Open Season for Woodcock

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for introducing the debate in such a balanced way. I am probably to blame for one of the reasons why we are here. Some years ago, I mentioned the petitions system in Estonia to David Cameron; if a certain proportion of the population signed a petition, it would be debated in Parliament. I am pleased that the suggestion to David Cameron, who was Leader of the Opposition at the time, has resulted in these sorts of petitions coming forward.

I put on record the fact that I am a trustee of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, which is ably chaired by our former colleague, Sir Jim Paice. The trust carries out much-needed research in these areas to ensure that, when decisions are made by politicians and land managers, they are based on sound scientific research. Indeed, it publishes the results of its research, whether or not it benefits its objectives.

There is a lot of talk about the changes to the way in which we manage our countryside, with the environmental land management scheme, rewilding, tree planting and general conservation being front and centre of Government policy. Of course, where shooting takes place, that has been happening for generations and that has had positive knock-on effects for ecology. Two-thirds of my constituency is covered by moorland, where it is not only the grouse that thrives, but the lapwing, the curlew and the golden plover. That is because of the management of that grouse moorland, including the burning and the predator control, which means not only that the game species can thrive, but the other species that need that environment thrive too. Many of those arguments apply to the woodcock. There is a situation unfolding in my patch: one of the landowners wants to plant some woodland but, because the adjacent moorland is not shot or game-keepered, Natural England is worried that the predators in that woodland, such as foxes, will go on to the moor and deplete some of the important ground-nesting species that we all want to see.

We have heard that there are two populations of the woodcock: resident and migratory. There has been some talk about the red list. The woodcock is on the international red list as a species of least concern with a stable population trend, in the same category as the blackbird, although the resident population is under much more pressure.  Around 1.4 million migrants arrive each year, on a mean date of 10 November, and they leave in March. The resident population is much smaller; there are about 55,000 males in the spring—by the way, we count the males because they display in the spring, so they are easier to spot than the females—which results in a population of about 180,000 in the autumn.

The native woodcock was rare or absent in the UK until the mid-19th century. It nests in woodlands, and those habitats were previously not there. It was because of lowland tree planting, some of which was meant to encourage game, that the birds started to build here. In the 20th century, the planting of very large areas of conifers by the Forestry Commission and others resulted in the population increasing.

Now that population is declining, and a number of factors are behind that. First, we cannot avoid the effect of global warming on the species. The western limit of the woodcock which is here in the UK is moving to the north and east. In fact, in Devon and Cornwall, the woodcock is very rare. Unfortunately, global warming is having an effect. Secondly, those conifer plantations which, when planted, were superb environments for the woodcock, are now maturing, and there is very little opportunity for them to breed there. Thirdly, we have woodland degradation by deer, which is not conducive to woodcock breeding. We also have predation from raptors and other predators, with some birds of prey in particular—I saw 14 buzzards in the sky in one place last summer. It is great news that we are getting more birds of prey, but they do predate on some of these ground-nesting species.

Our shooting season is between 1 October and 31 January in England and Wales. As suggested by many of the shooting organisations, there is a voluntary delay until November, with which there are very high levels of compliance. We have heard some figures bandied about, but figures from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation show that there is 97%-plus compliance. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North that the figures on the numbers of birds shot that have been bandied about are based on 2012 shooting figures, which were published in 2014. I think it is important to wait until we see the 2022 figures, which will be published this year.

The proposal in the petition will have little effect on the resident population, as only around 2% of birds that are shot are not migratory. Sustainable levels of shooting and the voluntary delay of shooting are the way forward, at least until we have more data. Instead, to encourage more woodcock, we can continue active habitat management —part of the changes in the way we support farmers will help that—and, in particular, look at more open woodland. Secondly, we need better predator control: foxes, mustelids, such as stoats, and feral cats are predating on our native species. We would also like to see more game being eaten, in particular venison, as some of the habitat degradation is the effect of unprecedently high numbers of deer in our country. I have not eaten woodcock myself, but it has a high reputation. The more shooting farms and estates we have, the more land managers will be engaged in the conservation work we need to rebuild our native woodcock population.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. I will not take too much time, because repetition—as I was reminded when Timmy Mallett joined me at a charity event in my constituency yesterday—can bring that famous foam hammer down on one’s head.

The point I really want to make—which builds on the arguments made by my hon. Friends the Members for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill), and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—is to ask: why? Why do we need to legislate for something that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire has just said, is not actually a problem?

The shooting community shoots up and down the land. I fully accept that there are one or two irresponsible shoots, which we need to clamp down—the sort of shoots that bury the birds afterwards, rather than putting them into the food chain. However, the vast majority of shoots are entirely responsible and entirely focused on, yes, shooting the birds and getting them into the food chain, and more than anything else they are focused on conservation: looking after our countryside and ensuring that these habitats are there, not just for woodcock but for every species we could care to imagine.

That is clear from the statistics already quoted this afternoon. As it is, and with a very high rate of compliance, shoots up and down the country are not shooting woodcock until after 1 December. With an ever-expanding statute book in the United Kingdom, I put it to hon. and right hon. Members that there is no good reason to add to it yet further. Shooting in the United Kingdom, as has already been said, provides a massive net benefit to our economy and many thousands of jobs. As is clearly evidenced by the Aim to Sustain coalition, which involves the BASC, the Countryside Alliance, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and many more, the shooting community is involved in a voluntary transition from lead to steel shot. Indeed, many game dealers will not take meat from shoots that do not have British Game Assurance accreditation, which requires that birds by shot with steel, not lead.

This voluntary transition is leading to much sounder and more sustainable shooting in the United Kingdom. The longer that transition is left as voluntary—I stress the word “voluntary”—then the future benefits of shooting will be all the greater, not just to the economy but to getting more game meat into the food chain. I should say in passing that it is sometimes overlooked and forgotten that game meat is often healthier and a better protein than many of the meats we all buy from supermarket shelves. More people should be encouraged to eat game; I am encouraged by BGA’s success in getting more game meat served on national health service hospital wards, providing healthy protein.

We must ask ourselves this question: what good would it do to put another piece of legislation on the statute book? What would it achieve? Would it change anything on the ground? The answer can only be no. As others have said, between 1.4 million and 1.6 million woodcock migrate to the United Kingdom annually. The International Union for Conservation of Nature red list clearly lists the woodcock as a species of least concern, with a stable global population trend. This is not a bird that is about to die out or on the precipice of extinction; shoots and famers up and down the land look after the habitats that sustain all these species which we care so much about.

While the petition looks at specific dates around the shooting season, there is no question but that there are those out there who want to stop shooting altogether. They want to stop the British public shooting game and, more importantly, eating that healthy, nutritious source of food. But there is a reality that underpins that mission, and it is fantasy-land politics to believe that, if it were successful and we no longer shot and ate game, that would suddenly lead to a massive growth in the woodcock population or any other species—that somehow deer will neatly pat down the soil around newly planted saplings, or that predatory birds would bring down tasty worms and gift them to the woodcock.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

Does my hon. Friend agree that even the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds understands the importance of predator control? In 2018, it controlled 598 foxes and 800 crows, and it also controls barnacle geese and Canada geese to protect terns and avocets, so it understands the importance of managing the countryside in the way that gamekeepers have done for generations.