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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 1 February (HL5225) about grey squirrel control, what is their definition of "free shooting".

The Government does not have a standard definition for the free-shooting of grey squirrels. However, Forestry Commission England considers free-shooting of grey squirrels to be where they are shot in any circumstances other than after having been live trapped, lured into or located in a pre-prepared area with, for example, a ground feeding station and high seat to facilitate shooting with a safe backstop.