Backbench Business

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[John Mann]

It is estimated that there is a 40% reduction in the giraffe population. It is such a crisis for our world, which we share—we do not own it—and which we choose to concrete over, calling it economic growth. We choose to pretend the world is purely ours, but our species will not survive if we cannot cohabit with other species. In our selfishness we are putting future generations’ lives at stake, through our failure to act.

The hon. Member for Stafford is the expert on matters to do with Africa—I endorse that. He is wise in his advice to Government, and I am sure the House backs him in that. However, we can go further. There are little things we can do. Every delegation of MPs leaving this country should have a briefing about these issues in their hands, and should raise them in Africa and Asia. I raised with one of our ambassadors in central Asia the matter of the snow leopard. There are no elephants in Tajikistan, but there are snow leopards—more than anywhere else in the world. There are good people there, but there is no briefing from the Foreign Office, and the subject is not raised at ministerial level there. It is not being pressed, because it has not been part of our priority. Well, it needs to be. We have the people: we have senior royals and experienced, eloquent MPs. We should be able to do something about it.

Let us see trading standards acting in each part of the country, to find and to prosecute. Let our MPs, our ambassadors or anyone else we have abroad talk with the countries that will benefit if their indigenous species survive and thrive. Let that be significantly higher up the agenda—ours and theirs. Let the Government glory in their manifesto commitment, which is popular. There may even have been the odd vote—in constituencies other than mine—that went to their party for its wisdom in that respect. Let the policy be enacted, and swiftly, so that when we go into the negotiations on the convention on international trade in endangered species and press our case, it is on the basis that we have taken action domestically.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that too often manifestos contain commitments, such as the commitment to a ban on wild animals in circuses, but that despite ample parliamentary time in which to discuss the issues there is endless delay, further consultation, and no concrete action from the Government?

[John Mann]

The fact of the matter is that people vote, so we spend a lot of time listening to every single request.

I want to make a final point to those who are following the debate, and those who are enthused to do something from outside Parliament: I want to get the people to rise up and make demands of us, turn the arguments into numbers, and put pressure on me, the hon. Member for Stafford and every other Member of Parliament. We need a rising up in the country, to say that we are going to do something and are not prepared to sit by—as we have all done in our lifetime—while there is a disastrous decimation of species, and while species that were not endangered in my childhood become critically endangered. Let us turn the tide and put on the pressure. I say to the Minister: be a hero.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) on securing this debate. As has already been pointed out, nearly 77,000 people have signed the petition calling for a total ban and I am sure that the Petitions Committee has linked that to this debate.

Hon. Members have spoken with passion. We have heard about the trade in ivory and its links to the trafficking of poached ivory. That is what it comes back to—the horrific poaching of elephants that is currently taking place. We all agree that it has to stop; we will not stand aside while there is the threat of extinction.

Many hon. Members have expressed their love of elephants, and I admit to that too. In 1977, I saw the appropriately named Jubilee in Chester zoo, and earlier this year I visited South Africa to attend the Conference of the Parties to the convention on international trade in endangered species and saw in Kruger national park elephants roaming wild, as they should be.

One Member asked about international aid. The reason I went to Kruger national park was to see the work being done with UK taxpayers’ money through the aid system to train rangers to prevent the poaching of rhinos. In South Africa, there seems to have been a measure of success; instead of three rhinos being poached a day, we now have one rhino being poached a day. That is some success, but those are still horrific figures.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Dr Coffey]

I will not yet—I need to open my speech. The Government are absolutely committed to taking the action needed and showing the required leadership to end the poaching crisis.

A lot of statistics have been cited today, several of which I do not recognise. I would be happy to understand them further. It is my understanding that, at its peak in 2011, it was estimated that 30,000 African elephants were slaughtered in a year for their tusks, based on extrapolations from data from 12 key sites. The International Union for Conservation of Nature reported the loss of 111,000 in the great elephant census, which was announced at the recent CITES COP and was the basis of the parliamentary answer that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham). The 2014 African elephant census, which is collated by a different organisation, provides the most recent and comprehensive data and indicates a 30% fall in the savannah elephant population in a seven-year period between 2007 and 2014. That equates to 144,000 elephants.