Ivory Bill — House of Lords, 2018-09-10
Topic: Public Lands
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this Bill, which received its second reading in July, is far-reaching and has real implications for many people whom this House does not always consider. Before I move the amendment and explain why I think it is important, perhaps I might strike a note that I am sure will receive the approbation of everyone in the House and also those who have now quitted it—namely, that we wish to send our warmest good wishes to my noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham, who is in hospital at the moment. We hope to see him back in full fighting form by the time that this Bill reaches Report I thought it would be sensible to table, at the very beginning of this Bill, an amendment that enables us to discuss the fundamental, controversial point. I do not think that anyone in your Lordships’ House, present or absent, does not wholly subscribe to the aims of the Bill as they have been enunciated over the past year or more. We all deplore the poaching of elephants and we all wish to see those noble creatures, both in Africa and in Asia, preserved. We wish to see them multiply and we should have absolutely no compunction about treating those who poach these animals with the utmost severity. Equally, we should treat with the utmost severity those who work the tusks of the animals and those who profit from what has been worked. That, I think, is common ground across the House But one does not save an elephant from being poached by effectively forbidding people to own and treat as proper property ivory items that are one, two, three, four or five centuries old. It is true that the Bill has certain limited exemptions: items of supreme museum quality and those which contain, in the case of furniture and so on, less than 10% ivory, while in the case of musical instruments, less than 20% ivory, as well as miniatures, as long as they are less, I believe, than 320 centimetres in size. The very recognition that there should be exemptions creates a situation which is arbitrary in the extreme. The Government accept these exemptions and they therefore acknowledge that it is entirely proper for antique objects of either great importance or which have a small percentage of ivory to be saved. But where does the ivory come from? It is ivory that has come from elephants in the past and the recognition of this makes a nonsense of the proposition that all other antique ivory should, in effect, not be allowed to be kept or traded or sold. What I am saying in the amendment is that we should look at this carefully before proceeding I shall give your Lordships one or two examples. Only the other day, when I tabled my amendment, I had a letter from a body of which I had not previously heard: Chess Collectors International. Many people in our country enjoy playing chess, and until the beginning of the 20th century a very large number of chess pieces were made of ivory. Perhaps the most famous of all in this country are those made of walrus ivory, the Lewis chessmen in the British Museum. But there are many others, many of them made from elephant ivory. Often these chess collectors have purchased these sets not only because they wish to play chess with them but because they regard them as some of the finest small sculptures in existence and objects of beauty and importance.