Domestic Ivory Market

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Rob Marris

Monday 6th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Lady knows so much about this subject matter—[Interruption.] She denies it. There may be other contributing factors, so that still does not necessarily date the actual ivory, and that is the subject for today’s debate. We have to move on from trying to draw arbitrary lines and making judgments, either with the human eye or with carbon dating—we have had contributions about the costing of that—and say, “Why make things so complicated, when out there across the country and in this House we want a total ban?” Let us move on from that debate. Let us be really pragmatic and bring in the total ban.

[Rob Marris]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. I am trying to be pragmatic. I keep pressing for the evidence. I have to say to her, with all due respect, that she is assuming what she is trying to prove, and I do not accept that as a legislator. She assumes that a total ban will save elephants. Can she give me evidence for that?

[Rachael Maskell]

If my hon. Friend will hold on for now, I will move on with my speech. I will pick up those issues. The problem is, as we argue and debate in here, the gangsters out there are laughing at us, as they are still making their millions on the back of dead elephants. To be seen to take leadership on this issue and to control the agenda, it is so important that we now move forward and see that total ban. We know that the Government promised that in their manifesto, and I have made it clear that Labour would also bring in a total ivory ban, so let us move forward on this today.

The clock continues to tick. We keep debating this issue, and I dare say that if movement is not made in the Minister’s contribution today, we will be back here again and again, and at question times, continually saying, “Let’s move forward, because there is a majority view of how we take this forward.” We cannot go back to the CITES conference or to Hanoi in 2016, or look back to what China has said. We are in 2017 and we have now got our opportunity to make our mark. I therefore urge the Minister to do that, because in 2018 I do not want the UK to be on the world stage as apologists. I want to ensure that we are proud of what we have achieved to save the elephant.

I want to pick up the point that this is not just about a total ban; there has to be a wider strategy built around that. That is right, and that goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris). We have to make sure that we move forward. We have heard about the work that the Ministry of Defence is doing: the 1st Division is out there, training up people in the parks to ensure they have better security. That is part of the strategy and, as we have heard, education from the NGOs is absolutely vital, so that this generation and the next understand what is at stake.

We also need to think about what is happening with antiques, as we have heard debated today. I want to pick up the point strongly argued by the hon. Members for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) and for Kensington (Victoria Borwick). I will take issue once again with calling them beautiful works of art. I am sorry, they are not. The reality is that animals have died for their production. We need to be honest about what we are dealing with. The problem is, every time these objects are glorified, value is added on to them and on to ivory. We want to see the value taken out of ivory. We do not want these items displayed as glorious parts of our heritage. It is a shameful part of our history, and we should name it as that and realise what we did in leading the world in those trades. We need to move on in the way in which we look at these pieces and name them for what they are.

Why have them on display? The Minister made an important point in the previous debate when she said that perhaps we could take them off the shelves of our museums. Perhaps that is the right way forward. I thought that was a progressive point, because that is a way of taking the value out of these items. That would be a first step in saying that they do not hold the value we have placed on them, and that would be a step forward.