§ Mr. John MarshallTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will report on the progress achieved so far at this week's meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Glasgow.
§ Mr. GummerThe IWC meeting in Glasgow, which I opened earlier in the week, is expected to conclude its work later today. There has been a series of achievements in our efforts to protect whales and cetaceans which we greatly welcome.
Discussions continue today on the development of tougher and more prudent means of stock management. We have made clear that we will not even consider any resumption of commercial whaling unless stocks are healthy; there are tough, transparent and fully agreed systems of monitoring and inspection; and there are methods of killing whales which are humane. Our approach is shared by many other countries. Meanwhile, the moratorium on all commercial whaling will remain firmly in place. We shall not support requests for any form of interim quota.
A new United Kingdom proposal, dealing with research into Antarctic ecosystems, and the impact of global environmental changes on whale stocks, has been adopted. The United Kingdom will be playing a full part in these studies.
We have strongly endorsed resolutions to study the establishment of a circumpolar whale sanctuary such that this may be adopted at the IWC's 45th meeting next May. In the meantime, we co-sponsored a successful resolution securing a whale sanctuary in the Indian Ocean for a further 10-year period.
On humane killing, the United Kingdom has carried forward its strong commitment. We gained IWC agreement to a special three-day workshop in Glasgow last week under the independent chairmanship of Professor Sir Richard Harrison. An 11-point action plan has now been agreed, calling for more research, regular reviews on methods and their effectiveness, and analyses of times to death. We are presently pressing for action on the cruelty aspects of the Faroese pilot whale hunt.
Discussions continue today on the scientific whaling programmes proposed by Norway and Japan. We shall oppose these as failing to meet in full the needs of the IWC's criteria for lethal research.
Finally, although good progress is being made, the work of the IWC this week has been made doubly difficult by Norway's announcement on Monday that it will resume commercial whaling next year, regardless of future decisions of the Commission. We have already strongly condemned this—and so have 17 Commissioners—as seriously undermining the IWC and the work that it is trying to do to protect the world's whale stocks.