The above Act will bring into force one of the world's toughest bans on ivory sales. The ban will cover items of all ages, not just those made after a certain date, and the maximum available penalty for breaching it will be an unlimited fine or up to five years in prison. I know that the ban will include certain narrowly-defined exemptions for items that do not contribute to poaching, where a ban would be unwarranted. By covering ivory items of all ages and adopting these narrow exemptions, the UK’s ban will be one of the toughest in the world.
I would like to assure you that Ministers will soon be taking the next steps to implement the relevant secondary legislation, in line with the Government's recent consultation response. I understand that progress on implementation was delayed by a legal challenge which the Government successfully defended. Ministers have also consulted on extending the Ivory Act to afford greater protections to a range of ivory-bearing species, and I look forward to reading the Government's official response once this has been published.