Songbirds

Earl of Shrewsbury Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on securing his debate today. He is a great supporter of all rural and agricultural matters. I listened to him carefully; his contribution was excellent and most knowledgeable. Forgive me if my glasses fall off—they have stretched. My noble friend discussed a wide variety of issues from habitat and land management, through winter feeding to predator control. Personally, as a countryman I was fascinated and impressed. I agree with everything that he said. I refer noble Lords to my interests as a member of the NFU and the Countryside Alliance, and to my involvement past and current with various shooting associations.

Before I go slightly off piste, I must concur with my noble friend about the enormous contribution that the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust makes. I have known it for many years and was a local chairman. The late Dr Dick Potts was a world-class act and a titan in his area of knowledge. He was the guiding light behind Loddington Farm and the GWCT’s working farm in Leicestershire, from whence so much expert advice has come over the years. I should declare my interest as a member of the GWCT.

I am a shooting man. I know that shoots, by their nature, whether you love them or loathe them, are conservationists. They have to be. They have to provide a good habitat for a wide variety of wildlife. In the process of establishing and enhancing hedgerows, conserving and promoting woodland, promoting insect production, vermin control, coppicing and a raft of other practices, they do all the things that assist in the promotion of songbirds.

Plenty of predators prey on songbirds. Where I live, on the borders of the Peak District National Park, we have numerous magpies. I watch them at nesting time sneaking down the hedgerows, robbing eggs and fledglings. The magpie is a thoroughly vicious bird. We cull them as much we can. Buzzards, too, although protected, cause many problems. I am told that the buzzard is purely a carrion gatherer. That is not so. I have watched him take young chicks and pheasant poults. He will circle over a release pen and all the poults will cower in a corner and smother to death. The buzzard population is out of control. Indeed, just the other day, I counted 11 over the 15-acre wood behind my house.

Among the various songbird predators, and there are many—my noble friend mentioned cats, but where I live, the cat is a minor problem; I think it is more of an urban issue—we have the fox, which has no natural predator. The only method by which we can protect other species which he preys on is by human intervention and control. The grey squirrel, which has already been mentioned, is also a predator on songbirds. They have little fear of predation, save for in the north-east of the country, where they are scared stiff of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. He is a highly successful predator of the grey squirrel and a great supporter of the red of the species; perhaps that is a little illiberal of him. I practised that line so many times.

The noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, realised a number of years ago that the wild English partridge was becoming close to extinction, so he produced a programme on his land to engender a revival of the species. He is truly an expert and fascinating to listen to on the subject. He commissioned new hedgerows, planted on a ridge so that ground-nesting birds would not have their nests flooded and chicks would survive in heavy rain conditions. He established beetle banks and wildflower strips around headlands, ensuring that there would be an abundance of natural insect life for feeding birds. He also used sensible and proportionate predator control. Because of that initiative, the songbirds found a friend. I could go on, because I am passionate about this, but I am very much time limited.

In attempting to reach a conclusion, I suggest to my noble friend the Minister, who has always been a great supporter of rural issues, that Brexit provides an ideal and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a view on rural financial support. Surely future subsidy—I think it should be called support—should be targeted away from the large farmers who benefit from economies of scale and pointed to the small to medium-sized farms, uplands and less favoured areas, perhaps focusing on wildlife and habitat schemes designed by the GWCT, which is a world leader. Perhaps that body could be paid fees through an environment support fund, where landowners and farmers would be rewarded for the quality of their stewardship or penalised for their lack of it.