Grouse Shooting

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Kevin Hollinrake

Monday 21st June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh.

I do not accept that we should ban driven grouse shooting, and nor do I accept that there is a wilful blindness to the issues. I point out to the petitioners that, although I am sure their concerns are earnestly expressed, there is a blindness in some quarters to the positive impact on the people, economy, environment and wildlife of these areas from our management of grouse moors.

To take matters in turn, I think the petition says grouse shooting is “bad for people”. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) referred to our constituencies jointly covering the beautiful North York Moors, and I fail to see how it is bad for people that tens of thousands of them enjoy the beautiful purple and green-carpeted North York Moors, which for their wellbeing alone must have huge value. The landscape would simply not look like that if it was not managed in that way.

I have been up to the moors with the gamekeepers on a number of occasions, looking at different parts of the moors in my constituency. The parts that are being managed are green and purple; the areas that are left unmanaged as trials have increased canopy, and they are very grey and very poor in terms of wildlife—it is completely different. Left unmanaged, the moors just would not look like they do today, and visitors would be far less likely to come.

Of course, that would affect the farming communities, which are deeply embedded in the world of conservation. In my view, the people who understand conservation more than anybody else are the people who have lived in these areas all their lives, not necessarily the people who are opining on this stuff from further afield. The point has been made that leaving the moors unmanaged would be tremendously bad for the people who work in the supply chain and all the businesses.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) made a fair point: perhaps those people would find other jobs. I really do not see where they would find other jobs in North Yorkshire to the level that they have. A huge number of people are employed in the hotels and restaurants and as caterers, beaters or gamekeepers. People from all different social strata are involved in the whole economy around the grouse moors and grouse shooting. As pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), the sector provides £2 billion to the UK economy and 1,500 full-time equivalent jobs. There are huge benefits to people in constituencies such as mine in terms of the wider economy and their wellbeing, so I do not accept that grouse shooting is bad for people.

I also not do accept that grouse shooting is bad for the environment. The point has been made that the moorlands are rarer than rainforest, and they host a huge amount of flora and fauna, but also wildlife. Again, I saw two patches when I went up to the North York Moors. In the patches that have been managed, there is a proliferation of curlews, golden plovers and lapwings literally teeming round the moors. In the areas that are deliberately not being managed as a trial, however, there is very little wildlife. The moors are very conducive to wildlife, and I think the statistic is that there are five times as many rare birds in the managed areas as in the unmanaged ones.

The estates in my constituency are Snilesworth, Bransdale and Spaunton. As has been mentioned, they have an important role to play in preventing wildfires, which can be hugely damaging. The Climate Change Committee commented on this issue only this month in a report on climate risk. It highlighted the prospect of increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, stating:

“we can manage habitats actively to improve their resilience, for example through…the removal of…fuel loads that risk wildfire.”

That is what happens when a canopy gets too big. The canopy then burns and burns the peat. What the people who manage the moorlands do is called cool burning, which takes away the canopy without burning the peat. That is absolutely critical. It is carbon-neutral, because the new growth absorbs the carbon that has been emitted, but there is no release of carbon from the peat layer, which is hugely important.

The other point about CO₂, which we are all obviously increasingly concerned about, comes from a report by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust on alternative uses for the moors, which states:

“Peatlands managed for cropland, grassland, forestry (for example afforestation of moorland) or fuel harvesting emit many times more at around eight to 39 tonnes CO2 per hectare per year”

versus 2 to 5 tonnes on moorlands, so it is clear that there are climate change benefits here as well.

On wildlife, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby is absolutely right. When I was child, we never saw buzzards. I do not remember ever seeing a buzzard as a child, even though we spent most of our time outdoors. Now, there are a huge number always circling in the sky. Some relevant statistics come from Spaunton Moor and George Winn-Darley, who is the representative of the North York Moors to the Moorland Association. In a single year, there have been 1,552 sightings of birds of prey, including 10 hen harriers, three white-tailed sea eagles, 70 merlins, 193 kestrels, 16 short-eared owls, 163 barn owls, 84 peregrines, 14 marsh harriers, one osprey, 50 red kites, 57 tawny owls and 726 buzzards—I could go on. Extrapolated across the whole moor, that would be 25,000 sightings of those very rare birds. As I mentioned, the number of hen harriers is on the rise.

The hon. Member for Bristol East is absolutely right that we should work together to clamp down on wildlife crime against birds of prey and any kind of crime against wildlife, but the incidence is very low. No incidents at all were reported in 2018-19.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. I apologise for interrupting, but I must highlight to the hon. Gentleman that there are two more Members who wish to speak, and we are attempting to get to the winding-up speeches at 5.30 pm.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will conclude on this point. It is absolutely right that we should clamp down on any wildlife crime, including against birds of prey. Wild Justice was responsible for some changes to general licences that make it much more difficult to control other types of birds, such as gulls, which have a devastating impact on chicks—grouse chicks, lapwing chicks and curlew chicks. We have to ensure that we take steps carefully, and they must be evidence-based.