Ivory Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Liz Twist and Trudy Harrison

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

[Liz Twist]

Q Do you think there are measures that could be added to the Bill that would help with enforcement?

Chief Inspector Hubble: I would love to have a dedicated cyber-team looking at this day in, day out, with real training and a focused effort. Lots of people in the NGOs we work with are doing work around cyber-related crime. We are in the process of setting up a cyber-working group to try to pull some of that effort and interaction together and to have that group as a priority delivery group alongside the priority delivery groups we have for the other six UK wildlife priorities. That is going to be a significant resource. I am not sure whether it is too big to manage, but we felt we had to do something to try to get people sitting around the table and working together.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q You have already explained that the UK Border Force is globally recognised, particularly around the illegal wildlife trade. Have the practices used by the UK Border Force been adopted by other countries around the world?

Grant Miller: Yes, they have. Most recently, we and the National Wildlife Crime Unit did three training missions to Malawi. We first brought Malawian enforcement to the UK and then delivered three workshops out there, and they have adopted the UK model of having a wildlife crime unit to handle all the intelligence, with clearly defined roles. Our environmental security taskforce meets every six months to plan operational activity. The Border Force has trained in more than 50 countries globally—most recently in South Africa, as I said. We are doing work in Hanoi, Mongolia and Cambodia, where we hope to deliver in the next year. So yes, exporting our knowledge and working practices does go on and is proving successful.

The Border Force has also deployed 28 officers into Africa, and it is expanding a similar sized team in Asia to build general customs capability. Illegal wildlife trade will be one strand that is focused on. On World Environment Day a couple of weeks ago, an operation into illegal wildlife trade was run in Nigeria by UK Border Force officers. It identified eight dirty suitcases full of ivory that the Nigerian authorities had forgotten about.