level is one thing, but it is another thing if you are talking about someone who has a vintage guitar and decides to sell it. I used to live with someone who had about 20 vintage guitars and repaired them for a living, so I know how often he decided that he absolutely had to have yet another vintage guitar and sell one of the ones that he had.

Even in the future, I do not think that he would realise that there was a ban on him putting his guitar on eBay. I would not want people criminalised for doing something like that. You are not talking about people making huge amounts of money in the ivory trade; you are talking about somebody who just happens to have a product that has a bit of ivory in it. We will ask the Musicians’ Union what they think.

Alexander Rhodes: It is a balance.

[The Chair]

Are there any further questions? Okay. If there are no further questions, I thank our witnesses for their evidence.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mims Davies.)