Ivory Bill (Second sitting)

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Trudy Harrison]

Q It sounds as if raw ivory—if that is how we might term it—is easier to identify, but once it has been crafted into an object, does that become much more difficult?

Grant Miller: If ivory is highly polished, the Schreger lines can become more difficult to identify, but again we generally have the skills within the team to do it. If we do not, we reach out to experts. We will predominantly go to the National Museum of Scotland and Andrew Kitchener, who will always provide expert advice, from an academic, about what we are looking for.

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

Q The work you are doing is so very important, but I am wondering whether the National Wildlife Crime Unit has any indication of continued funding beyond 2020. When will you know whether funding will continue?

Chief Inspector Hubble: Our funding is committed until 2020, but beyond that we have had no formal indication that we will continue to be funded. That does cause concern. It is difficult for us to plan and commit to long-term strategies, and difficult for us to form business plans when in 20 months’ time we may not exist. It is difficult for me to keep my staff motivated when they have no job security—a whole raft of concerns are caused by funding.

[Dr Cameron]

Q In terms of the Bill, how important is it that that funding is put in place so that you can achieve the necessary long-term plans?

Chief Inspector Hubble: We act as a centralised hub throughout the UK to collate intelligence, and we work with all 43 police forces on that. I am sure you are all aware of the strains on modern-day policing at the moment, and dealing with ivory is probably not at the top of the list when they are looking at terrorism, child sexual exploitation, human trafficking, drugs and firearms. Ivory will not be up there with that, but as a national unit we can drive the issue and make sure that things are investigated as they should be with police forces. Without that central resource, it would very much be down to individual forces to decide what they do or do not deal with, and I fear that ivory may drop off the radar with some of them.

[Dr Cameron]

Q Do you have any comments on the importance of that?

Grant Miller: The Border Force is centrally funded through the Home Office, and CITES enforcement sits as a medium priority for Border Force. Because we are mandated to enforce the CITES regulations and the convention, we must exist to authorise and endorse the permits. There is no indication that the team is under any threat from Border Force management.

[Dr Cameron]

Q But you said you work in partnership.

Grant Miller: Certainly with the unit, and it is about the added value of our relationship with them. Border Force could exist and we would go out, detect and disrupt the trade. If we were to lose the unit, the capacity to then investigate and prosecute would be lost, but our key function would still continue, and we would detect and disrupt.

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

Q I have a question for each of you. Chief inspector, you talked about this maybe not being seen as that important by some officers, because they obviously have lots of other things to do. What is the smallest artefact that you might have dealt with, and what is the largest—to give us an idea of the range of things that you do?

Chief Inspector Hubble: Would you like to ask Grant his question, while I ponder my response to that one?

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

Q I understand that the instrument would be sacrificed, but could you imagine a market where people took the very small proportion of ivory from instruments to craft an object?

Paul McManus: You would nearly always break the ivory when taking it off the product.

Mark Dodgson: Most inlay that features on anything, such as the thin slither on a piano key, is very unlikely to be capable of being reused or exported. We have had this discussion previously. Objects with small, thin slithers are of no use to anyone who wants to use them further.

[Dr Cameron]

Q Do you have any concerns—we heard some this morning—about proposals to issue replacement certificates? Could that allow duplicates to be circulated in the system? How could we strengthen the system in that regard?

Anthony Browne: The proposals on certification are very sensible. They deal with all the eventualities quite well. I have to say that this whole certification system grew out of discussions that we have had for a very long time with DEFRA officials and with NGOs, and it is very robust as it is. It will apply to a small number of very recognisable and unique objects, which is really why it will be effective. It is analogous to all sorts of licensing systems in that respect. The proposals for replacement, re-registration in the event of a transfer and so on, seem to me to be eminently sensible.

Mark Dodgson: The only thing I would add to that—I agree with everything that has been said—is that there should be some facility for someone to check whether a certificate is genuine, perhaps online. Likewise, in the case of registration, I wonder about online purchasers. It is not clear to me from the Bill whether a buyer will have the opportunity to check through DEFRA whether a particular registration has been made.

[Dr Cameron]

In terms of the documentation?

Mark Dodgson: Yes, I am talking about the items that are registered under clause 10.

[Dr Cameron]

We heard concerns about duplicate certificates. Is that not something that—

Anthony Browne: I would not have thought that would necessarily be a problem. You get a duplicate certificate if you lose one, I think—there is a provision for getting a replacement one.

[Dr Cameron]

Q I understand that, but if you can get an extra one for losing one, is there potential for extra ones to arrive in the system somewhere?

Anthony Browne: One would have to ask the people who administered that, but I do not think the provisions in the Bill are weak. They should be workable, just like issuing any paperwork.

Mark Dodgson: The certificates are in respect of the most distinguished objects. They are all unique, and they are not likely to be easily muddled up with something else. If the concern is that they could be mixed up with other objects and used for other objects, I think that is unlikely.

Anthony Browne: If I may, I will add something to this. Certification is straightforward, because you are dealing with objects that are unique, rare and important, so there are not likely to be lots of them. I do have some concerns with the registration requirement for the de minimis objects. There is a sort of Catch-22 built into the de minimis. The Government have opted for 10% by volume. We argued for a higher percentage, in common with other countries, but the Government took that decision—so be it.

What the registration of objects will mean is this. There are quite a number of common or garden, utilitarian objects—many of your constituents probably own them if there has been a death and the house has been cleared—with minute amounts of ivory in them. They are by no means unique objects: they are Victorian or Georgian chests of drawers with tiny ivory lock holes and that sort of thing. There is no indication as yet what the cost of registration will be—one of you asked about that—but it could make selling such things completely uneconomical. The managing director of Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh sent me an email making that point. They are frequently asked to clear out estates when people are downsizing or moving house.

In the future, families who want to sell such things will be faced with two options. If there is something that looks like a small bit of ivory, it falls within this Bill, although it is well under the de minimis. If the cost of registration is more than negligible, the family is very unlikely to want to do that as it will simply not be economical, particularly as they do not know whether the object will sell. It could lead to an awful lot of objects with small amounts of ivory, which are reusable and recyclable and can be used again instead of buying new furniture, ending up in landfill because people cannot register them because the cost is too great. Even if they do register them, they are by no means unique, so what will the register do to help? I do not see how the register helps with a chest of drawers that looks identical to thousands of its cousins. Our concept was always that if an object is below the de minimis, it should be saleable—straightforward. If you sell something above the de minimis because you get it wrong, you are liable to criminal or civil prosecution, which is as it should be.

The registration of de minimis will do two things. You will simply deter people from registering, and then these objects will be destroyed or mutilated, as people try to hack the bits of ivory off—what is the point of that?—or they will just end up in landfill. I do not think this is a sensible aim. I wonder whether the Committee could look at this again. I do not think it would weaken the Bill in any shape or form. It would still be very easy to police, as it is a very low de minimis, and it will be completely apparent whether an object contains more or less than 10%. The penalties exist, and so on and so forth. It will prevent a lot of things that can usefully be used again or bought by the next generation from being used in that way. I do not think doing this will undermine the objective of the Bill at all. I just suggest that as a point that has been made to me.

[Sue Hayman]

Q I was going to ask whether any of you have concerns about the de minimis requirement—whether we need further clarification of that, whether you had looked at how the volume of ivory is measured, and whether the Secretary of State should set the measurement. Do you measure it now, and is there is a best practice way of doing it? We do not want items to be calculated slightly wrongly and to fall into the criminal section just because there are different ways of measuring volume. I just want to hear your thoughts about that.

Anthony Browne: Yes, I quite agree. I think the 10% means that it is pretty straightforward, but because of the penalties people will always err on the side of caution. We were very pleased that the Government chose volume, rather than weight, which is notoriously impossible to judge—volume is a sensible way of approaching it. As I said at the beginning, we think 10% is rather low, but we live in the real world. I do not think 10% by volume will be impossible, but people will err on the side of caution, so I would have thought that you will probably not get people rubbing up against the maximum and risking criminal penalties.

Mark Dodgson: Members of the British Antique Dealers’ Association were quite surprised at the 10% and the way it was set. We could not quite see from the documentation in the consultation why 10% had been chosen, versus perhaps 30% or 40%. Just so that you are aware, because the 10% is proposed to be set in that way, items such as a silver teapot—this is a Georgian silver teapot with an original ivory handle—