§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Arbuthnot.]
2.30 pm§ Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As this is the last debate before the House adjourns, may I wish you the happiest of Easters—and long may I catch your eye.
This is not the first time that I have raised in the House the subject of the suffering inflicted on animal life by that most cruel and barbarous of all living creatures—the human being. We believe ourselves to be the highest form of life on the planet and the most intelligent of all creatures. Wrong. We are not. We are simply the most powerful life form—converting intelligence into arrogance and unspeakable brutality. Human beings are capable of scaling the heights of sublime creativity and guilty of plumbing the depths of depravity. From rape and torture in Bosnia to badger baiting in Britain, there is a continuum of cruelty which, in my darker moments, makes me believe that it would have been better had human beings never evolved from our most primitive state. I can think of nothing that we have ever achieved that compensates for the cruelty and suffering that we have inflicted both on ourselves and on other living creatures.
Among the most wondrous of all living creatures must be the great whales. They evoke awe and fascination in those of us capable of such decent feeling. They have lived on earth for some 50 million years, in perfect balance with nature until the brutal intervention of those relative newcomers, human beings. There are some 80 species of whale, dolphin and porpoise. The blue whale is the largest creature ever to have lived on the planet—more massive than even the largest dinosaur. The brain of the sperm whale is the largest to be found in any creature, including man. The song of the humpback whale is intricate and evocative and capable of being transmitted hundreds of miles through the sea. The toothed whales use a form of sonar for echo location up to 95 per cent. more accurate than the most sophisticated sonar developed by humans.
Whales great and small are highly intelligent, communal, wartn-blooded mammals with complex social behaviour patterns. They deserve to be studied and cherished. There are so many unanswered questions about them. How do they manage to survive at great pressure during deep sea diving? How do they communicate one with another? They have so much to teach us, yet over the centuries we have slaughtered these gentle, harmless creatures for such worthless purposes as turning them into pet food, candles and perfume.
Even to the insensitive, exploitative human being, it eventually became evident that whales were being hunted to extinction. In 1982, the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling, the ban corning into force in 1985–86. Since then, more than 14,000 whales have been slaughtered by certain whaling countries—either under objections to the ban or through so-called scientific whaling. Japan takes approximately 300 minke whales each year in the Antarctic. The Norwegians started their scientific whaling in 1992 and, in the period to 1994, they intend to take some 400 minke whales.
The Norwegians now intend to go further and resume commercial whaling this year, regardless of the decision made by the IWC. It is that blatant disregard for the 804 international community on the part of the Norwegian Government which has driven me to raise the issue this afternoon. I shall return later to the subject of Norway and its supposedly socialist and environmentally concerned Prime Minister, Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, but first I want to say a few words about the method of whale killing. Cruelty starts not with the firing of the harpoon, but with the chase of the animal. It causes great stress for those creatures because it can take up to an hour or more. Sometimes, the whaling ships use sonar to confuse and scare the animal so that it comes to the surface and thus presents itself as an easier target to hit with the harpoon.
In 1980, the IWC humane killing workshop agreed on a definition:
To cause death without pain, stress or distress perceptible to the animal.At the same IWC workshop in 1993, the pro-whaling nations said categorically that such a definition could not be achieved in whaling operations. The solution, therefore, to people like myself, the Minister and others is simple, obvious and logical. If whales cannot be killed humanely, they should not be killed at all.Despite all that, the slaughter still goes on. Japan and Norway are probably the worst offenders, followed by Iceland, but there are others. Japan and Norway attempt to camouflage their limited commercial whaling by calling it scientific whaling. It is a perversion of the word "scientific". It is rather like Dr. Josef Mengele experimenting on live human beings in Nazi concentration camps in the name of science.
What do those countries discover in their scientific whaling? When they have slaughtered the whales, they find that there are fewer whales in the sea than when they started. What happens to the meat? Surprise, surprise—if you happen to have a preference for whale meat, Madam Deputy Speaker, which I know is anathema to you as it is to me, that meat can be purchased in good restaurants in Tokyo and in supermarkets in Oslo. So much for scientific whaling.
What sort of cruelty are we actually talking about? The weapon used to kill whales is an explosive harpoon. Its head has two or four barbs, to which is screwed an explosive grenade. As the harpoon enters the body the grenade explodes, scattering whatever organs and tissue with which it happens to make contact. For the hunting of minke whales, the species now targeted by whalers, a different explosive has been developed for use in the harpoon. It is called penthrite—a powerful explosive that damages less of the whale meat than traditional explosive harpoons. Whales are mammals with a highly developed nervous system, comparable in many ways to that of land mammals, including man. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that they are capable of feeling pain to the same extent.
I want now to return to the determination of Norway to recommence open commercial whaling later this year. In February, at the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the Norwegian Prime Minister, Mrs. Brundtland, addressed us. There were questions afterwards. I and two Conservative Members—one from the House and one from the other place—together with a German Member of Parliament asked why Norway was determined to ignore an international agreement on whaling. At that point, Mrs. Brundtland went nuclear. She gave us a long, rambling, incoherent, inaccurate and, indeed, devious reply. I have circulated copies of it to hon. 805 Members. In my opinion, Mrs. Brundtland, who parades her green credentials around the world to polite applause from liberal-minded audiences, is nothing short of a hypocrite.
Mrs. Brundtland accused the IWC of being unscientific in its use of evidence to protect the North sea stock of minke whales. In 1991, the scientific committee of the IWC concluded that the north-east Atlantic minkes had been continuously declining throughout Norwegian whaling between 1953 and 1983. Norwegian scientists did not contest that fact. Mrs. Brundtland then accused the IWC of breaking its own rules, but Norway's killing of minke whales with explosive harpoons actually contravenes Norway's animal welfare regulations.
Having not succeeded up to that point, Mrs. Brundtland then resorted to the most bankrupt of all arguments. It was given to her by one of her officials, almost as an afterthought, and it would have been better had she not mentioned it. She said that whales had to be controlled because they eat too many fish. The depletion of fish stocks has nothing to do with whales and seals but everything to do with overfishing by man. I have heard the Minister speak about the matter on many occasions in the House and elsewhere. The answer lies in factory-ship fishing and the mismanagement of fish stocks. Before intensive fishing methods were employed, the seas teemed with all fish species. There was no fish shortage; nor was there a whale shortage. Whales were not endangered before the activities of purblind, stupid human beings intervened. If Mrs. Brundtland does not understand that, I believe her to be a total fool.
Whales are migratory creatures. They do not belong to any one nation or to any group of nations. They belong to the planet and in that sense they belong to us all. No body and no nation has a right to kill them, especially not in defiance of international agreements. Neither Norway nor Japan has any economic justification for killing whales. After all, they are two of the wealthiest countries in the world.
I ask the Minister to say what action we should take against Norway if it goes ahead with commercial whaling. If I had my way, I would give the crews of the whalers five minutes to leave their ships and then I would blow them, the ships, out of the water. I suspect that the Minister might not wish to go so far on this occasion. I hope, however, that he will take an aggressive stand in respect of the Norwegians.
I put a question to the Prime Minister recently on whaling. It was a gentle question and I hoped that it would be given a helpful reply. I could have been my usual, aggressive person and gone for his throat. I had some good questions at the back of my mind. To myself, I said, "No, the right hon. Gentleman is a decent sort and he will no doubt say something helpful." He did not. I then regretted having asked him such a gentle question. I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he would oppose Norway's application to join the EEC if it persisted with its decision to resume commercial whaling. He just passed over the question. Unfortunately, his reply was not as good as the responses that I have been getting from his Ministers. Worse than that, the Prime Minister's answer was reported in the Norwegian press and taken up by Norwegian politicians on the basis that the British Government did 806 not mind very much if the Norwegians went ahead with commercial whaling. That is how the right hon. Gentleman's answer was translated in the Norwegian press. I hope that the Minister will rectify the situation this afternoon and make the British Government's position clear so that no one can misinterpret their views. On this occasion, the Government will be speaking for us all.
As I have said, I think that the Minister must be pushed into taking an aggressive stand against Norway. There should be no negotiation with Norway over its European Community application should commercial whaling recommence. Appropriate sanctions should be taken on Norwegian fish exports by all the Community nations. Norwegian ships should be banned from European Community waters. I should like to see a ban placed on all Norwegian exports, including oil and gas. The country must be made to pay if it is to defy world opinion. I am sure that animal welfare organisations will organise boycotts and demonstrations against Norway should commercial whaling recommence.
I say in a calculated way that Norwegian embassies in several European countries will undoubtedly become a focus for protest. All the public relations companies that the Norwegian Government are busily and, I understand, unsuccessfully trying to retain will not be able to repair the enormous damage to Norway's image should it defy the great weight of public opinion in Europe and north America.
The British Government should not stop there. We still have to deal with Japan, which has continued to defy world opinion and the IWC for many years now. Worldwide measures must be taken to protect the whale.
I shall ask the Minister some specific questions. If he cannot answer them this afternoon, I will ensure that they reach him in written form so he can give me a considered response. Apart from myself, many citizens of this country and of others will be interested to hear his response. I believe that the United Kingdom should support the proposal of France that there should be a sanctuary in the southern oceans, including Antarctic waters. I received a welcome letter of support from the Falklands Islands Government. It was a thoughtful response and I will send a copy of that letter to the Minister.
The United Kingdom Government must rigorously and publicly oppose moves to reopen commercial whaling under the new revised management procedures. We must oppose it on the ground of cruelty. The British Government's voice must be heard unequivocally on the matter. We must not surrender to Norwegian and Japanese demands in order to save the IWC. That would be like giving way to terrorist demands.
Norway might be pushing for a negotiated position on the revised management procedures rather than seriously contemplating quitting the IWC. We must call Norway's bluff. Voting in the IWC must remain on the basis of requiring a three quarters majority. One knows that the Japanese are trying to secure voting on a simple majority basis and, I understand, busily buying up the votes of smaller countries to achieve that. It would be contrary to the convention to allow that to happen. Again, I hope that the British Government will speak out loudly on the matter.
Norwegian and Japanese Governments are spending huge sums of money on pro-whaling propaganda and a misinformation campaign. It all started with Mrs. Brundtland herself. It is essential that non-whaling 807 Governments such as ours challenge the campaign and do not simply leave that challenge to the non-governmental organisations which are doing so much sterling work but lack the authority that a sovereign Government can bring to their statements.
There is enormous all-party opposition in the House to the whaling activities of Norway and Japan. The British Government must reflect that opinion in their dealings with those two wickedly misguided countries. I have spoken on the issue before in the House. I have spoken in previous Adjournment debates. I have always had a good response from the Government because they know the depth of feeling in the House and in the country.
But we seem to be getting nowhere with Norway and Japan. We must not allow them to defy civilised opinion in Britain, north America and the European Community. They must take some hard lessons. I hope that the British Government will start the process of delivering hard lessons and will protect those wonderful creatures, the whales. I hope that the British Government will tell the Norwegians and Japanese that they will not be allowed to kill the whales.
§ 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 808 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.
809 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 over that fishery and seeking improvements in the killing methods and linking that with the general resolution on humane killing. We have consistently 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 810 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].