I tabled new clause 2 to address the proposed general licensing requirements for the release of game birds and the environmental benefits of shooting. A campaign group named Wild Justice is repeatedly challenging DEFRA.
As a result, Natural England must make assessments of the potential damage to EU-protected sites before granting licences for the release of game species. The proposed assessments are intended to take years to achieve, thus halting the granting of licences. The new clause would shift the requirement for Natural England from mandatory assessments to doing them on a common-sense, case-by-case basis.
Campaign groups such as Wild Justice would like to end all country sports. Often fuelled by emotive and ill-informed rhetoric, such campaigns do not recognise the importance to the environment of country sports and their contribution to not only the rural economy but the conservation of land. The gross value added of shooting stands at £1.7 billion in England and £2 billion in the United Kingdom—£240 million in the west midlands alone. Shooting adds 350,000 direct paid jobs to the market and accounts for 10% of the total amount spent on outdoor recreation each year.
Every year, 3.9 million work days are spent on conservation —the equivalent of 16,000 full-time conservation jobs. Up to 700,000 hectares of farm land are planted with wild bird seed mixes and pollinator strips as a result of game bird management. That is five times greater than the land owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Game shooting estates often have 65% more hedgerows than normal farm land. Most statistics show that the sport is not the preserve of the elite: figures from 31 March show that 159,483 firearms certificates and 567,358 shotgun certificates were on issue in England and Wales. That means that at least 1.6 million people are shooting in the UK.
Pheasants have been in the UK continually for the last 2,000 years. Their release, management and subsequent hunting predates all site protections. Indeed, game bird release and management have largely been responsible for the existence of sites of high nature value that are worth protecting. Some 28% of woodlands in England are managed to some extent for game birds—more than are managed for nature conservation. We therefore need to do considerably more to ensure that, if the new clause does not suit the Minister exactly, such provisions are taken on board.
Natural England has two tools to monitor sites: the improvement programme for England’s Natura 2000 sites—IPENS—and a designated sites view, or DSV. The latter identified game bird release as causing an impact across seven sites of special scientific interest—the equivalent of 134 hectares. For context, England’s SSSI network covers 4,100 sites and that is more than 1 million hectares. The worst impacts on nature, unfortunately, are caused by dogs and walkers, and nobody wants to see them campaigned against, so I hope that DEFRA will adopt the gist of this amendment to protect itself—