§ Mr. David NicholsonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress he has made in implementing the changes to controls on wildlife following his announcement of 20 July.
§ Sir Paul BeresfordGood progress is being made in implementing the changes my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside announced on 20 July,Official Report, columns 319–21.
We have today issued eight general licences to allow the sale of specimens of certain cockatoos, macaws, tortoises, owls and wildfowl, and the competitive showing of certain captive-bred birds, subject to conditions, without the need for an individual licence from the Department; and a general licence allowing the sale of the common toad, common frog, smooth newt and palmate newt, subject to certain conditions.
1116WThese licences will take effect from 1 January.
We are now imposing tighter conditions on a greater number of individual import permits to ensure that the specimens concerned are not used for any other purpose than that for which they were imported. The Department's wildlife inspectorate will be stepping up inspections to ensure that importers comply with these conditions. We have also increased the scrutiny of advertisements offering endangered species for sale to ensure that the transactions comply with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and national legislation.
We have consulted a wide range of interested individuals and organisations about the proposal to abolish the registered sellers of dead birds scheme. Having taken into account all the responses received, we have decided to proceed to abolish the scheme and to introduce general licences.
We have established a working group to review the enforcement of wildlife controls. Its terms of reference are:
To consider the scope for improvements in the enforcement of wildlife species controls in Great Britain with particular reference to the roles of the Police, HM Customs and Excise, the DOE Wildlife Inspectorate and the NGOs, and to report to the Department of the Environment by the end of July 1995".The first meeting was held on 21 October and was attended by the police, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food investigations branch, HM Custom and Excise, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, English Nature, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage, TRAFFIC, RSPB, RSPCA and the National Council for Aviculture.
I intend to make a further announcement early next year about the increased use of DNA tests to enforce wildlife controls.