Absolutely, Stop Ivory has done a wonderful job, as have the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the WWF, Tusk and Save the Elephants. There are so many organisations out there—I would not want to draw out one in particular—all working together, I hasten to say, because they have one objective. I think we can see that right across the House we share an objective with them to move forward on the ban.
As we have heard, what we are talking about is getting on top of criminal activity. Surely the Government’s first focus should be to get on top of what is happening, which is happening in conjunction with other criminal gangs, drug rackets and sales of arms. We know that there is an interconnection, and it is so important that we get on top of that criminal activity. A full ban is one way of bringing an end to those gangsters’ deplorable activity. From the statistics we have heard so many times in this place, we know that 200 to 300 tonnes of ivory are being stolen from elephants. That is bringing in £10 billion to £20 billion of blood money. Therefore, shamefully, we are complicit with that agenda if we are not doing absolutely everything in our power to stop the trade.
I want to come on to the consultation, which we have not seen yet, and the date of 1947. We were promised it at the last debate, but another two months have passed and we still do not have it. I know that DEFRA has so much on its agenda at the moment, not least dealing with the EU, but elephants cannot wait for those distractions. We need to put our foot on the accelerator. Let us move on today. Let us resolve in this place to move on and fast-track our approach in taking this forward.
We have seen how fast China has moved. A vaster, much more complex country than ours is talking about putting a stop to the process in just three months and putting a full ban in place in 12 months, so there is no reason why we have to spend months in consultation or
thinking about consultations and what questions to ask. Let us just be honest and straight, and let us just move on. I therefore ask the Minister: why the delay on such an important issue? Can we not just get on with bringing in the ban? She will not find opposition across the House or across the country—in fact, people will get behind her. I therefore urge her to move on with that.
I want to look at the date of 1947. I believe I said in the previous debate that it is a rather arbitrary date, so why are we so rigid on that? Why do we not move forward? We have heard about the US and its 100-year rolling programme, which is perhaps one approach that could be taken, but why do we not move to a total ban? We have heard questions such as, “How can you tell what year it was bought?” Carbon dating is one way of doing that, but again I ask the Minister a question she did not manage to answer the previous time I challenged her on this point: can we tell the difference between ivory from 1946 and 1947 or from 1947 and 1948? Where the margins are so fine, why do we complicate things by drawing false demarcations rather than moving forward to a total ban? As we have heard, the human eye cannot necessarily spot the difference, as pieces of ivory are made to look more antique. We also know that paperwork can be forged. It is therefore important that we do not draw arbitrary lines and then try to justify it around the edges. We must have the courage of our convictions to say, “This is wrong,” and to move on from that.