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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of use of lead shot on conservation of birds of prey.

Evidence published by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust suggests that tens of thousands of wildfowl die from lead poisoning each year and many more birds, including scavengers and predators such as birds of prey, suffer and die through secondary poisoning.

Further research from the University of Cambridge, published earlier this year, reaffirms that birds of prey such as red kites which scavenge carcasses or eat injured animals with fragments of toxic lead from gun ammunition embedded in their bodies can become poisoned, suffering slow and painful deaths.

The Government supports the principle of further regulation to address the impact of lead ammunition. That is why in spring 2021 Defra asked the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency (EA) to prepare a UK REACH restriction dossier for lead ammunition. The HSE and the EA are considering the evidence of risk posed by lead in ammunition on human health and the environment and, therefore, the case for introducing a UK REACH restriction on lead in ammunition. This process will take approximately two years (from spring 2021), after which the Secretary of State, with the consent of the Scottish and Welsh Ministers, will make a decision on the basis of this review.