Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government plans to publish its response to the consultation on banning UK sales of ivory; and what assessment he has made of the time-scale for introducing a proposed ban.

We received over 70,000 responses to our consultation on banning sales of ivory in the UK, of which over 30,000 arrived in the final week. Many of the responses were very detailed and all must be carefully analysed to help inform our final policy. We will publish our response to the consultation shortly, including indications of next steps.