Kerry McCarthy
MP for Bristol East · Labour · United Kingdom
“We see that in four main ways: physical risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and storms; transition risks as economies move away from high-carbon industries; nature-related risks affecting food production and natural resources; and systemic risks, where shocks spread rapidly across sectors and markets.”
“The glaciers of the third pole function as Asia’s water tower, feeding major river systems that support nearly 2 billion people. When rising temperatures accelerate glacial melt, the consequences extend far beyond the mountains.”
“Following the heatwaves and wildfires across Europe this summer and the destruction caused by the glacier collapse and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are real, not some distant future threat.”
“Personally, I cannot see that Rosebank is compatible with meeting our climate objectives, but I recognise that the process should be followed. Green Alliance has reported that the gas being wasted in the North sea would be enough to heat 570,000 homes.”
“I too worked in the financial markets, although I think I have done a better job of hiding it in my 21 years in Parliament. I was more on the debt market side. In fact, I am so old that I was part of the salvage operation for Barings bank when it went under. That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about regulation.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I very much agree with the point that he just made. We have some excellent, innovative businesses in Bristol that came up through the Science Creates innovation hubs and attracted private capital.”
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“My constituent got in touch to share the story of her close friend’s 28-year-old son, who has had ME for last couple of years. She said that the impact on his life has been catastrophic. He was a highly skilled and highly valued journalist for a national newspaper, with a busy and vibrant professional and social life. Since contracting ME, he has been unable to work and is now living at home with his parents, who act as his carers. He has severely limited energy, he is in constant pain and he has obtained no relief or satisfaction from the treatments currently available through the NHS, his GP and the specialists to whom he has been referred. His parents have been left to research and self-fund investigations and treatment themselves, which is plainly not good enough.”
“Most other campaign groups for medical conditions do not have to start from there; their starting point might be to raise awareness of the symptoms of particular conditions, or to make calls for treatment. To have to start from the point of view of emphasising the injustice and neglect, because so many people deny that ME exists, just shows how much of a battle we have on our hands. It was an excellent speech by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West. As she said, ME affects around 250,000 people in the UK. I will just cite one of my constituents, who contacted me to stress the lack of support and understanding that had been experienced when dealing with medical professionals; there are many people with ME for whom it takes a long, long time to get a diagnosis, because of that lack of support and understanding.”
“The ME campaign group, Millions Missing, recently held an event in Bristol, where friends and relatives of those with ME laid out pairs of shoes to represent some of those who are suffering from the illness, which effectively renders them invisible, and they also read out stories of the battles that their friends and family members had gone through, as well as expressing their determination to see real change happen. The organisation Action for ME used to be based in the centre of Bristol but is now based just outside. What really hits home is its raison d’être, as set out on its website, which says the organisation exists “to take action to end the ignorance, injustice and neglect faced by people” who have ME.”
“Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said, there is a cumulative effect with ME. People make such a big deal of having a cold, or just feeling a bit under the weather, or feeling hungover. Lucy feels like that most of the time and obviously there are other people with ME who are completely bedridden or who cannot bear bright lights. I had a member of staff whose younger brother came to her wedding in a wheelchair, because he had ME. So it affects people in many ways. However, in some ways the cruellest impact of ME is the fact that sufferers are not believed and that it is a hidden illness, so to speak.”
“Obviously, it is one thing to read up on the condition or to hear accounts from constituents who come to see me, and I have had constituents with ME and fibromyalgia, which is a similar condition, come and talk to me. However, when someone has a very close friend with ME, they know that every time they try to make a social engagement with them, it will always be, “Well, Lucy will come if she’s up to it that day.” My friends and I are all planning to watch the football together on Sunday. However, we will not know until Sunday morning whether Lucy is well enough to attend, and half the time that she does come along to events, it is possible to tell that she is struggling with a migraine or flu, but she just desperately wants to see her friends. That really brings home just how debilitating a condition ME is. As the hon.”
“Thank you, Mr Rosindell, for calling me to speak. I am here to speak today partly because constituents have been in touch to ask me to do so, but also because I have a very good friend who has been affected by myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, since about the age of 15 and she is in her early forties now. When I say “affected by” ME, that means that she did not go on to college and she has never held a job. She is not at the worst end of the spectrum of severity, but I think I can probably best describe her condition as just almost constantly feeling rough. So, it is like either having flu or migraines, or aches and pains. I am aware of my friend’s condition.”
“We have also heard that the average research spend per person living with ME is less than £1 a year and that much of that money is provided by charities rather than Government. We can also consider the economic cost of not helping people at least to find a way to manage a condition such as ME; ideally, we would find the cause of ME and a cure for it. Clearly, that economic cost is unacceptable.”
“Yes. So much concern has been expressed about graded exercise therapy and many patients prefer the concept of pacing, which is balancing activity and rest to help them to manage their ME and work towards recovery. However, that approach is not currently recommended by NICE. I very much hope that the Minister picks this issue up, because it is probably the most controversial issue around the treatment of ME at the moment. I welcome NICE’s decision to review its guidelines—the new guidelines are expected in October 2020, I think—and I urge NICE to listen to the voices of patients with ME. We have heard from other speakers about biomedical research and the decades of underinvestment in that research.”
“My friend scored zero on the test because she was trying to be as honest as possible, and if she was asked whether she could walk up a flight of stairs, she would reply that she could. However, on a bad day it would probably take her an awfully long time and she would collapse in a heap at the top. Actually, one of the reasons she was turned down when she went for the face-to-face assessment was that the examiners said, “Well, you look very presentable and you’ve washed your hair.” I know that she is bedridden for days at a time and cannot wash her hair, but clearly if she drags herself out for an assessment and is well enough to attend it on a particular day, she will try not to look like she has just got out of bed.”
“Yes. This is the problem we see over and over again with NICE: how do we value quality of life? We can look at the economic opportunities that are also lost if someone has to spend a lifetime on benefits rather than working and paying taxes, but there is so much more that they could perhaps have contributed to society and that opportunity has simply been lost. In the time that is left to me today, I will mention the benefits system. We have already heard from other Members about it. Time and time again, we see that the assessments for employment and support allowance and for the personal independence payment just cannot cope with people who have fluctuating conditions, or with people who might be able to pass a test but who feel absolutely dreadful afterwards.”
“Jennifer Brea, a 28-year-old ME sufferer, documented her condition with a camera when doctors told her that her illness was all in her head. Using Skype, she connected with others around the globe suffering with ME, and documented their plight. It is a powerful and moving documentary about the realities of life for many people with severe ME, and I would encourage anyone who is looking to gain a better understanding of the illness to watch it.”
“With blindness, I can use audiobooks, but my ME means that I just can’t concentrate for any period of time.” But one condition is accepted as a disabling condition, while the other is not. There is a perception that ME is just about being tired all the time but, as one ME campaigner said: “The difference between ME and just feeling tired is the same as the difference between having a shower and drowning.” I was going to mention the case of Merryn Crofts, but my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) is here and she is her MP. That is clearly an incredibly tragic case—the second person in the UK to have ME recorded as the reason for death on her death certificate. Instead, I will conclude by mentioning the documentary “Unrest”, a screening of which I attended.”
“Yes, we need a system that is sensitive to the people who are taking the test, rather than being a series of tick-box exercises—yes or no. Action for ME gave some interesting evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee when it conducted an inquiry into ESA and PIP towards the end of last year. Action for ME cited one case study of a man who, as well as having ME, is registered blind; he can only just perceive some light. He said, “I’m not disabled by blindness. In comparison to living with ME, my blindness is just an inconvenience.” When it came to the assessment, of course, his blindness scored maximum points, but his ME did not register at all. He said, “Actually, with my blindness I can still go out and walk my dog, but it’s the ME that means I’m housebound.”
“Although these species may not be at such an immediate and apparent threat of extinction as the elephant, they are at risk.”
“I therefore want reassurance that, if we are not to widen the definition in the Bill, those consultations and statutory instruments will be brought forward as soon as possible. With regard to ivory-bearing animals mentioned in the CITES appendices, alongside African and Asian elephants in appendix I—those ranked as most severely under threat—are sperm whales, which are already under threat from ivory poaching. In 2013 the Spanish authorities seized 250 teeth, with a combined weight of 80 kg, which would have sold online for £1,000 each to be made into carved chess pieces. Appendix II includes narwhals, a single tusk of which can sell for up to $12,500. It has been reported that there are, on average, more than 200 trades in narwhal tusk every year.”
“I suggest to the Minister that just because there was not a consultation on other species does not necessarily mean that they cannot be included in a definition. We heard in evidence that the vast majority of trade is in elephant ivory. Exemptions for antiquities and precious items are nearly always concerned with elephant ivory; the new forms of ivory are very much secondary. There was a discussion about whether the Government would be subject to judicial review if a ban were to be implemented without consultation, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that. My concern is that although the Bill makes provision to do things by statutory instrument, we will not have another ivory Bill for a long time.”
“I feel that I have been slightly thrown into the middle here, because I was “slipped” for this morning and had not expected the Committee to have made such progress. Last week we took much oral evidence on broadening the definition of ivory beyond the tusk or tooth of an elephant to other ivory-bearing animals. It was disappointing that the consultation looked just at elephant ivory without the opportunity to consider narwhals, walruses or other animals. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire was particularly keen that mammoths should be included in the definition, although that would not come under a convention on international trade in endangered species definition, on the grounds that animals that are already extinct cannot be protected as endangered species.”
“It is mostly presented as a conservation issue that threatens the survival of the elephant, which could be wiped from the face of the earth. We should look at it from the point of view that taking an animal’s teeth just for the purpose of ornamentation or to make money out of it has to be wrong, whether it is rare, precious and wonderful to look at, or an ugly old warthog, of which there are many running around. I argue that we should not hunt animals for ivory, whether they are endangered or not.”
“I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We have heard that this is big business. There are organised criminal gangs involved in poaching ivory. We have seen in the past how they will move from one lucrative criminal activity to another. If the elephant trade is closed to them, which we hope it will be, they will move on and find new pastures. I have mentioned a couple of species involved. Alongside those in appendix II there are also killer whales, hippos and certain types of dolphin. Appendix III includes the walruses. It is estimated that up to 3% of their global population are hunted and killed every year. I want to make a final plea for the poor old warthog, which no one seems to care very much about— [ Interruption. ] Maybe it was discussed this morning. We have to look at why we are introducing an ivory ban.”
“When we took evidence on this point on Tuesday, the expert, Emma Rutherford, was asked whether the frame should be included and what should actually be measured. She said that she thought it would be done by size of the ivory, because frame sizes differ. If we are to go down the path of judging something by size, is it the Minister’s view that frame should not be included and that only its contents would be measured?”
“Looking back again at Emma Rutherford’s evidence, she said that 90% to 95% of miniatures would be within the range of 6 by 8 inches. Clearly that means that 5% or 10% are outside that. We did not press her—perhaps we should have—on the importance of that. She seemed quite relaxed about the fact that most would be covered by that rule if we were to introduce it, but I think if we are to consider introducing a size provision, we need to know whether some important miniatures would be excluded, and perhaps tweak it or at least bear that in mind.”
“As a member of the EFRA Committee, I apologise for not being able to stay for the whole debate; I am on the Ivory Bill Committee, which sits again at 2 pm. I entirely support what the Chair of the Select Committee says about the need for much greater clarity and strategic direction from the Department, but it is also important that we hear a lot more from the Department for International Trade and the Department for Exiting the European Union. I asked about rules of origin and their impact on the food sector this morning and got a very disappointing response. Does he agree that all three Departments need to send a clear message to farmers and food producers about what the future holds for them?”
“I will tell my friend about the legislation, so he will be in the clear, but how do we ensure that all those musicians who come in and out of the shop realise that they have ivory in their guitars? Obviously, that also applies to all sorts of other instruments that might have a small, perhaps not very noticeable, piece of ivory in them. How will they know what the requirements are? The registration certificate is quite complex and a lot of people will just not bother completing and submitting it, even if they are slightly aware, because they are unlikely to be caught. There will be a job of work to do to ensure that people do not fall foul of the law without meaning to.”
“What is interesting is that I spoke to him and asked, “Were you aware of the rosewood ban?” He said yes, because the shop knew about it and had stopped selling rosewood guitars; it sells fake rosewood guitars now. However, when I mentioned ivory to him—bear in mind that this is somebody who for 30 years has taken guitars to pieces and put them back together again, and twiddled with the knobs, and got vintage knobs off one thing and put it on another thing—he said, “Oh, I just assumed it was bone on the guitars that I worked on.” He had no idea that he might be working on instruments that had ivory on them. I suppose the shop will get to hear about the legislation, but he does a lot of repairs for people who just phone him up or musicians who pop in and give him their guitars to work on.”
“] It is people such as that who may well be affected by the Bill, so how do we spread word about it to them? I have a friend who is not only a musician but a guitar repairer; he has been doing guitar repairs for more than 30 years and is attached to a particular shop. He must have worked on thousands of guitars over that time, including some incredibly intricate ones. In fact, he repairs not only guitars but ukuleles, mandolins and banjos. I remember that one instrument in particular was inlaid with all sorts of mother-of-pearl and lights that flashed every time a string was plucked. That one was incredibly rare and required an awful lot of work.”
“Friend the shadow Minister said about how we raise awareness of this provision. The Musicians’ Union can obviously reach out to its own members, and if people are professional musicians or own a musical instrument business, this is something they may well hear about. However, I am concerned that an awful lot of people, including some people who may just own guitars, may not hear about it. When Alan Johnson was Home Secretary, people praised him for having come from a humble background and having attained such an exalted position, but what he still really wanted to be was a musician and I think that Tony Blair was of the same opinion as well. Indeed, I suspect that there are rather a lot of men of a certain age who have still got their guitars sitting there, which they have had for a rather long time. [ Laughter.”
“We did not discuss it when we were considering clause 1, so I think that we are okay on that point. However, one issue that musicians need clarifying in the Bill is whether exempted instruments that are sent abroad for repair will be allowed to return to their owner without any huge delays or additional paperwork. I think that such instruments would be at the higher end of the market. Because of their rarity, intricacy and value, they often need to be sent to other countries for intricate repairs, so it would be a real problem and a huge shame if they were to be confiscated, either abroad or on their return through customs. So I should be very grateful to the Minister for clarification of whether he has looked into that; if not, perhaps he could make efforts to address that issue in the Bill. My other concern echoes what my hon.”
“However, I still have a couple of concerns. I think that we will get on to one of them later, when we discuss clauses 10 and 11. It is about the fact that the registration certificate travels with the owner. So, if an owner sells an instrument, the new owner has to go through the whole process again, as opposed to the certificate travelling with, or being attached to, the instrument. I would have thought that something similar to car logbooks could be used, whereby there is just a change of name on the certificate; but we will discuss that later. During the evidence session, there was some proposal about a blanket ban on online sales and I know the Minister would have noted that there was concern about that. However, it does not look as if anyone is bringing forward such a ban.”
“I start by drawing the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It was good to hear the Musicians’ Union and the other associations that gave evidence confirm that they were delighted with the progress that has been made. I know that when an ivory ban was first talked about, they were very concerned that, given all the talk about the antiques trade and the obvious focus on conservation and animal welfare, musicians would get left out and owners of instruments containing a small amount of ivory would be overlooked. It is very good that the Government have listened to them and seem to have reached an agreement. They also confirmed that although the ivory ban was introduced in two tranches—in 1975 and 1989—they were comfortable with the fact that the ban applies to all instruments post-1975.”
“This is really about clause 11, but I do not understand why a new owner has to re-register. That does not seem to make sense. In the same way as a registration certificate is attached to a car, why cannot one be attached to a musical instrument? We have expressed concerns about people not knowing that they have got to go through this process, and it seems that this has created an awful lot more work.”
“As well as the motor sector, the food sector has expressed concern that rules of origin in the supply chain could have a real impact post-Brexit if we are not part of a customs union. What is the Department’s approach? Is it considering a broader definition of “local origin”? How else will it help those sectors deal with rules of origin post-Brexit?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for bringing this debate to the House tonight. He is excellent on animal welfare issues. The decision on foie gras has already been made in this country. We have banned its production here because it is morally unacceptable and cruel, and a YouGov poll has found that 77% of people support an import ban. I think that that figure would be much higher if the rest were to actually listen to what the hon. Gentleman has to say about the immense cruelty involved and if people realised that they were eating a diseased organ. Foie gras is a product of making the animal diseased.”
“Q It has taken a long time to get to the stage of introducing this Bill and I would think it will be a long time before the Government return to this issue. The figures you have given on other species are startling, and you say you want flexibility in the Bill to be able to amend it. Is there a way in which the Bill could allow for, perhaps, delegated legislation or some other way to revisit the issue without having to have an Ivory Bill mark 2, which could be quite a significant time down the road? Cath Lawson: From WWF’s point of view, I cannot comment on the legislative process but we would certainly want to see a consultation process around those species before inclusion in a Bill. That is why it needs to be a separate process.”
“Q We know the figures and the scale of the problem, so what would a consultation be aimed at trying to find out? Cath Lawson: Similar to the process we have gone through for the Ivory Bill, looking at the impact of UK trade on those species, and implications further down the line in terms of limiting that trade.”
“Q I suspect that the trade in ivory that comes from those species is not anywhere near as established as that of elephant ivory in terms of antiques, piano keys and things like that. That trade would be concerned with elephant ivory. Cath Lawson: Yes.”
“Q So I am not sure there needs to be so much discussion about trade when it comes to these other items. Where does the hippo ivory and narwhal ivory end up? Will Travers: In trade.”
“Q Why is it being traded? Is it medicines, or is it for ornaments? Will Travers: My understanding is that it is genuinely an alternative ivory that is used in decorative materials. It is used in inlays and in almost exactly the same way as elephant ivory is used except less so on the whole. Less so in a large carved tusk in the shape of little elephants, for example.”
“Q Exemptions in the Bill are all for existing items—in the case of musical instruments it is pre-1975, and much earlier for antiques—so I do not quite understand why there would be a need to reconsider exemptions for items from other species, if you are saying they are being used now. I do not get the moral justification for there perhaps being a different case for items made of ivory from other species. Why is it not exactly the same case as for elephants? Perhaps Lisa can ask more coherently than me.”
“To add a little context, you are right, of course. Not only are musical instruments with bits of ivory in them bought and sold online but some inlay furniture is also sometimes bought and sold online. However, it is the overwhelming minority of musical instruments or pieces of furniture that contain ivory of that kind. My personal preference, for clarity and therefore for certainty, would be for it to apply across the piece. Of course, if it applied only to part of the piece, that would still be better certainty than its not applying at all.”
“Q Returning to what you said about a ban on any sales online, would that apply just to pre-1918 items, and not to the exemptions for items with low ivory content? I am thinking particularly of musical instruments. At the moment there is an exemption for pre-1975 musical instruments. They are quite often bought and sold online. People buy guitars, for example, from online shops. Would you be happy for that to continue where the ivory is not a crucial part of the item but it happens to have ivory decoration, or an ivory mouthpiece, for example? I do not think many pianos are bought and sold online, but they can have ivory keys. Alexander Rhodes: The purpose of this is clarity and certainty, so my preference would be for it to be straightforward. If it is ivory, you cannot sell it, and you cannot deal in it, online.”
“Q I can see that it is an easier provision to put in the legislation, but we have the Musicians’ Union and others coming in this afternoon. They may well have something to say about it. Then there are people buying and selling their own instruments. I suspect that they probably would not have the slightest idea that the legislation existed in the first place. Alexander Rhodes: That is the opportunity of the Bill and of October. It is also the opportunity coming out of the broad consultation with musicians. We have had great conversations with them.”
“Q Engagement at the Musicians’ Union level is one thing, but it is another thing if you are talking about someone who has a vintage guitar and decides to sell it. I used to live with someone who had about 20 vintage guitars and repaired them for a living, so I know how often he decided that he absolutely had to have yet another vintage guitar and sell one of the ones that he had. Even in the future, I do not think that he would realise that there was a ban on him putting his guitar on eBay. I would not want people criminalised for doing something like that. You are not talking about people making huge amounts of money in the ivory trade; you are talking about somebody who just happens to have a product that has a bit of ivory in it. We will ask the Musicians’ Union what they think. Alexander Rhodes: It is a balance.”
“Q May I just return to what the chief inspector was saying about how to prove if somebody knows it is ivory, particularly if it has been misdescribed. We have discussed in the past adding something around misrepresentation of an item to clause 1 to cover selling something that has been fraudulently mislabelled so as to avoid detection. Presumably, you would still then have the difficulty of proving that somebody had misrepresented it—that somebody knew it was not bovine bone or whatever. Chief Inspector Hubble: Yes, we would still have to prove that they knew it was ivory and that they had then mislabelled it, knowing that it was ivory.”
“Q Adding a provision that covers mislabelling does not get us very far, unless you have absolute liability in terms of buying and selling. Chief Inspector Hubble: All the time that the burden of proof is on us to prove that they knew, that is difficult from an enforcement perspective. If the burden of proof was on them to prove that they did not know it was ivory, that would make enforcement much easier.”
“Q Bovine bone does not sound particularly appealing if you are buying something of ornamental value. Is it very well known within the business that it really is ivory? Chief Inspector Hubble: Absolutely.”
“Q Absolutely, but it is very difficult to show that. Chief Inspector Hubble: That is because eBay banned ivory as a listing two or three years ago: eBay was openly selling ivory and an approach was made to it to say, “This is illegal, you cannot do this.” It took the ivory category down, so now people call it bovine bone or ox bone, but clearly it is still ivory.”
“Q You are not going to catch those people on the mislabelling; they have to have absolute liability and the burden of proof is on them. That is the only way you will catch those people. Chief Inspector Hubble: Absolutely. In general, we do not deal with the people who will apply for exemption certificates and who will register their items and apply for permits, because they are the responsible, law-abiding people. We deal with the ones who have a complete disregard for policy protocol legislation. We deal with the ones who are deceptive, who lie and who want to make money out of this. The burden of proof has to be manageable and has to be able to be enforced, otherwise it is not enforceable legislation.”
“Q As you said, you police this by starting with a ticking off. If somebody genuinely thought, “That looks pretty,” and bought something on eBay without thinking of or knowing the consequences, you will not come down hard on such people, will you? It will be the people who you know to be in the business. Chief Inspector Hubble: We have to apply a proportionate response to any investigation that we undertake, based on what they are doing, what they have done before and whether they are willing to engage through an education process or a preventive measure. All those factors determine the outcome and the sanction.”
“Q If the burden of the proof was on the person buying or selling, you would not end up criminalising lots of people who are just buying things innocently, because you could be trusted not to go steaming in with armed police officers. Chief Inspector Hubble: Absolutely, yes.”
“While it would be tempting to say “Can we have a bit more, please?”, if I am totally honest, we were so delighted with the proposal as it stood that, considering it would catch the vast majority of instruments, we did not want to appear over-zealous in our presentation to you.”