Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she plans to introduce legislation to create a closed hunting season for hares.

This Government committed to consider how to bring forward and introduce a close season for hares in England in its Animal Welfare Strategy, published in December 2025. In short, a close season should reduce the number of adult hares being shot in the breeding season, which runs from February to October, meaning that fewer leverets (infant hares) are left motherless and vulnerable to starvation and predation. A close season is also consistent with Natural England's advice on wildlife management that controlling species in their peak breeding season should be avoided unless genuinely essential and unavoidable.

A suitable primary legislative vehicle is required to deliver this change, and this Government is actively looking for suitable opportunities to take this measure forward.