Ivory Bill

Lord Grantchester Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grantchester]

35: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Report on exemptions to the ivory ban
(1) As soon as reasonably practicable after the end of each calendar year, the Secretary of State must prepare a report on certified and registered exemptions to the prohibition; and—(a) lay a copy of that report before both Houses of Parliament, and(b) publish the report.(2) Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to a year if section 3 of this Act has not been in force at any time in that year.(3) A report prepared under this section must include the following information—(a) the number of applications received;(b) the number of applications rejected;(c) the number of appeals received;(d) the number of exemptions granted on appeal;(e) the number of exemption certificates and registered exemptions revoked; and(f) any other information that the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(4) The information listed in subsection (3) must be listed by category of item.(5) The Secretary of State is responsible for prescribing the categories referred to in subsection (4).(6) The Secretary of State is not required to include in a report any information that, in his or her opinion, it would be inappropriate to include on the ground that to do so—(a) would or might be unlawful, or(b) might enable the identification of the owner.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish an annual report on exemptions to the ivory ban. The report must provide statistical information about applications, appeals and revocations by category of item as determined by the Secretary of State.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 35 standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones. We need as much transparency as possible about whether this system that has been devised for granting exemptions is operating as intended. While the Government have committed to publishing headline figures about the number of exemptions granted, we believe that breaking down these figures into more meaningful categories of exemption and item type would provide us with important data and allow for confidence in the Act.

We recognise, however, that there is a balance to be struck between transparency and privacy, given that we have been led to expect that only a small number of items will be exempted on the grounds that they are the rarest and most important of their type and that it could therefore prove quite easy to identify these items and link them to certain individuals. When this point was debated in another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, David Rutley MP, advised that it was unlikely the Government could publish more detail on the specific items exempted for data protection reasons but gave an undertaking to consider whether the headline figure could be broken down further to cover broad categories of items, such as statues, reliefs or furniture, for example.

Given that there was such an overwhelming support for a total ban, better transparency is needed on how the ban will work, how effective each exemption has been, and how workable the regulations and monitoring have proved to be. This amendment reflects the pledge by instructing the Secretary of State to prescribe the appropriate categories for the purpose of publication and specifically to preclude the release of any information that would be unlawful or might lead to the identification of the owner. I am sure the Minister will agree that such transparency can be assured through amendments such as this one. I beg to move.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, the Government are in full agreement with the principle of this amendment. We acknowledge the importance of transparency and providing information to the public. That is why, once the ban is in force, we intend to share publicly information on how the ivory ban is working in practice, as this will be essential to ensuring public confidence in the ban and the supporting systems. I therefore assure the noble Lord that we already intend to publish headline data on the number of registered items and exemption certificates issued and revoked each year, as well as the appeals, in line with the Data Protection Act.

Furthermore, regarding subsection (4) in the amendment, I confirm that we will further break down headline figures as far as we are able—for instance, to cover broad categories of items such as statues, reliefs and furniture. In light of these assurances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Grantchester]

I am very happy to receive such assurances and feel that maybe I have been the lucky one to be satisfied tonight. I am grateful to the Minister. Perhaps we can examine on Report how this may be put in the Bill so that more substance can be given to her reassurances. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 35 withdrawn.