Lead Shot Ammunition

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered lead shot ammunition.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, in my first Westminster Hall debate.

An important petition is posted on the Parliament website and thousands of people from across the country have signed it, including eight in my constituency. The language is fiery and impassioned and the argument is clear: it points to an issue that concerns the House and has done for 100 years. I refer to the petition to keep all lead ammunition. About 20,000 people have signed the call to keep using lead in their guns:

“Lead ammunition has been used for hunting and shooting since the first guns were manufactured over three centuries ago. Never has there been a recorded death through lead ingestion.”

I take the matter seriously. I have constituents who hunt and shoot, as do other Members—in particular those who represent rural areas—and I recognise that sport shooting is a tradition and part of people’s way of life. Done sustainably, it can make a real contribution to the local economy and to the countryside. It is right to consider the future of the sport.

There is also another, quieter petition on the Parliament website in support of banning the use of lead ammunition in favour of non-toxic alternatives. Fewer people have signed it—about 3,000 to date—but that is the petition I commend to the Minister and to the House.

The case for using non-toxic ammunition is clear. Non-toxic alternatives to lead are effective, affordable and safer for wildlife and people. We have known the dangers of lead poisoning for thousands of years. The phrase “crazy as a painter” was coined centuries ago to express the awful effects that lead-packed paint had on people’s minds.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I have already given you my apologies, Mr Davies, but I might have to leave early. Does my hon. Friend agree that given that the known negative health effects of lead are well established and that, to minimise risk, lead has been removed from paint and petrol, it seems a tad ironic that lead remains in the shot used for killing birds that might be for human consumption?

[Gerald Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree. I hope to set out in the course of my contribution why that is such an important point.

Some people have even explained the fall of the Roman empire as having been caused by the Romans’ use of lead in pipes and cosmetics. More recently, the World Health Organisation, the Food Standards Agency and the Oxford Lead Symposium have all highlighted the toxicity of lead. Its negative human health impacts are scientifically established, even at the lowest levels of exposure, and lead poisoning is also a big problem for wildlife.

Much of the lead shot misses its target and builds up on the ground. It is then eaten by birds, which gobble up grit to grind up their food. The lead shot is dissolved in the digestive system and absorbed into the birds’ bloodstream. Scientists at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust have estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 wildfowl die of lead poisoning every year in the UK, along with many more game birds and birds of prey. Members might ask, “Where are all these dead birds?” but lead is known as the “invisible killer” because the poisoning is slow and distributed.

[Carolyn Harris]

I am sure my hon. Friend was as shocked as I was to discover that the existing regulations have a poor rate of compliance. In 2013 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commissioned a study that showed that 70% of ducks sampled had been killed with lead shot. The study was repeated in 2014 and showed that compliance had not improved, with an increased number of 77% of ducks sampled being shot illegally with lead.

[Gerald Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which illustrates how the existing arrangements are unsatisfactory and in some cases ineffective, which is why they need to be updated.

Birds die gradually from lead poisoning, but die they do. The WWT found that one in four migratory swans seen at post mortem had died of lead poisoning. Other leading conservation organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trusts have also highlighted lead poisoning as a major issue for UK wildlife. Yet we continue to spray about 5,000 tonnes of lead out over the countryside each year.

Why have more people signed the petition to keep lead? I could argue that it is a classic case of small interest groups rallying around to defend their privileges. I could blame the shooters for looking after their own interests to the detriment of wildlife and the general public. People are rarely vocal about long-term environmental consequences, or about widespread public benefits. By contrast, it is easy to portray the proposal to ban lead as an attack on country life, prompting a rush to oppose any change—but this is no attack on the countryside. The irony is that it is surely rural communities who would benefit most from a change in the law to phase out the use of lead ammunition.

Some people will point out that most of the lead that the public consume comes from vegetables. That is true, but people who eat game meat are far more exposed. It is not only the shooters themselves; we must also consider their families and the increasing number of people who eat game. Many game birds sold for human consumption have lead concentrations far exceeding European Union maximum levels for meat from cows, sheep, pigs and poultry. No maximum levels have been set for game.

Simply removing lead shot from the meat does not solve the problem, because particles of lead too small to be seen often break off or dissolve and are left in the meat.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am struggling to understand why the hon. Gentleman thinks that the existing regulations are not sufficient to deal with the problem. Would he back more detailed environmental studies to work out what the real effect on the community is?

[Gerald Jones]

During the remainder of my contribution I hope to address the point made by the hon. Gentleman.

Simply removing lead shot, as I said, does not solve the problem, because traces of lead can be left in the meat. In the UK, as many as 12,500 children under eight eat game once a week in the shooting community alone. In children, less than one meal of wild-shot game a week could result in blood lead levels associated with a decrease in IQ.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

As the hon. Gentleman said, the shooting of birds with lead shot has been going on for many centuries. Where is the public health crisis to which he alludes? It would be news to many colleagues, because we have not had people coming to our surgeries or writing to us with any experience of a problem with eating lead-shot birds, whether personally or in their families.

[Gerald Jones]

It is not a case of the vast majority of members of the public speaking out on an issue such as this, but the studies are out there. I have outlined some in my contribution and will outline more.

The Food Standards Agency has also highlighted the risks to pregnant women. Of course, no one has died of lead poisoning from eating game, but nor would any serious scientist dispute that lead is a poisonous metal. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has set up a new Great British Food unit and game is increasingly being sold as a healthy, local option. What better way to improve that brand than to ensure that the meat we eat is safe and lead-free?

Progressive countryside organisations such as the Sustainable Food Trust are backing the call to phase out lead as part of a modern countryside economy. Non-toxic alternatives are better for the image of the shoot, the economy of the countryside and the health of the shooters themselves.

[Mr Charles Walker]

In advance of the debate I talked to a number of clay pigeon shooting grounds in and around my constituency, and their problem with steel shot is that it ricochets. If lead shot is banned, all those shooting grounds will be put out of business—not just in and around my constituency, but across all Members’ constituencies. Has the hon. Gentleman thought about how that could be tackled?

[Gerald Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but there are alternatives that could be looked at. We are asking for this matter to be properly looked at and investigated, with a timescale to phase out lead.

As I said, there are good alternatives to lead on the market such as tungsten, bismuth and steel, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Many shooters in the UK will say that alternatives to lead are not as effective and argue that wounded birds are a welfare issue. Of course, that takes absolutely no account of the welfare of thousands of birds that suffer from lead poisoning. What is more, such evidence is entirely anecdotal.

Ballistics studies and blind trials have shown that alternatives such as steel are just as effective as lead. In terms of prices, steel is now competitive with lead and although other alternatives such as tungsten are more costly, they still represent a fraction of the overall cost of shooting. Some guns will need retrofitting, which is a process that can cost £50, and a few may not be compatible with lead at all, but surely those costs are small compared with the benefits of cleaning up the industry.

In Denmark, a ban on lead shot was introduced 20 years ago and the hunting and shooting sector has not been affected. What should be done here in the UK? The time for voluntary initiatives is surely over. The use of lead shot over and near wetlands is already restricted by law. Shooting groups have repeatedly encouraged members to respect the law, yet 45% of shooters admit that they have not complied with it and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) mentioned, three quarters of ducks sampled in 2013 had been killed with lead shot. What is more, we know that the problem is not restricted to wetlands. Many vulnerable species feed on lead all across the countryside. Quite simply, the law as it stands is insufficient and ineffective, so the Government must take sensible steps.

The UK is party to the convention on the conservation of migratory species, which last year agreed guidelines calling for the replacement of lead with non-toxic alternatives in countries where migratory species are at risk from poisoning. Back in 2010, DEFRA set up the Lead Ammunition Group to identify risks and solutions. Its chair, John Swift, submitted the group’s work and his report to DEFRA on 3 June 2015. Its results were definitive:

“regulations restricting the use of lead shot in wetlands and for shooting wildfowl are apparently not achieving their aim and are insufficient for dealing with the wider risks.”

The science and the politics are clear and the time for reflection is over. Thirty years ago, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution advised the Government that they should legislate to ban any further use of lead shot where it is irretrievably dispersed in the environment.

The question of lead ammunition is not a debate that could or should be decided by petition. It is a question for the House, DEFRA and the Department of Health. Back in 1983, Willie Hamilton MP summed it up in a debate on lead in petrol:

“Whatever the technical arguments may be and however much it is said that lead can be produced in the body by other means, that is no reason for saying that we should leave everything alone and not tackle the problem. We must tackle this problem and it can be solved and eliminated”.—[Official Report, 21 January 1983; Vol. 35, c. 632.]

The same is true today. We can quibble over exact numbers and fuss about the precise costs of steel shot, but the basic message is clear.

We have banned lead from pipes, petrol and paint, but it still ends up on our plates. We have tried to protect wildlife by restricting the use of lead over wetlands, but the rules are too partial and too easily ignored. The Government have evidence from the Lead Ammunition Group and power in the Environmental Protection Act 1990, so I hope that, in the public interest, the Minister will show that the Government have the sense to act on the science and commit to phase out lead shot ammunition.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Gerald Jones]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions in this important debate. I mentioned during my speech that this is not an attack on the countryside. It is not about shooting or the rural economy; for me, it is very much a health issue. Risks have been identified by health organisations, and even small risks deserve to be considered and removed, because there is a detrimental effect on birds and, as we have heard, potentially on humans through the food chain. That needs to be considered and action taken.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered lead shot ammunition.