Ivory Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-04
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I want to underscore some of the points already made and develop a further point that I canvassed briefly with my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) The first reason why this Bill is so important is the context. Elephants are in decline by 8% per annum according to the 2016 great elephant census, and we have heard today some other startling statistics: 55 elephants killed per day, 20,000 per annum, and an elephant dying every 25 minutes or so. There is legislation in place, but it is inadequate: in 1990 ivory was banned under the convention on international trade in endangered species, but that of course covered only post-1990 ivory. The message is therefore unclear and inconsistent, and this excellent Bill will help to bring clarity and consistency. As others have indicated, it also closes off that loophole that exists and the scope to launder illegal ivory as legal ivory In due course, after the Committee stage and when this Bill is enacted, the message will go out that the UK ivory market is closed to all items containing ivory, apart from a few very narrow exceptions. That is fantastic, and it also means that the UK will take on a role of global leadership and will be very well placed come the October meeting on the illegal wildlife trade There is also a point that I want to develop which will add to this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park made the point powerfully that the British people want to ensure that when we play our important role in the world in this area we can bring real ammunition to the fight. However, we should look at the budget we allocate to this important priority for the British people. When we look at the language used in how we go about deploying that financial firepower, we see that it is very narrowly focused. I am referring to the fact that every year the UK spends 0.7% of our gross national income on international development. We have the Department for International Development, but it is very narrowly focused, because its sole goal, as indicated by the House of Commons International Development Committee report, is ending poverty. That is because in 1970 the UN target was set and at that point the UN General Assembly said the money must be spent on overseas development assistance. So the money must be spent on development assistance, and the Act which enacted the 0.7% requirement was called the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 and the Department is called the Department for International Development. What I would like to see—and what I sense that my constituents in Cheltenham would like to see—is for that Department to become the Department for International Development and Conservation, because at the moment the sole focus on poverty is a difficult pill to swallow. I have poverty in my constituency—there are areas of entrenched poverty—and it is therefore a difficult sell to say that £14 billion must be dedicated exclusively to that fight To put this in context, our entire prisons budget is about £4 billion, yet we will be spending £14 billion on tackling poverty. This wonderful Bill, which has enjoyed cross-party support, presents a great opportunity; it can be the springboard for us to do something bolder and more radical. There should be greater fluidity in terms of how we spend this money. Before anyone says that we cannot do that because the OECD says that it must be limited to international development, let me remind the House—lest we forget—that because the United Kingdom is an international aid superpower, we were able to leverage that power to achieve some flexibility in February 2016. We are now allowed to use the money in that budget to pay for peace and security-related costs, so why can we not go one step further? Why can we not use the excellent opportunity presented by the Ivory Bill to go further and to direct that money towards conservation? Let the moment start here. The Department for International Development should in due course become the Department for International Development and Conservation.