That this House has considered trophy hunting imports.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I am delighted that the relatively new Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who has championed many different environmental issues, will respond to this important debate. I am particularly delighted to have secured this debate on banning trophy hunting imports to this country: although the Government have already announced that that is their plan, I wish to check exactly what their policy will cover. It makes a change to take part in a debate in Westminster at the moment that, I suspect, has cross-party support.
Oren Lyons, the chief of the Onondaga, was invited to address the United Nations in 1977. He made a long speech about our responsibilities. When talking about who had been invited to speak at the UN, he said:
“I do not see a delegation for the four footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation. We must continue to understand where we are. We stand between the mountain and the ant, somewhere and there only, as part and parcel of the Creation. It is our responsibility, since we have been given the minds to take care of these things. The elements and the animals and the birds, they live in a state of grace. They are absolute, they can do no wrong. It is only we, the two leggeds, that can do this. And when we do this to our brothers, to our own brothers, we do the worst in the eyes of the Creator.”
We, the human race, have done wrong. Over the last few years, often through the greed of humans, we have brought to near-extinction many animals that used to exist in large numbers.
Is my hon. Friend aware that it is a widespread view on both sides of the House that there is something nauseating and revolting about someone who would slaughter an endangered animal to use part of its body as a trinket or trophy?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will touch on such things later, but they are absolutely abhorrent. As I said, this is a debate that we can all agree on.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Further to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), is she aware that a recent opinion poll suggests that 86% of people across the UK support a trophy hunting ban? It is not just this House that is united on the issue, but the vast majority of this country’s population.
That is an interesting statistic, because I think that would not have been the case 20, 30 or 40 years ago. The extinction of many animals and the talk about that—for example, David Attenborough talking about it—have raised awareness among the general population, which can be only a good thing. I am sure the Minister is listening intently.
Local people in different countries do not benefit financially from this appalling trade, just the big greedy bosses of the operations. Elephants, tigers, rhinos, gorillas, lions and many more species are endangered—even giraffes are affected. British big game hunters have travelled to every corner of the globe, from Africa to Asia, North America to South America, and across Europe, in pursuit of often-rare hunting trophies. The most popular destination for UK hunters is South Africa.
Thanks to the determination of the Government and the previous Secretary of State, the ivory trade will be reduced, which will hopefully have an impact on the poaching of elephants for their tusks. Although other countries did that before us, we have at last caught up. With respect to trophy hunting, we might get to the forefront, although other countries have in fact banned trophy hunting imports.
During this debate, I wish to concentrate primarily on lions. Once they roamed free across many countries in Africa, but now there are far fewer truly wild lions. Although killing a lion for sport is bad enough, I can almost understand why that was done when they were plentiful, but I find the new, popular canned hunting of lions especially offensive.
Imagine being born into captivity, stolen from your mother at the age of about two weeks to three weeks and sold by merciless breeders to face death at the hands of bloodthirsty tourists. Laughing, smiling tourists pose for photos with dead lions, and I have even seen a photo of tourists kissing next to that fabulous being. That is the face of the animal that was once hailed as king of the jungle.
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again; she is being very generous. Does she agree that a ban on import should also include the body parts being traded through Britain?
Yes, I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. We must put a ban on everything that makes more species endangered, and we should be regulating and being very careful about what we do or do not allow into this country. As I said earlier, we are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers.
The times we are living in and the threat facing all wildlife demand a clear moral response. Things need to change so that live animals are better for the economy than dead ones. I understand that the US had a total or near-total ban when Obama was President, but the current President has decided to release the pressure and to allow some trophy hunting. I understand that that is because two of his sons like trophy hunting. That is something that should not happen in America. It should not happen here. It should not happen in Europe. It should happen nowhere.
I am fortunate to have seen many lions and other endangered species in various African countries, but I want my grandchildren and their children to have that privilege too when they are old enough to travel. We can visit a zoo, but that is such a poor relation, compared with seeing a lion, or any animal, living in freedom in its own natural environment. David Attenborough has spoken about the animals in Africa and other places, and indeed in the oceans, and his programmes whet the appetite, but unless we stop all trophy hunting, those beautiful animals will disappear from our reach, as many very nearly have.
I have a series of questions for the Minister, following the Government’s welcome announcement at the weekend, and I know he will listen hard to them. Which animals will be covered by the trophy hunting imports ban? When will it come into effect? Every month we take to pass legislation means more endangered species getting closer to eradication and extinction. Which countries will be banned from importing trophies into Britain? If it is not all of them, greedy businesspeople will find a way around the ban by moving the dead animal to a country from which we do allow the import of trophies. Which countries do we still allow trophies to be imported from? Will animal parts, such as bones, hands, tails and so on, be covered?
2:48 pm
Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. With your permission, I may leave a wee bit early so that I can synchronise with the Virgin Trains timetabling. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this important debate.
Trophy hunting is a particularly emotive topic but, as usual with such an issue, the situation is not entirely clear-cut. While most of us are instinctively opposed to such a practice, as I certainly am, we must surely endeavour to set that emotion aside, albeit briefly, if we are to properly consider how best to respond. While a number of animal welfare and environmental groups are firmly opposed to the practice, other institutions, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the European Parliament and the convention on international trade in endangered species maintain that trophy hunting has beneficial side-effects. Those include generating revenue for landowners to conserve or restore wildlife on their land and for wildlife management, including anti-poaching activities.
However, we must ask ourselves whether there is a better means to support those ends than revenue raised from hunting and associated tourist activities. What, after all, is the value of an anti-poaching effort for an endangered species if it is funded by the hunting of other species under the guise of big game hunting, often carried out in a merciless way, simply to secure a trophy or a photograph?
The natural assumption in this debate is that we are considering those who travel abroad from the UK for a trophy hunt, but of course the problem is broader than that. This is not just about British nationals bringing trophies back from other continents; the practice also operates the other way. Many hon. Members will recall the furore caused this time last year by an American television presenter, Miss Larysa Switlyk. She came to the beautiful island of Islay off the west coast of Scotland—I know it well—to shoot wild goats, which she then, in my opinion, glorified on social media. Those animals have no natural predator, and are classed as an invasive non-native species in the United Kingdom. They have been the subject of several official culls over the years, and they are thought to have roamed parts of Scotland and the north of England for 5,000 years. Although hunting them on private land is not illegal, we as a society were appalled at the sight of Miss Switlyk posing with one of her kills. Perhaps it was the glorification of the process and the trophy hunting element that most offended sensitivities throughout the United Kingdom.
Given our increasing concern as a nation for animal welfare, I was surprised to note that, between 2013 and 2017, trophy imports rose by 23%—a rise of almost a quarter over such a short period. That must surely be of concern worldwide, and is perhaps an indication that current regulation is ineffective. Additional red tape is seldom the solution to any problem, but do the Government—with their recent announcement of a call for evidence, they appear to be moving towards improving regulations—feel the time is now right for action? I know they have been keeping the situation under review, and although I cannot predict the outcome of that review, I hope it will be acted on and not simply placed on a shelf.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this debate. I believe we have debated this issue previously in Westminster Hall, and she and other hon. Members—including me and the Minister, in his previous role—were much involved. I assure her of my support in its entirety for what she has said today.
I wish to say, humbly and genuinely, that I am a country sports enthusiast. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) referred to those who hunt for the pot, and on the farm that our family holds back home we have a small pheasant shoot and a small duck shoot. It is not particularly big, but it sustains our country sports enthusiasm, and it is important that we manage the habitat for which we have responsibility and the animals on that farm. For the record, hares are not likely to be shot, because legislation in Northern Ireland means they are protected. We are fortunate to have a large quantity of hares on our land, and I love to see them, especially in March when they start to box and spar with each other in the fields.
Bill Grant
To clarify, the verse was penned in 1789, when the rules might have been a tad different.
I realised when the hon. Gentleman mentioned Robert Burns that it had to be back in that time, but I thank him for his intervention.
By way of introduction, I absolutely support the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire, but I want to explain how I can be a harvester of pheasants, ducks and pigeons so that they are of use, in contrast to what the hon. Lady put forward, which is totally different. I support her 100%. Everything that is shot by me and my sons—and ultimately my granddaughter, when the time comes—we eat, and I make sure that my neighbours who enjoy fowl also have that opportunity. Indeed, in her room in Stormont, where she was First Minister, my party leader, Arlene Foster, would find on her desk pheasants or ducks to take home and prepare for her family to eat.
As for conservation, we believe the land has to be looked after, and the animals on the land have to be conserved and protected. If we are truly embedded in conservation programmes, as we probably all should be, and we have the opportunity to look after the land, farms, habitats, countryside and trees, it is important for us to control the predators. For instance, this last season, we used the Larsen trap. I, along with my son, got 45 magpies and 10 great black crows. The result of controlling those predators is clear: we now have an abundance of small bird life that we have not had on the farm for many years. Yellowhammers—the word “Yellowhammer” is used very often nowadays, although for a different reason—are back in numbers on our farm again. They were a threatened species, but we took action to make sure they came back.
I have a true story from my childhood. Back in the ’60s—I suspect you and I are of the same vintage, Mr Hosie, so you can probably relate to this—we did not have very much. My cousin, who lived in Strabane in the west of the Province, used to shoot pigeons, put them in a shoebox and send them—it was truly carrier pigeon—by post to us in the east of the Province. One of my favourite birds, which I enjoyed from a very early age in Ballywalter, was pigeon. If used correctly, these things can control vermin, and that can be encouraged.
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point about how we need to move with the times. Does he agree that we should allocate our international aid budget in a way that reflects modern sensibilities? My constituents would like our aid budget to be used to preserve biodiversity, whether that means the sorts of animals he has referred to or other types of diversity. That is what we should use our financial firepower for. Does he agree?
I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Gentleman has introduced a point I was going to make, so well done. I think we should do that, because there are ways to do things in conservation. I think that the Department for International Development or some other Departments are helping rangers in some countries, at least partially. I am not sure where all the money is coming from, but they can train people in Africa to be the protectors of animals. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I know that we are doing something, but perhaps the Minister can tell us a wee bit to clarify things and add some meat to the bones.
Where there is any chance of making money, we can be pretty sure that a criminal gang is involved somewhere, and there are criminal gangs that clearly do not give—I should keep my language under control—any concern whatever in terms of what happens, as long as they can make money. So the criminal gangs, who kill indiscriminately and murder animals for their own personal gain, have to be addressed as well.
Let me make a comment about conservation. I said what I said earlier about conservation to set the scene, in a very small way, for how conservation works. In his intervention, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) referred to conservation that we can help with, in Africa and in other parts of the world. The Minister, and indeed everyone else, will understand the importance of habitat. When it comes to addressing trophy hunting and imports, which is what this debate is about, we also have to—perhaps directly, as the hon. Gentleman suggested in his intervention—do other things, which are about habitat retention. They are about addressing the conflict in parts of Africa, where the population is exploding and where there is confrontation between the farmers, landowners and animals. Those wonderful TV programmes that Sir David Attenborough presents tell us about Africa and elsewhere, but they also tell us about the savagery of wildlife and life on the plains, where animal eats animal; that is how things are.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this debate. I agreed with everything she said, which is hardly a surprise, because I agree with most of her views on life generally.
I hope this is the last time we need to have a debate on this issue, because, by a happy coincidence, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) led a debate on it earlier this year—I think it was on 15 May—and he is now the Minister. I am absolutely delighted about that, and I suspect that we are pushing at an open door.
Of course, this subject is not party political, and all Members hopefully agree on it. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) is no longer in his place, but when he and I entered Parliament the issue of animal welfare was treated very differently from the way it is today. When a show of support was organised in July for a ban on trophy hunting, I was delighted that many colleagues lined up—quite rightly—to have their photograph taken with Sir Ranulph Fiennes. That was very good to witness.
Trophy hunting is a wicked, evil practice, and anyone who indulges in it or encourages it should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. We should not mince words or be intimidated on this issue: trophy hunting is an absolutely disgusting practice. I recognise, especially from the point of view of my hon. Friend the Minister, that these words come easily. The question is: how do we stop trophy hunting? Our excellent Library briefing tells us that Australia has acted, France has acted and the Netherlands has acted. I do not know whether the Minister can tell us how successful they have been so far, but I believe that the Government want to do everything they can to stop this practice.
I was delighted to host a meeting of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation in Manchester on Monday. The Foreign Secretary, who stood in for the Prime Minister today, made an excellent speech on this very issue, as did Dr Nick Palmer, a former Labour Member of Parliament, who is now head of Compassion in World Farming UK. We had speeches from Peter Hall, who is a director of the CAWF, and from Kike Yuen of the World Dog Alliance, and an excellent contribution from Duncan McNair of Save the Asian Elephants. It was particularly good that we had speeches from the Prime Minister’s father, Mr Stanley Johnson, and from Ms Carrie Symonds. There was wide unanimity on the subject.
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For 11,000 lions in South Africa, there will not have been one day of freedom. At a young age, they will be shot by a hunter who cannot miss. Lions are bred in cages for the canned hunting industry at more than 300 farms in South Africa. There will be no chase, no escape, no mercy. It beggars belief that British hunters are among those propping up this desperately cruel industry. The lions are reared in cages and forced to breed too young, and their cubs are taken away from them soon after birth so that the mothers can breed again, but too quickly.
The cubs might then be taken to petting zoos where tourists—possibly unaware of the past or future of those cubs—are able to bottle-feed them. Some tourists are even able to walk with the young lions until they are about nine months old, when they become much harder to control. From then on, these immature lions are kept in small pens until they are about two years old.
These animals have trusted humans because they know no different. They have been bred in captivity. This trust is tragically misplaced. The lions are either let out of the cages and shot at almost point-blank range by the trophy hunter or are taken by truck into the bush to make it more like the kill of a wild animal. In this instance, the lions are allowed out of the truck and shot—again at almost point-blank range—although some are never let out of the cages and are actually shot while in captivity, through the bars, by these so-called trophy hunters.
These magnificent animals have had no freedom to roam and live as nature intended, thanks to an industry that is, believe it or not, legal in South Africa. This kind of hunting is often given a licence thanks to the sometimes-corrupt authorities turning a blind eye, or because the owners of these “farms” persuade them that it is being done in the name of conservation. That is simply a lie. It is a heinous activity that lines the pockets of greedy owners. Every time a trophy hunter shoots a lion, they have paid many thousands of dollars for the privilege. These lions are farmed in great secrecy to produce cheap, quick trophies for hunters. In some cases, the breeders themselves shoot the lions so as to sell lion bones in the far east for ritual medicines. It is easy to see that it is only a matter of but a short time before the only lions we will see will be those in zoos.
Shamefully, Britain still allows so-called hunter trophies to be brought into the country. Yes, lions’ heads may be flown into our airports by hunters who glory in adorning their walls with them. We need to make it clear that the UK condemns the killing of lions, as well as other threatened species. This should start with legislation preventing hunters from bringing back the heads, tails, feet, skins and other body parts of these animals to the UK. We need a clear moral response.
The Government should impose an immediate moratorium on the importation of trophies until legislation is made. There is no reason this cannot be done immediately. People’s lives are in danger when they speak out about this terrible practice, so we need to protect those who whistleblow about it. People might not be aware that there are three times more canned lions than wild lions in South Africa today. There are fewer than 15,000 lions left in the wild across the world. Indeed, our own Prime Minister mentioned this recently at Prime Minister’s Question Time.
Over the past decade, 10,000 lion trophies have been taken. Despite the very small number of lions, trophy hunting of adult males is still allowed in Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania. There is an absolute dearth of information that such activities are in any way sustainable or contribute to the conservation of the species in any way. In fact, it has been shown in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania that trophy-hunting concessions are now so devoid of wildlife, largely due to overhunting, that they cannot garner any further interest in tenders from trophy-hunting operations. There has never been a population count of lions in any trophy-hunting concession in any African nation that permits lion trophy hunting. It is no wonder that trophy-hunting operators are increasingly reliant on illegal hunts inside national parks, luring lions such as Cecil out of national parks, along with many other such transgressions on lion populations that should be strictly protected. The UK has put in place much funding to combat the illegal wildlife trade, but hunting transgressions on protected areas should be considered as one of the important illegal activities.
It is now abundantly clear that the future of wild lion survival in Africa is dependent on not more than four populations, which still have more than 1,000 individuals. Those populations are located in Northern Botswana; perhaps in the Kruger National Park in South Africa; in the Serengeti in Tanzania; and in the Selous in Tanzania. The estimate of 15,000 lions in total depends on an accumulation of small, scattered and isolated groups of lions across this very large continent. For example, there are 16 lions left in Senegal, 34 in Nigeria, 32 in Malawi, 34 in Angola and maybe 60 in Ethiopia.
This practice should stop and should stop now. Britain should not be allowing trophy-hunted imports of any species from any country. How can we allow zebra, rhino, lions or, indeed, any single animal from an endangered species to be brought in to go on someone’s wall at home or in the office when we are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers? Other countries have banned imports, but, so far, we have not banned them all. I am told we still allow some to come into this country. Why? That does not help conservation.
Shockingly, the infamous killing of Cecil the lion has encouraged British hunters to go to South Africa and shoot dead more big cats than ever. Experts had believed that worldwide revulsion at the shooting would mark a turning point for the endangered species and the start of a decline in trophy hunting. Instead, the number of British hunters targeting farmed lions and bringing home their body parts more than doubled in the three years after Cecil’s death, compared with the three years before, according to statistics from the global wildlife trade regulator.
This is not about telling African countries how to manage their wildlife. It is not even about laying down the law on trophy hunting to them. It is simply saying that the UK does not agree with killing lions, elephants and other threatened species for sport, nor with allowing hunters to bring back the heads, tails, feet, skins and other body parts of these animals to the UK.
What about trading through a country, which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) mentioned? Obviously, countries such as China value the body parts of these endangered species. I ask the Government to impose an immediate moratorium on the importation of trophies until legislation is made. Is there any reason why that cannot or should not be done immediately?
Can I be assured that the welcome announcement by the Government a few days ago will not result in just more consultation? There have been multiple consultations over a number of years, and the longer that that continues, the fewer lions there will be truly in the wild. I understand that the previous Secretary of State was holding a consultation—another one—and said that we had to listen carefully to both sides, but while we do that, more and more lions die. I thank the Minister for his passion on this and many other environmental issues, and I look forward to his positive response later.
I understand the basic human need to hunt an animal to feed a family, and we must all consider rural life, in whatever country, and accept that it is perhaps unfair to apply urban values to an already fragile rural economy. Thankfully, however, hunting for food is hardly commonplace in the UK these days, and to kill purely for the purposes of hanging a memento on the wall seems, in this day and age, rather barbaric and unnecessary. Surely the days of such trophy hunting should now be behind us.
Let me close with a verse from Robert Burns, which was penned as far back as 1789. He was a farmer, and he saw the fate of a hare that was shot and not killed, but simply wounded. Strangely enough, the title of the poem is “On Seeing a Wounded Hare”. I will read the first verse:
“Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!”
It concludes:
“And curse the ruffian’s aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.”
As for the canned hunting the hon. Lady referred to, it is obscene, immoral and incorrect. I say, as the person I am, and with the pursuits that I have, that I find what happened to Cecil the lion very difficult. Perhaps I am a bit naive, but I can almost picture the scene of a lion being enticed from a safe place. It perhaps had daily interaction with people. What happened was totally wrong.
We cannot ignore the fact that Australia introduced a ban in March 2015. In the face of canned hunting, it proposed a total ban on all African lion trophy imports. Nor can we ignore what other countries have done. Four months after Cecil the lion was killed, France’s Environment Minister Ségolène Royal—it is a fantastic name—said that she had instructed officials to stop issuing permits for lion trophies. The Netherlands took an even bigger step and introduced the strictest ban on the importing of hunting trophies into the EU. Those are the three countries that have taken action As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire said, it is time this country took the same strong attitude.
I am grateful for the background information on the debate, which contains things I was not aware of, including about rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and zebras. My goodness, who on earth would want to shoot a zebra? Is there not something wrong there? I think there is. It is a species of horse, probably—to us in the United Kingdom horses are horses and the zebra is a smaller version.
The other instance that really got to me was the polar bear. Many of us cannot relate to the polar bear sitting on the ice floe, surrounded by the coldness of the water. We wonder how it survives in the inhospitable habitat where it lives. Yet someone wants to shoot a polar bear. I just cannot understand it, and that is coming from where I am, although it is pheasants and ducks that we use, and it is about protection of wildlife.
The hon. Lady referred to the wildlife of today, and a magazine I get every week said something important about that—that the wildlife of today is
“not for us to dispose of”
as we please. It said:
“We hold it in trust for those who come after.”
That is our responsibility, as she mentioned, and it is why this debate is so important. We have a responsibility to ensure that lions, polar bears, zebras, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses and all the others on the list are protected from extinction. Large numbers of my constituents have contacted me to oppose trophy hunting imports. I oppose them too, and feel that they are totally wrong. Those constituents want me to oppose trophy hunting, put their views on record and look to the Minister for a response.
As the hon. Lady said, things may have been different 40 years ago—and even more so in 1780. However, society has moved on, and things that were acceptable in the past are certainly not today. We must make a positive response as a society.
However, we also need to ensure that, in addressing habitat loss and conservation in Africa, we help countries to do what they do. Landowners and farmers are growing crops to feed their families, so we need to have some methodology to address that. There is enormous demand on resources—water, trees, woodland, scrubland and the land itself. Where can the land sustain farming? We need the large savannahs as a large place for the animals to roam as well. There is no doubt that lots of the problems on savannahs are very complicated. Let me ask the Minister a question, which follows on from an earlier intervention: what are we doing to help countries to retain habitat and reduce the confrontation between people and animals?
I will finish with this point. Trophy hunting imports need to be not just controlled, but stopped. The Government have said they will keep the issue constantly under review. I respectfully suggest to them, and in total support of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire, that it is time not just to keep trophy hunting under review but to stop it.
Conservatives’ perception of the issue has been changed by one person in particular: Mrs Lorraine Platt. She set up the CAWF and, through charm, has persuaded any number of my colleagues that we need to be on the right side of the argument. She has been supported in her endeavours by Mrs Elise Dunwebber, and I congratulate them both. There is still much work to be done on the issue, but I know they are keen to work with the Government on banning trophy hunting.
In the 10 years to 2017, 290,000 trophy items were exported across the world. That is absolutely disgusting. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire spoke about lions, but as the Library briefing tells us, this is also about polar bears, giraffes, antelopes, alligators and all sorts of beautiful animals. We realise that they could kill us—they are wild animals—but, for goodness’ sake, think of David Attenborough’s wonderful work, not only in our country but throughout the world, to highlight the fact that these animals are facing extinction. We do not want elephants and lions to be just a story for future generations, like the dinosaurs.
In these difficult times, this is a subject that Parliament can unite on. We should help and encourage the Government to do something about it—I know that the Minister is thinking about how to reply to my hon. Friend’s questions. I recognise that there is no easy solution; 200,000 endangered animals are put at risk each year, which is an awful lot to deal with. It is so depressing that as soon as someone comes up with an idea to stop trophy hunters, these evil, wicked people get ahead of the game and find some way round the legislation.
I do not minimise the difficulty the Government face, but I simply cannot comprehend why anyone would pay up to $72,000 to travel across the world and shoot a beautiful animal. As I have said at business questions, I have seen numerous adverts for trophy hunting, with some companies even advertising price lists by trip length—as my hon. Friend said—by animal on offer and by trophy fee. Such adverts should be completely banned from all platforms in the United Kingdom.
The Government have a responsibility to use their global influence, along with the views of our royal family, to stop this trade. We have an important role to play in bringing the world together on the issue, but it will be a real challenge because 0.76% of tourism jobs in some countries are directly linked to the trade. I was pleased by what my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) had to say on that point, and I hope the Government will take it on board.
In conclusion, before we are able to stop trophy hunting completely, we must recognise the need to act swiftly to ban all imports of trophies, which we must be able to do. Some 86% of British people apparently support this action, and the Government need to be alive to the fact that some of these beautiful animals will find their way into the UK because some of the customers are British citizens. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire said, we are a nation of animal lovers, so let us prove it. Let us do something about banning trophy imports. It looks as though we are going to have the Gracious Speech on 14 October, which may or may not be controversial, but would it not be good if a big chunk of legislation to deal with animal welfare were at the heart of that speech? What could be better than to pay a tribute to the debate my hon. Friend has led this afternoon and to have a proposal to ban trophy hunting imports?