I agree very much with both my hon. Friend’s points.
Red grouse are not found anywhere in the UK but uplands. They live in heather moorland and heather forms the staple part of their diet. Seventy-five per cent of global heather moorland is located in the UK, so in global terms heather moorland is rarer than the rain forest. Heather moorland comprises about 7% of the UK’s land mass, or some 6,500 square miles.
Grouse shooting comes in two forms: walked-up shooting, which involves groups of shooters who walk around a predetermined area and drive the grouse from the ground, and driven grouse shooting, which involves a group of beaters who scare the grouse from the ground towards a line of shooters. One of the petitions calls for a ban on driven grouse shooting, but as my hon. Friend said, it seems slightly illogical to wish to ban only one form of grouse shooting.
Clearly there are informed and strongly held views that grouse shooting is detrimental to our environment and wildlife. Concerns have been expressed about how the way in which the moors are managed contributes to flooding and is responsible for the destruction of other wildlife, including some of our national birds of prey in particular. I am aware that many other hon. Members wish to participate in the debate, so I will be unable to go into all the detail of the issues raised in the time available to me in opening, but I hope others will pick up on the other points. I will deal with what I see as the main issues.
One of the biggest questions, as I see it, is whether the management of grouse moors is good or bad for our environment. First, we have to look at moorland management and whether the moors must necessarily be managed. Moorland looks wild, but in fact it is a carefully managed environment. It is thanks to grouse shooting that over the past 30 years grouse moor managers in England have been responsible for the regeneration of more than 217,000 acres of heather moorland. The petition to ban mentions that such moorland is an important part of the ecosystem and local habitats, so one of the big questions to be asked is, if we were to ban grouse shooting, how would that important habitat otherwise be managed?