Driven Grouse Shooting

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am very pleased to take part in this debate. As befits the Member of Parliament for Aldershot, I engage in shooting, although I tend to confine myself to pheasant, partridge and the like, sometimes at the kind invitation of my friends. Grouse shooting is not something with which I am so familiar—the grouse with which I am most closely familiar comes in a very fine bottle from Scotland that has “Famous” on the side of it. However, I come from a long line of Scottish border farmers and I have a cousin, Will Garfit, who is not only one of the most exceptional shots in the country but a famous artist. He is also responsible for a magnificent, award-winning small sporting estate, which he has transformed from a gravel pit. He illustrates the association between shooting and conservation that is exemplified by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, which also kindly invites me to go shooting from time to time. The contributions we have heard today strongly illustrate how shooting and conservation go hand in hand.

I believe that people should be free to decide for themselves whether to go shooting. It is currently lawful, it should remain lawful, and it should be a matter for individuals, unless there is damage to the environment. I have been impressed by the speeches of so many right hon. and hon. Members in this debate, particularly that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who knows a huge amount about the subject. The collective wisdom produced today must provide very compelling evidence to those who have signed the petition. I have had a handful of identical emails about the petition but, as we know, our constituents have not written them; they have simply been fed them by the League Against Cruel Sports and have duly ticked the box and sent the emails winging their way to us.

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to come back to the point about climate change. When the hon. Gentleman talks about scientific evidence, he makes it sound as if grouse shooting is good for the environment. However, the Committee on Climate Change’s 2015 progress report to Parliament notes:

“Wetland habitats, including the majority of upland areas with carbon-rich peat soils, are in poor condition. The damaging practice of burning peat to increase grouse yields continues, including on internationally-protected sites.”

That is the kind of evidence that the hon. Gentleman is talking about, but it shows exactly the opposite conclusion to the one he draws.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

All the hon. Lady has managed to do, I am afraid, is illustrate her complete and utter obsession with climate change. It is an important subject, but the science is not settled. If she is saying that burning 0.6% of heather in this country is contributing to climate change, I am afraid to say that I, for one, do not believe it.

I do not want to make a long speech, but I have a couple of observations to make. First, moorlands account for something like 4 million acres across the whole United Kingdom, as we have heard, and they employ something like 2,500 people—1,500 in England and Wales and more in Scotland. These are some of the most remote parts of the kingdom. So many of the people who write to us about these matters obviously feel emotional about it but do not understand what it is like to have to farm the countryside to maintain its beauty. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) so rightly pointed out, it is people in the farming community—the agricultural community—who tend the land and make it such a magnet for those in the rest of the country to go and visit. They manage the moorland 24/7, 365 days a year in all weathers, to the benefit not just of the landscape, as my hon. Friend pointed out, but of the birds.

The role of gamekeepers, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) described as custodians, really needs to be emphasised. A conversation with a gamekeeper is absolutely fascinating, because gamekeepers have so much knowledge, understanding and passion for the countryside. If shooting were made unlawful or banned, it would be hugely to the detriment of the quality of the management of rural countryside in this country. The case for that has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), who cited the statistics. My noble Friend Viscount Ridley had an excellent article published in The Spectator in August, in which he pointed out that on a North Pennine moor,

“a survey of breeding birds was carried out this spring. The results have gobsmacked conservationists. On this one grouse moor, there were at least 400 pairs of curlews breeding. This is about as many as in the whole of Wales. There were 800 pairs of lapwings, 100 pairs of golden plovers, 50 pairs of oyster-catchers, 40 pairs of redshanks, 200 pairs of snipe, 50 pairs of woodcocks, 60 pairs of common sandpipers.”

That is an illustration of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) about the fantastic effect that conservation and shooting have produced in the countryside. Viscount Ridley’s article continues:

“In the early 2000s, at Otterburn in Northumberland, the trust”—

the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust—

“did a neat experiment in which two areas had gamekeepers and two did not, then they swapped for four years. The results were astonishing. With gamekeepers, the breeding success of golden plovers, curlews and lapwings more than doubled, and their numbers rocketed.”

I think the case is made.

I fear that opposition to driven grouse shooting is founded not on concern for the stewardship of upland Britain but on emotional hostility to those who participate in shooting, and that the science is being twisted to fit the case for a ban. My right hon. and hon. Friends in this Chamber today have produced a compelling archive of the reasons why this emotional campaign is ill-founded and, if listened to and acted upon, would be seriously damaging to the very countryside that its supporters understandably wish to see preserved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall.

I thank those who took the time to petition their MP about the subject of driven grouse shooting, whether they are among the 123,000 people calling for a ban on it or the 20,000 people who expressed a different view. I am sure that all of them have done their own research into the subject. Therefore, I take issue with the insults that have been made against those who choose to petition their MP through the internet.

I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions today—

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I think the hon. Lady’s remarks referred to me. The only point I was making was that, as my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) said, if people come to an MP’s surgery and talk to their MP, or if they write in their own terms, one is much more prepared to listen to them than to people who have simply ticked a box and then an email is automatically dispatched, maybe in the middle of the night.

[Rachael Maskell]

I say to the hon. Gentleman, do not make assumptions about the research that constituents make in order to make their point to their MP. All have an opportunity to petition; it is a formal mechanism that this Parliament recognises as a means of forwarding debate. Therefore, it is the duty of this House to respect that process.

Clearly, this debate is needed. There are areas on which everyone can—