§ Mr. Ken HargreavesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will now make available the report by the royal botanic gardens, Kew, on the wildlife trade.
§ Mr. BaldryCopies of the report are available in the Library of the House. It emphasises the importance of the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora as the principal tool for monitoring international trade in all wildlife, including plants. It also commends the part that the United Kingdom has played, acknowledging that we have been at the forefront of implementing and enforcing the convention for plants. The report urges that other countries should follow our example and makes a number of detailed recommendations for tightening the present controls throughout the European Community and beyond.
I have therefore written to the European Commission today, commending the report to it. I have urged it to propose, in addition to the measures on the wildlife trade which I advocated in October, that the Community takes steps to overcome the relative neglect of trade in plants.
In order to ensure that action is taken, my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside will be circulating both this report and that prepared by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee on the trade in animals at the EC Environment Council tomorrow. He will urge all member states to work towards the speedy introduction of tighter controls on the wildlife trade.