Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, last year I made inquiries as to whether the Government were going to show more urgency in honouring their 2019 manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies acquired from endangered animals. Delay inevitably meant that many more animals, whose future was already under threat, would die unnecessarily and their body parts would continue to be allowed to form degrading and inhumane displays on the walls and floors of various buildings in this country. I am therefore delighted to offer strong support to Henry Smith’s Private Member’s Bill, to which Ministers have given a fair wind to help its passage through Parliament.

I am extremely proud of my cousin, Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a zoologist and expert on wildlife who was a founding father of the charity Save the Elephants, which is based in Kenya. Of course, local residents must be allowed to defend their families and their rural livelihoods against any threatening or dangerous wildlife, but the preservation of biodiversity is now a great global concern. Elephants, for example, are afraid of African honeybees, so creating fences formed from beehives is one innovative way of preventing them from damaging crops and antagonising local farmers. The charity’s aim is to secure a future for elephants in harmony with people, and it has played a vital role in stopping the illegal trade in ivory.

By banning the import of hunting trophies from animals whose future on this planet is of concern, we are not telling other countries what they should do or how they should act to conserve their wildlife. This legislation applies to the territory of Great Britain, and passing the Bill is our way of making a contribution to the preservation of the amazing variety of animals, with which we share this earth. We are telling the world that we will not facilitate the taking of an already endangered animal’s life for pleasure and we will not help a hunter bring home some sadistically obtained souvenirs.

The great moral wrong of trophy hunting must not be justified because some of the money paid to indulge this repulsive practice is reportedly used to help fund local conservation policies. Indeed, there are arguments over how much of such money actually reaches local communities.

A poll in 2020 showed that 80% of the British public support a ban on the import and export of hunting trophies. Those who inflict pain and death on animals for fun or pleasure stand against the tide of history. Future conservation policies cannot be based on disreputable foundations.

There has to be a better way. We must encourage the kind of visitors who care about the welfare of the animals and who travel to Africa and other countries. These are the ecotourists who pay to learn more, in particular about Africa’s wonderful diversity of wildlife, and who want to hear from local conservationists as to how they can help to ensure a future for these animals, while photographing and recording their activities. The honourable Member for Crawley, when introducing his Bill, stressed that in a recent poll

“only 16% of people in South Africa supported trophy hunting, and that 74% wanted the Government to focus on nature tourism and photo safaris instead”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/22; col. 573.]

—shooting with cameras, not guns. That is the kind of responsible wildlife conservation strategy which we should all support.

I would like to end with a story of Androcles, a slave who had escaped and who met a lion in the cave. The lion was in tremendous pain. Androcles took the large thorn out of the lion’s paw and subsequently met the lion again at the arena. The Roman emperor was astonished to see that the lion refused to kill Androcles, having remembered that he had helped him a great deal. As a result, the Roman emperor pardoned Androcles from slavery and also freed the lion. Surely that compassion and lasting friendship are the noble values that should uphold conservation policies, not bringing pain, death and damage to our precious planet. Indeed, we should all support this Bill.

Avian Influenza: Game Birds

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Given the absolute assurance that we will follow the science, and that it will be evidence-led and neither anecdotal nor the sort of knee-jerk reactions of people coming from both ends of the issue, the noble Baroness must also agree with me that she wants to see—she is shaking her head already, but she has not listened to what I have to say, and she might actually agree with me—a reversal in the tragic decline in farmland birds and an increase in biodiversity in this country. Some £250 million a year is spent by private individuals on conservation, because of activities such as shooting, so she must think of the counterfactual when she argues her point.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

Is the Minister aware that a tremendous number of gannets have died from avian flu? Most of those birds have a wing-span of six feet, and there is a considerable danger that, instead of having a life expectancy of 70 years, they are transmitting the illness to game birds and other species. Can something more be done, either through vaccination or other preventive measures?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

What is happening to shore birds is a tragedy. There is a slightly different strain affecting shore birds and poultry—and pheasants I class with the latter. It is a tragedy that is apparent when you look at Bass Rock, which for centuries has been white and is now black, because there are not the sea-birds on it. We are working across government to make sure that we address the disease in wild as well as domestic birds.

Avian Flu

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they ensure that there is a regular exchange of information with other countries on the prevalence and spread of avian flu in migratory bird populations; and what steps they are taking in this regard to protect the health of seabirds and waterfowl.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, international collaboration and knowledge exchange is facilitated through the World Organisation for Animal Health by the UK Chief Veterinary Officer and the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s international reference laboratory. The UK’s membership of the Ospar-Helcom-ICES joint working group on birds and the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement are also key forums for improving collaboration, monitoring and information sharing on avian influenza in migratory birds. Defra has commissioned Natural England to assess the vulnerability of seabird species and recommend actions.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

I thank the Minister very much for his reply and for putting in place a wild bird avian influenza strategy to assess the impact of this desperately damaging disease. In view of the fact that the United Kingdom and European nations are in the grip of the worst ever outbreak of bird flu, will he now consider widening and strengthening the Government’s current measures to create a fully comprehensive avian flu response action plan, working in co-operation with the devolved Governments? This plan could include improved seabird site protection measures and the encouragement of research and development on more effective vaccines for domestic birds.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of an international response to this. I assure him that there is almost daily collaboration across the devolved Governments and through international fora such as the ones I just mentioned. We are also consulting our European colleagues in the European Food Safety Authority closely; we have two officials on the panel working on this. This requires an international response. The impact it is having on our wild bird population and on domestic birds in poultry farming and other settings is tragic. We are working really hard, with a sense of real emergency, to try to find solutions, but it is a very difficult one to solve as it is now endemic in the wild bird population.

Hunting Trophies

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they plan to introduce legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies; and what is the proposed timetable for that legislation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals. We will be bringing forward legislation to deliver this measure as soon as parliamentary time allows.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he has just said. Will he acknowledge that the Government have the opportunity, by getting this Bill on the statute book as soon as possible, to play a significant part in saving many rare animals from a horrible and unnecessary death? Therefore, can he confirm that the Bill will go further than the manifesto commitment and cover more than 1,000 additional near-threatened species, as stated in the government press release of 10 December? Is he aware that, at the end of last year, more than 300 carcasses of endangered species had been shipped to this country since 2019? Is it not the case that any delay in enacting the legislation would result in many more large animals being killed?

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 46. I was surprised that the Minister seemed to give the impression that we were saying that the British fishing industry or this sector had a bad reputation, or that we were somehow denying that it was trying to obtain sustainability. I do not think that anybody in the Chamber has said that at all. However, that provides a good introduction to this amendment.

One of the things that the UK did, as part of the European Union, was to help reform the common fisheries policy quite successfully in all sorts of ways. The landing obligation was one of those reforms, which I am delighted the Government are still pursuing post Brexit, and so was the issue of regionalisation—an area of fisheries management that the UK always pursued in the Council of Ministers. In the last major reform of the common fisheries policy, we achieved regionalisation to a large degree.

Why did we do that? Why was that important? Well, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred to, a large proportion of our commercial, and indeed other, species are not confined to the UK EEZ. As he said, spawning grounds, for instance, are more likely and more often to be found elsewhere rather than in our exclusive economic zone. What that means—and this is stark-staringly obvious—is that we have to continue co-operation to manage these stocks because, if we do not, it will not work.

A key difficulty with this Bill for me is that, to a degree, it asks for three fictions—or three novels—in the form of the two documents on sustainable fisheries, which we will continue to talk about, and also, particularly, the fisheries management plans. I welcome the Minister’s offer to talk about those, because I do not think the Bill is very clear about what these plans are trying to do. However, one thing that I am sure about is that the fisheries management plans need to take into account the total circulation of the fish, or other marine animals, in the areas that we are trying to manage. If we do not do that, the plans are a waste of time; they are just not going to work.

This amendment says that there has to be an obligation—of course, all our international obligations are general rather than specific, so they would not work sufficiently in terms of the detail that I would see in the management plans—to do our best, or a best endeavours obligation on the fishing authorities, to come to agreement with other non-UK authorities that are in charge of those fish stocks that are within that management plan, so that we have a holistic plan for the range of those stocks. I cannot think why we could not do that, but I do not believe that the international obligations are specific enough for there to be a need to do that at management plan level. There is a general obligation; it is not a specific obligation.

That is why my amendment proposes that fisheries authorities, in bringing those management plans together, have to try to reach agreement with other coastal states or member states of the European Union. It is not compulsory—clearly, agreement might not be reached—but, equally clearly, those others will want that same result. This will not be part of the Brexit negotiations, so it is not around high negotiation; it is around practical effect, once we are out of the common fisheries policy and we are into our future relation. There is not some great negotiation point here; it is a matter of trying to achieve all the goals in those objectives, all of which will be largely impossible to achieve if we do not have management plans that co-ordinate with those of adjacent coastal states.

That seems to me to be a complete and clear proposition—one that not just biologists but anyone who has been involved in this area would recognise—and I hope that the Minister will find a way of getting this aspect into the Bill. I say once again that, without this aspect, we are looking at a Bill that talks about management plans that become a fiction. I beg to move.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 57 and 58, which were put down by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern.

The premise I start from is that conservation and sustainability are essential if we want to conserve all kinds of fish for the good of our planet and as a legacy that we can be proud of for the future generations who will inhabit it. To achieve such success for the future, we need both clear, co-ordinated objectives and detailed management plans working in concert. The changes proposed will improve the coherence between the objectives contained in the detailed management plans. These plans will have to include an explanation of how the overarching objectives of sustainability and marine conservation have been interpreted and applied.

I ask the Minister to give more details on the operation of these new management plans and how they will co-exist alongside other co-management initiatives, which already exist in the industry. For example, the shellfish advisory group is engaged in such an arrangement, and this can be built upon.

We also believe that, within six months after the passing of this Bill, the Secretary of State should issue a consultation on the design and creation of these management plans. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the Government’s long-term vision for the future of this very special industry?

On the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—who, if I may say so, was an excellent chairman of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, on which I was privileged to serve—I believe what he said is essentially right, in that every interest should look at this issue with a considerable sense of realism. In his speech, he pointed the way to a meeting of minds, which I believe and hope very much will come into existence. Surely, it should not be beyond the wit of humankind to come to a meeting of minds on this subject.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lord, perhaps it is as well that I should speak to my amendments, in view of the fact that my noble friend has done it already. These amendments are an attempt to deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, referred to earlier.

Amendments 57 and 58 which I have put forward—my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering has also signed up to the first one—would require the fisheries management plans to explain how they are implementing, or taking account of, the objectives in a way that we can understand. I think that that is a reasonable obligation. It is not a legal obligation in quite the sense that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was talking of in the earlier amendment, but I think that these objectives are intended to form part of the structure of the management plans. Therefore, the test is whether, on a proper examination of the management plans, we can see how these objectives have been implemented.

Amendment 58 would require the Secretary of State to set out procedures for arriving at these management plans, including consultation on how this should happen. He would then be able to go forward with a procedure which will implement the objectives within the management plan.

My other amendment in this group, Amendment 125A, would require the Secretary of State to make a statement about the economic benefits of this system to the United Kingdom in pursuance of the national benefits objective. Management under that objective requires social and economic benefits. I venture to think that it would be right for the Secretary of State to apply his mind in time, just at the end of the first year, to explain how he hopes to achieve economic benefits as a result of the arrangements made under this Bill for fishing in United Kingdom waters.

I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said about the need for co-operation with other authorities that have responsibility for stocks which we share with them, for the obvious reason that, unless there is such co-operation, there is no real management of the whole stock. As the noble Lord said, it is absolute common sense to do that. It is not quite a matter for the negotiations over Brexit; it is about practical arrangements for ascertaining what is required in respect of these stocks.

Coming back to a point that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made earlier about equal access arrangements, as I understand the Bill, the equal access arrangements are about the actual movement of fishing boats. The quota system controls the catch. If one looks at what the Bill says about equal access, it is pretty plain that, for example, you are not tied to your home port; you can go somewhere else. If you think that there is a better bargain in Peterhead than in Grimsby, you can go there. Conversely, of course, if you fish in Scotland and think there is a better bargain in the south, you can go there, but you cannot drop your line to bring fish out of the water as you go through English waters if you do not have a quota for that. If you are licensed for Scotland, you have to exercise your quota rights there. That is the way that I have understood it. I may be completely wrong, but it looks to me as though that is the way the Bill is framed. That goes back to a previous discussion.

So far as my amendments are concerned, they are intended to incorporate the objectives into the plan in a way that anybody can reasonably understand. That obligation would be a practical obligation in respect of these objectives. We cannot expect any authority to implement all of them; it will depend a bit on the nature of the arrangements. Incorporating them in a way that is explicable and explained in the management plans is the way forward. I would like to know in due course what the Government think about these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

I do want—and look to my noble friend to offer—assurance about the way in which the Government and the fisheries policy authorities will go about the processes of securing representations at the right time from the right people. I beg to move.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas]

My Lords, if nobody else wishes to speak, I want to do so on behalf of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, who unfortunately could not be here today but who gave me permission this morning to speak to his two amendments in this group, 40 and 47.

Amendment 40 states:

“If, in the light of a review, the fisheries policy authorities conclude that changes are not required to the JFS, they must prepare and publish, as soon as reasonably practicable, a statement setting out the reasons for that conclusion.”


My interpretation of this is that if, in the light of a review, the fisheries policy authorities conclude that changes are not required to the joint fisheries statement, they must prepare and publish as soon as practicable. In other words, there must be as much openness as possible in the statement setting out the reasons for that conclusion.

Amendment 67 states that the period should be

“not less than 28 days”.

This means that the facts must be realistically and correctly stated in the document that would be issued. This decision ensures that the scrutiny period for consultation on the joint fisheries statement should be long enough to ascertain all the facts. It is a safeguard that should be supported, and I submit that it is in the interests of everyone involved. The purpose is to prevent a conclusion being rushed out when all the scientific evidence may need to be taken into account for the cause of sustainability.

I do not think there is anything more I can adequately say on this subject, as the facts speak for themselves.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas. I too was going to speak to Amendments 40 and 47 on behalf of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose—the Law Society of Scotland had sent me a very extensive briefing—but the noble Lord has made all the points that I would have made.

On issue of the 28 days, we have Amendment 69, which mirrors Amendment 67. The Bill currently requires each of the fisheries policy authorities to specify a period for scrutiny of the consultation draft of the joint fisheries statement, but no definition is set out in paragraphs (3) and (4) of Schedule 1. There is no timescale attached to the definition, and it is important that we have one.

The Bill provides that each fisheries policy authority must specify a period for scrutiny of the consultation draft by the appropriate legislature. To rectify this, we propose a minimum period of 28 days if scrutiny must be undertaken. That is important, so I echo what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, it is refreshing and a great pleasure to follow a distinguished former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, who has a reputation for justice and fairness. I hope that the Minister will consider his wise words with care.

There is no doubt that the negotiations between the Government and the European Union to secure the future of the United Kingdom’s fishing industry after we leave the common fisheries policy are one of the trickiest and most challenging aspects of the trade talks now beginning. They will require cool heads all round and, on the Government’s part, a steely commitment not to let down our fishing communities. Hopes and aspirations in this iconic industry are high, from Peterhead to Cornwall, and what a blow it would be if they were dashed by some financial trade-off. That is not to mention the political gift such a perception would be to some, who would seek to ruthlessly exploit it to further damage the union, as their eventual aim is to destroy it altogether.

In stark economic terms, the UK fishing industry may be responsible only for around 1% of GDP but it has an emotional hold on the hearts of this island nation. In this respect, I hope that during the forthcoming talks with the EU, Ministers will keep in mind that famous definition of a cynic in one of Oscar Wilde’s plays:

“A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”


It is indeed the case that the intrinsic value to the United Kingdom of these small but indomitable communities can never be assessed simply on a spreadsheet.

The Bill we are debating today sets out a new framework for managing our fisheries in a sustainable way as the UK emerges as an independent coastal state after over 40 years of being inside the EU’s common fisheries policy. It also details welcome plans for how the UK will take into account the impact of climate change on the health of the ocean and indeed our entire planet. The Scottish Government are unlikely to show a great deal of appreciation, but it must be drawn to their attention that the Bill also gives important new powers to the devolved Administrations to help conserve and enhance the marine environment, and conservation is of course enormously important.

When I first spoke on this subject some three years ago, I acknowledged that some compromises might have to be made in the interests of the fishing industry’s sizeable export trade—70% of the catch goes to European markets. However, it is unfortunate that some EU countries seem to want the UK to concede that their access to our fishing grounds should remain very much as it is at present. Setting out their template for talks, their negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said that he wants to uphold EU fishing activities and that any agreement should

“build on existing reciprocal access conditions.”

This clearly cannot be the case, as the Bill removes the EU’s automatic right to fish in our waters. It is to be hoped that the Government will stick to their commitment for annual negotiations to be held, resulting in improved quotas for our boats and the licensing of access for foreign fishing vessels to the United Kingdom. These would be based not on historic quotas but on scientific data about sustainable catch levels. It is a system strongly supporting conservation, which has already been put into practice by Norway, Iceland and the Faroes. At the same time, the Government have to bear in mind, during the talks, that any barriers and tariffs erected because of UK divergence from EU regulations and standards would be bad news for those who need to get their fish and other seafood produce swiftly to the available markets.

There is also the problem that the EU is insisting that negotiations should be inextricably linked to the wider trade talks. The Government are adamant that this will not be the case, and rightly, in my view. We are dealing with a situation on which an expression has been made by no less a person than Barrie Deas. He issued a statement of powerful wording, which he sent to me this morning. He said:

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure a better deal for the UK fishing industry and revive coastal communities across the country. The Government must not backdown on their promises to UK fishermen. If it does, many of the objectives that the Fisheries Bill is aiming to achieve will be impossible”.


He is chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations.

Speaking previously, I stressed the totemic nature of the United Kingdom’s fishing industry and spoke of the sheer spirit and bravery shown over the years by those who work at sea, as well as the dangers faced. As an example, at Eyemouth, down the coast from where I live, a starkly poignant granite memorial depicting a broken mast commemorates that Black Friday when, on 14 October 1881, a terrible storm took the lives of 189 men from the port and left 267 children without their fathers.

Last week, the Prime Minister chose to set out the Government’s vision of its post-Brexit future economic relationship with the EU amid the splendour of the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. He spoke of the United Kingdom being “on the slipway”, recalled our “seafaring ancestors” and claimed we are now embarking “on a great voyage”. We must hope that all those who ply their trade in our historic fishing communities around the United Kingdom will still share that same spirit of optimism and of new beginnings once the trade talks with our European neighbours have concluded.

Brexit: Plant and Animal Biosecurity

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who put his finger on a spot of enormous importance, which is that the Food Standards Agency has been a success story and this should be borne in mind by the Government.

I should mention a past interest: I represented the constituency of Edinburgh West for more than 20 years, during which time I witnessed the way that an alien and enormously destructive bark beetle was able to ravage the arboreal ecological systems in our country. Scotland’s capital city has lost more than 30,000 elm trees since the late 1960s, when the new, virulent strain of Dutch elm disease was brought to the United Kingdom—on, it is believed, logs from North America. By 1980, 20 million trees throughout the United Kingdom had been destroyed, which gives some picture of the enormity of the task facing the Government and our country.

As for the biosecurity of our animal life, the current threat to our pigs from the spread of African swine fever is very dangerous and every effort is being made to keep it at bay and provide a protective vaccine. The shocking fate of our elm trees and the alarming threat posed by the global advance of the virulent and deadly African swine fever offer a stark reminder and a warning about the importance of having truly effective and fit-for-purpose biosecurity systems in place to protect the United Kingdom from imported threats to the health of our plants, trees and animals.

The sub-committee’s report expresses considerable concern over whether the United Kingdom will be able to replace, and in many cases recreate in time for our exit, all the safeguards, alerts and intelligence-sharing put in place over the years by the European Union and which currently help to protect our plants and animals from dangerous invaders. It urges that we should seek continued participation in EU alerts on animal, plant and pest disease threats. I congratulate the chairman of our committee, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on his wise and far-sighted advice to the Government. On publication of the report, he said:

“The existing arrangements are far from perfect, but significant gaps will be created when the UK leaves them. We rely on the EU for everything from auditing plant nurseries and farms to funding our research laboratories. The UK Government has a huge amount of work to do to replace this system in time for Brexit, and failure to do so could have an economic and environmental impact that would be felt for decades to come”.


I raise with the Minister the vital matter of who will be in place to implement all the new biosecurity checks and inspection procedures that will soon have to be rolled out and put into operation on a UK-only basis. The Chief Veterinary Officer of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Dr Christine Middlemiss, told the committee that,

“within the food chain, a vast majority of vets working are of non-UK origin”.

The British Veterinary Association has said that the majority of these vets are from the EU. The committee also heard from the Equine Disease Coalition and the British Equine Veterinary Association. It was quite clear in what it told us. To quote from paragraph 126:

“A shortage of vets will have an adverse effect on disease surveillance, disease control measures, risk of disease incursions, control of an exotic disease emergency, domestic food safety, loss of high quality reputation for exports and animal disease research. This at a time when the potential loss of harmonised disease controlled trade movements between the EU and the UK will increase the need for veterinary checks and certification to maintain our biosecurity”.


With regard to the public sector in a post-Brexit world, the report acknowledges that there has been recent recruitment of staff in Defra but also urges the department to ensure that enough appropriately trained staff are dedicated to the issue of biosecurity.

The United Kingdom Government are currently engaged in the very important process of devising a new UK immigration policy, so can the Minister guarantee that people such as veterinarians, who are essential to our future biosecurity, will be on what is called the shortage occupation list, which is part of that new policy, and that their profession will be prioritised as part of the new arrangements? I am sure he will agree that no matter how good systems, inspections and regulatory checks are, they are effective only if they are policed by ample numbers of appropriately qualified men and women. I hope the Minister will give this pressing matter of sufficiency of staffing very high priority.

With regard to another aspect of biodiversity, I first thank the Minister for his apparent readiness to support the launching of a global review into the economics of biodiversity which includes biosecurity. In time, such a move might well help save countless lives and perhaps even assist with the removal of plastics from the oceans. Secondly, the initiative to increase the waters designated as marine protection areas is very welcome. The Minister will be well aware of to what extent it affects biosecurity, but it will also greatly increase conservation areas as far west as Ascension Island—conservation of sea life, as well as wildlife, will be very welcome. I wish him every good fortune in the very important task of securing renewed co-operation with other countries’ Governments to enhance environmental purposes and prospects.

REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

I understand that we do not live in a perfect world. We often have to make compromises, but some compromises need to be weighed up very carefully. If this fatal Motion is passed, the UK will be left without any framework within which to operate on this sensitive issue, and businesses and the public will suffer. If we support this SI, which has some significant flaws, the UK will operate under an imperfect regime, the consequences of which have been highlighted this afternoon. There are several phrases to describe this situation: “between a rock and a hard place” or “between the devil and the deep blue sea”. I know that the Minister is listening to the arguments put forward, but I suspect that his hands are tied by those in the other place. However, I look forward to what he has to say and hope that we can find a way forward.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I will be extremely brief. This has been a remarkably good debate, and I strongly congratulate the sub-committee Chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the noble Lords, Professor Lord Krebs and Professor Lord Trees, and the noble Viscount, Professor Lord Hanworth, each of whom made extremely relevant and important points. While we were considering this, I was struck by how many are employed in the chemical industry; I understand the figure is far above 50,000. I hope it will be strongly borne in mind that their expertise is absolutely essential for our country, especially when there is the possibility of wide-scale duplication.

The other point I make is that a restriction on the availability of medicines would cause grave concern. I hope that the Minister will exercise a watching brief and that an independent statutory committee will be created, as called for by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. This will take no more than a lot of hard work, understanding and, if I may say so, openness and transparency.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, in this debate noble Lords with considerable experience have made extremely valuable contributions, certainly for me. I also found it immensely valuable having meetings earlier to get abreast of some of the key, essential points that noble Lords have made today.

I reiterate what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, when talking about Aston Chemicals. I feel confident mentioning the name, as the noble Baroness mentioned it. So many of these businesses are in the small business sector, and how essential it is. I acknowledge the importance of the chemical industry and its contribution. I think we all agree how essential it is to have a regime—we can discuss what would be the optimum regime—where we can all have confidence in the use of chemicals. There have been strong expressions on matters that I entirely respect and understand, but I have a responsibility to your Lordships to say—and these are not just my riding instructions from the other place—that we need this statutory instrument if we are to have an operable system, which the chemical industry acknowledges.

I have counted and I think I may have had 45 to 50 questions. It would be impossible to indulge your Lordships and answer every one in great detail, but I will endeavour to answer as many as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, opened by asking if Her Majesty’s Government—Defra and other departments—are concerned about these matters. I say emphatically yes, for the two reasons I opened with that noble Lords raised. This is a major commercial interest of this country. We also have the great responsibility of ensuring that our country is safe, and indeed that products from our country are safe for others to use.

On IT, the first thing to say is that I could never have invented any of it—so I can safely say that I would not have been in any positon to say whether this will work—but I am assured that for day-one functionality we are ensuring that industry will be able to register new and imported chemicals and to provide authorities with information required for maintaining the validity of existing registrations. Post day one, we will enable joint registrations for industry and build back-end functions for the HSE. I acknowledge what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said about IT, but this has been tested with industry and I can only report what I have heard on the success of that testing.

Ivory Bill

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on an excellent speech and it is a pleasure to follow him. When we declare an interest with regard to a particular matter being debated in the House, it is usually a financial or economic one. On this occasion, as we discuss a ban on the buying and selling of ivory with a few limited exceptions, I would like to mention an interest in one relative in particular. I am very happy indeed to have as my cousin Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a renowned zoologist and wildlife conservationist. He and his family are based in Kenya and, 25 years ago, he founded the charity Save the Elephants, which is still going very strong.

Iain said that as a boy he dreamed of flying across the African bush helping to save the continent’s wildlife. Dreams can come true. Indeed, for many years he flew over a number of African countries carrying out elephant counts so that their Governments would know by how much the elephant populations had dwindled. This was an important service for the Governments concerned. Iain became one of the foremost authorities in the world on the African elephant and one of its greatest champions. He wrote in the National Geographic blog:

“The world’s wildlife, both on land and in our waters, is such a precious resource, but it is also a limited one. It cannot be manufactured. And once it’s gone, it cannot be replenished. And those who profit from it illegally are not just undermining our borders and our economies. They are truly stealing from the next generation”.


I believe that lain Douglas-Hamilton was right about the next generation. The natural heritage of many parts of Africa is directly under threat, and what amounts to ecocide could destroy the wildlife and the magnificent animals that attract tourists to Africa from all over the world.

Thanks to Save the Elephants and other estimable wildlife conservation organisations, we have a great deal of knowledge about the situation facing these very intelligent animals, which make such an invaluable contribution to the ecological infrastructure of our precious planet. We also know, sadly, of the man-made perils that currently stalk the elephants. Ivory can command a high price, particularly in the Middle East, and that continues to be a powerful incentive to the networks of brutal poachers and traffickers.

According to the United Nations, up to 100 elephants in Africa are being killed every day, with their tusks hacked off their bodies by ruthless poachers involved in the now illegal international ivory trade. In the last 10 years, the number of elephants in the world has gone down by almost one-third and, as has been said by the noble Lord who has just spoken, we must not forget the threat posed also to rhinos, hippos and walruses, as well as the narwhal, with that extraordinary pointed tusk. It is much to be welcomed that the Government began a consultation earlier this month to see whether the new, tougher ivory trading ban that we are considering today, which will apply regardless of the date of the object, can be extended by secondary legislation to other such creatures.

The trade in ivory has highlighted the situation by pointing out how close to extinction a very special species can be. My noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond made one of the best speeches I have ever heard in this House. He is fundamentally right in saying that we are confronting a moral outrage. I believe that to be entirely the case.

The action taken by the United States, China and France has already been referred to. Being prepared to act is a significant indication of the importance of this subject. The Government have said that the Bill before us will bring into force a ban on ivory sales in the UK which would be,

“the toughest in Europe—and one of the toughest in the world”.

Adequate enforcement of the ban in the UK will obviously be very important, so can the Minister assure us that that will happen and that the narrow exceptions, which the Government say do not make any contribution to poaching, will not be exploited or abused? Are the proposed self-registration and certification processes robust enough for items for which exemption is sought?

The ivory trade of course is not the sole threat to the well-being of elephants in Africa and Asia; they also face the continuing encroachment of human development into their traditional territories. Iain Douglas-Hamilton has put a lifetime of research into the conservation of elephants. He has discovered that farmers do not need to kill elephants that are trampling their crops. Elephants fear bees stinging them in the eyes, so if the boundaries encompassing fields have beehives, the elephants will not invade them. Over and above that are the proposals for safe zones for elephants. These will need to be protected and local populations helped to understand the positive benefits that co-existence with the elephants can bring. One reality identified by Save the Elephants is that elephants travel by night to avoid predators. Despite this evasive action, however, the threat to their survival continues.

Returning to the Bill, the Government are to be strongly commended for listening to the views expressed by more than 70,000 people who took part in a wide-ranging consultation, in which 88% backed a complete ban. The Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, has said that this legislation,

“will reaffirm the UK’s global leadership on this critical issue, demonstrating our belief that the abhorrent ivory trade should become a thing of the past”.

That day cannot come too soon.

Brexit: Fisheries (EUC Report)

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who rightly stressed the importance of managing stocks and sustainability and the expertise of the clerks. They helped to produce a report which, due in large measure to the work of the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is thoroughly comprehensive and will stand us in good stead when it is relied upon in later years. When the report was prepared, I was concerned that it should not in any way give the impression that the interests of our fishing industry are undervalued, or that they can be bargained away to benefit other sectors of the economy when Brexit negotiations get under way.

Bertie Armstrong, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, claimed that leaving the European Union’s common fisheries policy offers the industry “a sea of opportunity”. However, he also warned that this opportunity must not be traded away. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments must work together as a team to ensure,

“the best possible deal … for our hardworking fishermen”,

he told the Shetland Times.

The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, working alongside the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, wants the Brexit negotiations to achieve their aims of full control over fishing fleets’ access to the waters in the UK’s exclusive economic zone, which normally stretches 200 nautical miles from a state’s coastal baseline. It also wants the creation of a mutually beneficial trading relationship with the EU and other countries and a new, ambitious management strategy. In fact, our final report stressed that the hopes and aspirations of those who live in coastal communities around the UK must not be marginalised, even if some compromises may have to be accepted in the interests of the industry’s sizeable export trade, as new arrangements are agreed with our former European partners.

Achieving a successful outcome will take dedication and commitment on the part of our Brexit negotiators. Our report refers to the huge challenge facing the Government in Recommendation 29. It also states in Recommendation 24:

“Trade with the EU in fish products will be a key factor to the future success of the UK fishing industry and fish processors. We therefore urge that the fish sector should be included in the Government’s consideration of priorities for a future trading relationship with the EU”.


Fishing may make only a small contribution to our GDP—less than 1%—but its value to local societies and their sustainable economic growth is hugely important to the places around our shores where fishing communities are embedded. It is also of great importance to the health and well-being of our nation, through the provision of nutritious seafood brought up from our seas in what are often dangerous and life-threatening circumstances.

The essential importance of the role of the fishing industry in our national life should certainly not be measured solely in terms of GDP. We all know the hymn written by the Anglican churchman William Whiting in 1860, traditionally associated with seafarers, which urges God’s protection:

“For those in peril on the sea”.


One of the worst disasters ever in the waters around Scottish shores befell the fishermen of Eyemouth some miles down the coast from where I live. On 14 October 1881, a terrible storm took the lives of 189 men from the port and surrounding area, capsizing their boats and dashing them on rocks at the entrance to the harbour. A starkly poignant memorial in granite depicting a broken mast commemorates that black Friday. In addition, on the 135th anniversary only last October, a bronze sculpture entitled “Widows and Bairns” was unveiled to commemorate the many women and children who were left widowed or fatherless.

I remember, when I was very young, asking what was the purpose of the lookout, referred to as a crow’s nest, which I had spotted high up on a house on the east coast of Scotland. I was told that such places were where the concerned mothers, wives and daughters of the fishermen would stand during storms, scanning the horizon to discern the fate of their next of kin far out to sea. Fishing is a global occupation, and since then I have learned that you can see similar railed cupolas, known as widow’s walks or widow’s watches, in north American seafaring communities.

I had a very small taste of the dangers of the deep when, as a boy, my father took me out in a rowing boat off the shore at North Berwick heading for a small island. We were quite a long way from safety when the wind got up suddenly and mountainous waves began to tower over our small boat. Rowing back in such high winds might have become impossible, and eventually we were rescued by the pilot boat. I remember the kindly old fisherman who greeted us at the harbour when we arrived back with the wonderfully understated observation: “I see you’ve had a wee sea breeze”. For me, this is a painful memory because, very sadly, despite his great seafaring skills, he would fall victim to a storm and be drowned at sea.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to assure us and make certain that the Government’s Brexit negotiators will be equal to the challenge which the UK’s exit poses for the future of our fishing industry, as identified in the report. Can he promise that the Government will not let down those who routinely put their lives on the line on behalf of their country men and women? Can he pledge that when they are sitting around the table in a comfortable conference room in Brussels, those representing the UK will not forget for an instant that they are negotiating on behalf of a very special community of people who have served and continue to serve their country well and with courage, come hell or high water?