Oral Answers to Questions

Graeme Morrice Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

As I said earlier, the Government have announced a £10 million fund to help farmers with the cost of recovering from flooding. We can look at how the farming and forestry improvement scheme might impact on those affected by flooding, but its primary purpose is to promote the long-term competitiveness of farming.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

T9. I welcome the Government’s action plan for tackling wildlife crime and the renewal of funding for the national wildlife crime unit until 2016, even though it needs to be much more long term than that. Will the Minister explain his view on making wildlife crime offences recordable and what discussions he has had with colleagues at the Home Office?

[George Eustice]

One of the principles that we are looking at in the conference is making sure that the sanctions are adequate for those who commit wildlife crime. Issues of sentencing are a matter for the Ministry of Justice. However, I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to update him on further progress on this, because there has been some suggestion that the Sentencing Council should look at it further.