QUAIL PROTECTION BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 16 November 1937)

VISCOUNT MERSEY
My Lords, I hope this Bill will prove a non-contentious measure. It is put forward in the first instance on behalf of the British Section of the International Committee for Bird Preservation in agreement with the Zoological Society and many similar bodies which look after such matters in this country. It is also put forward in agreement with several foreign Governments who are concerned. Even in a simple Bill of this nature many Government Departments in this country have to be consulted. The Home Office is concerned, the Foreign Office is indirectly concerned, as well as the Board of Trade and, I believe, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Department of Customs, the Treasury, and, last but not least, the British Museum, so that it is not quite so simple a project as might appear at first sight. I understand that none of these Departments have anything to say against the Bill, and I hope your Lordships on this occasion will follow their good example.
There is nothing sentimental about the Bill. It is not what might be called humanitarian. It is simply a Bill to prevent the total extermination in a comparatively short time of the quail, and I shall, if I can, in a few words explain the position to your Lordships. The quail, which is a small partridge, coturnix coturnix, spends its winter in Central Africa and its spring and summer in Europe. About the month of February it comes in flights down the Nile Valley or across the Sahara until it gets to the Mediterranean seaboard. It crosses the Mediterranean in three different directions. The eastern lot go across the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea to South Russia, the central lot go by Sicily and Italy, and the western lot go through Spain and France.
They very seldom come here, but in recent years a trade has grown up of 107 importing these quails in large numbers alive. They are brought over in crates of fifty apiece just at the period when they would be mating. The mating season is between March and June, and the quails come over to the cooler climate of Europe for that purpose. They are not then really fit to be shot or eaten, but they are netted in Egypt and they are shot in Algeria. They are netted in Egypt and sent over in these large crates to this country—as many as a quarter of a million arrive here in the season—and they are sold in the London market. The Egyptian Government and the French Government are both conscious of the danger there is to the quail, and they have passed legislation dealing with the matter. The Egyptian Government prohibit the netting of the quail during the breeding season, and the French Government, as regards Algeria and those parts of Morocco which they control, prohibit the shooting of them. This Bill is proposed by way of complement to their action so that something effective may be done to protect this very desirable race of small birds.
We wish to prevent the quail being imported alive here during its breeding season. That is the whole object of the Bill. We have approached both the wholesale and the retail traders in this country, and both are in agreement with the objects of the Bill. The only firm of importers, an Italian firm, also offer no opposition to it. That really is the whole genesis and scope of the Bill. It is a one-clause measure. The first subsection says that no live quail shall be imported into the United Kingdom between February 14 and July, and the second subsection includes the quail among the goods enumerated in Section 42 of the Customs Consolidation Act of 1876, which imposes penalties and orders the destruction or disposal of the imported article—that is to say, the Customs can seize any quails brought over in these crates and can either destroy them or let them loose over the land. I think that is the whole of the Bill. We hope very much that your Lordships will pass its Second Reading to-day. I do not know if we may also hope that perhaps the Government will not only bless the Bill but will give it a rapid passage through the House of Commons. I beg 108 to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW
My Lords, I hope your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading, and I hope also that my noble friend was right when he told us that all the Government Departments—he enumerated a very formidable list—were in agreement that this Bill should go through. That being the case, I trust the Government may find themselves in a position to give such assistance as may be necessary to enable it to pass through another place as well ell as through your Lordships' House. My noble friend has told you the purpose of the Bill. It is a very simple matter. It is merely to prevent the import into this country of live quail during the breeding season. It is to supplement the efforts of the Egyptian and French Governments to preserve quails at that time.
The quail in this country has become a very rare bird, though curiously enough I had a letter the other day from Scotland in which it is said that quails occur in that country almost every year. I cannot myself remember seeing a quail in this country for very many years, though I recall that a great number of years ago, when shooting with the late Lord Long—Mr. Walter Long as he then was—on Salisbury Plain, long before the troops came there, there was always a bevy of quail every year. And indeed, in 1884, my father shot one on Merrow Downs, which seems almost impossible. In these days I do not think we ever see quail in the South of England. If my noble friend's Bill becomes law it is quite possible quail will then come over here, I do not say in considerable numbers but at any rate in appreciable numbers. I am sure your Lordships will regard that as a very desirable addition to the wild birds of this country and to the game birds of this country especially. I may say that the Zoological Society and all other kindred societies which interest themselves in these matters are entirely in sympathy with the Bill and hope it will pass. Therefore I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading to-night.

§ EARL FORTESCUE
My Lords, I beg to inform your Lordships that the Home Office and Scottish Office are in sympathy 109 with the object of the Bill and there is no objection from the point of view of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It will be observed that the Bill is drafted by way of adding live quail to the list of goods the importation of which is prohibited by Section 42 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1875, and in this connection certain points have been raised by the Board of Customs. It is not, however, desired to object to the Bill receiving a Second Reading provided it is understood that further consideration may make it desirable to suggest some amendment of subsection (2) of Clause i at a later stage. I regret, however, to inform the noble Lord that I can give no pledge that the Bill will be facilitated in another place.