Anthony Browne, Mark Dodgson, Emma Rutherford, Paul McManus and David Webster gave evidence.

We will now hear oral evidence from the British Art Market Federation, the British Antique Dealers Association, Philip Mould and Company, the Music Industries Association and the Musicians Union. We have until 3 pm for this fourth panel. I invite the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record. I call David Webster first.

David Webster:

Thank you very much. I am David Webster, the national organiser for live performance for the Musicians Union. We represent 30,000 musicians across the UK in collective bargaining and general representation.

Paul McManus:

My name is Paul McManus. I represent the Music Industries Association, which is the trade body for the musical instrument industry that has been around since 1882 when it started as the Piano Manufacturers Association. We represent the shops that sell the musical instruments, the luthiers who make them, the manufacturers, the distributors and the music educators.

Emma Rutherford:

I am Emma Rutherford. I am a consultant in portrait miniatures for Philip Mould and Company.

Mark Dodgson:

I am Mark Dodgson. I am the secretary general of the British Antique Dealers Association, otherwise known as BADA. Our association is itself an antique this year—we are celebrating our 100th anniversary—and we represent about 320 of the UK’s leading fine art and antique dealers.

Anthony Browne:

I am Anthony Browne. I am chairman of the British Art Market Federation, which is an organisation that was brought into being about 20 years ago to represent all the elements of the UK art market, whether it be principal auction houses, smaller auction houses or dealer organisations such as the British Antique Dealers Association.

Thank you very much indeed, and congratulations to Mr Dodgson’s organisation. May I ask any Members who have a declaration of interest to make to do so now publicly, please?

I received a donation from the Musicians Union at the last general election and the previous one. I want to put that on the record—it has been declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I also received a donation from the Musicians Union at the last election.

Okay, thank you; that is on the record. Let us move on to questions.

I have a question for Emma RutherfordQ . This morning we heard that the size of miniatures should be specified, because a miniature in one person’s eyes might not be a miniature in another’s. Do you have any strong feelings about that—about whether we should specify and, if we did, about what the specification should be? I have a further question for someone else, but I ask that one first.

Emma Rutherford:

The suggestion of 6 inches by 8 inches for portrait miniatures—I have some with me, because it is always easier to show an object—is very sensible. I have three very typical portrait miniatures here, painted watercolour on ivory, which represent 80% of 18th-century portrait miniatures painted on ivory—this is the kind of size we are talking about. Six inches by 8 inches will cover 90% or 95% of portrait miniatures.

Q Does talk of 6 inches by 8 inches include the framing, or is that simply the actual miniature without the frame?

Emma Rutherford:

It is sometimes difficult to measure the actual miniatures because most of them are framed or cased, and we cannot get them out easily without damaging them. I would probably do it by sight of the ivory itself and not the frame, because the latter is probably unfair, given the differences in the scale of frames.

Q Yes. For the two musicians, Paul and David—I don’t know this—are musical instruments still produced with ivory in? Obviously, there is old ivory in musical instruments. Some very valuable musical instruments have ivory in, and I am sure that there must be bows used for violins or cellos that contain ivory, but they will be old ones—

Paul McManus:

Correct.

There would be no new instruments with any ivory content, would there? When did that stop?

Paul McManus:

We ceased in two real tranches: 1975 and 1989, when the two different types of element were made mandatory. That means that hundreds and hundreds of what we would class as vintage musical instruments are out there, belonging to musicians, and indeed representing their livelihood in many cases. But we ceased in modern manufacturing as the legislation came in. As an industry, we like to think that we have been very compliant with the right rules. We abhor the trade itself and have nothing but support for everything being done here, but equally passionately we support the exemption for these antique musical instruments that keep musicians in their livelihood.

David Webster:

Absolutely. I cannot add to that. As we understand it, since ’89 there has been no use of ivory in the manufacture of accessories for instruments or of parts of musical instruments.

Q That is very useful to know. In terms of the antique ones, clearly the musicians will value them because they are used to them and have a special feel for them. We have been looking at the exemptions, and is not the most important thing that musicians should be able to continue to use them, if not necessarily to sell them? Surely, it should be very specific exemptions for particularly fine instruments that are verifiably that old—they should be very specific and of particular value, rather than just anything over 100 years old.

David Webster:

A musical instrument is a very personal item. For our members—musicians—it is probably the biggest investment they are ever going to make. In some cases, that investment needs to be of some value to them, for example if they need to retire due to ill health or they get to the end of their playing days and they wish to retire with some kind of dignity, which it is everybody’s right to do. The investment in that instrument is the most important thing they have. The ability to trade that instrument is the key to their being able to retire with some dignity and comfort, which is the right thing to do.

Q What sort of figure are we talking about?

David Webster:

In terms of—

In terms of what they would pay.

David Webster:

There is no one figure, but it is hundreds of thousands in some cases, tens of thousands in other cases and thousands in others. It all depends on the instrument, when it was made, who made it, its tonal qualities and who has played it before the current owner. You cannot pin it down to one particular price.

Q Can you give me an example of something that would be hundreds of thousands?

David Webster:

A Stradivarius. Some old and ancient cellos.

Q Would they have ivory in them?

David Webster:

They might do. It might be in the bow. The very small amount of ivory in a violin or a stringed instrument would generally be in the tip or the frog of the bow, and it is a very small amount. There may be a little on the tuning peg. It could be an antique guitar.

Paul McManus:

It can be pianos, too. In the 1960s, we had 40 companies manufacturing pianos in the United Kingdom. There are hundreds of old ivory-keyed pianos in circulation around the United Kingdom. They were made when other materials were not readily available. That all stopped back in 1975, but to take a good example, the largest piano auction house in the world is in the United Kingdom. It is called Piano Auctions Ltd. It sold nearly 500 pianos at auction last year, some 60% of which had old ivory keys. Frankly, it would not be in business if it was not selling them. The only alternative to the exemption—I know this would happen—is for piano shops to strip off those ivory keys, throw them in a bin and replace them with plastic ones. To me that would almost seem a double tragedy for the poor animal that gave up the ivory in the first place. Right down in the hundreds of pounds range, there will be an old piano that someone’s grandmother used to own that they are trying to move on to a school or whatever.

Q They can gift it.

Paul McManus:

They can gift it, but lots of people are still trying to make some money from these products. There are hundreds of them around the United Kingdom. These are all one-on-one transactions. There is no trade here. These are just individual transactions between a musician and another musician. That is the way our industry works.

Before I call Liz Twist, I want to say that members of the panel should contribute, even if you are not addressed by name, if you wish to. We can make this more interactive. If your contribution is relevant to the organisation you represent, feel free to make it.

Q I want to address my questions to the musicians on the panel. I should declare that there is a regional interest with Northumbrian pipers in the north-east. I am asking for your observations on how Northumbrian pipers might be affected. As I understand it, they use ivory for the construction of the pipes. How might the Bill affect pipes that have been made legitimately under existing regulations but might be caught out by the sale problem? I would welcome your observations.

David Webster:

That is a concern, obviously, if the ivory was legitimately sourced and worked. So far as I understand it, for bagpipes it is the rings that go into the bit that comes out of the bag—I am not sure what you call it, but that is the part that has ivory. They could be affected, but if the ivory is old ivory—ancient ivory—and it has been worked legitimately since 1975, they might be caught up within the Bill. We are very happy with the Bill as it stands, and we would not like it to be changed unless there was a move to extend it to cover the instruments that you are talking about.

Q This question is directed to the antiques sector and the music sector represented here. How many of the items that are sold go directly to the far east?

Mark Dodgson:

We have looked at some of the figures from CITES; they have a database of exports of ivory. For example, in 2015 there were 1,200 CITES licences issued for items containing antique ivory going to China and Hong Kong.

Now, you need to bear in mind that the United Kingdom has—well, it was the second, and it is now possibly the third largest art and antiques market in the world. So, in the context of such a large entrepôt market and also in the context of so many cultural objects being repatriated to the Chinese—their ceramics obviously being the key one there—that number is actually not particularly surprising. I do not know specific figures for other countries.

Anthony Browne:

What has happened generally in the art market in recent years is the rise of China as a major buyer for all sorts of works of art, so it is not particularly surprising that Chinese buying has had more of an impact in recent years than it had in the past. To some extent, it reflects that. It also reflects the fact that our history has meant that an awful lot of these objects that originated from China and Japan, and that came here, are finding their way back again.

Paul McManus:

For our sector, it is practically negligible. I mean, we have nothing organised in collecting this to then sell it on anywhere. This is just individual musicians, as we said earlier, or the odd music shop here or there, but it is all sold within the UK—nearly all of it—because it is just a consumer-driven thing over here.

Emma Rutherford:

For portrait miniatures, there is no market at all in the far east; there are no collectors there.

Mark Dodgson:

Actually, that is quite an interesting point, because we find that there are a lot of western cultural items that contain ivory, or that are made entirely of ivory, that are of no interest to the Asian market. They are predominantly interested in their own cultural items.

Q The Bill refers exclusively and specifically to elephant ivory. What would be the impact, if any, on any of your organisations or your processes if that definition were broadened to be elephant, killer whale, narwhal, sperm whale or walrus ivory? I will start with the antiques industry first, if I may.

Mark Dodgson:

I think it is slightly difficult to give a quick answer to that one; we would probably want to speak internally about it. However, I have worked at the British Antique Dealers’ Association for more than 20 years, and my own experience is that I have not seen those materials—those items from those animals—incorporated in many objects. There is the concept of scrimshaw, but generally speaking—when I was watching the online broadcast of the earlier sessions, I heard someone suggest that ivory inlay from, I think, hippos was used in antiques. I have to say that in my experience, I have not come across that. I have asked a few people about that, and they are not aware of it.

Anthony Browne:

I have nothing to add to that. No, I think I would concur with that. Ivory is the ubiquitous substance in the arts of the past, definitely, rather than these other substances.

Emma Rutherford:

In portrait miniatures, it is elephant ivory and no other type.

Paul McManus:

From our point of view, since synthetic materials came in, pianos have been coated with synthetic materials. The most another type of bone might be used for is repairing an old ivory key that had broken, but if that became banned—well, we would use something else.

May I address this, please, toQ Mark Dodgson and Anthony Browne? I think that some people have raised concerns about the fact that the accredited civilian officers in clause 17 are, at present, entitled to some quite swingeing powers to enter premises, search, check and all that sort of thing. Do you have any concerns about the scope and nature of those powers?

Anthony Browne:

Yes, there are concerns, and I am glad you have mentioned this. The legal advice that was given to one of our members—I am very happy to make it available to the Committee—is that giving these powers to civilians is most unusual indeed, if not unprecedented, except where public safety considerations are in prospect.

The representative from the police who gave evidence earlier referred to their usefulness in making people aware of the legislation. We do not have an issue with that. The police and customs officers’ powers of entry, search and seizure are entirely in line with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, so again, we have no issue at all with that. We do have very serious reservations about the powers of seizure and so on, both in clause 17 and in schedule 1. I am not a lawyer, so I am somewhat out of my depth if I get into a detailed conversation about this. However, we have a memorandum that I am very happy to submit for consideration, if the Chair would find it helpful.

Q The point is that it is not entirely clear in the legislation who these accredited civilian officers would be, where they would be drawn from and what their qualifications would be.

Anthony Browne:

That is one consideration, and we are not clear about that. Also, they have got these really quite draconian powers, which are not normally made available except in the case of dealing with public health, where there is a real public need to intervene.

For the record, anyone, including distinguished members of the panel, can continue to submit written evidence through the parliamentary website with a reference to this Bill.

Q If I may ask the musicians, my understanding is that you are both happy with the provision as drafted in the Bill. I know there were lots of discussions with the Department beforehand, so you are happy with it. Paul, you said there were two tranches of ivory bans—1975 and 1989—and you are happy the instruments between 1975 and 1989 are not included.

Paul McManus:

Let me be very honest: we are extraordinarily grateful that this exemption has been considered at all. The vast majority of instrument manufacture involving ivory ceased around 1975. There was some continued use of ivory, with the other ivory that was not brought into enforcement until 1989. While it would be tempting to say “Can we have a bit more, please?”, if I am totally honest, we were so delighted with the proposal as it stood that, considering it would catch the vast majority of instruments, we did not want to appear over-zealous in our presentation to you.

Q That is good of you. Can I ask about the registration requirements, which I had not quite cottoned on to? Owners of instruments would have to register them, under clause 10. If they sell the instrument on, the registration does not follow the item; the new owner has to register it. I can see that if you own a Stradivarius that is worth a fortune, you are aware of things like that. You are a professional, and that is all part and parcel of it. You have managers and agents, and all sorts of things. If you are just somebody buying and selling a guitar that you might not even realise has a bit of ivory in it, how is that going to work for the guy—sorry, or woman—who has had the guitar sitting in the corner of their room for a long time?

Paul McManus:

It is a challenge. As an industry, we have been dealing with the rosewood legislation that CITES brought in last year. Nearly every guitar is made with rosewood, so we have had to try to educate an entire industry that makes guitars—both here and overseas—and every musician buying or selling a guitar, about the fact that rosewood is now a protected product. It is tough; I will be honest with you.

I suspect that ivory will rise to the top in awareness quicker than rosewood did. We have had to use every communication channel we can. We have gone to special Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs meetings in Bristol to educate the whole industry and take our members to it. Back to the online platform debate—to be fair, some of the online platforms have now been putting up information saying, “If your guitar is rosewood, you need to be aware of x, y and z,” as they have done with ivory. It is a challenge, but we just have to do everything we can to communicate this. There are so many platforms that people can buy and sell through.

Q Especially if the provision applies only if less than 20% of the product is ivory. It is not like having an ornament that is made of ivory, where you have it in your mind that it is an ivory product. If a little bit of an instrument—

Paul McManus:

Every instrument will come to less than 20%. A piano is 3%, because of the total volume of the product the ivory keys are 3%. There are a few instruments, such as accordions, that will get into the double digits, but nearly 99.99% will come under 20%. It will not be a problem in the percentage; it will be the article 10 provisions that you have to—

You would think a light would go on in the head with a piano, because everyone knows that the keys are made of ivory. As David mentioned, if you have a smaller instrument in which a tiny bit of the bow is made of ivory, the issue is how that is even flagged up.

David Webster:

It is difficult. You might find that on a banjo, for example, the fret board has a bit of ivory on it, or the tuning peg. As far as registration is concerned, the Bill refers to a fee for registering the instrument, to be set by the Secretary of State. We would ask that the fee be waived for professional musicians, who generally do not earn a large amount of money. They might spend many years doing various jobs, but they do not earn a huge pot. Their major investment is their instrument, and we would not want to see them pay a large fee to register it in order to be able to trade it.

Q Do we know how much the fee would be? Has that been discussed?

David Webster:

It is not in the Bill. It is “as prescribed” by the Secretary of State.

No ballpark fee?

Paul McManus:

A CITES article 10 is normally about £30, but the registration might be separate from that.

David Webster:

These are working musicians and the instruments are the tools of their trade. It is an important distinction. This exemption is welcome because it really does recognise that these are working instruments, tools of the trade, and a cultural heritage as well as what the musician needs in order to do their job on the world-class platforms we have in the UK.

Q One of the witnesses this morning was pushing for a ban on all online sales of ivory instruments, on the grounds that people need to see them to know what they are getting. Would that cause a problem?

David Webster:

I think it would cause a problem for musicians, yes. If there was a total ban on selling instruments online, you would have to travel in order to have face-to-face consultations. Musicians generally know what they are selling when they sell their instruments. An online sale facilitates musician-to-musician instrument selling, and an online ban would not help at all as far as our members are concerned.

Q Presumably there are not that many of these instruments around, so the chances are that they are going to be a long way from where the musician who is buying is located.

Paul McManus:

Yes, and the problem is that the minute you say something cannot be done online, people get around it. You can buy a gun bag on eBay with a free gift inside it, because you cannot sell guns on eBay. People will get around it. David is right; a lot of musicians need to talk to other musicians around the world about their products. If it has been promised to a guy in America for 10 years, it will be done online.

David Webster:

If it is a serious sale, they will be able to see it online and pay for it online, but they might want to actually try it out. When you buy an instrument, it is not just the instrument; it is also the ergonomic feel within the body and the tonal quality. Collectors might want to buy online and that would affect them, but the professional musician will always play the instrument before purchasing it.

Q I feel that I should declare an interest as a pianist and the owner of a piano that may or may not have ivory keys—I have been doing some research, and they are not solid ivory keys but wooden keys with potentially ivory coating. This brings me to my question. You said that you believe that a 20% de minimis threshold would cover most commonly played and traded instruments, but what proportion would not be covered by this 20% of musical instruments?

Paul McManus:

There are a few, and they come under antiques. We saw a lute that had nearly solid ivory plating over the whole thing, but that was pre-1947. It dated back to the 1800s.

What about post-1947 musical instruments with more than 20% ivory?

Paul McManus:

There are virtually none. The most we could find was an accordion that was laden with ivory, but it still did not make 20%. We have some parity here across the ocean with the Americans, which is always a good thing. As far as we can see, the 20% de minimis would catch everything.

David Webster:

When we went to our members and asked what they had, generally speaking they were things like bagpipes with ivory mouths, bassoons with an ivory ring at the top, cello bows and other stringed instrument bows, flutes with ivory caps, ivory screws and so on—very small amounts when you consider the entire instrument. Nothing really jumped out at us.

Q Is there any danger that the ivory from musical instruments could be collected and used in some way to make another object?

David Webster:

But then you would destroy the instrument.

Paul McManus:

You would also destroy the ivory by taking it off, frankly.

David Webster:

You would pretty much have to destroy the instrument to carbon date the ivory, which is why we welcome the self-declaration part of the registration. We think that is a very sensible move, and we welcome that. Sometimes you have to destroy the instrument in order to carbon date, and that would be a great shame.

Q I understand that the instrument would be sacrificed, but could you imagine a market where people took the very small proportion of ivory from instruments to craft an object?

Paul McManus:

You would nearly always break the ivory when taking it off the product.

Mark Dodgson:

Most inlay that features on anything, such as the thin slither on a piano key, is very unlikely to be capable of being reused or exported. We have had this discussion previously. Objects with small, thin slithers are of no use to anyone who wants to use them further.

Q Do you have any concerns—we heard some this morning—about proposals to issue replacement certificates? Could that allow duplicates to be circulated in the system? How could we strengthen the system in that regard?

Anthony Browne:

The proposals on certification are very sensible. They deal with all the eventualities quite well. I have to say that this whole certification system grew out of discussions that we have had for a very long time with DEFRA officials and with NGOs, and it is very robust as it is. It will apply to a small number of very recognisable and unique objects, which is really why it will be effective. It is analogous to all sorts of licensing systems in that respect. The proposals for replacement, re-registration in the event of a transfer and so on, seem to me to be eminently sensible.

Mark Dodgson:

The only thing I would add to that—I agree with everything that has been said—is that there should be some facility for someone to check whether a certificate is genuine, perhaps online. Likewise, in the case of registration, I wonder about online purchasers. It is not clear to me from the Bill whether a buyer will have the opportunity to check through DEFRA whether a particular registration has been made.

In terms of the documentation?

Mark Dodgson:

Yes, I am talking about the items that are registered under clause 10.

We heard concerns about duplicate certificates. Is that not something that—

Anthony Browne:

I would not have thought that would necessarily be a problem. You get a duplicate certificate if you lose one, I think—there is a provision for getting a replacement one.

Q I understand that, but if you can get an extra one for losing one, is there potential for extra ones to arrive in the system somewhere?

Anthony Browne:

One would have to ask the people who administered that, but I do not think the provisions in the Bill are weak. They should be workable, just like issuing any paperwork.

Mark Dodgson:

The certificates are in respect of the most distinguished objects. They are all unique, and they are not likely to be easily muddled up with something else. If the concern is that they could be mixed up with other objects and used for other objects, I think that is unlikely.

Anthony Browne:

If I may, I will add something to this. Certification is straightforward, because you are dealing with objects that are unique, rare and important, so there are not likely to be lots of them. I do have some concerns with the registration requirement for the de minimis objects. There is a sort of Catch-22 built into the de minimis. The Government have opted for 10% by volume. We argued for a higher percentage, in common with other countries, but the Government took that decision—so be it.

What the registration of objects will mean is this. There are quite a number of common or garden, utilitarian objects—many of your constituents probably own them if there has been a death and the house has been cleared—with minute amounts of ivory in them. They are by no means unique objects: they are Victorian or Georgian chests of drawers with tiny ivory lock holes and that sort of thing. There is no indication as yet what the cost of registration will be—one of you asked about that—but it could make selling such things completely uneconomical. The managing director of Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh sent me an email making that point. They are frequently asked to clear out estates when people are downsizing or moving house.

In the future, families who want to sell such things will be faced with two options. If there is something that looks like a small bit of ivory, it falls within this Bill, although it is well under the de minimis. If the cost of registration is more than negligible, the family is very unlikely to want to do that as it will simply not be economical, particularly as they do not know whether the object will sell. It could lead to an awful lot of objects with small amounts of ivory, which are reusable and recyclable and can be used again instead of buying new furniture, ending up in landfill because people cannot register them because the cost is too great. Even if they do register them, they are by no means unique, so what will the register do to help? I do not see how the register helps with a chest of drawers that looks identical to thousands of its cousins. Our concept was always that if an object is below the de minimis, it should be saleable—straightforward. If you sell something above the de minimis because you get it wrong, you are liable to criminal or civil prosecution, which is as it should be.

The registration of de minimis will do two things. You will simply deter people from registering, and then these objects will be destroyed or mutilated, as people try to hack the bits of ivory off—what is the point of that?—or they will just end up in landfill. I do not think this is a sensible aim. I wonder whether the Committee could look at this again. I do not think it would weaken the Bill in any shape or form. It would still be very easy to police, as it is a very low de minimis, and it will be completely apparent whether an object contains more or less than 10%. The penalties exist, and so on and so forth. It will prevent a lot of things that can usefully be used again or bought by the next generation from being used in that way. I do not think doing this will undermine the objective of the Bill at all. I just suggest that as a point that has been made to me.

Q I was going to ask whether any of you have concerns about the de minimis requirement—whether we need further clarification of that, whether you had looked at how the volume of ivory is measured, and whether the Secretary of State should set the measurement. Do you measure it now, and is there is a best practice way of doing it? We do not want items to be calculated slightly wrongly and to fall into the criminal section just because there are different ways of measuring volume. I just want to hear your thoughts about that.

Anthony Browne:

Yes, I quite agree. I think the 10% means that it is pretty straightforward, but because of the penalties people will always err on the side of caution. We were very pleased that the Government chose volume, rather than weight, which is notoriously impossible to judge—volume is a sensible way of approaching it. As I said at the beginning, we think 10% is rather low, but we live in the real world. I do not think 10% by volume will be impossible, but people will err on the side of caution, so I would have thought that you will probably not get people rubbing up against the maximum and risking criminal penalties.

Mark Dodgson:

Members of the British Antique Dealers’ Association were quite surprised at the 10% and the way it was set. We could not quite see from the documentation in the consultation why 10% had been chosen, versus perhaps 30% or 40%. Just so that you are aware, because the 10% is proposed to be set in that way, items such as a silver teapot—this is a Georgian silver teapot with an original ivory handle—

Order. Although this sitting is being televised, it is not particularly regular for Hansard to have to describe artefacts. Given that this is perhaps a unique circumstance, could you briefly describe it for the record?

Mark Dodgson:

Yes, I am showing an image of a silver teapot with an ivory handle. Sorry, Chairman. The point is to make it clear that this is the type of object that, set at 10%, would fall above the de minimis. It would be fairly straightforward to identify that as being more than 10%. My members are very concerned that the only other exemption that the teapot could attempt to meet would be the clause 2 exemption. The query among our membership is whether objects of that nature would actually meet the clause 2 requirements.

On the point about estimating the proportion of ivory, 10% for some items is all right. For inlaid objects it falls right in the middle of a series of smaller objects with ivory inlay, such as Indian Vizagapatam boxes and so on. It would be quite difficult for dealers to work out which side of the 10% they are on.

Q Thank you for your contributions today and for engaging so fully with the consultation. The EU is currently conducting its own consultation on banning ivory sales, and we expect to hear the results of that soon. Do you agree that it is right for the UK to have pressed ahead with its own approach first? What sense do you have from colleagues you work with in Europe about what they think the outcome of the EU consultation could be?

Anthony Browne:

The sense I get, having talked to EU colleagues, is that they are arguing for a much less stringent ban than the Bill adopts. If that happens, there is no doubt that, as far as the decorative arts are concerned, markets in Europe will inevitably be more attractive. That is the inevitable consequence of legislating in this way. With regard to whether the UK’s lead will be followed by the European Union, you probably have a better idea than I do. I think there is no doubt, as the preamble and explanatory notes to the Bill say, that what is proposed is one of the most stringent restrictions anywhere in the world.

Mark Dodgson:

From my experience, I too think that continental people in the trade would resist the level of restrictions suggested in the Bill. People need to be aware that on the continent, until recently, ivory tusks have been exported. Germany still has ivory workshops. We are already a long way ahead of those countries anyway.

David Webster:

I was talking to some musician colleagues at a social dialogue in Brussels yesterday and shared with them the content of the Bill, and they seemed very impressed by it. Yes, we would hope that the UK’s lead would be followed. I spoke at the consultation conference last December on behalf of musical instruments, along with our colleagues from the International Federation of Musicians.

Paul McManus:

Similarly, we have communicated with all the equivalent trade bodies around the world about where we are. Everyone in the musical instrument industry has been rather impressed by what the UK is proposing, as being pragmatic, sensible and proportional. We have nothing but praise for what has been done so far.

Emma Rutherford:

For portrait miniatures, my colleagues in Europe just hope that they follow the UK’s lead and grant portrait miniatures an exemption.

As there are no further questions, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. We will now move on to the next panel.