I thank the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for introducing both petitions, although I find it odd that we seem to be debating two opposing petitions. I am not here to support the ban on grouse shooting. I am a lousy shot but I support shooting. More important, as the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) has said, we should be “obsessed” with biodiversity.
I want to see us supporting the management of grouse moors much better. I will talk a little about a place in Northern Ireland that I think is the best example of what we should all be supporting, which is Glenwherry. When I was elected to Stormont, I promised in my maiden speech that I would stand up for country values. However, that means listening to both sides, and today we have to pull together in partnership and find the right way forward.
I was brought up by a mother who would not let me look at any wildlife—bird or animal—without knowing how it lived and how we lived with it. I was also brought up in the valleys of Antrim, which are beautiful whether snow-covered or windswept, although it is not necessarily the case that “wetter is better”. Northern Ireland certainly gets its fair share of rain. It is a stunning part of the world, with great green, flowing valleys.
To the north is Glenwherry. There we have a partnership between the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs—what was called the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development; Northern Ireland’s agriculture Department—the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise, the RSPB and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency—all working together on a mixture of private and public land, paid for by the shooting fraternity and the Antrim Estates Company. They manage the hill farms and the bog land. Interestingly enough, the reason I went there was not about grouse. I went to see how they were looking at pollinators and bees. They look at the total management—the bog land, partridge restoration, bees and pollinators and what we are talking about today, grouse conservation.
The Irish Grouse Conservation Trust was set up 10 years ago to save the Irish grouse and to stop them from disappearing. That was done through the organisation at Glenwherry, where there were four pairs of grouse 10 years ago. There are now more than 250. The site holds some 65% of Ireland’s grouse population, and it is learning how all types of farming can operate next to it, whether that is burning, cleaning, clearing or unblocking the old drains that were put in when people were trying to reclaim land. They are looking at everything so that they can manage the ecosystem and preserve all of the wildlife that is there.