House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Apr 1993

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. David Curry) : This is the third time that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) and I have discussed this matter in the House. As I listened to him, I looked at the "BBC-Vacher's Guide to the New House of Commons". For the hon. Gentleman it says : "Interests (Political) No details.

Interests (Personal) No details."

Vacher's cannot have been listening in the past few years to the hon. Gentleman's real concerns on environmental matters.

As the hon. Gentleman said, we have never had a disagreement of any significance. That will be the case today because the British Government take the view that they take not to reflect opinion within or outside the House, but because they share that opinion. They are not merely running in front of the crowd. We believe largely what most people believe about whaling.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Norwegian claim about fish stocks. He will be interested to know that, in the talks on the enlargement of the Community and bringing in the European Free Trade Association countries, projections were made of fish stocks. The Norwegians project a sustained increase and improvement in the cod stocks in the north Atlantic. So clearly, whatever depredations may be inflicted on the fish stocks, they do not stop the stocks showing a sustained improvement. We, too, benefit from that improvement. I begin with Norway and the link with the enlargement of the Community because that was the main thrust of the hon. Gentleman's speech. As he knows, Norway has applied for membership of the European Community. Indeed, it applied before the referendum eventually went against membership. The EC has agreed to the habitats directive. That directive comes into force in May 1994. Under the directive, all species of cetaceans will be protected in the Community's territorial waters up to 200 miles. That includes whales.

All trade in whale products throughout the Community is banned under the EC CITES--Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species-- regulations. Therefore, the cumulative effect of the agreements is a

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whaling ban in Community waters. There is no other way of interpreting them. When Norway comes into the Community it seems to me inconceivable that the Community would wish to relax that ban. Therefore, Norway has applied to join an organisation which bans whaling. In forthcoming negotiations, public and governmental attention will be focused on Norway and I cannot imagine that a proposal to change that situation would be readily negotiable. In one sense, Norway is moving towards a situation in which its freedom of manoeuvre is largely circumscribed. That is to be welcomed. The remarks of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister do not in any way represent a dilution of the Government's stand. I have looked hard at what my right hon. Friend said and what has been said previously, and what I am saying has my right hon. Friend's agreement, as it does of every member of the Government. It is not the case that anyone in the Government is going soggy on this issue. The issue of whaling unites the House and public opinion. It is timely for the hon. Gentleman to raise this matter now because the International Whaling Commission meets in Kyoto next month. Many issues are on the agenda and it is bound to cover the question of the future of Norwegian whaling and its access to the Community. Our position is clear : we will not even begin to contemplate commercial whaling unless a series of essential preconditions are met. First, the stocks should be in a healthy state, based on the very best scientific evidence available. Secondly, we should be satisfied about the humaneness of killing whales. As the hon. Gentleman said, we are a long way from obtaining satisfaction on that. I shall go into more detail on that, despite the fact that it is a gory subject, as the hon. Gentleman would recognise. Thirdly, full, effective and transparent means of monitoring and observing whaling operations which command international respect should be in place. We have not even started to elaborate that dossier and the Kyoto meeting will take the first steps towards that.

There is an argument about the state of the stocks and the scientific evidence about them. One's decision about whether they are sustainable is based on whether one wants to hunt them and is a function of that hunting. As to the humaneness of the killing and effective monitoring, we are nowhere near reaching a decision to the effect that we might wish to bring the moratorium to an end. We have been a firm supporter of the moratorium on commercial whaling and we played an important role in getting it agreed. It was established in the 1985-86 season and it can be overturned only by a three quarters majority vote. The United Kingdom has no intention of lending itself to any manoeuvre to dilute that vote. As the hon. Gentleman said, certain members of the International Whaling Commission use their wealth--I put it no better than that--to influence the votes of less important members of the commission, who have no effective interest in whaling and whose membership of the commission stems from historical reasons.

That moratorium was long overdue because the former management procedures were discredited. The state of the stocks were giving rise to serious concern, although many of the great whales, which had been seriously over- hunted, had been protected since the 1960s and, in some cases, from even earlier. The remaining stocks of the commercial species were, however, under immense pressure.

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We have also taken a strong stance on the question of humane killing. We played a major part in getting the so-called "cold" or non-explosive harpoon banned by the IWC. We have consistently pressed humaneness issues in the commission and we promoted a three-day study of them at the previous commission meeting in Glasgow. We secured a consensus for the 11-point action plan to promote further investigation into equipment, methods, times to death and other similar difficult details, including improvement in the analysis and presentation of past and present data on whaling and regular progress reviews. As I said, we believe that the present methods have a long way to go before they could even remotely be described as humane. Enormous concern remains about the time of death and secondary killing methods such as using rifles and cold harpoons to dispatch the whales that have not been killed quickly.

It is equally true that we must have credible, open and thoroughly effective schemes for observation and enforcement, plus minimum data standards, and we do not believe that we can rely on national inspection by the whaling nations alone. That would not be acceptable. Although the hon. Gentleman did not mention it, we are equally concerned about the Faroese whale hunt and we know what public opinion is on that. We were active in Glasgow in that respect, trying to focus concerns ovely pressed for significant improvements in that conduct, through the commission, and we will continue to do so. We look for a positive response to last year's resolution. A number of issues will have to be discussed in Kyoto. The first is the maintenance of the moratorium on commercial whaling. The preconditions have not been met. We are keenly interested in the proposals for the whale sanctuary circling the polar regions. As the hon. Gentleman knows, they were submitted too late for consideration at the last commission meeting, but will come forward this time. That is an interesting and challenging approach and we see strong parallels with the United Kingdom's approach, which was adopted at the commission last year, based on global environmental threats and the way in which those can impact on cetacean stocks and their management.

We also wish to promote another aspect, which may be one of the best ways forward--ecotourism, or allowing people to go to look at whales. In other words, whales can be used in a way that will allow people to benefit from that remarkable creation. It is a non-lethal alternative to commercial whaling. It could be a commercial industry. It is fast growing. We reckon that in 1991 it generated an income of £185 million world wide. That is a perfect form of co-existence between human beings who have a fascination for the creatures and the creatures themselves. It will also generate income for communities that were dependent on whaling.

We must make further progress on humane killing. Japan and Norway have been put on notice and detailed

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work on the further protection of small cetaceans is required to build on the success of a number of United Kingdom co-sponsored resolutions last year which highlighted those threatened species. We have kept in close touch with the environmental groups connected with whales and their protection and conservation. The Department has already had meetings with organisations such as Greenpeace, the Environmental Investigation Agency, the RSPCA and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Some of them were represented on our delegation last year and my right hon. Friend the Minister is due to meet them later this month in the run-up to Kyoto. We look forward to participation and continuing close co- operation in Kyoto and beyond.

As my hon. Friend said--on the last day of the term, on this issue, perhaps we might be permitted to breach the normal conventions--Norway started a major scientific whaling programme last year. Substantial numbers of minke whales have been taken and there were failures in harpoon technology. The scientific programme was strongly criticised by the commission last year in terms of both its purpose and scale. Norway declared at the beginning of last year's meeting that she would start commercial whaling this year, whatever decisions were taken by the International Whaling Commission. It has been suggested that Norway could retune the IWC computer catch limit model to produce the numbers of minke whales that it wanted. One has to be careful, if one cannot get the external evidence to suit one, not to start playing around with the numbers that come up on the screen. We find Norway's claim incomprehensible, as the hon. Member has said, coming from a nation which prides itself on its environmental record and its declared wish to work through and not against international organisations. Therefore, Norwegian actions have been condemned here and abroad and have clearly cost Norway's reputation dear. It is curious that a nation which most people would regard as a model for a certain concept of international responsibility should depart from that for an industry, which, looked at objectively in the light of Norway's declared aims for her future, seems to be incapable of being sustained in any case. That seems counterproductive, self-destructive and short term.

We are clear that Norway's actions are incompatible with Community regulations on whales, on the protection of species under CITES and with the habitats directive. The Commission takes the same view on the de facto ban on whaling and we have made it clear to Norway that she has to accept this as part of the aquis of coming into the Community. In practice, Norwegian accession would mean the end of Norwegian whaling in EC territorial waters and the end of any possibility of trade in whale products. We can at least look forward to that as an important step on the way to ending this practice. The motion having been made after half-past Two o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Madam Deputy Speaker-- adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Three o'clock till Wednesday 14 April, pursuant to the Resolution [1 April].

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