Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what further training they intend to provide to the police and the National Crime Agency in preparation for their plan for a complete ban on the sale of ivory.
With the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office funds the National Wildlife Crime Unit, which provides intelligence, analysis and specialist assistance to individual police forces and other law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom that allows them to deal effectively with wildlife crime investigations, including cases that involve the illegal trading of ivory.
The Unit will provide briefing notes for all UK police forces with regards to the enforcement of any changes arising from the Government’s plans to ban the sale of any post-1947 worked ivory. The police may also receive expert advice about ivory from organisations such as the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Police and NCA are given appropriate training as their deployment requires.