It is nice to be under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial
Interests. I congratulate my colleague and friend the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) on making an excellent speech using facts and figures. Many of the facts in my speech have already been quoted, so I have spent a lot of my time crossing them out, as I do not want to repeat those points. If I may, I will go through what I have left. The facts are the important part of this debate.
We know that birds thrive where moorlands are managed. Without the conservation management of moorland, there would be no red grouse. They have already disappeared from the south-western moors and most of Wales, and are amber-listed for conservation concern. Many endangered species, such as lapwing, curlew, golden plover, merlin and black grouse, that are in serious decline elsewhere can still be found in good numbers on grouse moors. Research shows that, where predator control is in place on keepered grouse moors, red-listed birds such as the curlew and lapwing are 3.5 times more likely to fledge their chicks. Scientific research also shows that densities of golden plover, curlew, redshank and lapwing are up to five times greater on managed grouse moors, and that there are four times as many merlin, according to breeding records. In the last 20 years, merlin numbers have doubled on areas keepered for red grouse, but halved on unkeepered moorland.
Where driven grouse shooting has been lost in Wales, populations of many of these species have dropped by 60% to 90%. Driven grouse shooting stopped in Wales in the 1990s, and was replaced by intensive sheep grazing. As a result, the all-important conservation management for red grouse also ended, resulting in red-listed species such as curlew, ring ouzel and black grouse plummeting by between 70% and 90% in just 10 years. The lapwing has been lost completely. All that has happened in an area designated as a special protection area for its bird life.
We have heard about the benefits for wildlife. The 2013 Natural England evidence review “The effects of managed burning on upland peatland biodiversity, carbon and water” concluded that there was “strong evidence” that controlled heather burning and predator control correlated with higher densities of red grouse, golden plover, curlew, lapwing, redshank and ring ouzel.