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.

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[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?

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I know that my hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner on the issue of Walleys Quarry, and that the Secretary of State has visited the area recently. I know, too, that there was a “Panorama” programme about the site. An enforcement notice was issued by the EA on 5 May requiring the operator to take further action around waste acceptance procedures on the site to reduce the risk of sulphate-bearing material entering the landfill. I have spoken many times to the EA and know that it is working very hard to reduce the dangers, potentially, that locals may feel come from this site.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Will the Minister be prepared to meet me and representatives of the Horticulture Trades Association to discuss what further steps the Government could take to support the horticultural sector in developing responsibly resourced, high-quality alternatives to peat that can be produced at volume?

[Trudy Harrison]

I have already met James Barnes at the HTA and I will continue to meet him and other members of the association. I have visited a number of nurseries and will continue to do so. I also offer to have a meeting with the hon. Member to discuss how we are supporting the horticultural industry, which is incredibly important in this country for food production. During the week of the Chelsea Flower Show we can see for ourselves the green-fingered talents of this country, which need to continue and be supported.

Poverty: Food Costs

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

As I indicated, there may be Divisions, so Members should bear that in mind.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling poverty and the cost of food.

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my colleagues for turning up today; there is very good attendance and I am sure they are all going to be very supportive.

The world’s farmers produce enough food on this planet to feed 1.5 times the global population. It is enough food to feed 10 billion people; there are currently about 7.6 billion people on the planet. In the UK we waste about 10 million tonnes of food every year, and yet we have seen a reported increase in food bank use. Takeaway sales are up year on year; the market is set to reach £23 billion this year, with us British people spending an average of £641 a year on takeaway food—and yet we see a rise in food bank use. We have a big obesity problem in the UK, and it is spiralling out of control. It is costing our NHS a massive £6 billion annually. That is set to rise to £9.7 billion each year by 2050—and yet we see a significant increase in food bank use.

No one should go hungry in the UK—we know that. We produce enough food across the world to wipe out global hunger.

[Lee Anderson]

That is a very kind invitation and I will do my very best to attend—thank you for that. Like I said, 40% of food goes to waste; that is 2.5 billion tonnes that we throw away each year on this planet. If that food was given to the people who need it, we could give chronically undernourished—[Interruption.]

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry, but there is a Division. We will be back here in 35 minutes, at seven minutes past five.

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[Patricia Gibson]

I was listening carefully when the hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to meet the people using the service in his constituency that he talked about. He said that he wanted to see what the problems might be for people who were struggling to afford food, and that he had had no response in four months to his offer to speak to them to understand their circumstances better. I grew up in poverty—deep poverty. If my mother had the opportunity to discuss with a local MP why she was struggling, I do not think she would have taken that invitation up. That is quite a difficult conversation, and it can be quite intrusive.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. Before Lee Anderson comes in, I remind hon. Members that, although I accept that people are passionate about this issue, the more interventions there are, the less time there is for people who have not intervened. I ask Members to bear that in mind. It is a matter for hon. Members, but I will be clear and unambiguous on the time.

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I might say that if her mother had had a first-class Conservative MP like myself, maybe she would have been more comfortable coming for that advice. [Interruption.] It’s true.

I speak as a former adviser for a citizens advice bureau; I worked there for about 10 years. If hon. Members want to know about poverty, come and have a chat with me, because I saw these people on a daily basis. The people I used to see came with all sorts of problems—social problems, debt problems, benefits problems—and a lot of them had to rely on food banks. The first thing we used to do was go through an income and expenditure sheet with the service users. In most cases, there were lots of savings to be made. These people had not had the best start in life, a lot of them, and they needed help—a bit of education and a bit of support—with their bills and debts. They were paying ridiculous Provident loans off at high interest rates. They needed support; what they did not need was money thrown at them. Ten years later—it took me 10 or 15 years to learn this—I was seeing the sons and daughters of those families, who were coming to see me with the same problems that mum and dad had had 10 years before. We were not actually breaking the cycle; we were not supporting people.

I did a bit of work with my local food bank last year, as hon. Members will probably be aware—it was reported in some newspapers. I was delivering meals from the food bank to vulnerable families with an award-winning local chef; he works at a really good restaurant. After a few days of delivering meals, he said to me, “This is totally wrong. These people need proper help. They need teaching how to budget and how to cook a meal from scratch.” What we learned at the food bank was that people could not make a meal from scratch. They were struggling to cook a vegetable properly—to batch cook, to freeze stuff. He gave me a challenge. He said to me, “I can feed a family of five for 50 quid a week.” I said, “No, that’s nonsense. That’s rubbish—you can’t do that.” He said, “I’ll challenge you.”

So we went to the food bank and got the people invited to the college. There were schoolchildren there, as well as four MPs, including me, and the chef, and there were also some TV people. The day before, I got £50 and went with some schoolchildren to the local Aldi with a shopping list from the chef. The next day, we went back to the college, batch cooked five different meals and put everything in little packs, which we put away and delivered later to vulnerable families. And it worked out at 30p per meal.

I am not saying that people can cook on that scale at home—that is ridiculous—but what we are trying to prove is that if you learn how to cook from scratch, you get the right ingredients and you batch cook, you can save a hell of a lot money and make nutritious meals on a budget. Obviously, after that I was tagged as “30p Lee”. I don’t mind, because every time it comes up, somebody asks me, “Why do they call you 30p Lee?” When I tell them, they completely understand—so keep firing away and calling me 30p Lee.

Funnily enough, after this exercise I wrote to every single Labour MP inviting them to my food bank and to take part in it. I got two or three dismissive responses, but nobody else bothered to reply. The challenge was there, but nobody bothered to come.

What upsets me—this gets to me a little bit—is that there is a culture in some deprived areas where people are so dependent on food banks that it is like a weekly shop for them. One particular family who I was really trying to help were going to the food bank two or three times a week to get their groceries, but then I would see them in McDonald’s two or three times a week. My goodness. I do not want to stop little children going for a treat once in a while, but this is all about priorities. If you are really struggling for money and are going to a food bank two or three times a week, you should not be going out for fast food and getting takeaways every week. I know people are going to start sighing and ah-ing and saying, “He’s wicked and he’s cruel,” but those are the facts.

I never went for a McDonald’s when I was a kid, and I come from poverty. My mum and dad really struggled to feed us. He was a coalminer who worked seven days a week, and my mother was a factory worker. At the weekends, my dad did his garden. We had vegetables in there from top to bottom, and it also had chickens, rabbits and ducks. That was our food bank. We had nowhere else to go—that is what we did. We provided for ourselves. We have lost that over the past 20, 30 and 40 years, but we need to remind ourselves of where we have come from and to have those traditional values that our parents had. Food banks are being abused;  I know that, because constituents tell me every single day about people making it up, telling lies or whatever. Food banks are abused by people who do not need them. We should target the food banks.

[Lee Anderson]

You can shake your head all you want. [Interruption.]

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. As I have said, I appreciate that this is a passionate subject, but I do not want people shouting across the Chamber. And can people stop saying “you”? They must address their comments through the Chair.

[Lee Anderson]

Thank you, Mr Dowd, and I do apologise. I get passionate about this subject, which is very close to my heart.

Ashfield, Mansfield and Bolsover are deprived areas. Many of the red wall seats are very deprived. They are deprived for a reason—we all know why, but I am not going to go into that now. We are going to see more and more fast food outlets—McDonald’s, KFC and others—springing up everywhere. They are springing up every 10 minutes in my area alone. Why are they coming to these deprived areas? It is because they know that there is a market there. We say that poorer people tend to use these places, and I know that that is true.

Food bank use is increasing in places such as Ashfield, yet obesity is also increasing in the same poor areas. Why is that? What we need is a proper food strategy in this country; I do not think we have had one for years. We have not had one since the 1970s. [Interruption.] You can laugh, giggle and scoff, but that is true. Why was it that in the 1970s, in the schools that I went to and all over Nottinghamshire, there were no obese children and we were fit and healthy? We did not have much money, but we ate less junk food and had a better diet and healthier lifestyles.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Six people want to speak. I will call the Front Benchers at 17.43 pm, so at best people have two minutes each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under you, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for bringing this debate to us. I start by paying tribute to the many in my own constituency who are dedicated and devoted to helping those in need in a variety of forms, not least by preparing and delivering food through food banks. I thank them and acknowledge the good work that they do.

In the two minutes I have, I would like to draw attention to the inadequacy of our approach to poverty. This debate is about

“tackling poverty and the cost of food”

and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield on not calling it food poverty. I have written an essay on this, “A Common Sense Model for Poverty”, which highlights the inadequacy of a purely financial measure of poverty. In the context of food, a simple example is that the price of a bag of pasta has risen from 50p to 95p. That is the food premium that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield mentioned. The impact of that price rise is far bigger at the bottom of the affordability scale than at the top.

I will give three very quick observations. First, there are structural problems in our economy because it has accelerated the capacity to produce food through, for example, businesses focusing on adding value through processing to foods to make them more convenient, rather than focusing on nutrition or health. That is the maximising of profit, again at the expense of local food producers, and the supply chain suffers for it. I doubt that farmers who are worried about feed, fuel and fertiliser are seeing the benefits of many of the price rises in our shops. Finally, businesses are concentrating on the markets that can pay, not the local and global markets that need the food themselves. When it comes to health, we are all after a hot, filling and nutritious meal. That is well within our grasp.

I would like to conclude by mentioning the social benefits of food. The most powerful projects that I have seen are about bringing people together around the making and breaking of bread, so our approach needs to change. Market drivers introduce unhelpful factors—

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

That is time.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley on getting it to this stage. I hope the Government will support it to ensure its full passage through both the House of Commons and the upper Chamber.

I want to start by saying some things about the necessity of the Bill. First, public opinion is clearly in favour of it. Some 86% of those surveyed believe there should be an immediate import ban, and that cannot be ignored.

Secondly, in the countries where these animals are often hunted, there is now a growing consensus among politicians, the population, academic researchers and environmentalists that the trade is not good for their country and not good for the animals, especially those under threat—it does not even contribute economically in the way that many of those who support this trade and activities claim that it does.

Thirdly, it is clear from the figures that have already been quoted—I will not go through them all again—that many of the animals are being hunted close to extinction.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley on his Bill and my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley, who has been working on the issue for a long time. I completely support what the right hon. Member for East Antrim says, but on the question of potential extinction, does he agree that it would be better if organisations such as Safari Club International were honest about their position—that they just like shooting and killing things? They appear to be dressing that up as a sort of conservation effort on their part, with the killing of the animals bizarrely irrelevant to that aim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

I very much appreciate the advice of the experienced right hon. Member. All I can say at this stage is that I look forward to a speedy Third Reading. I very much hope that Members across the House will support the progress that the Bill needs to make to secure Royal Assent.

[Peter Dowd]

May I pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East? I have had information today that came from Dilys Roe, a member of the UK Government Darwin unit, and Professor Amy Dickman of Oxford University, who describe the figure that 86% of the public would like the Bill to become law as “cherry-picked data” and write that Survation

“found that only around 40% of Britons surveyed would want a trophy hunting ban if it caused harm to people or wildlife.”

I find it remarkable that we are getting that kind of information when, as far as I can see, the evidence is contrary to that. It really is important—I hope the Minister agrees—to put paid to some of the points being made, which are claims of misinformation that in themselves appear to be misinformation.

[Trudy Harrison]

I will not be drawn into a conversation about that particular piece of information. Suffice it to say that in my comments, I hope to address some of the points that Members have raised today.

One of those points was about whether the Bill would apply to captive-bred or so-called canned animals, and I can confirm, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley did, that it will. It will be one of the toughest import bans, covering thousands of species of conservation concern and not allowing any exemptions. The ban will help to strengthen animal protection and support long-term conservation outcomes.

Shark Fins Bill

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Christina Rees]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. The thing about this Bill is that I have learned all sorts of things about Members of Parliament that I could never have thought of. I know the great work that the hon. Member does on Ynys Môn. I always take every excuse to go there, because it is one of the most beautiful parts of Wales. Perhaps when I come up there next, she can show me all her good work. That would be brilliant.

The exemption process requires applicants to provide certain information to the appropriate authority to take a decision. The appropriate authority can revoke the exemption certificate if information supplied by the applicant is inaccurate or incomplete. Where someone has deliberately provided inaccurate or incomplete information for an exemption, the Secretary of State can impose a monetary penalty of up to £3,000. That will ensure that the exemption process is not abused. The Bill contains a power for the Secretary of State to amend the upper limit of that penalty by regulations.

Subsection (4) defines shark fins as

“any fins or parts of fins of a shark”

except for pectoral fins, which are part of ray wings. “Shark” means

“any fish of the taxon Elasmobranchii.”

Taxonomically speaking, Batoidea is a super-order of cartilaginous fishes, commonly known as rays. Batoidea has four orders, including Rajiformes, which includes skates. That definition is consistent with definitions included in the UK’s “fins naturally attached” regulation, in which skates are also considered under the definition of rays. Therefore, their pectoral fins are not included in the definition of shark fins. I am glad I got through that bit of my speech! [Laughter.]

Clause 2 amends the existing shark fins regulation 1185/ 2003, which forms part of the retained EU law. The version of the regulation retained in UK law includes the subsequent amendments made by regulation 605/2013. As the retained EU law stands, the removal of shark fins, retention on board, transhipment and landing of shark fins could take place by another country’s vessel in UK waters. That was not the intention of the changes made by the EU exit amending regulations. The amendment to the Bill would rectify that position and its effect is twofold. First, it is to ensure that shark finning is not undertaken by any other country’s vessels fishing in UK waters. Secondly, it is to ensure that any UK vessel is not undertaking shark finning wherever it fishes.

Clause 3 sets out the extent, commencement, transitional and savings provisions and short title of the Bill. They are the practical parts of the Bill necessary for it to function properly. The Secretary of State will set the commencement dates for clause 1 and the schedule to the Bill by statutory instrument. For clause 2, amendments to the existing shark finning regulation 1185/2003, which forms part of the retained EU law and includes amendments in regulation 605/2013, will come into force at the end of the period of two months, beginning with the day on which the Bill is passed. Clause 3 will come into force on the day on which the Bill is passed.

Amendment 1 clarifies that appeals in relation to decisions by Scottish Ministers should be heard by the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland. Applicants who wish to appeal decisions where Scottish Ministers are the appropriate authority will do so to the First-Tier Tribunal for Scotland, as per paragraph 9 of the schedule. Scottish Ministers are the appropriate authority in relation to entry into or removal from Scotland of shark fins or things containing them. This is a technical amendment to appropriately reflect Scottish devolved competency within the Bill. For completeness, there is currently no similar and separate equivalent in Wales to the First-tier Tribunal. The Welsh Government have therefore indicated that a similar amendment is not necessary at this time.

On the schedule, there is only one exception to the Bill, which is where imports or exports of shark fins will be used for purposes connected with the conservation of sharks.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

That point about conservation has to be put into the context that as many as 273 million sharks are killed every year; on a figure of just 100 million, which is the lower estimate, that is about 11,000 sharks killed every hour. I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing the Bill before the House. Does she agree that it will send a message to other countries to end this barbaric practice?

Badger Culling

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I will call Tracey Crouch to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on badger culling.

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. After many years of debate in this place, colleagues will be well aware of my views on the badger cull. My primary motivation for speaking out against the cull was and always will be the tragic and indiscriminate killing of more than 150,000 badgers since the first two operational culling zones opened in 2014. My view is often reflected in national polling, which continues to show opposition among the general public to the cull—not least in the two e-petitions that have been attached to this debate, respectively signed by 106,000 and 35,000 people, including from my constituency of Chatham and Aylesford.

Since first becoming involved in this debate through the lens of wildlife protection, I have often heard with great sadness about the immense financial and emotional pain that bovine tuberculosis causes farmers up and down the country. The devastation for a farmer when a skin test comes back positive, virtually condemning their herd of cattle, is utterly heartbreaking. The fight has therefore become just as much about protecting badgers—an iconic species in the UK—as ensuring that farmers are supported by the Government in implementing the wide array of countermeasures to prevent TB that help to target transmission within species, which has been shown to lead to far higher prevalence of the disease than transmission from one species to another—in this case, badger to cattle.

I sincerely thank Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and their officials for the work they have done over the past few years to explore other ways to tackle this devastating disease. I welcomed the Government’s response to the Godfray review and the subsequent strategy, and I welcome the more humane approach against TB in targeting vaccination for both cattle and badgers, increased testing frequency and—most welcome—the gradual phasing-out of intensive badger culls.

To that end, I am pleased that no new intensive badger culling licences will be issued after this year, although I remain concerned that culling will remain an option and continue to be licensed by Natural England. As we have seen with the Government’s authorisation of emergency applications of neonicotinoid insecticides, despite their ban via EU retained law, it seems that the announced end is not always the actual end. I am sure the Minister will therefore understand the scepticism among those of us who want culling to cease.

Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I was pleased to contribute to last week’s debate on rising energy prices, shortly after which the energy price cap was increased by 54%, adding more financial woe to millions of families across the country. If we listened to the Conservatives, everything is hunky-dory in the garden, everything is fine and great, there are no problems and we should move on. That debate provided important context for this debate on food insecurity and the cost of living.

Some 22 million households will suffer because of the Government’s failure to invest in cheap, green energy generated on our shores—fact. The Chancellor’s announcement that the Government will force people to take loans will do nothing but prolong their financial misery—fact. Both energy insecurity and food insecurity are related to the dramatic increase in inflation over which the Government have presided, which is now a painful concern to millions of people—fact. But it is important that we put these issues in a wider context.

There are many long-running flaws in how our community is being run. After all, food insecurity is not a new phenomenon in the United Kingdom. In 2014, the coalition Government continued their deep cuts to state support, and the United Nations found that 8.4 million people were living in households in which someone did not have enough to eat. Since then, food bank queues have increased, as in my constituency.

Last year, the Trussell Trust provided 2.5 million three-day emergency food parcels across the country, and 40% of them were for children. Of course, inflation is intertwined with this crisis. According to the Office for National Statistics, food and beverage prices made the largest single contribution to inflation in December, but we have to look at the root causes, which include, under this Government, the longest fall in real pay since the Napoleonic era. That has left real wages at 2008 levels, and has been supplemented by repeated attacks by the Tories on public pay. There is also the tearing up of the social security net, which millions relied on to provide the bare minimum, and the slashing of funding for local authorities that try to cope on the frontline.

Those were the wrong choices, with the Chancellor asking workers earning only £9,000 to pay more national insurance while the wealthy were left untouched. There has been policy after policy attacking ordinary working people. Many just do not have enough money to put the food that they need—the right food, quality food—on the table. Inflation is not a single factor that is driving insecurity. This is a crisis of low pay, of insecurity, of our safety net. It is about much more than the cost of living and we cannot continue to ask working people to pay the price of the Government’s mismanagement. We must now get the response right.

Last week, the Governor of the Bank of England suggested that working people should moderate their pay demands to avoid, in effect, a wage price spiral. In an interview, when asked whether the Bank was effectively asking workers not to demand a big pay rise, he told the BBC:

“Broadly, yes…In the sense of saying, we do need to see a moderation of wage rises…that’s painful…I don’t want to in any sense sugar that: it is painful”—

said the Governor, on £575,000 a year. That is exactly the sort of blinkered response that we have come to expect.

It is worth repeating that the 1.25% increase in national insurance is, in effect, an 8% increase in total—not 1.25%. If that is not adding to food insecurity, I do not know what is. There is a fairer way: not the Government Wonga scheme being introduced by the Chancellor, but real solutions that put money in the pockets of the poorest households, ending food insecurity once and for all. I am talking about a windfall tax on the big oil and gas companies; taxing wealth at the same rates as work to raise billions towards a permanent uplift to universal credit; and an end to austerity in the public services that we all rely on when times are so hard. The British public has paid too much under this Government. It really is time that the Conservatives asked their wealthy donors to pick up the tab.

Finally, I plead with Tory Members, of whom only three are in the Chamber at the moment: if they do not have the wherewithal and decency to rid the country of food banks, they should have the decency to stop visiting them for a photo opportunity. It is unseemly.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Online Animal Sales: Regulation

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 587654, relating to regulation of online animal sales.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. This petition, entitled “#Reggieslaw—Regulate online animal sales”, closed with over 109,000 signatures, and states:

“Given how many animals are sold online, we want Government to introduce regulation of all websites where animals are sold. Websites should be required to verify the identity of all sellers, and for young animals for sale pictures with their parents be posted with all listings.”

I volunteered to lead on this petition because my daughter had a dog called Reggie. He was part of our family for many years, and we loved him so much that it broke our hearts when he tragically died from cancer. I met with the petitioner, Richard, who told me that he started the petition after he bought his 12-week-old Labrador puppy Reggie through a reputable website for his partner for Christmas, and then realised that he had unknowingly contributed to illegal puppy farming. Richard, who is with us in the Public Gallery tonight, bravely concedes that he should have done more research before buying Reggie and should have walked away, which would have prevented the seller from getting more money to continue acts of animal cruelty. However, Reggie would still have died.

Richard gave Reggie love, dignity and pain relief throughout his very short life. Reggie fell ill 12 hours after Richard took him home, and died from parvovirus after two days. When Richard bought Reggie, he thought that Reggie was from St Helens, Merseyside, but when he went back to the address where he had bought Reggie, he found that the seller had gone. The microchip number for Reggie did not match the documentation and was registered to Dublin, Ireland, so Richard believes that Reggie was illegally shipped to the UK. Richard started Justice For Reggie to raise awareness of the dangers of online animal sales, which is part of the Animal Welfare Alliance, which he also set up and is made up of a number of animal websites.

Richard would like the Government to establish a regulatory board to regulate all animal sales websites, and that these websites should be verified before they are set up. He would like it to be a legal requirement to have pictures of puppies suckling on their mother, and to identify online sellers, in that every seller should produce a photo ID and two proof-of-address documents to prove by whom, and from where, the pet is sold. Last week, Richard walked 200 miles from his home in Wigan to hand in a petition to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, and I know that some Members who will speak in tonight’s debate met Richard at Downing Street to show their support.

The Government responded to the petition on 1 July 2021, saying:

“The Government shares the public’s high regard for animal welfare. We endorse the Pet Advertising Advisory Group’s work and support their actions to improve the traceability of online vendors.”

Their response mentioned the UK Government’s Petfished campaign, and said that the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will end puppy smuggling, as it

“includes powers to introduce new restrictions on pet travel and the commercial import of pets on welfare grounds, via secondary legislation.”

It went on to say that the UK Government’s pet theft taskforce is considering different measures to stop pet theft, including the regulation of online sales, a voluntary code of practice and a certification scheme for compliant websites to encourage sites to increase checks. Sales should be cashless to improve traceability. It also said that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs planned to launch an online advertising programme to assess whether the Government need to strengthen the regulatory framework around online advertising, with a consultation expected before the end of this year.

I am sure Members are aware that animal welfare is a devolved matter. There is no specific legislation on acquiring a pet online; however, the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 cover, among other things, dog and cat breeding and selling animals as pets, as licensed by local authorities. Dog breeding is defined as “three or more” litters a year or where that is regarded as a business by a local authority. “Selling animals as pets” covers selling and selling on, whether bred by the seller or not. The regulations require an advertisement for an animal sale to include the licence number, the licensing authority, the age of the animal, a photo, country of origin and residence, and require that the animal be in good health. Dogs must be sold in the presence of the purchaser and from the premises in which they are kept.

In April 2020, Lucy’s law amended the regulations to prohibit the commercial sale of dogs and cats under six months other than by the breeder. However, the regulations do not apply to private animal sellers. Perhaps the Minister will consider amending them to include private sales. I have met a number of animal organisations to listen to their views on animal online sales, and there was broad support for reform.

PAAG, the Pet Advertising Advisory Group, was set up in 2001 to combat growing concerns about irresponsible advertising of pets for sale, rehoming and exchange. It is made up of 25 animal welfare organisations, trade associations and veterinary bodies, and is endorsed by DEFRA and the devolved Administrations. PAAG is concerned about poor welfare standards, lack of information about a pet’s history, offloading sick pets, dealers posing as private sellers, and pets ending up with unsuitable owners who, for example, use them in dog fights.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

What is concerning in the discussions we have had is that, currently, websites are not a safe place to buy a pet. It is estimated that 92% of pets are sold online, with most taking little responsibility in the sale. Does my hon. Friend that that is something we have to deal with robustly?

[Christina Rees]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has been a staunch campaigner for animal welfare for many years. I am sure the Minister is listening to his point.

PAAG has set out 27 voluntary minimum standards that advertisers should comply with, and some of the UK’s largest classified websites have agreed to do so. PAAG told me that Richard’s petition includes one of PAAG’s minimum standards: that all breeders should include a recognisable photo of young animals, including dogs and cats with their mother. That has been implemented by Pets4Homes and Preloved, which remove adverts that do not adhere to that.

PAAG will continue to engage with other websites on implementing that more widely. PAAG believes its work is vital, given the lack of regulation of online advertising and sale of pets. Dogs Trust asks for PAAG’s voluntary minimum standards to become a legal requirement for all adverts of pets for sale, and asks for a centralised, publicly accessible list of commercial and private registered sellers and breeders. It believes that a complete ban on advertising pets for sale online would not eradicate the challenges of poor animal welfare, impulsive pet purchases and unscrupulous sellers seeking to profit from selling animals. Dedicated consumer awareness campaigns will be more likely to encourage responsible advertising and purchasing in the long term. There is no jurisdiction over websites based outside the UK, however, so a ban may have the unintended consequence that websites move their operations overseas to avoid having to abide by such a law.

The trust asks that anyone breeding, selling or transferring the ownership of a puppy aged up to six months old, regardless of any financial gain, should be required to be registered, that anyone doing so for more than one litter of puppies should require a licence, and that all breeders should display their unique registration or licence number on any advert. It also asks for a central, publicly accessible list of all registered and licenced breeders or, failing that, a single point of entry for the databases operated by individual local authorities, which would allow purchasers to verify where they are buying a dog from—for example, by verifying the postcode. It also asks for a single database or point of contact for the 15 national microchip databases, and for DEFRA to create a system whereby websites can verify the details on a microchip. The trust also states that action should be taken against sellers who get around the prohibition of the sale of pets on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram by using emojis in place of words such as “for sale”, not including the sale price and speaking with potential buyers in closed groups or private messages, which are not monitored.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals told me that demand for puppies rose exponentially during the pandemic, as people wanted companionship or exercise during lockdown. During the first lockdown, Google searches for “puppies near me” increased by 650%, with 15,000 searches in July 2020 compared with 2,000 in January 2020. The prices for some popular breeds escalated. For example, the price of French bulldogs increased from £1,500 pre pandemic to £7,000. Unbelievable. English breeders could not satisfy the demand, so trade in imported dogs escalated by 43% between May 2019 and May 2020, with many sold online. Although the regulatory framework has changed considerably in the past five years, the RSPCA believes that there are still loopholes in the law and, most significantly, huge issues with enforcement, especially in the complicated online marketplace. Enforcement should be a priority.

It is still too easy to find online adverts for pets that do not comply with the 2018 regulations. As lockdown has shown, sellers and buyers are ignoring the rules on conducting sales in person. It is not clear that online adverts that break the rules are routinely removed by websites and social media platforms, and the sellers behind them are not being punished. The RSPCA asks for more resources for local authorities, which lack resources and expertise, and more funding for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs tax investigations into serious pet selling, which often involves large amounts of money. Border Force should prioritise the illegal import of animals.

The Kennel Club told me that when the licence regulations changed in 2018 from five to three puppy litters a year, reputable breeders complained of too much bureaucracy, which resulted in a 10% decrease in puppies being registered with the Kennel Club. It has evidence of disreputable sellers using fake names and false Airbnb addresses to sell puppies from. Disreputable sellers want to offload puppies quickly, so they sell the popular breeds. The British Veterinary Association is a member of PAAG and fully supports PAAG’s position on online animal sales.

The placement and content of online advertising is regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority, which it does by enforcing the code of non-broadcast advertising, sales, promotion and direct marketing, known as the CAP code. This self-regulatory system states that all online adverts are expected to be

“legal, decent, honest and truthful”.

Online advertising includes marketing and communications on companies’ own websites, and other third party spaces under their control, such as Twitter and Facebook. The Advertising Standards Authority website states that to report a dubious advert after the fact, someone would need a photo—a screenshot of the advert—and to complete an online form. However, it also states that it is impossible to check all online adverts because there are millions every year. The ASA can refer advertisers who persistently break the CAP code to trading standards departments in local authorities for enforcement, under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. However, these apply only to businesses. As I have said, local authority trading standards departments are under-staffed and under-resourced, and their priority during the pandemic is enforcing covid restrictions—or, as I call them, covid protections.

I conclude by urging the Minister to support Reggie’s law to prevent “dogfishing”, which is a term for when a person tries to mislead someone into buying a dog that might not be as advertised. For example, the dog might be a different gender or breed—or, as in the tragic case of Reggie, it may be seriously unwell. I ask the Minister to answer the requests from the animal organisations that I have presented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. Unusually, I do not think I can disagree with a single thing that has been said in the Chamber today. As I look around the Chamber at the colleagues who are going to contribute, I do not think I will disagree with anything they say either, but do not test me too much.

It was a pleasure to be with Ricky and several colleagues outside No. 10 in the pouring rain. The longer we stayed, the more it rained; it was horrendous. To get 100,000 signatures from one person’s experience means that that experience touched the nation. It did so, as we have already heard, because we are a country—a United Kingdom —of animal lovers. I have seen more people get agitated about an animal being hurt than about people hurting themselves or other people. In many ways, that is right, because the animals cannot defend themselves.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) said, puppy farms are the most abhorrent industry out there. When I was a very young lad, I used to work in Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, in north London, where puppies were sold at the side of the road in cages. They had obviously come from puppy farms, way back then, 50-odd years ago. We banned that; we stopped that. But the marketplaces that were there off Petticoat Lane and other markets around the country, in all colleagues’ constituencies, are now online. It is fundamentally unacceptable for platforms or marketplaces or whatever they want to call themselves today to say, “Hold up! It’s too difficult to monitor this,” just like it is too difficult for them to pay some tax occasionally. They spend untold amounts of money making sure they get around that sort of regulation, and it is about time that we put regulations in place not after the fact but as these things are happening, today.

I commend the Government and the Minister for the work on Lucy’s law; it was life-changing for a lot of people. What is also life-changing for a lot of people is when, in good faith, they see a puppy online with its gorgeous little eyes, and its mummy sitting there looking after it and snuggling up so that it can have its milk, but it is not the puppy that they get and it was not its mother giving it milk. I have constituents who say to me that when they go with their children to collect the puppy that they bought online, and there is the little puppy—in a car park, because, of course, something is going on in the house, or else they have been shown mum, but mum is nowhere near the puppies—and within months, and sometimes within days, the puppy is not only ill but is not actually what they thought they had bought in the first place. I have a constituent who bought a whippet. It is the biggest whippet ever seen now and it has clearly been cross-bred. People are petrified of going back, even if they know who the seller might be, because these people are serious criminals. Let’s not beat around the bush—they are criminals.

[Peter Dowd]

If the law were passed, it would be an exemplar for other countries across the world; it would send the message out. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be a win-win situation, both for the consumer—the person buying the dog—and more importantly for the dogs and the animals themselves?

[Sir Mike Penning]

I completely agree. In fact, it would be a win for everybody if we get this right, including for the Inland Revenue, because none of these people pay any tax. It would be a complete win for the animal—not just for the puppy, but for where it came from, that puppy farm. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) said she had lovely Jack Russells. I saw some footage of a bitch that came on heat and they put her in a shed with three or four male stud dogs, to make sure that she had puppies within a few weeks. That animal nearly never survived, let alone gave birth. Those things are happening; these people are criminals. Although we quite rightly say that we need to give more power to local authorities, we need to give them the expertise and ammunition to scare the criminals out of the marketplace. At the same time, the people providing that marketplace need to close it down.

In the world we live in today, animals will be bought online, and the pandemic increased the number of people going online. I went through trauma—absolute trauma—at home, because we lost our dog. It is the first time in my life that we have not had a dog at home. She was 22 and a dachshund—before they were fashionable, as they are at the moment—and we lost her. At home, both my daughters and my wife are saying, “Let’s get a puppy. We’re at home. We can look after her now.” I stood my ground, for one simple reason: we are not at home now.

If people go to any of the rescue centres, they will see that there are thousands of animals there now. The people who got the animals were in the right frame of mind at the time. Admittedly, lockdown put a lot of us into very difficult times. At the time, it was the right thing to do, but now it is not. If someone goes to a rescue centre, they will not be able to just pick an animal up and walk away. The staff will check the person out and ensure that the animal is healthy, and that is what we should be doing today. I say this to the Minister. It may be difficult, but lots of things are difficult in government. That is why we are in government—to sort these things out and to sort the online market in animals out. It can be done if there is a will, and there is a will in this room today.

COP26 and Air Pollution

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Gary. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship.

On COP, air quality and the impact on health and wellbeing, we have to drill down to the specifics. We can talk at a national, international or regional level, but it always comes down, in effect, to what is happening in local communities, with the cumulative effect in them. My local community, like those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and other hon. Friends, is no different.

My area has a huge dock in it. The Liverpool docks are based in my constituency, and we have thousands of lorries coming down the road, the A5036, all the time—daily, of a night, at weekends. They are great pollutants, as are local cars and local transport. The council has had five monitoring stations in the area, and a sixth up and running, and since covid those levels have been dramatically down. That should teach us a lesson, which is that we have to get vehicles, whether they be lorries or cars, off the road.

I am really disappointed, notwithstanding COP and notwithstanding covid, that National Highways—it used to be Highways England, which used to be the Highways Agency, and I think it changes its name so we can never keep up with what it is at and hold it to account—persists with this old-fashioned view, which must be 20 years out of date, that if there is a problem with a road, the solution is to build another one. That is exactly what it is proposing in my constituency. It is proposing to build a £250 million road through Rimrose valley. Rimrose Valley Friends has done a great job opposing it, but there will be a £250 million road through the only green part of my constituency. It is possible to walk from one end of the constituency to the other in about 35 or 40 minutes, and the same in the other direction, so it is incredibly tight. Within it there is this lung, Rimrose valley, and what does the Highways Agency or Highways England or whatever it is called nowadays—National Highways—do? It is going to put a road through it, and that is not acceptable.

I ask the Minister to go back and speak to her colleagues and get that process halted—put a stop to it—pending the lessons learned from covid and pending COP. Departments and agencies pushing on with the same old hackneyed solutions will not be a resolution for any of us. The local authority is trying to do what it can, but it can only do so much. We have money for an air quality grant, which is helping us to educate, and we are working collaboratively as much as the local authority can, but it is not much. We need national action, and we need the Department to get a grip of National Highways and to call a halt to this programme. It should discuss it with local people, discuss it with the port and discuss it with all interested parties, and just stop this madness continuing, because it is not acceptable.

I will make a final point, if I may. We have that going on, but we have the docks—a major, massive dock—and they are only going to expand because there will be more containers coming in through the north, as another alternative, because of covid. What I want to do is to work collaboratively with everybody to stop the road being built. Let us rethink the issue. Because we are in a port area, we have scrapyards, but for the third or fourth time in the last few years we have had massive fires that are adding to the problem. It is not just about cars and lorries, but about all the other associated things. Let us get a grip of this, let us do better enforcement and let us stop the cheating on emissions. Let us get to grips with this issue, stop that road going through and work with our communities to sort out the problem.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Thank you, colleagues, for your co-operation. We now come to the Front-Bench speeches.

Offshore Wind Farms: Unexploded Ordnance

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. I remind Members participating physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of the debate in Westminster Hall, and Members are expected to remain for the entire debate. I must also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to one another and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and before they leave the room.

[John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP) [V]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the disposal of unexploded ordnance for offshore windfarm construction.

I express my appreciation to the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) and the hon. Members for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for supporting my application for the debate. All of us welcome the extraordinary potential of our wind and wave power. As we seek to meet our climate obligations, we have a God-given asset off our shores. I think it was the Prime Minister who called Scotland the Saudi Arabia of renewables.

To the casual observer, the bonanza ahead may seem low-cost and environmentally unimpeachable. If only that were so. Alas, the 20th century’s brutal European conflicts littered our once pristine seabed with a legacy: 100,000 unexploded 20th-century bombs—a monstrous monument to brutality,

“for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men”,

as Herman Melville tells us in “Moby-Dick”.

The great offshore wind turbines are anchored to the seabed, and the bombs—an estimated 100,000 of them—pose a mortal danger. What should we do with them? How do we make safe these aquatic minefields? Hitherto, we have got rid of these munitions in the crudest way possible, by blowing them up, using high-order disposal, as it is called, with a counter-explosive detonating the munition so that it can be safely moved—safe for humans, perhaps, but devastating for marine life. Due to the greater penetration of sound underwater, the explosion aftershock can travel up to 25 km. To give an idea of scale, that is roughly half the distance of the channel tunnel. Imagine the noise.

These explosions will kill any sea life nearby. If they do not die instantly, the pressure wave causes traumatic harm, such as lesions, haemorrhages and decompression sickness. Marine biologists tell us that, even if they survive the initial blasts, these can deafen aquatic mammals such as whales, porpoises and dolphins. Without hearing, they cannot communicate or navigate, leading to mass stranding. One recent example of mass stranding occurred when 39 long-finned pilot whales were stuck in the Kyle of Durness. A UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report concluded that the only external event with the potential to cause such a mass stranding was a munitions disposal operation. Nineteen of the stranded whales died. Last year, autopsies showed that scores of porpoises were deafened as a result of explosions used to clear second world war German mines in the Baltic sea. All died subsequently.

Do we have to choose between green power and mammal safety? Fortunately not. A new method of munitions disposals is available. I have seen it work. It is known as low-order deflagration, and it is a breakthrough. The technique was invented in the early 2000s and is used by the US military and 15 other countries’ navies worldwide, including our own Royal Navy, which has used it since 2005. The National Physical Laboratory has said that the new method

“shows considerable promise for noise abatement”

in bomb disposal.

In layman’s terms, this alternative system makes the bombs safe without blowing them up. It allows a small charge to penetrate the bomb casing without detonating it. That causes the explosives to burn out, and the device becomes safe. This system significantly lowers emissions and noise, thus reducing dramatically the danger to wildlife and the local environment. Scientists calculate that for some of the larger munitions, low-order deflagration could be several hundred times quieter.

Therefore, we understand the problem, and luckily the solution is straightforward. In answer to a written question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), the Government assured her that were Ministers to become aware of evidence concerning harm caused to marine life by the disposal of munitions, they would act, and Ministers have now included a request for developers voluntarily to use deflagration

“as an initial method of mitigation”.

Saying please is nice. However, as we well know, it does not always work. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Marine Management Organisation must update their current licensing regime to ensure that deflagration is the only option for munition disposal. After all, if the Royal Navy uses this method, why should not businesses do so as well? The Secretary of State must set out a realistic timeline for this requirement, so that businesses are able to adjust. No one wants to see renewable energy construction delayed any longer than is absolutely necessary, but none of us wants to see a bloodbath on our ocean floors.

This is one of those times when party politics can be set aside and evidence-based policy can be enacted with all-party agreement. The Minister’s team asked me yesterday to outline my arguments for today, to help them to prepare a response. I was happy to do so; I doubt that there will be much disagreement between us. But I will ask something in return. I ask the Minister to take ownership of these issues and regulate as soon as possible. Perhaps we could work together and invite Labour colleagues, too.

In closing, let me thank Joanna Lumley, who brought this issue to my attention. I was delighted to accept her invitation to become involved—indeed, who could resist?

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I intend to give Back-Bench Members an indicative time—four minutes, please.