Ruth Jones
Main Page: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
Ruth Jones (Newport West and Islwyn) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a close season, from the start of February to the end of September, during which the killing or taking of brown hares is prohibited; to protect mountain hares; to repeal the seasonal prohibition on the sale of hares in the Hares Preservation Act 1892; and for connected purposes.
Before starting my speech, I pay tribute to the work of Baroness Helic in the other place. She has been a tireless champion of this cause alongside the wider animal welfare sector, and it has been a privilege to work alongside her in putting together this Bill.
Despite being affectionately heralded as an inhabitant of the British countryside and featuring in the Bank of England’s recent banknote competition—it came fifth—the brown hare is not originally native to these lands. The species is thought to have originated in central Asia and spread across Europe alongside the expansion of agriculture. Academics believe that the brown hare was introduced to Britain following the Roman invasion, although some suggest that hares may have arrived even before the Romans.
Following the introduction of hares to Britain, the hare population continued to grow, peaking in the 18th and 19th centuries. Agricultural reforms, land enclosure and predator control on larger estates all created favourable conditions for hares—unlike other species—to thrive. Experts at the University of Bristol estimate that the hare population reached 4 million in the late 19th century. As a result, the species became deeply embedded in rural culture and folklore. However, those conditions were not to last.
By the early 1990s, gamekeepers and rural ecologists were beginning to sound the alarm. Brown hare numbers had declined sharply, especially since the 1960s. The national brown hare survey organised by Hutchings and Harris in 1996 estimated that the brown hare population had fallen to as low as 817,000—barely a fifth of its number 100 years ago. Hare numbers were estimated to be falling by 2% a year during the 1990s. Shooting, coursing and poaching were specifically cited as a cause of the decline, alongside wider changes in farming intensification, decreasing crop diversity, and the loss of headlands and hedgerows.
Despite brown hares being a priority species since 1992, their estimated number continued to decline, with targets to double the spring population by 2010 missed. Estimates in 2022 put the population at fewer than 600,000, with surveys such as the one done by the British Trust for Ornithology reporting a recovery only in the last few years. It is that worrisome decline that my Bill seeks to respond to by building on existing best practice to protect local hare populations. Principally, it would do so through the introduction of a statutory close season for the killing of hares in England and Wales.
Hares are currently the only game species in England and Wales without a statutory close season, and they may therefore be killed throughout the year. That makes England and Wales outliers compared with Scotland, Northern Ireland and the rest of Europe. That gap in protection makes brown hare populations uniquely vulnerable to commercial shooting. Most organised hare shoots take place during February and March, following the closure of the game bird shooting season. This almost exactly aligns with the hare breeding season, meaning that shoots can devastate the local population. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust estimated that
“a February hare shoot can remove 60% of the breeding stock.”
In low population areas, such devastation can pose the risk of localised extinction. Such impacts are already reflected in guidance and voluntary codes, which have clearly proven ineffective.
Researchers at the University of Bristol found that shooting hares in February resulted in a profoundly damaging combination of population shrinkage and the orphaning of leverets, with consequent animal welfare impacts and poor population recovery outcomes. Put simply, the killing of pregnant or nursing female hares during their principal breeding season cannot be reconciled with a modern and coherent approach to animal welfare. At a time when we are committed to restoring nature and biodiversity, such reckless practices only risk putting brown hare populations at further risk.
When considering the welfare of hares across England and Wales, it is critical that we do not neglect mountain hares, the upland cousin of the more common brown hare. While their numbers have declined significantly since the 19th century, the Peak district maintains an established wild breeding population in the Dark Peak of Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. In Wales, however, the mountain hare population has all but disappeared, despite efforts to reintroduce the species in historical habitats. The lack of any specific wildlife protections for mountain hares in England and Wales has been a key contributor to their decline, with moorland and scrubland habitats being lost and intensive culling efforts linked to red grouse shooting.
In responding to the intensifying threats to mountain hare populations, in 2021 the Scottish Government extended full protection under schedule 5 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981—a crucial step, given that Scotland is home to most of the native British mountain hare population. Clause 4 of my Bill seeks to extend the same protections afforded to mountain hares in Scotland to those in England and Wales. That would mean it would become generally unlawful to intentionally or recklessly kill, injure or take a mountain hare without a licence. By providing greater protection, we can give this vulnerable species the breathing room that it needs to recover, boosting local ecology in the process. Having seen hares out and about on spring, summer and autumn evenings near my static caravan in St Davids in west Wales, I know it is a delight to watch them, and I want to ensure that we make all efforts to protect these marvellous little creatures.
This Labour Government were elected on a commitment to deliver the biggest increase to animal welfare in a generation, providing increased protection for domestic, farmed and wild animals. The recently published animal welfare strategy was a major first step in delivering that, including a priority commitment to introducing a close season for hares. This Government have also committed to reversing ecological decline and boosting species abundance. We have had the warm words; now it is time for action.
The Government must urgently back this Bill or an equivalent in the other place to introduce a close season and better protect our hares. Deeds, not words, will determine how this Government are judged before the next election, and that applies to animal welfare and the environment as much as anything else. I commend this Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Ruth Jones, Irene Campbell, Sir Desmond Swayne, Kerry McCarthy, Sir Roger Gale, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Tim Farron, Ben Lake, Tonia Antoniazzi, Terry Jermy and Simon Hoare present the Bill.
Ruth Jones accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 19 March 2027, and to be printed (Bill 154).
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before we get on to the next bit of business, I have been updated that the Foreign Office statement was indeed received on time. I did tell the Minister off earlier, but maybe that information can be passed on to her.