Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

I commend the Bill to the Committee.

[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.

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[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Member is right. There is no evidence that such activity has led to the conservation and protection of animals. In fact, as a result of trophy hunting, elephant numbers are now in a critical situation. Lions are often hunted after they have been bred in captivity, so there are no longer even enough out in the wild, and the numbers are down to about 200,000. Leopards have fallen from 700,000 in the 1960s—in 1961, I think—to 50,000 today, so there is no evidence there of conservation. It is the same with hippos—the hippopotamus population is down by 20%.

The idea that hunting animals somehow helps with conservation is just not proven by the facts—yet despite that, and despite the clear threat, we find that, given the number of trophies coming into the United Kingdom, the trade has not declined but increased substantially: from 17 per year in 1981 to 300 in the year before the pandemic. There does not even appear to be any restraint on those who carry out these activities, despite the fact that fewer animals are available.

Fourthly, I do not think that there is even an economic case. It is significant that countries such as Tanzania, which are banning the practice, are getting far more money per hectare from nature tourism than they would have from the hunting of animals. The figure that has been given is $14 per hectare, as opposed to 20 cents per hectare for when tourism was centred on hunting wild animals. The case is unassailable.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on it. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right that the Bill could mean that Northern Ireland acts a back door. Another way of tackling the issue is to persuade EU countries to implement bans. Finland has passed a law that will, from June, ban the import of hunting trophies of endangered species. Does he agree that we need to encourage other EU countries to go down the same path?

[Sammy Wilson]

Yes, I do. There is an international battle to be had here. If we really believe that hunting is endangering animals, then we should encourage nations across the world to act—and not only nations in Africa; do not forget that there are 30 countries across the world where endangered animals are hunted almost to extinction. We need to persuade those countries that there is an alternative to this trade. We also need to persuade countries that allow trophies in, and therefore encourage the trade, of the view encapsulated in the Bill, so that there is a whole approach to the issue. I would be more than happy if, instead of Northern Ireland having to comply with EU law, the EU decided it would comply with UK law. That would be a gain for us. I have no doubt that the UK population shares its opposition to hunting trophies with the populations of many other countries.

I give my full endorsement to the Bill, and congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley on pushing it to this point. I would like to hear from the Minister about how the loophole that will exist until the protocol is dealt with can be handled.