Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Many Members on both sides of the House have been eagerly awaiting the passing of this piece of legislation, as have many outside campaigners who have worked tirelessly on the issue and many of our constituents. I have had many emails on the issue in Taunton Deane. I thank the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) for introducing the Bill and all those who have taken part in the debate, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), who did such a sterling job just one year ago. I think he will agree that we had a lively debate then, and we have had a similarly lively debate today.

I want to list some of the colleagues from both sides of the House who have spoken eloquently. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made the point well about taking photographs of these wonderful creatures. There were interventions by my right hon. Friends the Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), but there have also been moving speeches, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. Of course, many Opposition speakers have joined in as well.

It is clear that the issue of hunting trophies continues to divide opinion. We have witnessed some of that today from my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin). There is disagreement over the scientific, social, economic, moral and ethical rationales for trophy hunting, and that will no doubt continue for some time. There are those who point to evidence of the potential benefits of well-managed hunting—we heard a great deal about that from my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire. We also heard the other side of the argument, with evidence of the harm caused by poor practice.

I want to stress something critical: we face the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution. Those are the greatest threats we face globally and, as the nature Minister, they are in my inbox every day. I am only too aware of all those threats and of how we need to tackle them. About 1 million animal and plant species face extinction. Much of that has occurred very recently—in our lifetime. The abundance, diversity and connectivity of species is declining faster than at any time in human history, and that includes the species targeted for trophy hunting. We all know and love them: elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards and polar bears, to name just a handful.

There are those who argue that banning the import of trophies from those animals will do nothing to improve their conservation status, and I am certainly listening to my hon. Friends on that, but we have to ask ourselves whether importing into Great Britain trophies from endangered animals helps to tackle biodiversity loss. Does this trade really help to secure a sustainable future for species on the brink of extinction? Many animals are under terrible threat anyway because their habitats are shrinking. That is happening for a range of social and economic reasons, but climate change is certainly part of it. Ultimately, the aim of the Bill is to ensure that imports of hunting trophies to Great Britain do not put additional pressure on already threatened species. That is what should concentrate our minds, and that is why I am pleased to confirm that the Government will support the Bill. In doing so, we signal our continued determination to fulfil our manifesto commitment in this regard.

I have heard the argument that a ban will have implications for local communities and conservation efforts globally, which is definitely something we must consider carefully. We must be alive to the unintended consequences. However, the Bill is about imports into Great Britain, as many have said in the debate—my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal reminded us of that. This is about listening to the British public. There is a clear, strong and consistent message that we need to bring to an end the imports of endangered animals taken as hunting trophies. The winds of change are blowing us in that direction, and a number of countries have already put restrictions in place.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am not going to take any interventions, because Members have made so many already and we do not want to restrict the debate on the ultra low emission zone, but I will refer to some of the points that my hon. Friend rightly raised in a moment.

It is important to recognise that the import ban will not prevent a UK resident or citizen from participating in hunting while they are overseas. Trophy hunting can and will continue around the world. It is right that each country should be able to decide how best to manage its own wildlife, and the Bill does not change that. That point was highlighted vociferously by my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for North Herefordshire, but it has to be remembered that we are not preventing that. Countries around the world on both sides of the debate have had regular opportunities to discuss this issue and raise their points. Indeed, we have had letters from the Presidents of Botswana and Namibia—the high commissioner was written to just yesterday.

It is important to keep in mind the contribution that the UK trade in hunting trophies makes. Annual imports of hunting trophies to the UK are very few in number—on average, there have been 73 a year over the last 10 years. Even so, it is essential that we play our part to ensure that communities around the world benefit from conserving the wildlife that they live alongside. That was reflected in the agreement of the hugely important global biodiversity framework. There is now a strong and essential focus on how, as a global community, we finance biodiversity, conservation and restoration work. Members will be aware of just how much the Government are doing on that front, with our huge £93 million Darwin initiative and our £30 million Darwin Plus initiative. All of that focuses on biodiversity and conservation, working with locals and indigenous peoples.

Penultimately, let me run through some of the provisions in the Bill. The Bill will ban the import of hunting trophies from specific species, with the explicit aim of ensuring that imports into Great Britain do not place unnecessary pressure on species that are at risk. For those species, an import ban without exemptions will be the most effective protection, as it will provide clarity and address the conservation concerns arising from trophy hunting.

Clauses 1 and 2 make provision for the import ban, which will cover trophies brought into Great Britain from animals hunted after the legislation comes into force—there are strict, clear lines about anything that happens before that. The definition of a hunting trophy in clause 1 is:

“the body of an animal, or a readily recognisable part or derivative of an animal, that…is obtained…through hunting…for the hunter’s personal use”.

That is how hunting trophies are defined in our current controls under CITES.

Clause 2 applies the import ban to all species listed in annexes A and B of the wildlife trade regulation. The wildlife trade regulation implements the convention on international trade in endangered species—CITES—in Great Britain. Annexes A and B are broadly equivalent to appendices I and II of the convention, and include species that the global community has agreed to protect through trade restrictions due to their conservation status. They cover a great number of species threatened by international trade, such as big cats, all bears, all primates, hippos, rhinos and elephants. As a result, the Bill will end the permit system for imports of hunting trophies derived from those species. There will be no provision for exemptions to the import ban.

Clause 3 is about movements from Northern Ireland. The clause states clearly that the import ban will

“not apply in relation to the removal of qualifying Northern Ireland goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain.”

Clause 4, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, establishes an advisory board on hunting trophies. The clause states:

“The role of the Advisory Board is to advise the Secretary of State on any question relating to this Act”.

Clause 5 simply covers the Bill’s extent, application, commencement and short title.

Let me quickly discuss the impact assessment, as I did not allow any interventions. We heard some views about the impact assessment and what the Government will do about it, but there are two sides to that. The impact assessment presented both sides of the debate, but it also highlighted that trophy hunting can lead to population declines and that over-hunting threatens more than 30% of endangered mammal species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The impact assessment also noted that trophy hunting quotas are inappropriate, unscientific, excessive and over-reliant on opinions, and that the management of such quotas is based on poor-quality data. Similarly, a report by the University of Oxford found that the damaging effects of the unsustainable trade in hunting can extend beyond hunting areas.

I hope that I have answered some of the questions. This has been a very positive and lively debate on both sides of the House. I thank the right hon. Member for Warley for bringing the Bill back to the House, and reconfirm that the Government are fully committed to supporting it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With the leave of the House, I call John Spellar to wind up.