Shark fins bill

Christina Rees MP

Following on from the article I published in August, this piece seeks to explain the subsequent process that has seen my Shark Fins Bill make it through committee stage. The UK Constitution dictates that it is the political party that is victorious in general elections and is asked by the Monarch to form a UK Government which holds the power to create and amend UK legislation. The larger the majority that the UK Government has over the opposition parties, the easier it is for legislation to pass through the House of Commons, because, providing that UK Government MPs follow their party whips, it will win every vote that is called. Since 2010 the Conservative Party has been the UK Government, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2015. Its majority over all other opposition parties has been substantial since the 2019 general election, when it was eighty. At the time of writing it is 64.

The mechanism by which opposition MPs can contribute to making law, is by voting with the UK Government, or backbenchers can put forward a Private Members’ Bill (PMB), and attempt to take it through all the stages in the Commons, and should that succeed, the PMB would then progress to the Lords, where the PMB goes through the same stages. It is rare that the PMB emerges out of these processes without being amended by UK Government at the Committee Stage in the Commons or in the Lords to “water down” the purpose of the PMB, so that it fits in with Conservative Party Policy, or its Manifesto, and occasionally improve the contents of the PMB.

But if it emerges through all these stages with the contents of the PMB relatively intact, and then it is given Royal Assent, the backbencher has made law.

The very first stage in this process is the PMB Ballot, which happens at the beginning of each Parliamentary session. Backbenchers submit their names into a ballot in the hope of being drawn in the top twenty names out of a hat, which will guarantee that your PMB gets a favourable place when PMBs are debated during a Friday Sitting.

In May 2022, I was fortunate to be drawn number 17, which I couldn’t quite believe, as someone who has seldom won a raffle, and when I have been lucky, I’ve won the prize that I donated!

As soon as the top twenty MPs names are published, these MPs are lobbied by many different stakeholders and organisations who would like the MP to turn their campaign into law via a PMB.

Because I have campaigned for the improvement of animal welfare throughout my time in Parliament, I was approached by many animal welfare organisations. The MP has to take into consideration whether the subject of their PMB will have enough cross party and Government support to be voted through all the stages in the Commons and Lords, or whether the MP wants to make their PMB a matter of raising awareness of a campaign, without the prospect of it actually becoming law.

Animal welfare issues generally have cross party support, but I wanted to select an issue that has a long history of subjecting animals to cruel and unnecessary treatment, possibly death, whilst being economically driven by people who are motivated by money, with no compassion whatsoever for the animals who live a horrendous life and die in agony.

I have been an officer of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Trophy Hunting since I entered Parliament, and would have loved to have championed this campaign to ban the import of animal trophies into the UK but an MP who had drawn a higher place in the ballot was given this honour.

So having been brought up near the sea, and being a surfer, former lifeguard at Coney Beach, Porthcawl, and passionate about preserving the sea and all the creatures that live in the ocean, I looked for a campaign that concerned helping marine life, and possibly something that the UK Government would support, but perhaps had decided not to legislate because of, for example, lack of Parliamentary time. This would give it a good chance of becoming law.

The practice of catching sharks and removing their fins whilst they are still alive, then throwing the shark back into the ocean to die a horrible death by bleeding out or to slowly drown has been prevalent around the world for many years. The fins are sold for extortionate amounts because of their value in herbal medicine.

Sharks are truly incredible animals which have been around for over 400 million years, long before dinosaurs, and sharks play a vital role in marine ecosystems. Many species live in UK waters, the largest being the Basking Shark, up to 11 metres long, and weighing up to 7 tonnes. The size of a double decker bus!

The greatest threat to sharks is overfishing and a quarter of 500 shark species are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as being vulnerable or endangered. The driving force behind overfishing is the international fin trade. Shark finning is a wasteful and harmful practice where only 2 to 5 percent of the shark is used. Researchers have found that at least 73 million sharks would have to be killed every year to match the volume of 1 to 2 million tonnes of shark fins traded in the global market.

Shark finning has been banned in the UK since 2003, but it still happens around the world. What we must ensure is that shark fins are not being imported from places where it still occurs.

My PMB will make it illegal to import and export detached shark fins, and will help to end practices that are endangering sharks existing, and restore the balance of marine life in the ocean. Detached shark fin products such as shark fin soup is included and will address the provenance of such products, because only domestically processed products from sharks landed with their fins attached will be available for sale in the UK. My PMB will not ban the sale or consumption of shark fins if the fins are removed after the shark is dead, and the shark was caught in line with existing legislation. It would be wasteful not to use the whole carcass, and it would disproportionately impact communities where shark fin soup is a delicacy.

There is only one exception to this ban, which is where imports or exports will support greater conservation of sharks, for example through education and training. But there are strict processes in place in my PMB to assess applications before exemption certificates are issued to ensure they don’t undermine the overall ban. The applicants will have to produce certain information to the appropriate authority, and an exemption certificate can be revoked if the information is inaccurate or incomplete. A monetary penalty of up to £3000 can be imposed, but this upper limit can be increased by Parliamentary regulations.

There is no exception for individuals to import up to 20kg of dried shark fin into the UK for personal use, which is currently permitted. My PMB closes this loophole.

Shark fins are defined as any fins or parts of fins of a shark, except for pectoral fins which are part of ray wings, and a shark is defined as any fish of the Taxon Elasmobranchii — consistent with definitions in the UK’s Fins Naturally Attached regulation. Therefore, pectoral fins of rays and skates are not included.

My PMB amends the existing Shark Finning Regulations 1185/2003 and 605/2013, which form part of retained EU law, and this makes sure that shark finning does not take place by any other country’s vessels fishing in UK waters, and to ensure any UK vessel does not undertake shark finning wherever they fish.

My PMB was listed as number 4 on the Order Paper for its Second Reading on Friday 15th July. It’s not ideal to be outside the top three on a Friday, when the House of Commons only sits from 9.30am to 2.30pm, and convention permits sittings to be interrupted at 11am to hear Urgent Questions or UK Government Statements. I was crossing my fingers that the three PMBs ahead of me were given a smooth passage. I was called at 12.35pm to present my opening speech, and took interventions from Kerry McCarthy and Lyn Brown (Labour MPs for Bristol West and West Ham respectively) and I sat down wondering whether the other backbench MPs in the Chamber would speak in support. I was so pleased that all Conservative MPs spoke about their compassion for sharks and marine life: Darren Henry, MP for Broxtowe; Jill Mortimer, MP for Hartlepool; Mark Eastwood, MP for Dewsbury; Ed Argar, MP for Charnwood; Felicity Buchan, MP for Kensington; and Dean Russell, MP for Watford. Some of these are seaside constituencies, but the MPs from landlocked areas were just as passionate about banning shark finning.

The opposition spokesperson for the Environment, Ruth Jones MP for Newport West, said that Labour supported my PMB, and the Under Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, Steve Double MP, said that the UK Government were in full support, and he would do everything to make sure it got onto the statute book as soon as possible. Madam Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing MP put the Question, which was agreed unanimously, and at 1.40pm, my PMB was committed to a Public Bill Committee.

The Committee Stage was held on Wednesday 19th October 2022, and as the member in charge it was my job to recruit the members who would sit on the Committee. Every Parliamentary Committee party membership is composed of MPs in direct relation to the number of MPs it has in Parliament. There are 17 members on every committee, the Conservatives have 8, Labour 4, SNP 2 (including their opposition spokesperson), plus an official opposition spokesperson, the government minister, and their parliament private secretary (PPS). I was proud that my cross-party colleagues who have championed animal welfare and friends Tracey Crouch, Elliot Colburn, John Howell, Peter Aldous, Jane Hunt, Virginia Crosby, Esther McVie, Kevin Foster, Wayne David, Valerie Vaz, Peter Dowd, John McNally, and Martyn Day agreed to serve. Alex Sobel was the official opposition spokesperson, whilst Rebecca Pow, Under-Secretary State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and PPS Jerome Mayhew, represented the UK Government.

I opened the debate, explaining the purpose of my PMB, the clauses, schedule and following consultation with the Scottish Government, I moved an amendment in my name, clarifying that appeals against decisions made by Scottish Ministers, who will be the appropriate authority in relation to entry or removal of shark fins from Scotland, will be heard by the First-Tier Tribunal for Scotland, reflecting Scottish devolved competency. The Welsh Government has indicated that a similar amendment is not needed for Wales, because there isn’t currently a similar and separate equivalent of a First-Tier Tribunal in Wales. And I commended my PMB to the Committee.

I took interventions from Tracey, Kevin, Elliot, Virginia and Peter Dowd who very graciously made some wonderful supporting remarks about my PMB. John McNally and Alex Sobel said that the opposition parties supported the PMB, and the Minister said that my PMB had UK Government support and would make sure that it goes through the next stage. I’m very pleased that when the chairperson put the question to the Committee it was unanimously agreed.

I thanked the chairperson, all the Committee members, the MPs who had supported my PMB at Second Reading, officials, clerks, whips, my staff, and the organisations that have campaigned for many years to ban shark finning, in particular Ali Hood of The Shark Trust, and Graham Buckingham of Bite-Back Shark and Marine Conservation.

Making law from the backbenches isn’t something that many MPs get to do, and I feel extremely privileged to take my Shark Fins Bill through the different legislative stages. We now move on to Report Stage, scheduled to be taken in the Chamber on Friday 20th January, before it goes up to the Lords. It is a great honour to help write a chapter in the country’s history books, and indeed the statute book, and I look forward to my Bill becoming an Act.

Christina Rees is the MP for Neath