Ivory Bill

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a whole list of animals that might be included, and we also had a full discussion about this in Committee. It was only when the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds spoke to me this week that I realised that one species that had not been mentioned was the helmeted hornbill. I had no idea that there was a market in red ivory from the hornbill. Has that species come up in any of his considerations, and does he think that it should be put forward for protection as well? It is protected under CITES.

[Mr Paterson]

I am being told via a sedentary intervention that that is not ivory. This is an interesting issue, but surely the good point about Government amendment 3 is that it is very widely drafted, so that a lot of species and a lot of animals could be included. I think that that is a good thing. What the Opposition new clause is proposing, and what we were originally proposing in our letter, is actually narrower and less effective.

I shall sit down now, because it will be much more interesting for the House to hear what the Minister has to say, but this information is on the DEFRA website, and if we could get a statutory instrument out and get started on consulting on the day of Royal Assent, that would be the most rapid method. I think we all agree that we want to give the widest possible protection to the widest number of species, and that seems to be the right route to take.

Ivory Bill

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman), who has stated the Opposition’s support for the Bill. My hearty congratulations go to the real Secretary of State for introducing it.

We lose an elephant every 25 minutes, which is 20,000 elephants a year—we should all remember that incredibly simple fact. During this debate we have already lost two elephants. It is estimated that 100 years ago there was an elephant population of about 10 million, and the decline has accelerated. The great elephant census, published in August 2016, found that only 352,000 savanna elephants were left across the 18 countries surveyed—a 70% crash in numbers since 1979, when the total population stood at 1.3 million.

Encouraged by my then junior Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), and Charlie Mayhew, the chief executive of Tusk, I went to Lewa when I was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Lewa is a brilliant example of how local landowners have created conservancies where the management of wildlife is jointly organised by local communities. The rangers, whom the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned, are all working together, and the local community sees real value in the wildlife. As a result, poaching has been reduced in Kenya in the past couple of years. Lewa is a brilliant example of how, if a local community can see the value of wildlife, it will participate in its long-term regeneration.

A couple of years ago I went to the Kruger national park in South Africa. Whereas in Kenya there was a chronic lack of equipment, in South Africa there was a major general with 35 years’ experience in the South African army who had aeroplanes, helicopters and 700 brilliantly equipped rangers, but they lost four rhinos the weekend I was there. The poachers in the Kruger will move on to the wonderful, huge elephants once they have gone through the rhinos, and the reason is money. Northern Mozambique is miserably poor, and if a person can get one rhino horn out of the Kruger it will keep their community going and they will be a folk hero in their little town.

I have seen two contrasting sides to this issue. There is a big demand for this product, mainly from the far east, and the obvious answer is to grow more. I have thought about this, and that answer is simply not practical. We will never produce enough elephants or rhinos to satisfy the colossal demand. The only answer is to do what this Bill does, which is to sever the demand.

I returned from my trips and met the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend Lord Hague of Richmond, and we sat down and organised what became the largest world wildlife conference anywhere. We had great help from my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the then Secretary of State for International Development, who has sadly left the Chamber. She completely got my point about conservancies and bringing in the local communities.

Over 40 countries participated at the conference. Sadly I could not participate because I had an emergency eye operation, but the conclusion of the conference was exactly what we wanted: recognition that the illegal wildlife trade and the poaching that feeds it have, in some places, reached unprecedented levels. In response to the crisis, the London conference

“aimed to reverse recent trends of increasing illegal wildlife trade through measures to eradicate the market…ensure effective legal frameworks and deterrents, strengthen enforcement, and support sustainable livelihoods and economic development.”

Also from the conference came the Elephant Protection Initiative, set up by five African countries, and only today I got an email with the latest update—that 18 African countries have now participated in the initiative.

That was all good, and we were world leaders at the time. Other countries then got ahead of us. President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China announced that they would introduce complete bans, and America did so in June 2016, with pretty tough exemptions. China, I think remarkably—this is a real credit to the Chinese Government—took decisions that have closed down whole factories. At the time, a Chinese Minister told me that 34 designated factories would shut and that China intended to shut down its whole ivory trade and manufacturing process by the end of 2017. In 2016 the French also brought in a near complete ban, with tight provisions on trade. We made the right announcements, but we did not actually take action. Meanwhile, those bans have had a significant impact on the value of ivory. It was about $2,000 a kilogram, and it is now about $700 a kilogram.

Our party promised a complete ban in our 2010 manifesto and, in effect, a ban in our 2015 manifesto. Lord Hague and I had not given up at that point, and we worked with non-governmental organisations such as Stop Ivory, Tusk and the Born Free Foundation. I also held meetings with representatives of the antiques trade; the chairman of the British Art Market Federation, Anthony Browne; the chief executive officer of the Association of Art & Antiques dealers, Rebecca Davies; and the secretary-general of the British Antique Dealers’ Association, Mark Dodgson. We came up with a text that they would have been happy to put in our manifesto, which reads as follows:

“As hosts of the 2014 London Conference and the upcoming 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, we will continue to lead the world in stopping the trade in illegal wildlife products, which is responsible for the poaching that kills thousands of elephants, rhinos, tigers and other species, negatively impacting livelihoods and security. In response to overwhelming international opinion, expressed at both the CITES and IUCN meetings held in 2016, we will proceed with our commitment to introduce tighter legislation to close the domestic ivory market with appropriate exemptions covering objects of artistic, cultural and historical significance. We will further commit to support the range states of species impacted by illegal wildlife trade, in particular for elephants, rhinos and tigers and will continue to oppose any call for resumption in trade of products from these species.”

When we see the number of people who have signed the petition and who have reacted, we see that had that been in our manifesto, the result of the election a year ago might have been different. It is a great pity that that was omitted from our manifesto. I really believe that what the Secretary of State has brought forward today does honour that jointly agreed statement, and it should encourage a speedy passage for this Bill.

Let me give a crude summary of where I think the antiques trade is at the moment. I think it admits that the Bill, as drafted, is tighter than it would like, but it can live with it. Anthony Browne has written to me, saying:

“Our primary concern now is that the Government’s exemptions should not be made more restrictive by amendment during the bill’s passage through Parliament.”

That is a very helpful statement from the antiques trade. As was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who has sadly now left his seat, the Two Million Tusks report discovered that only 1.49% of lots for sale in auction houses contained ivory. Given that the total antiques market is worth about £9.2 billion, we see that we are talking about a round of drinks and the trade can probably manage without that business, although this should not be tightened up further.

I am fully aware that other Members are keen to speak, but I wish briefly to mention a few amendments that the Secretary of State might like to consider in Committee. It is obvious that exports, especially those to the world’s largest illegal ivory markets, are our most direct contribution to the global trade in poached ivory. An approximate analysis of the impact of the ban as proposed in the Bill is that about 25% of currently traded ivory items will fall under the exemptions. The UK exported about 35,000 ivory items to Asia from 2010 to 2015, which means that even with the exemptions in place, exports would still have totalled more than 8,000 items. That would mean the UK would still have been among the highest exporters of antique ivory in the world, even on the basis of the proposed ban.

The overriding concern is that the sale of such important items to markets in Asia fuels ivory’s desirability in the minds of consumers. Most people will of course not be able to afford to buy the rarest and most important items that this exemption is to cover, but seeing those pieces being acquired by people in their country will reinforce ivory as a luxury commodity that people wish to own, fuelling desire for items that are affordable, many of which are likely to be fakes from newly poached ivory. The exemptions in the Bill must therefore be incredibly rigorously defined and enforced.

As a start, I wonder whether the Secretary of State would consider having an annual register of how many items exemptions have been issued for under the historical, artistic and cultural definition each year, with a full description and pictures of each item. Such an annual register would be publicly available, and it would demonstrate the commitment that this exemption is for the rarest and most important items only and would allow public scrutiny.

Let me make a few brief suggestions as to how to improve the Bill. Clause 3(1) would be greatly improved if it were to specify documentary evidence to support the application and establish the legality of the ivory item, including age and provenance, as well as proof of identity and the owner’s address. Documentation will not always be available, but the lack of documentation would be a factor in the assessment. This applies in particular to online sales and exports. I would be very grateful if the Minister could provide a little more detail on how he thinks these regulations will apply to online sales, where we know flagrant cheating takes place. The declaration provided for in clause 3(1)(d) should include confirmation that the dealing complies with the convention on international trade in endangered species, or CITES, and the Control of Trade in Endangered Species Regulations, or COTES.

The exemption certificate specified in clause 4(1) should also include the name of the owner, given the reference to an exemption certificate being issued to a “different person”. In general, a new owner of an item subject to an exemption certificate should be required to register their ownership, whether on a prohibited dealing or not, so that a record of ownership is maintained. That will help the register. On clause 4(5), more safeguards are needed on issuing replacement certificates. An item could have several replacement certificates, which could be used to sell items illegally. Under clause 4(5)(b), how could someone legally acquire an item but not obtain the certificate? Careful attention to the numbering system might resolve that issue. On clause 6, we need a clarification of what a “portrait miniature” is—we need a definition.

Importantly, on clause 9(5), the exemption does not apply to items that consist “only of unworked ivory” and therefore excludes tusks. I understand that that is the opposite of what was intended. This is the only reference in the Bill to unworked ivory, and specifying it in this provision calls into question what is meant in the rest of the Bill. Those words should therefore be removed.

The defence of ignorance in clause 12 is a real concern, particularly as it is well known that that the illegal trade is fuelled by unscrupulous traders marketing ivory as a bone or as ivory sourced from other species, such as a mammoth. There should therefore be a basic sanction based on strict liability.

The Secretary of State should also be able to include other ivory-bearing species not listed in the CITES appendices in clause 35(3). As the Born Free Foundation has indicated, there has been an increase in the purchasing of hippo and other non-elephant ivory in the UK to replace elephant ivory in the internal trade. The BFF infers that the legal and illegal trades are targeting these other species, as the Government’s focus is on elephant ivory. Given that the total number of hippo in Africa is only about 25% of the figure for the elephant population, a ban must be careful to ensure that it does not unintentionally place these species under yet more pressure. It would therefore be sensible to specify hippos in the Bill now, rather than to have the delay of putting through a statutory instrument later.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about extending this provision to other species. Subspecies of hippo, warthogs, walruses and whales are all in the CITES appendix of endangered species, so the approach being taken does not seem to make sense. We know that this will be the only time we have an Ivory Bill before this House for many years to come, so if we are going to try to protect those species, it makes sense for us to do it now, in this Bill.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support and I totally agree: if we have the option to put this in, which the clause gives us, we should just get it in the Bill. We know that there will quickly be a diversion to hippos if we do not provide for that.

I am fully aware that others want to speak, so I come to my last point, which is about enforcement. I had interesting negotiations with our current Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary about funding the national wildlife crime unit, and I am pleased to say that that funding is to run until 2020. We would like a strong, firm reassurance from the Minister that this legislation will need enforcing and will need the right level of expertise. The wildlife unit is absolutely brilliant; it is located just south of the river, in a strange suburb where there is a large, redundant Russian tank. For those who cannot find it, I should say that it is painted in party colours. I recommend going to see the NWCU, however, as it does fine work. We need clarity that it will be beefed up and properly resourced for the future. On the same grounds, the CITES Border Force team at Heathrow needs sufficient levels of manpower and resources, as they will be our frontine of defence against illegal imports and organised criminal activity coming into the UK.

The London illegal wildlife trade conference is back on 10 and 11 October. With this Bill, we have a wonderful opportunity to regain our leadership on this issue. How quickly can the Secretary of State get this Bill, which we all support, through its parliamentary process and on the statute book? I will support the Bill this evening.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. We are aware of the problem of dual use, but it is absolutely our intention that those who have common land should be eligible for new environmental land management schemes, which we shall publish shortly.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Many are concerned at the Government’s stance in the CAP negotiations—opposition to proposals to cap the amount a single farmer can receive in subsidies, for example. In the interests of transparency, does the Secretary of State agree that it is time for all Members to register any CAP-related payments they receive on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

[Mr Paterson]

I think that that question is one for the House authorities—perhaps the Leader of the House can deal with it later at business questions. I am not frightened of large businesses producing food efficiently. I refer back to what my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) said. We should wake up to the fact that there is not unlimited safe food beyond these shores. There is a huge increase in world demand for food, and we should concentrate on having good, efficient farming that produces food for our population and enhances the environment.

Flooding (Somerset)

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. He and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) were both present at the two meetings in which we discussed the broad outline of the plan. As he knows, having represented the area for some years, it is simply not possible—[Interruption] regardless of the chuntering from the Opposition Benches—to get machines on the banks in these conditions. We are looking at technologies that could be borne from vessels as a means of getting going. I reassure my hon. Friend that we are absolutely clear—there was virtual unanimity in our meetings—that we want to get on and get the two rivers dredged at the earliest opportunity, and then hand over to the local representative of the internal drainage boards to carry out the routine maintenance. [Interruption.] To respond to the questions being asked by Opposition Members, that will happen when it is safe to do so.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

May I press the Secretary of State on what he has said about the public health risk of contaminated water? Last weekend microbiologists found 60,000 to 70,000 bacteria per 100 ml; the World Health Organisation suggests that the safe level is 1,000. Other than raising public awareness of the possible risks, what can the Department do to mitigate the impact?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point, which has had some publicity. We have already had samples taken from around the levels and Public Health England has been very vocal in making it clear to all local residents that they should be extremely careful with their personal hygiene and, obviously, that they should not drink or bathe in the water. The standards set are for drinking water. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue, which we have discussed on several occasions at Cobra. It is vital, given the current difficult circumstances and the enormous amount of water on the levels, to realise that the water is going to be dirty and contaminated. People must be really careful about washing themselves and, in particular, washing wounds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I wish we could go back to the bipartisan approach of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when we got this disease beaten—we got it down to 0.01%. [Interruption.] The chuntering goes on, but we are following the science from Australia, which is TB-free; we are following the science from New Zealand, which is down from 1,763 infected herds to 66; and we are following the science from the Republic of Ireland, where reactors are down from 40,000 to 18,500, and the average Irish badger is 1 kg heavier because they are healthy. We will end up with healthy badgers and healthy cattle.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Recent figures from Natural England show that only 60% of farms in the west Somerset cull zone and only 43% of farms in the west Gloucestershire cull zone contained cattle. Why are the Government culling badgers on farms without cattle?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Lady must understand that badgers move around. When they are “super-excreters” and they move on to cattle farms, they are sadly very effective transmitters of this disease. That is why we are addressing the disease not just in cattle, but in wildlife.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. The danger is that unless we get a grip on the disease in high risk areas it will work its way across to other areas—I cited the figures for Oxfordshire in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry). Our TB strategy is clear about containing the disease in high-risk areas and not letting it spread. We must be emphatic about that.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Given that it has so far cost the taxpayers of Somerset and Gloucestershire £4 million, I was rather concerned that the Secretary of State implied that he did not think that policing was of any concern to him. Does he not think that that money would be better spent on a comprehensive badger vaccination programme?

[Mr Paterson]

I think the hon. Lady may have misinterpreted my comments. I do not handle policing; I handle disease in animals. This is a zoonosis, which has to be brought under control. It will take 10 years for a programme agreed with the European Commission to develop a cattle vaccine. Labour Members need to recognise that we cannot sit around as they did, waiting for a new tool to arrive. We have to use the existing tools, which have effectively reduced the disease in other more sensibly run countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The new CAP framework through pillar two provides a good basis, with a range of tools to help us, to improve the environment and our biodiversity. Farmers and other land managers already provide a range of environmental benefits. The new arrangements will allow us to enhance the effectiveness of existing schemes and consider new approaches that contribute to our “Biodiversity 2020” quantified outcomes.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Secretary of State now make good on his promise of public money for public good and ensure that the new CAP is implemented in the most effective way possible by maximising the transfer of funds from pillar one to pillar two, ensuring a central role for agri-environment schemes and implementing an ambitious approach to the greening of pillar one funding?

[Mr Paterson]

I am happy to confirm my long-standing belief that we should transfer 15% from pillar one to pillar two. Our pillar two schemes do real good for the environment and 70% of our arable land uses those schemes. We also need to develop new schemes, as 30% of the new pillar one will depend on greening. We also have a guarantee, which we drove through the negotiations, that 30% of the rural development funds will be spent on the environment.

Badger Cull

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know that you are an assiduous reader of Hansard, Mr Speaker, and you probably remember every one of my 600 parliamentary questions on this issue, one of which revealed that, as my hon. Friend suggested, 56% of the traps were tampered with during the Krebs trials and 14% were actually stolen. That is one of the lessons we are learning from the trials—there might be a more efficient and humane manner of removing badgers.

Anyone who has looked closely at this issue will see that a comprehensive cattle testing programme, combined with restrictions on cattle movements, remains the foundation of our policy. Restrictions have been further strengthened over the past year to reduce the chance of disease spreading from cattle. In January, we introduced a new surveillance testing regime and stricter cattle movement controls, which means that we will be testing more cattle annually and working hard to get in front of the disease, to protect those parts of the country where bovine TB is not a major problem. We will continue to maintain the significant effort we have put into enhancing cattle controls and combating cattle-to-cattle transmission.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Paterson]

Other Members want to get speak, so, if I may, I will push on a bit further.

Vaccination is another tool that we will continue to invest in—we are spending £15.5 million on research and development in this Parliament—one that I know many hon. Members would like to see deployed. Some £43 million has been invested since 1994 in this vital work, to which the shadow Secretary of State alluded. We, too, would like to deploy it more widely, but I am afraid that we are just not there yet in terms of either development or practicality, as has been clearly described in this morning’s Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report.

Oral cattle and badger vaccines will, I hope, prove viable, but they will not be ready to deploy for years, and we cannot wait while the disease puts more livestock farms out of business and threatens the sustainability of the industry. In January, the Minister of State and I met the EU Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner, Tonio Borg, to discuss our progress towards a cattle vaccine. He acknowledged that we have done more than any other country to take this work forward, but confirmed that the implementation of a legal and validated cattle vaccine is still at least 10 years away.

Horsemeat (Food Fraud)

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend has a good point. People are quite right to have great faith in their local suppliers—transport times are reduced, there is clear traceability and there will be clear local knowledge. I repeat: we have great local producers, rigorous traceability systems and stringent production systems, and we end up with superb quality.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State professes great concern about what is in our meat and the importance of accurate food labelling, yet according to press reports, the UK is trying to get an exemption from EU regulations that would limit to below 50% the amount of fat and connective tissue that can be used to bulk up minced meat. Does that not completely fly in the face of what he has tried to tell the House today?

[Mr Paterson]

No, we operate on professional advice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I pay tribute to the Woodland Trust and its work, and to its 400,000 members, some of whom I enjoyed meeting at a reception in the House a couple of weeks ago. Today I am publishing an interim plan for controlling Chalara fraxinea, the pathogen that causes ash dieback, which sets out actions to build on existing participation in the process of identifying threats to tree health. That includes the provision of funds for a pilot project to develop a tree health early-warning system, involving volunteer groups such as the Woodland Trust, and the establishment of a “plant health network” of trained people to support official surveillance of Chalara and other pests. The Woodland Trust will play a very important role in that.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the Shark Alliance on its successful campaign against shark finning, and on closing the loophole in the European Union shark-finning ban? Will the Government now work to secure a complete ban on shark finning? As a first step, will they focus on securing international trade safeguards for vulnerable shark and ray species under the convention on international trade in endangered species when its signatories next meet in March?

Bovine TB and Badger Control

Debate between Owen Paterson and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I commend my neighbour from Shrewsbury and Atcham for his stalwart support on this matter and for the very public stance that he has taken. The answer is emphatically yes. I want the two pilots to go ahead and to conform to the science. I am confident that they will prove to be safe and efficacious, and that we will see a reduction in TB. That is what we want to see rolled out across the country.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On 8 May, I wrote to the then farming Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), to highlight how complex it was to assess the number of badgers in the pilot areas and received very glib reassurances in response. Why is the Secretary of State now telling us that it was only in late September that concerns about those numbers came to light?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that question, but I did answer it earlier. It appeared in September that Natural England was not happy with the figures that had been provided locally. That is why it asked FERA to do a full survey, which took some time. That shows how deadly serious we are in respecting the science. It would not have been right to go ahead on the basis of numbers that Natural England believed to be inaccurate, so it was right to take more time and to do a thorough survey, and that came up with dramatically larger numbers.