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.

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[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—

Kew Gardens

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on presenting such a cogent and comprehensive case for the support of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. I agree with every word that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said. I hope the message will go out that there is substantial unanimity across the House about something that is not just a national but an international treasure—an important and fantastic resource for the United Kingdom.

I have been going to Kew gardens since the days when it cost one old penny piece to go in. I see the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington nodding. He and I are of a similar age and I suspect that we both delved into our pockets to obtain that coin, which perhaps had Queen Victoria’s head on it. The price has gone up, of course; it is now £15 to get in, I think. I declare an interest as my wife is a friend of Kew gardens, and I have a constituent who is one of the most distinguished scientists in the world in her field, Professor Monique Simmonds. She is the deputy director of science and the director of the Kew innovation unit. She was awarded the OBE last year for the extraordinary work that she and her team have been doing, not just in the United Kingdom, in the Jodrell laboratory at Kew where they do scientific research, but around the world. She, with her team, makes a fantastic contribution through visits and making connections, and identifying plants that can produce life-saving medicines. So I wholeheartedly support the campaign to ensure that Kew is properly funded.

I am a Thatcherite Tory—I see you nodding, Sir Alan; thank you—and I recognise fully the need for the nation to balance the books. Unquestionably it is the big challenge of the Parliament to address the budget deficit, but the nation still spends £700 billion a year, and therefore how to spend that money on services, even if the amount is reduced, is a matter of legitimate political and public debate. I feel strongly that the nation needs to capitalise on one of its greatest assets: the talents of its people. We face a competitive world out there, with countries such as China and India snapping at our heels, and the only way this nation will survive is by harnessing the innovative talent that fortunately runs through it.

I argued repeatedly when I was a Defence Minister that we need to spend money on defence research. We need to be at the forefront of technology, and that also applies to Kew, in the field of medical science. We have the means to do it. We have the talented and skilled people at Kew, who are able to deliver. Rather than cutting them back we should expand them for, if I may be permitted to use the expression, they are the seed corn of our future prosperity as a nation. One of Britain’s most successful businesses, apart, of course, from the defence industry, is the pharmaceutical industry. There is a synergy; what the scientific research at Kew produces complements one of Britain’s most important industries.

Kew is not an ancient monument to be preserved, although I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington—as well as my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who mentioned his personal attachment to Kew—that it is a lung in west London, serving a wider purpose beyond the one that we have predominantly discussed today. That is important, but what is fundamental to the salvation of this nation is that we harness technology. In Kew we have a jewel in our crown, and I hope that we shall continue to fund it.

Another aspect of Kew’s work is the involvement of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the fight against crime and terrorism. We face a bio-threat, and without places such as Kew we would lack some of the expertise with which to address it. Some hon. Members may remember when a boy’s torso was found in the Thames. It had no head. The origins of that child were established by the forensic work done at Kew gardens. By analysing the contents of the stomach it was possible to tell which part of Nigeria the torso came from. I use that as a graphic but simple illustration of the depth of expertise that we cannot, as a nation, afford to lose.

I will not discuss the question that my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury raised of how we structure government. I just believe, as others do, that there must be a long-term solution. My right hon. Friend suggested direct funding from the Treasury. In a sense, I do not mind how it is done, but done it must be, in the interest of the nation and the exchange of information and samples around the world. A huge amount of work has been done through fundraising at Kew, to raise funds without relying wholly on the Treasury; but as for the director saying it can all be done by selling more, that is what Kew has already been doing, and some of what it does involves payment in kind. By giving expertise it gets access to plants and other facilities available around the world. Much more bartering, as opposed to pounds, shillings and pence, may be happening.

I am left with the words of that magnificent magazine Country Life, to which I am sure the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is a regular subscriber.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Compulsory reading.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Absolutely; required reading. The article said:

“The nation would, of course, be mad to let this treasure go, but that, in the worst possible sense, is what our elected representatives are doing already.”

Notwithstanding the funding that has been given, which I regard as temporary plastering, we need a fundamental, long-term solution, to preserve the fantastic work being done at Kew.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zac Goldsmith]

I put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, in particular, for campaigning so hard, which is appreciated by my constituents and by the staff and friends of Kew. It has not gone unnoticed. Personally, I am grateful to him for having pushed the issue so high up the agenda. We would not be having the debate or have seen the press release about the extra funding this morning had it not been for his leadership. I am also grateful for all the speeches.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Before my hon. Friend finishes, may I say how strongly I support his message to the Minister that he should be talking to DFID? The Department for International Development is simply awash with cash. It has had a bung of an extra £5 billion in the past four years. So much of the work that Kew does is overseas, helping developing countries, so I am sure that my hon. Friend and I can make a compelling case to the Minister to go and nick some of that cash off DFID.

[Zac Goldsmith]

With that, let us commit here and now as hon. Members and Back Benchers to visit the Secretary of State for International Development to make that case. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I thank you, Sir Alan, for presiding over the important debate. I hope that it is the beginning, not the end, of something positive.

Flooding

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I have upgraded my glasses since then. However, I have always regarded the hon. Gentleman as a particularly attractive Member of this House.

Areas across the country have suffered from flooding, power loss, damage to local infrastructure, and coastal erosion. In some of the worst affected areas, communities will continue to suffer the after-effects for months to come, long after the cameras and the Westminster politicians have disappeared. I commend the tireless work of local councils, firefighters, Environment Agency staff on the ground, local volunteers and our armed forces for the work they have done, and still do, around the clock.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

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[Mr Pickles]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. I went to look at the possibilities there and was well and truly lobbied. I have reason to be very grateful to firefighters who came up with a way of keeping the roads open with a very inventive use of high-volume hoses.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The Secretary of State has mentioned the work of the agencies. May I put it on the record that, since Aldershot was badly hit by flooding in 2006, Rushmoor borough council, Thames Water and the Environment Agency have combined not only to clear some of the vegetation from Cove brook, but to undertake other work that has resulted in our being very lightly hit this time? It is very important that we have a balanced debate about flooding, so I say to my right hon. Friend that in Aldershot we are very grateful for the work that has been done. We know that more must be done, but let us put on the record what has been done.

[Mr Pickles]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes some reasonable points and shows what can be done. In fairness, the weather was much worse for a more prolonged period than it was in 2007, and the number of dwellings affected is 7,000 or thereabouts, which is just a tiny proportion of the 55,000 or 56,000. That is a reflection of some very good protection work.