The hon. Gentleman has cited evidence of cheating. The point is that the UK is by far the largest exporter of ivory items among EU members. According to CITES, the EU had a huge export volume of about 1,874 ivory transactions from 2006 to 2015, but we were easily the largest with 25,351. That is 54% of the EU total, and we know cheating goes on. Bluntly, we have to learn lessons. In China, it has always been an iconic key feature of great family occasions—a wedding, a banquet or a state occasion—to eat shark
fin soup. It has come down from on high in recent years and the party establishment in China has said, “We have got to stop this because of the damage to shark populations”, and they have. Habits have changed.
The immediate reaction to ivory is, “Great. There’s world demand. It is marvellous that there is now prosperity in China and people are not dying of starvation as they were when I grew up. Let us let them prosper. Let them buy ivory and let us grow more of the item.” The problem is that we simply cannot farm elephants and rhinoceroses and meet the demand. If there is any legal activity, it gives cover to the illegal activity. That is a tragedy. I would love to be a Hayekian on this. I would love to say, “Let us open up savannahs and grow masses of elephants.”
We cannot cope with 600 million new middle class people with middle class aspirations in China, where ivory has great value and is seen to be an investment. That is the worst thing. Some are buying ivory knowing that the supply will dwindle and ultimately disappear when elephants are exterminated, and their product will go up. The answer is to follow what they did on shark fins. Let us simply make this a non-U item. It should simply not be acceptable.
We have stopped drink-driving. It is no longer acceptable in this country. It is very simple. I am afraid I totally disagree with the hon. Member for South Antrim and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington. It is completely ludicrous to put things on the same level.