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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the proposal for a cull of hippos to be conducted by trophy hunters on the Luangwa River in Zambia, whether they will bring forward consultation and legislation to ban the trade in ivory from hippos; and whether they plan to bring forward amendments to the Ivory Bill to include hippo ivory.

The Ivory Bill will enact a ban in commercial dealing in elephant ivory in the UK that could directly or indirectly fuel the poaching of elephants. There is a delegated power within the Bill to allow the Secretary of State to extend the Bill to cover other ivory bearing species, such as the hippopotamus, through a regulation. The Government has committed to consulting on extending the ban as soon as possible. This consultation is necessary in order to ensure compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), otherwise the whole ban would be put at risk.