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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of netting hedgerows on nesting birds.

Although the Government has not undertaken this specific assessment, we closely monitor trends in bird populations. These trends have long been considered to provide a good indication of the broad state of our wildlife.

In November last year, the Government published Wild Bird Populations in England, 1970 to 2017. Overall, this showed that the combined all-species index has changed little compared with around 45 years ago. However, there was much variation in numbers between species, with some species increasing and some species decreasing.