Imogen Walker

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) for securing this important debate and bringing us all together. Yesterday, I visited a drop-in for assistance dogs. Two dogs were available for photographs—and, frankly, to pet. That was smart of the organisers—the queue was out the door, and they were running out of leaflets. The organisers knew that we are a nation of animal lovers, and that that is reflected in Parliament. However, that is not yet reflected in our action on trophy imports. Whatever our intent and feeling, and however much work has been done behind the scenes, we are falling behind. The US, Canada, Australia and many more have implemented trophy bans, and we have not. In the past decade, almost 2,000 animal trophies have been brought into the UK. These are endangered animals—body parts of species we cannot afford to lose and individual animals whose lives were much too precious to be ended for entertainment. There is no public opposition to a ban—the vast majority of people in the UK support one—and there is little political opposition. Virtually all Members of Parliament support a ban. Issues that unite us in this place to that extent are vanishingly rare. We should value that and celebrate it; we should take the chance to do the right thing—an act of strength and kindness in a hard world. On so many issues, the drama and division make a lot of noise and take up a lot of space. We all participate in that—it is one of the ways that we make things happen—but a consensus does not mean a lack of importance, urgency or determination. It means quite the opposite. This is an issue on which people who agree on little else have come together, and that is significant. We really are a nation of animal lovers. On this issue, there is a simple way to reflect that in our laws: we must make parliamentary time to ban the import of hunting trophies, and to ensure that we play no part in the exploitation, suffering and violation of innocent animals. I will be so proud to support that ban when it happens. We have the power to do this. Let us use it soon.