Ivory Bill

Lord Hague of Richmond Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that there are not more in the House at the moment. I think if I were to ask any of your Lordships, individually or collectively, if you believed in the deprivation of the value of legitimately acquired private property, you would give a unanimous answer.

I have a retired friend in Lincoln who has spent his life collecting English watercolours. Some are very beautiful and he has collected them because he believes that they are beautiful but also because he always felt that in acquiring a watercolour, he was safe- guarding his money and knew that if he or his wife came upon difficult times, he could realise his assets. So it is, so it should be, and so, if he hits on hard times, it will be.

But if he had been like the gentleman who wrote to me only last week and collected ivory chess sets made at the same time that the watercolours were painted—the late 18th and early 19th century—he would be facing the prospect of having no assets that he could realise. This must surely be the law of unintended consequences. It cannot be that any Government, least of all a Conservative Government, would wish to act in that way against someone who has studiously—I use the word properly—collected items of interest and of some value, though not superb national value necessarily, and done no harm in the process.

There is probably not a single Member of your Lordships’ House—I hope there is not—who is not fundamentally opposed to the activities of ivory poachers. To that degree, we all welcome the Bill and applaud the Government’s desire to deal with poaching and punish those who trade nefariously in ivory items. But how many elephants will be protected in 2020 by forbidding someone from selling an ivory chess set made in 1820?

In Committee, I moved a slightly more far-reaching amendment, but I had the impression that it would not necessarily prosper, so I have made this amendment much simpler. It merely deletes the paragraph in Clause 1 that refers to,

“exporting it from the United Kingdom for sale or hire”.

If we are to prevent people realising their own legitimately acquired assets, surely we will not prevent them selling them in a country where it is entirely legal—as it is in France—to sell their ivory objects.

This is common justice as well as common sense. I beg to move.

[Lord Hague of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to my noble friend Lord Cormack but I am opposed to his amendment, which would be destructive of the objectives of the Bill. It is important on this and other amendments to remind ourselves of the objectives of the legislation. Our ultimate objective and the objective of international policy on the ivory trade is to end the demand for new ivory. We probably all agree that this is the ultimate answer. Whatever we do in anti-poaching measures, conservation and the interception of shipments is really only mitigation. The answer to keeping elephants alive today is to end the demand for ivory.

That means bringing that demand to an end in China, Vietnam and south-east Asian countries. For years, some of us have been trying to persuade them of that, including when I was Foreign Secretary and began the conversation with China about ending its domestic ivory market. Now I am pleased to say that China closed its domestic ivory market at the beginning of this year. The British Government, including my noble friend the Minister at the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference two weeks ago, were persuading other Governments to close their domestic ivory markets, including that of Laos, which is an important piece of the jigsaw, and, I hope, Vietnam and Malaysia in the future.

In every one of these conversations, including that with China, the first thing they say is, “Are you going to do the same? Are you going to close your domestic ivory market?” Secondly, they say, “If you don’t stop your exports from the United Kingdom, it is much harder for us to close our markets if thousands of items are exported as they have been each year”. The CITES figure is of 54,000 ivory pieces from the UK in a 10-year period, largely into Far Eastern markets. It is not credible to say to those countries, “Please close your domestic ivory markets so we save the elephants for the future. However, we are going to have a lot of exemptions and export to wherever we can from the United Kingdom. We have all these nice things we picked up during the Empire and we would like to be able to sell them in the future”.

It is very important to what is becoming a sensibly agreed international policy, not only that we support the Bill in general but that we do not make an amendment that would cut out of it the prohibition of exports, which would largely defeat the object of the Bill.

[Lord Cormack]

I am grateful to my noble friend but that does not address the issue of antique ivory. He may not be aware that most of the ivory exported is in the form of piano keys, but let us forget that for a moment. Does my noble friend think that in his desire to preserve the rainforest—a desire I am sure he and I share—it would be sensible to prohibit the sale of 18th-century mahogany furniture? His argument is devoid of logic, which is unusual for him.

[Lord Hague of Richmond]

We have not come to that point on the rainforests, but I would do whatever was necessary to save them. There is no doubt that the legal trade in the UK is cover for an illegal and illicit trade. We can see it for ourselves. Last month, I went to Heathrow Airport to meet the Border Force officials and Royal Mail personnel whose job it is to open suspicious boxes and so on coming into this country. I have seen with my own eyes and opened the boxes of the new worked raw ivory from elephants being killed today that is made to look as though it is antique ivory. That is why the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that, globally, there is no doubt that a legal trade is cover for an illicit trade. So there is a powerful logic in enacting the Bill as it stands, including paragraph (d), referred to in Amendment 1, if we are to play our part internationally in saving the elephants of today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, my concern is with the effects of this Bill, which may come to be criticised in the fullness of time, as elephant stocks recover and beautiful objects are lost as a result of it, and collectors of Art Deco work containing ivory are stopped in their tracks. I accept that, as we have heard from the Minister, Defra Ministers consulted during the Commons stage of this Bill, but the debate here has shown that some further changes are needed in the interests of common sense. So I support the amendments in this group from my noble friend Lord De Mauley.

I hope that the Minister will be a bit more receptive than he was towards the previous group, and ask whether he can think of any ways to reduce the concerns of people such as us about the perverse effects of these arrangements, for example in the guidance he described earlier.

[Lord Hague of Richmond]

My Lords, as on Amendment 1, I briefly draw attention to the importance of international co-operation in implementing the policy of which the Bill is a part and which these amendments would affect. We will not be able, by anything we do in our Parliament of our own volition, to save the African elephant, but we are able to be part of a concerted and perhaps, one day, successful international effort, represented by, among other things, strong bans on domestic markets.

I mentioned in my earlier intervention that China is now implementing a near-total ban, and the effect of China announcing that last year was to reduce the price of ivory in China by about two-thirds in one year. Pursuing that policy is the way to destroy the profits and attractions of the criminal networks engaged in this trade. That is why strong domestic bans in many parts of the world—in range countries, demand countries, transit countries—are so important.

If I have understood these amendments correctly, they could represent a more serious dilution of the exemptions in the Bill than the previous group. That would be serious, because in some respects it would leave us with much less of a total ban than exists in the United States or China. The Minister was right to say, on the last group, that the Government have consulted widely, and I believe that they have reached the right balance, so unlike my noble friends I would not encourage him to be more receptive to this group than to the last.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hague, for so eloquently setting out the case. The removal of “outstandingly” or “outstandingly high” would substantially increase the number and types of items that qualify for exemption. The purpose of the outstanding artistic value exemption is to allow the older items of exceptional artistic value to be traded.

The exemption before us would undermine that purpose and risk weakening the Bill by enabling trade in many pre-1947 worked items. The proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, to replace “important” with “significant” will similarly severely weaken the exemption criteria. It will already be possible for Art Deco items to be purchased by museums from private owners under Clause 9, which intentionally does not specify the age of ivory artefacts that can be acquired by museums. It is unwise and unnecessary to widen the exemption further.

As I said, those who support extending the exemptions do not see that this increase in items containing ivory will impact on the elephant population. Unfortunately, they are not correct. It is also wrong to assume that anything that is not exempt, or does not get a certificate, will be destined for the rubbish dump. Families will keep their personal artefacts and furniture containing ivory and pass them on to their children or grandchildren. Unfortunately, a lot of hysteria is being generated.

The monitoring of the elephant population, particularly in Africa, is much more sophisticated nowadays—due to the use of drones—than previously. The sad truth is that the population is down to 400,000. For the first time since records were kept, the number killed each year is higher than the number of live calves born. It is time to make a stand, and it is obvious that this House—across the political divide—supports the Bill. While the Ivory Bill is not perfect, it is a significant step forward in protecting the elephant. We must show the world that we are serious, in the hope that others will follow suit. We cannot support this group of amendments.