Driven Grouse Shooting

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Robbie Moore

Monday 30th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

Clearly, the reason why our moorlands are in the state they are in today is the collective management that is taking place, whether by mechanical means or through the moorland management burning plans that exist. If we were to end the burning of heather altogether, we would allow the woody stock to generate that has led to the very fires that were rightly referred to by the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald). Right now, gamekeepers are the people on the ground trying to cope with those fires and help our fire services out.

No burning would mean a build-up of vegetation and woody stock, which is itself a negative influence on the sustainability of heather for bird species of all kinds, but what is perhaps worse is that eventually, in the natural cycle, such overgrown heather is much more prone to catching fire. When it does, it will lead to huge and far more damaging wildfires, which are costly to communities and hugely damaging to the environment.

I have seen this for myself in my West Yorkshire constituency on Ilkley moor—another moor that is not managed, exactly the same as Fylingdales moor in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton. A series of smaller and cooler man-made fires, agreed and signed off via an approved moorland management burning plan, is vital for enhancing the ecological status of moorland, helps to improve the complex and desirable mosaic of the moorland, and significantly reduces the risk of dangerous unplanned fires. Once we understand that burning is the management of a natural process, and not destruction for destruction’s sake, it is far harder to justify banning it.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Is he also concerned, as I am, about the proposed change in the definition of deep peat? Currently, it is defined as peat deeper than 40 cm, but there is a proposal to reduce that figure to 30 cm, which would mean that much of our moorlands cannot be managed through burning, leading to a much greater fire risk.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I was just going to come to that. Natural England is engaged in that consultation right now. It is not just me who is concerned about the consultation process and the direction that Natural England is going in; the concern is shared by my hon. Friend and by Members across the House who have moorland in their constituencies where it is necessary to be able to burn in order to control the woody stock of heather, so that we can create a mosaic that benefits not just the peatland that sits below it but the many species that want to eat the new shoots of heather that come through. That would benefit not only red grouse but the many other bird species I have already spoken about. Therefore, I urge the Government and the Minister to look carefully at the steps that Natural England is taking, because its current direction is not sustainable for our rural economies.

The benefits of grouse shooting are not limited to environmental improvements. Grouse shooting and the management of our moorland provide an invaluable and highly successful land use for our upland areas that, crucially, relies on not just public money, but private investment. Directly within the industry, 3,000 full-time equivalent jobs are supported, contributing nearly £47 million to the UK economy. Those numbers may seem small compared with other industries, but the importance of grouse shooting is where that economic stimulus is felt.

Upland rural communities are some of the most remote and deprived in the country. It is a huge challenge to promote inward investment or deliver efficient and effective public services in those communities. Alongside activities like farming, grouse shooting provides a vital economic pillar to keep our communities alive. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), like other Members, picked up on that very point. He rightly identified the complex social fabric in the hard-working communities up in Wensleydale, Hawes and beyond. Upland communities are some of the most remote. Banning grouse shooting would cause community centres such as pubs and hotels—like the Star near Thirsk, which I am familiar with—to shut, and those communities would be unable to rely on the positive benefits for employment, for families and for the viability of public services.

The benefits of grouse shooting extend well into our urban areas, as rightly mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who talked about Holland & Holland. That demonstrates the wider economic impacts of grouse shooting. We know how important access to green spaces is, and the public obviously agree: 3 million people visit the North York moors, the Yorkshire dales and the Peak district annually. Why? Because they love the landscape.

The wider public health benefits of how grouse moors are managed are there for us all to see. Research shows that the perennial leaf coverage of heather helps to reduce air pollution, but that coverage is sustained only by the moorland being predominantly funded and managed for the purpose of grouse shooting. Managed grouse moorland also provides a defence against tick-borne diseases. The management of ticks is in the interest of our groundkeepers and of our farmers, as it protects their livestock, but another benefit is fewer ticks to spread human-borne diseases, some of which can be fatal. If we take away the economic incentives to carry out that work by banning grouse shooting, we lose those additional benefits.

I have covered many of the positive consequences of grouse shooting, but I would like to talk about the petition itself. Campaigners for banning grouse shooting have raised flooding as a concern, yet many of the organisations I have spoken to that advocate for shooting to continue say that the exact opposite is true. In the words that I have heard continuously, the wetter, the better. Indeed, many groundkeepers have spent the better part of the last few decades filling in and removing drains put in in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically to improve the outcomes for grouse shooting and to the benefit of flood mitigation downstream. I have seen that for myself on Keighley moor in my constituency. Without grouse shooting, those ditches and drains would still be in place today.

Another concern that has been raised, not just in this debate but in others that have preceded it, is predator control. We must strike a balance here. Many predatory species, such as foxes, are not endangered, yet many of their prey animals are. While grouse themselves are not endangered, other bird species that benefit from this predator control are. Where the control of predators has been relaxed, numbers of other bird species, such as the lapwing, golden plover and rare merlin, have dropped significantly. We must make a choice about what we wish to prioritise: an unendangered predator species or the endangered prey themselves. Taking no action is not a neutral action. It is heartening to hear that, thanks in part to moorland managed for grouse shooting, hen harrier numbers reached record levels in 2023, demonstrating the positive effect that moorland management can have on our bird of prey species.

We should also be absolutely clear that the harming of birds of prey is a crime, and I have yet to meet a grouse shooting organisation that believes that should change. Once again, the rising populations of our birds of prey demonstrate that grouse shooting works for our environment and not against it.

I am pleased that the Government’s written response to the petition was that there are no plans at present to ban grouse shooting, so I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that this remains the case and, further, that no Labour Government will ban grouse shooting. I would also be grateful if the Minister could say what he will do with his ministerial colleagues to hold Natural England to account, to make sure that it does not run away with the narrative of wanting to reduce the definition of deep peat from 40 cm to 30 cm, as that would have catastrophic consequences for how moorland is managed.

Grouse moorland management is a real success story of balancing economic, social and environmental activities. Those who wish to ban it because they feel that an unmanaged, natural approach would be better should be careful what they wish for. Without the financial incentive of the shoot, none of these environmental benefits for our moorland, our bird species or our climate would happen. I am certain that they would not happen without an agenda driven by private investment.

I thank all those in the sector who work enormously hard around the clock to enhance our moorland—our gamekeepers, our groundskeepers, our farmers, our rural estates, our land managers and our stakeholders such as the Moorland Association, BASC, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Countryside Alliance. I thank them for their continued work.

We all know that almost every acre of the UK is managed in one way or another, and has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. There is no Siberian tundra in the UK, no Australian outback, no Amazon rainforest or American wild west. We should not pretend that the land we love is the product of a random choice of nature, but instead we should recognise that it is a collective accomplishment of generation after generation of our ancestors and their stewardship of the land. Britain’s natural landscape is, ironically, a product of unnatural human management. Grouse moorland management might only be a part of that wider story, but it is an illustrative and successful one that I hope will continue long into the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Robbie Moore

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We would all like to reform business rates. When people in my constituency hear about Labour’s plans to scrap business rates, the question I always get is, “Where is the money coming from?” Business rates raise £22 billion in England alone. I have heard Labour’s plans to scrap business rates. Which taxes will be increased to make up that shortfall? That is the question. We are reforming business rates to ensure that small businesses pay less, and providing short-term discounts. Labour cannot simply wipe away £22 billion without telling us where the money is coming from.

[Robbie Moore]

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a business roundtable in my constituency for small and medium-sized businesses, many of whom are proud of the products and services they want to export. Will my hon. Friend outline what additional steps the Government are taking to support small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency and across the UK that are looking to export their world-leading products to the global market?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for his businesses across Keighley, and I thank him for the work he does. He will know that through our export strategy, “Made in the UK, Sold to the World”, we provide extensive support and advice to SMEs, whether they are considering exporting, learning about how to go about it, or expanding into new markets. UK Export Finance focuses on supporting SMEs so that they can secure export opportunities.