Vernon met with actor Alison Steadman to discuss the Canadian seal hunt on Wednesday (21 May) at an event organised by Gedling based Respect for Animals and Humane Society International.

Alison had visited the harp seal nursery in Canada earlier this year with two of Vernon’s constituents (Mark Glover and Nicki Brooks) who run Respect for animals.

The baby seals with their nursing mothers are one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on the planet but the visit took place  just prior to the same seals being killed. The Canadian commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet.

This year, a quota was set by the Canadian authorities of 225,000 seals that could be shot or clubbed to death.

On Wednesday, Vernon saw film released at the event showing the seals being killed at this year’s hunt. Many seals are shot and wounded by sealers from moving boats and left in agony before the sealer gets to them to club them.

The European Commission is currently looking at the issue of seal killing and the UK government supports the idea of an EU-wide ban on the import of all seal products.

Vernon has supported the campaign to get the trade in seal products banned for several years and is hoping that there will soon be some action. He said: ‘The time for an import ban is long overdue and I really hope the European Union will soon do what the overwhelming majority of people in this country want and that is to ban seal imports. No civilised society should tolerate the clubbing to death of hundreds of thousands of seal pups and no country should support the killing by importing the products of this cruelty.

The fact is there is no demand for seal products in Canada – that is why import bans in other countries are so important. The USA, Belgium Netherlands, Mexico and Croatia have already banned seal imports. Germany has just introduced a bill to ban seal imports. It is disappointing that the UK has no ban of its own.