Asked by: Lord Alderdice (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the view espoused by President Gustavo Petro of Colombia that the 'war on drugs' has failed and that a new strategy, potentially involving legalisation, is required.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
It is estimated that the drugs trade costs the UK £22 billion per year. The UK's ten-year plan to combat illicit drugs recognises that the effective control of these substances is a crucial tool in mitigating the harm that they cause, alongside preventing their misuse and supporting people with drug addiction in finding a route to recovery. We are committed to working bilaterally with international partners, including Colombia, to disrupt the supply chains that feed European and UK markets and we are firmly committed to our international obligations under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that illicit cigarettes do not make their way into the UK.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Border Force have a comprehensive joint strategy, Tackling illicit tobacco: From leaf to light, to tackle illicit cigarettes. This has been highly effective in reducing the illicit cigarette trade from 22% in 2000-01 to 9% in 2020-21. Between 2015-16 and 2020-21, HMRC and Border Force have seized around 7.8 billion cigarettes destined for the UK. The UK is also a signatory to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and works with overseas partners to tackle the supply of illicit cigarettes upstream.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's report, entitled Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit Report: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published in August 2021, which states that raptors are being persecuted by organised crime groups, if the Government will (a) recognise raptor persecution as serious and organised crime and (b) allocate additional resources to help tackle raptor persecution.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We welcome this report and the fact that it recognises the UK's global leadership in fighting wildlife and forestry crime. We invited the UN to undertake this analysis and we are proud to be the first G7 country to request this assessment. While raptor persecution is not linked to organised crime groups, this government takes it very seriously and Defra has this year more than doubled its funding of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) from £165,000 per year to over £1.2 million over the next three years to target wildlife crime priorities including the illegal killing of birds of prey.
The report does, however, link the illegal trade of raptors to organised crime. This government recognises illegal wildlife trade (IWT) as a serious crime, which is sometimes carried out by organised criminal groups, and advocates that approach worldwide. From August 2021 the Home Office has provided additional funding for the NWCU to tackle money laundering related to IWT, aligning directly to G7 commitments to intensify the combating of illicit finance from IWT. This is intended to be a three-year project.
We will carefully consider all of the UN report's recommendations to help us build on the positive progress we have made in tackling wildlife crime. The UK is already committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit wildlife, local communities, the economy and protect global security. We are investing over £46m between 2014 and 2022 to counter international illegal trade by reducing demand, strengthening enforcement, ensuring effective legal frameworks and developing sustainable livelihoods.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will commit to (a) establishing secure and (b) increasing funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit as recommended by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's report entitled, Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit Report: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published in August 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) helps prevent and detect wildlife crime, by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis which highlights local or national threats and directly assisting law enforcement in their investigations.
Since 2016, the Home Office has provided £136,000 annually to the National Wildlife Crime Unit to bolster work preventing wildlife crime both domestically and internationally.
From August 2021 the Home Office will provide additional funding to the NWCU to tackle money laundering related to the International Wildlife Trade (IWT), aligning directly to G7 commitments to intensify the combating of illicit finance from IWT. This is intended to be a three-year project. Funding will be made available via the Home Office spending review settlement.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department has taken to ensure UK cultural institutions avoid relationships with non-UK organisations that (a) hold or (b) host items taken from Ukrainian territory.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is committed to protecting cultural property and combating the illicit trade in cultural objects. We are working with international partners, and the Ukrainian authorities, to protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage and property from unlawful removal and illicit trade.
All UK cultural institutions, and the art market, are required to ensure that the objects which they handle are of lawful provenance. No UK institutions should therefore have dealings with organisations that knowingly receive cultural objects removed from Ukraine without the appropriate permission of the relevant Ukrainian authorities.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to investigate the sale in the UK of ancient artefacts stolen from Ethiopia’s Tigray region as part of the ongoing conflict in that area.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
HM Government is committed to combating the illicit trade in cultural objects. We have a range of provisions in international and domestic UK law, including criminal offences, to protect cultural objects from unlawful removal and illicit trade. The investigation of cases of illicit trade in cultural objects is a matter for the police, and the prosecution of such cases is a matter for the relevant prosecuting authorities. UK authorities work with online selling platforms, such as eBay, to combat the sale of stolen cultural objects. The Government encourages anyone who believes that a cultural object is being unlawfully traded to raise it with the appropriate authorities.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure cultural institutions trading in or housing cultural objects and materials looted from Ukraine are sanctioned and unable to operate or trade with (a) institutions, (b) individuals, (c) charities and (d) businesses in the UK.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
No one in the UK should be doing business with any institution which knowingly acquires cultural objects looted from Ukraine. International and domestic UK law includes a range of provisions, including criminal offences, to protect cultural objects from unlawful removal and illicit trade. Art market businesses and museums in the UK subscribe to codes of conduct which set out their responsibilities and procedures for ensuring the lawful provenance of the cultural objects which they handle. The Government expects anyone dealing in cultural objects to ensure that those objects have not been looted from any country, including Ukraine, and that the businesses and institutions they are dealing with are acting lawfully.
Asked by: Earl of Dundee (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property, adopted on 3 May 2017.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to protecting cultural property and preventing the illicit trade in cultural property. The UK has a strong record of identifying stolen and unlawfully removed cultural property and returning it to its rightful owners. Existing UK law provides an effective framework within which to do so.
We have no current plans to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Offences Relating to Cultural Property.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact on the export of illicit cultural property from Northern Ireland to the EU following the repeal of the EU Cultural Property Import Regulations in Great Britain and implementation in Northern Ireland through the Northern Ireland protocol.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK has sufficient legal powers to tackle the illicit trade in cultural goods and the import of cultural goods which have been unlawfully removed from another country. These powers are set out in existing domestic law, and in some cases also derive from our obligations in international law, notably UNESCO Conventions. The UK has a strong record of finding and returning unlawfully removed cultural goods, and remains determined to tackle the illicit trade in cultural objects.
The majority of the imports of cultural goods from Great Britain into Northern Ireland are carried out by museums rather than businesses or private owners. The revocation of EU Regulation 2019/880 on the introduction and the import of cultural goods in Great Britain will not significantly affect any potential export of illicit cultural property from Northern Ireland to the EU. Any changes to the pattern of imports will be identified and will lead to closer scrutiny. As much of the EU Regulation may not be implemented before 2025, precisely how it will need to be applied in Northern Ireland is still being evaluated.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what further steps they will take to stop the criminal drug trade within the UK.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Drugs devastate lives, ruin families and damage communities. This Government is determined to tackle this threat and that is why we published a ten-year Strategy to combat illicit drugs. This Strategy sets out a whole system approach of how the Government is doing more than ever to cut off the supply of drugs by criminal gangs and give people with a drug addiction a route to a productive and drug-free life reducing the recreational use of drugs
Underpinned by significant investment, we will reduce drug-related crimes, deaths, harms and overall drug use. This includes £300m of dedicated investment from the Home Office over the next three years to drive work on tackling drug supply
The strategy is on the gov.uk page.