Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Peter Dowd Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar]

I thank the right hon. Lady for coming in today, particularly because there are even more important elections taking place in her part of the country. She and I might take a slightly different view on them, but we are united on this issue today. It is important that we stress once again the cross-party support for this important measure.

I earlier highlighted the role of the hon. Member for Crawley, but I also pay tribute to many of those who played a part in keeping this campaign going over many years. I think of my old friend, Bob Blizzard, the previous Member for Waveney. He was a comrade in the Labour Government Whips Office, back in the days before the 2010 election. He was a great friend and also a great enthusiast—both for jazz, but also very much for this cause. After he had left Parliament, he encouraged me to take up this issue, and his involvement in the campaign to ban trophy hunting was enormously important, along with the campaign’s current director, Eduardo Gonçalves, who is sadly not well; I hope he will be cheered by the progress of the Bill later today. That is along with a number of celebrities. Sir Ranulph Fiennes has most notably been a stalwart in the campaign, as has Dr Jane Washington-Evans and Peter Egan, who initiated the e-petition.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Lord Mancroft in the other place said,

“What the Government are doing today is passing socialist legislation, which is an odd thing for a Conservative Government to be doing.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 September 2023; Vol. 832, c. 957.]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not socialist legislation or Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru legislation? This is humane and compassionate legislation.

[John Spellar]

Well, we are a broad church—if Members on the Government Benches wish to join the cause of socialism, I welcome them. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; some issues divide us on non-political grounds and Members from different parties end up in the same camps, and many of those issues are subject to free votes. This issue unites us, and it unites us with the British people. It should have been sorted out ages ago. It is really a shame that we have to be here today. I do not in any way resent it, because this is the right thing to do, but this legislation should already be on the statute book.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

The one thing that unites the House is that we all want to see successful conservation, but this Bill has always been about racism and neocolonialism. This Bill is questioned by science and by African countries. If anybody, no matter how much they think they love animals, is thinking about writing to me or contacting me about trophy hunting, I insist that they seriously consider what African representatives have said about both the Bill and the people who support it.

Over the last 22 years, 73 CITES-listed species of animal have been imported as hunting trophies. In the same period, the pet industry has traded in over 560 listed species. If hon. Members care about CITES, then perhaps the Bill should include pets as well.

I do not believe anybody in the House intends to be racist, but this Bill crosses the line. The Namibian Environment Minister, Pohamba Shifeta, has written to our Environment Secretary denouncing the Bill as

“regressive step towards neo-colonialism… Your bill implies that your judgments supersede our insights and expertise… Such unilateral actions, made without consultation and collaboration with us…challenges the sovereignty of nations like Namibia.”

We have talked about Botswana and I will quote what President Masisi says. It is worth remembering that Botswana had 50,000 elephants; it now has 130,000 elephants. The population increases year on year by about 5,000 elephants. Some 400 trophy hunting licences are issued, but those licences have never all been taken up. When President Masisi describes intervention in Africa’s wildlife as “a racist onslaught”—

[Peter Dowd]

On that point, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I am in the middle of a quote, but I think the President will forgive me for allowing the hon. Gentleman to intervene.

[Peter Dowd]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the House is perfectly entitled to make decisions having considered all the facts, not just selective facts? It can then decide that it does not want hunting trophies to be brought into this country, and it is perfectly entitled to make that decision.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

If I did not respect the House, I would not have bothered to turn up today, so I do not think that is a valid point. We must consider how we would feel if Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa or Zimbabwe were legislating on what we do here. Awkwardly for the hon. Gentleman, we are not banning trophy hunting in the UK. We are targeting CITES-listed species, but we do not seem to care that there are 5,000 such species, of which only a handful are actually relevant.

To continue, the Namibian Environment Minister, Pohamba Shifeta, says this is

“regressive step towards neo-colonialism”—

whether it is meant that way or not. He goes on to say,

“Your bill implies that your judgments supersede our insights”—

those of the people who actually look after these animals. He says:

“Such unilateral actions, made without consultation…challenges the sovereignty”.

President Masisi said that this is “a racist onslaught” from people who

“sit in the comfort of where they are and lecture us about the management of species they don’t have.”

He was not just speaking for himself. Last November, The Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail reported that ordinary Africans share the President’s view. The paper quoted from a survey of 4,000 people in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe who said that the UK legislation was “racist” and “neocolonial”. That is what they are saying about us. Although I respect the sovereignty of this House, I would not like it if they said things like that about us, and I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman does.

[Peter Dowd]

I do not read The Times very often, but the hon. Member said that the African community leaders and conservationists he referred to rightly argue that it is not for us in the west to decide how they should manage their wildlife, and that that is why he cannot endorse the Bill. I am not telling them how to manage their wildlife, or demanding that they do it in a certain way. What I and many Members in this House are saying is that we do not want those disgusting trophies in this country. It is simple.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

The African countries find it appalling that British politicians show no concern for the African lives threatened by these animals. They are furious with the virtue-signalling proposals, which lack scientific credibility. Time and again, they return with the facts and they are completely ignored by hon. Members in this debate.

I will come on to what Oxford University said about the facts and figures given by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). This week, Botswana’s Minister for Environment and Tourism, along with the high commissioners of Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Botswana, came to this House to express their dissatisfaction with the Bill. This is significantly different from when my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) brought forward his Bill. There was no pushback from African countries then. Now we are seeing significant unhappiness from those countries about the Bill. DEFRA Ministers and their Labour shadows know that the high commissioners of the six African nations have jointly condemned the Bill as inexcusable meddling in Africa’s democratic affairs.

There are in the UK tens of thousands of trophy hunting animals that the Bill does not cover. If the UK hates trophy hunting, it should ban it here first. I do not particularly want to see that, but that is what people in Africa feel.

On Second Reading of last year’s Bill that proposed such a ban, the Minister told the Commons that its purpose was to reduce the “impossible pressures” on Africa’s wildlife. Other MPs argued that the measure would save thousands of animals from the barbaric and savage African practice of legal hunting. Indeed, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) used other such adjectives, but this is misleading. In fact, MPs’ statements on Second Reading were analysed in an Oxford University study, and 70% were deemed to be factually incorrect.

The Bill covers 6,000 species and most of those are not threatened by trophy hunting. Since 2000, the UK has imported about 1% of the species in the Bill—that is in 24 years. At least 20 species that the UK imports may be or are benefiting from trophy hunting. Rural Africa welcomes controlled legal hunting, as it helps to manage excessive herds and rogue animals. Furthermore, the fees that hunters pay bring significant amounts of cash into remote areas, where tourists and photo safaris cannot get to. This creates incentives for villagers to refrain from poisoning, snaring or shooting the animals.

Between 20% and 100% of concession fees usually go towards community land. Africans know that legal hunting reduces illegal hunting. It is the poaching, often funded by Chinese criminal gangs, that puts at critical risk the survival of the species that we all treasure. Those brutal gangs are indiscriminate in how many animals they kill. By contrast, legal hunting estates need and want to grow their herds to ensure the future of their businesses, and that is why they invest heavily in anti-poaching patrols. They provide the armed guards that are vital to protect these animals from gruesome deaths. This legal hunting operates under strict quotas, agreed by national Governments and the international regulator. As a result, the herds have flourished. One paper found that in Kenya, where hunting has long been banned, there has been a dramatic fall in wildlife numbers. Another study found that Botswana, which did ban hunting, saw a horrific surge in human-wildlife conflict, with a 593% increase in the discovery of elephant carcases. That disaster led to a quick reversal of the ban.

In 2016, briefings from the International Union for Conservation of Nature stated that

“legal, well regulated trophy hunting programs can, and do, play an important role in delivering benefits for both wildlife conservation and for the livelihoods and wellbeing of indigenous and local communities”.

In a letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Namibia’s Minister for Environment and Tourism said:

“We are most concerned about how this proposed law would undermine the finances of our Protected Areas and Conservancies… The lack of dedicated land and the protection which protected hunting pays for would critically undermine the survival of species which we all love.”

He went on to say:

“The implications of this legislation, therefore, extend far beyond what has become known as ‘trophy’ hunting, potentially impacting the livelihoods of rural communities that rely on the revenue it generates.”

A joint statement from southern African Government representatives in the UK opposed the Bill.

[Peter Dowd]

I think the hon. Gentleman indicated that only 1% of trophies have come to this country. If it is only 1%, enacting this piece of legislation will not make that much difference to those countries, will it?