Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of recreational shooting on the economies of rural areas.

Rural areas offer significant potential for growth and are important to our economy, contributing over £259 billion a year to England alone.

Defra has not made a formal assessment on contribution of recreational shooting to the rural economy; however, we know the rural economy is diverse with 86% of rural businesses unrelated to agriculture, forestry or fishing.