Animal Welfare

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith]

Our approach is not selective. There are huge numbers of animals involved, The approach in England is a preventive cull, as opposed to a selective cull. My view is that at the very least the Government should suspend the cull and commission a proper study into the alternatives, so that we can be sure that the policy we adopt is based on science, and not assumption.

I shall hold off on taking interventions for a few moments, as in the time I have remaining I want to briefly look at how we treat exotic wild animals. In so many areas we are world leaders, but in others we lag behind. For example, at least 23 countries worldwide have banned the use of wild animals in circuses; but despite British Government promises going back five years, it is still legal to use lions, tigers, zebras and other wild animals in travelling circuses in the UK. It is time for Ministers to make good on a promise that has been made and repeated over the past five years.

The keeping of monkeys as pets is a similar issue. Primates are highly intelligent wild animals; they are not suitable pets. Like us, they enjoy complex social lives and form deep and lasting relationships, but despite that thousands upon thousands of squirrel monkeys, capuchins and marmosets languish alone in cages across the country. Because they become very tricky as they grow old, they are often simply abandoned and then have to be picked up by wonderful, but overstretched, organisations such as Monkey World in Dorset. The emotional and physical damage that they endure takes years and years to undo. Fifteen European countries have banned the trade, and more than 100,000 British people signed a petition demanding that we do the same. Again, we need to get a grip on this issue.

It is not just individual private ownership that needs looking at. There are 250 licensed zoos in the UK. Some, such as Howletts in Kent, really do represent the gold standard. The welfare of the animals is their principal concern, and the conservation of the species that they harbour is at the forefront of their campaign. They release animals back into the wild in a way that no other zoo in the country does. However, recent incidents, such as the exposé of the grotesque conditions at South Lakes Safari Zoo, show that there is a gulf between best and worst practice, and a need for better standards and a more rigorous inspection process. I believe that we need to establish a new, independent zoo inspectorate and give it the job of drawing up fresh standards for animal welfare in UK zoos and then enforcing them.

I want to join in the applause that the Government rightly earned last month when the Secretary of State announced that we would ban the trade in ivory here in the UK. Globally, the trade takes the lives of 20,000 elephants a year—one every 26 minutes—and they are hurtling towards extinction. We in this country—I do not think that many people are aware of this—are the largest exporter of legal ivory in the world, stimulating demand for ivory and giving the traffickers a means to launder new ivory as if it were old.

The Government’s promise is not merely symbolic—it is much more than that—but I hope they will go further. Evidence is mounting of an increase in the trade in hippo ivory. There are only 100,000 or so hippos in the world, so the slightest shift in demand could be devastating for that species. I hope that the Government will expand their consultation, or the policy when it eventually emerges, to include other ivory-bearing species such as hippos, the walrus and the narwhal.

Finally on the international dimension, hon. Members will remember the outrage that followed the killing of Cecil the lion in 2015 and, too, the announcement a few weeks ago that the United States President was thinking of reversing the decision of his predecessor to ban the import of elephant and lion parts from trophy hunting. At the time it went largely unreported that this country also allows the import of wild animal trophies, including from species threatened with extinction. We need to change that. It should simply be illegal to import body parts of any animal listed as endangered by the convention on international trade in endangered species

The last point that I want to make moves into a different field. It relates not to farmed or exotic animals, or to our role overseas; it relates to puppies.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. He is a great advocate for animal welfare. Will he join me in supporting Lucy’s law, which was launched in Parliament last week and looks for a ban on third-party puppy sales? Basically, it would ensure that the scourge of puppy farming no longer exists in this country. Also, will he support the early-day motion on Lucy’s law launched today?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her intervention, and I could not agree with her more strongly. I pay tribute to Marc Abraham who led the campaign for Lucy’s law. It is probably inappropriate to mention that I can see him in the Public Gallery, but he has been an absolute champion for the cause. I believe that we will see some results in the next few months and will perhaps hear from the Minister on that shortly.

I will cut my speech down, because I have taken far too many interventions and am running out of time. I have provided a long but not exhaustive list of measures that I think we should take. It is an important list, however, and taking those measures is the right thing to do and would put the Government on the right side of public opinion. If there is any doubt about that, we need only to look at the public reaction to the albeit false stories about MPs believing that animals do not have feelings, or at the reaction from voters to the 2017 Conservative manifesto proposal on holding a vote to abolish the Hunting Act 2004—something that I hope the Government will now rule out.

I want to give the Minister enough time to respond. I know she will be unable to respond to every point I have made, but I hope that she will do her best in the 10 minutes we have left.