09:30 Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)

Lastly, let me outline briefly a final, compelling reason for the Government to act to end the UK fur trade: its sizeable environmental footprint. A new report published by Humane Society International has found that among the eight materials considered, fur from minks, foxes and racoon dogs had the highest air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and water pollution per kilogram. The carbon footprint of 1 kg of mink fur was found to be 31 times higher than that of 1 kg of cotton, and the water consumption in fur production was found to be five times higher than that for cotton, with a kilogram of fur requiring a staggering 29,130 litres of water. The fur trade is bad news for animals, bad news for human health and bad news for the environment. An import ban, as they say in the vernacular, is a no-brainer.

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