Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I am sorry that I was rather slow to rise to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was getting carried away with my own success on the last group. We now move on to another issue. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) to his place; I presume that he will respond to this group of amendments, as it falls within his responsibilities. The Government are rightly addressing several wildlife protection issues—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary is looking at me somewhat askance. Clearly he will not be responding to this group; at least, if he is it will be a very interesting response, because he has just asked his fellow Minister what this group is about. New clause 5 is about the serious issue of the import of exotic bird species. In the context of an earlier debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said that he was with the birds. With this group of amendments, so am I, and so are the Opposition. I was astonished when I looked at some of the statistics, not for all types of birds but just for the species listed in CITES—the convention on international trade in endangered species. In 2001, 28,500 such exotic birds were imported into the United Kingdom, but by 2003, that figure had increased to 83,000—a threefold increase. In that year, more than 10,000 parrots were imported—a 50 per cent. increase on the previous year. Many of those species are under threat in their natural environment, and the CITES arrangements go out of their way to protect them and require special permits for their import. That is not enough. Neither the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals nor the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes that it is. The World Parrot Trust, a very authoritative organisation, is not against the keeping of parrots in captivity, but it believes that we need to limit imports, and strongly condemns that trade. The RSPCA estimates that the mortality rates among imported wild-caught birds could be as high as 60 per cent. By contrast, in the UK, we do not allow commercial exploitation of our native birds. All bar a few species are protected entirely and it is an offence to catch a finch, for example. The time was when most households had a finch in a cage, but these days no native finch could be captured and kept in a cage. However, we happily allow wild-caught parrots to be imported and kept in cages. It is also clear that a huge illegal trade exists in the importation of wild-caught birds, although by its very nature exact numbers cannot be determined. I do not decry the efforts made by Revenue and Customs—as we must now call it—but seizures of such imported birds have been low. In 2001, 5,000 CITES-listed animals and birds were seized. By 2002, the number had increased to 8,600, but in 2003 it dropped to just under 3,000. I suggest that the fall does not reflect a reduction in the overall number of illegal imports.