Driven Grouse Shooting

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I must immediately declare an interest as chairman of the all-party group on shooting and conservation, the sister of the group to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) referred. In his excellent speech, he described, par excellence, the biodiversity that takes place on a well-managed moor. I will sketch for the House—my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) got somewhere towards it—what the opposite course may entail.

I have been visiting an estate on the Caithness-Sutherland borders almost continuously for 36 years. When I started, there were a few grouse there. It was decided that the estate would gradually be stocked with more and more sheep. Tick numbers went up. Biodiversity on the moor went down. In the early days, there were raptors, skylarks, curlew, oystercatchers—the whole range of birds discussed today—but now virtually none of those birds remains. The quality of the moor has gone down considerably: the heather has got rank because it is not burnt; the number of grass species has immeasurably increased; and the amount of bracken, which is no good for any wildlife, has increased hugely. Without managed moors, I say to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), biodiversity would definitely go down. I disabuse her of one other fact: without driven grouse shooting, and without proper management, vast tracts of our precious moorland would degrade in the way I have described—we have already heard that moorland is rarer than rain forest and that in the United Kingdom we have 75% of the world’s heather moorland.

Many others have commented on the economic benefits of grouse shooting, so I will not go over that too much, except to say that the £50 million spent on grouse moors, and the associated £15 million spent on ancillary businesses, supports 1,500 full-time equivalent jobs, according to the Moorland Association—my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) may have got the figure wrong in his excellent speech—and some 125 days of seasonal work. Those are considerable figures in some of our country’s remotest areas.

Some 2,715 miles of moorland drainage ditches have been plugged in the north Pennines alone as a result of revegetation with 120 hectares of bare peat, and there has been a reduction in flood risk. Many Members have commented on burning, but it is a fact that just 0.68% of heather moorland in Britain is burned each year. If it is burned properly under proper conditions—Members have talked about hot and cold burning and about rotation around the moor—it should not create the damage that has been mentioned.

On the hen harrier problem, the RSPB came to see me ahead of this debate and pleaded with me to be reasonable. I will be reasonable to the RSPB if it will be reasonable to the grouse landowners. The RSPB pulled out of the biodiversity action plan earlier this year, and I appeal to it to rejoin that action plan because only talking between the two sides is likely to solve the problems. I do not condone anyone who breaks the law, and it is important that we sort out the problem, but the fact that hen harriers do not breed may not in itself automatically be due to grouse shooting landowners. Many other things may cause hen harriers not to breed, including disturbance and weather.

[Craig Whittaker]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

We are getting close to the end of this debate, so I will move on.

On licensing and regulation, some wish to ban driven grouse shooting altogether, which would be extreme and would be detrimental to the biodiversity of this country. Licensing is an option, but grouse moor owners already have to comply with a panoply of legislation. Like others, I pay huge tribute to the keepers who keep our precious landscape in its current state and maintain its biodiversity. They already have to comply with the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the heather and grass burning code of 2007 and the close season Acts for grouse. There is a panoply of legislation, and increasing regulation is rarely, if ever, a sensible answer. By using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, the Government would only harm an activity that has immense economic and environmental benefits. Any discrepancy or case of malpractice should be dealt with locally, and I repeat that I do not condone any breaking of the law.

Finally, we have a fundamental choice between thriving grouse and wider bird populations, local tourism, conservation and strong rural economies; and the devastation of some of these remote areas, job losses, the loss of endangered species, an increase in disease and the loss of habitat. It is all too easy to impose a blanket ban on shooting, and it is irresponsible to ignore the hard science and the factual benefits that driven grouse shooting provides to the UK’s countryside.

[Mr David Nuttall (in the Chair)]

For the benefit of all Members here, this debate is scheduled to finish at 7.30 pm. Thanks to the brevity of Members who have spoken already, even if Members wish to take an intervention or two, there may be time to fit in all the remaining speakers and to hear from the Front Benchers before the conclusion of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

Indeed. I have been one of the proponents of the need to get on with the wider catchment management of water and flooding, but the national resilience plan talks about a delay beyond this Parliament, which is why it is really important that we press on with the necessary changes. Winter is encroaching upon us and our constituents are clearly concerned.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachael Maskell]

I want to move on to the next issue. I have limited time and I have generously allowed interventions so far.

The use of lead shot has been much debated in this place, including last December, in a debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones). Lead remains a major pollutant, with 6,000 tonnes being discharged into the environment each year, 2,000 tonnes of which is from game shooting. Research is conclusive as to the environmental detriment caused by lead shot usage, and further concern has been expressed by the Food Standards Agency about the way in which the lead enters the food chain. Lead shot has been banned in Denmark for 20 years. We need to see progress on that.

I want to put it on the record that Labour recognises the conservation work that is being done on the upper moorland, and the professionalism of gamekeepers in executing that work. Conservation concerns have been expressed by Members from both sides of the House today.

We also need to look at cost. The cost is not just to the landowner, as many Members have indicated; there is a cost that is met from European Union funding, including money from the common agricultural policy, which, as the Secretary of State will want us to acknowledge, is public money in the first place, from people across our communities. The money also comes from non-departmental public bodies, such as Natural England and the national parks, and from the voluntary sector. Money from the public is, therefore, very much invested in the uplands. In other words, if the public are funding upper moors activities, they must have a say in how the money is spent. If the impact they see is detrimental, we can expect them to sign petitions calling for change. They have done that, and Parliament must listen.

Therefore, change we must, to ensure that soil, vegetation and hydrology are greatly improved. That must be a prime interest in land management, and if it means a move away from current business models, that is what must happen. I take issue with many of the contributions today about the all-or-nothing approach: either there is driven grouse moor shooting or we leave the land barren to develop itself. It does not have to be an either/or model. Thousands of volunteers work in conservation across the country, including in the upper moorland, and there are other opportunities for managing the land. We must recognise the volunteers who spend hours of their own time preserving our countryside. It cannot be an all-or-nothing approach, and the choice that has been put forward in the debate does not reflect the reality. I will give way on that point and will then conclude my remarks.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way right at the end. On the all-or-nothing point, does she accept that while there are problems—some more real than others—a ban on driven grouse shooting is not the way forwards in terms of biodiversity?

[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Gentleman may have heard me calling for more research to take the whole debate forward. That is important.

Because of time, I will move on. We need to be cognisant of tomorrow’s debate on sustainability, and the points that Members have made on climate change are important. We have to understand the urgency of the issue. Conservation must be the prime driver and main consideration of our management of the uplands, as opposed to the pursuits carried out on the land. It is a matter of urgency, and we cannot just focus on the economic issues. The economic issues and the environmental issues are of equal importance. The crisis happening across the globe should focus everyone’s attention as a prime issue.

My question to the Minister is: how systemically is she prepared to look at the issues? Can we allow the burning of heather, which reduces the carbon storage properties of soil, impacts on hydrology, removes some mosses and leaves degraded soil and habitats behind? Is that acceptable? We would say no. Heather burning has also been cited by the Committee on Climate Change due to the depletion of carbon-rich peat soil, so how can we sustain that activity?

We know that some landowners will burn peat under agreement with Natural England—that is how the codes are managed—but we heard in the evidence session that some of those burnings go outside the allowed perimeters. We know that there are wider issues, too. We need to know how effective the codes are at managing the land. If there is further, conclusive evidence that peat burning causes environmental harm, will the Government call for a ban? In this post-referendum era, what further obligations will they place on upland managers to revegetate, to protect species and to hold more water in the uplands? This cannot just be a debate about choices and freedoms, as some Members have argued today. It must be seen as a matter of urgency to rescue our consumerist society from draining more natural resources.

Turning to raptors, it is of great concern that just three pairs of hen harriers were found on the moors in the past year. I am told that there should be 300 pairs —100 times the amount. Some 149 moors have no hen harriers at all. The numbers have fallen from last year, when there were 13 pairs. We are losing the species. It is a crisis. Numbers of peregrine falcons, white-tailed eagles and the awesome golden eagle—I once saw a pair soaring as I was hillwalking in Scotland—are declining, too. We need to ensure that we get on top of the issue of predation by humans.

I want to turn to the peer-reviewed research by Dr Ruth Tingay of the University of Nottingham. She has produced 30 peer-reviewed papers and 24 research papers. She highlighted how there have been 252 incidences of raptor persecution over the past 10 years. She highlights whether they were shot, disappeared, poisoned, caught by illegal pole traps and so on. The law is not effective, and we need to move it forward.

I am sure no one in the Chamber would condone wildlife crime, but positive action is needed for the hen harrier. The hen harrier action plan is not working in delivering an increased population, and that must be of great concern to everyone. What additional activity is the Minister prepared to undertake to ensure that we see the hen harrier population increase and tougher penalties on those who abuse the law? Financial penalties are clearly not enough. It is important to apply restrictive penalties, such as removing the right to manage a grouse moor. We also need to look closely at the Scottish licensing system and the shifting of responsibility around vicarious liability. We have seen two strong prosecutions in Scotland under the scheme. We need to look at whether that would lead to better managed moors as we move forward.

In the main Chamber, we have debated the use of snares and the impact that that has, but we need to look at the wider impact on wildlife. We have not heard about the mountain hare and the impact that culling is having on that species.