My Lords, I, too, strongly support this section of the Bill. It was very encouraging this morning at the session that some of us attended at Defra to hear that the UK is ahead of the game vis-à-vis Europe in terms of trying to control and monitor invasive species. The more that we can do it, and the quicker that we can do it, the better. However, I am not certain about Amendment 65A; I am not sure that past claims to being native mean that they would not necessarily be invasive now. I agree about certain species—red kites are one, and perhaps the bustard will be another—but let us take a species that has been in the news recently: beavers. Actually, in spite of the newspapers saying that beavers have recently been discovered in the wild in the south-west, they have been running around in the south-west for some years now, as far as I am aware. They say that it is the first time they have around for 800 years but we do not quite know what effect they will have. Their habit of damming streams and blocking rivers—bear in mind that there have been floods recently in the south-west—might be a problem. I feel that that situation would need to be looked at.
Turning to my native Scotland, there is a suggestion that we might introduce wolves there. I have an interest to declare here: my ancestor Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, who was known as the great Sir Ewen, apart from spending all his life in the latter half of the 1600s killing Englishmen, for which he got knighted by the English king as one tends to do—do not ask me why—also killed the last wolf in Scotland. I have always been led to believe that he swung it round his head and wrapped it around a tree, but that may be a detail too far.
The situation has changed dramatically for wolves in terms of both population density and livestock density in Scotland. So I do not think that you can put a provision like this in the Bill. Every species has to be judged according to its particular habits and interests in relation to the countryside today.
7 pm
I looked through these amendments to see where I could make this point. Some of us attended the very good seminar at Defra this morning, but one thing concerned me in connection with wild boar and the Forest of Dean. Defra seemed to indicate that where the local community was not in favour of controlling or eliminating the species, that would have priority. This is a dangerous precedent in principle. For instance, there was a lot of outcry from the nation about trying to kill ruddy ducks without the full picture being understood. I am pleased to say that the nation’s views, as expressed in the Daily Mail and elsewhere, were ignored on that occasion, and the ruddy duck is now a great success story—we have brought the number down to almost nil. I bet that a part of the community, not understanding the huge damage that grey squirrels do to trees, forestry and red squirrels, would not necessarily be in favour of controlling and exterminating grey squirrels, even if that were possible.