Animal Welfare Bill

The new clause is intended to end the sale of endangered animals on the internet. It follows on from my ten-minute Bill, which was presented to the House on 31 January. Hon. Members will know that it is illegal to buy and sell endangered animals, but the fact is that that trade goes on every single day and is growing. It is increasingly being used by serious criminals to raise revenue for other activities that they are involved with. The new clause would introduce third party responsibility, not least in relation to those who are involved on the internet through internet service providers. ISPs increasingly say to us that the volume of traffic and chatter on the internet is too great. I was in my office in the House of Commons some weeks ago and went online. Hon. Members will be astonished to know that I could have purchased a leopard, an American bald eagle, an alligator, a chimpanzee, a dromedary camel and many other endangered animals. It is not good enough any more for internet service providers to say that they do not know what is going on through their infrastructure systems. As I said, they say that there is too much chatter and that the volume of traffic is too great to monitor such things. However, we know that internet service providers have been very successful in working with the police and law enforcement agencies to deal with child pornography through the work of the Internet Watch Foundation. I congratulate the Internet Watch Foundation on the good work that it does. If we can regulate—rightly so—child pornography on the internet, which is clearly illegal, internet service providers could do more to stop the sale of endangered animals on the internet. Some of those animals may well be extinct in a decade. The Government and the House have a responsibility to play their part to ensure that that does not happen. Hon. Members may have seen the new BBC series, ““Planet Earth””, featuring David Attenborough, at the weekend. There were some marvellous animals on display in that programme, including the mountain leopard.