The United Kingdom Government will not have a vote at the standing committee in October. The UK will be represented as part of the European region, but the UK’s position continues to be that we support the international ban on trade in ivory.
I welcome that answer. Any reopening of the ivory trade—by stockpile sales or more widely—would simply create a smokescreen and trigger further poaching of elephants for their ivory, especially in central and west Africa and Asia, where resources for enforcement of anti-poaching measures are at their thinnest. Will the Minister ensure that such points are vigorously made at the CITES conference, and will he involve the International Fund for Animal Welfare in tackling what is becoming a very serious problem?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those remarks. He highlighted stockpile sales, which is a critical issue to address. As he knows, there already is an international ban on the commercial trade in ivory, and the UK will not support any reopening of that trade. In 2002, the CITES parties drew a distinction between a general return to commercial ivory trade and one-off sales of legally acquired stockpiled ivory. The UK’s position is clear: we will not agree to the one-off sales going ahead unless all the conditions to prevent a damaging rise in elephant poaching and any increase in the illegal trade have been fully met. I can assure my hon. Friend that I have already met IFAW and discussed this subject. I have asked it to help me look at the statistics that will under-gird those decisions and to prepare a response for me. I look forward to receiving it.