Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were prosecuted for (a) killing and (b) taking certain species of wild birds (i) in (A) 2021, (B) 2022 and (C) 2023 and (ii) since general license 42 was updated on 1 January 2024.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions at criminal courts in England and Wales between January 2021 and June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics. The offence ‘Prohibition of certain methods of killing or taking wild birds (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981)' can be found using the following HO code; 19006. This can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Prosecutions and convictions’ tab and using the HO Offence Code filter to select the above offence in the Outcomes by Offence data tool.

Between January 2021 and June 2024 there have been 6 prosecutions for the offence 'Prohibition of certain methods of killing or taking wild birds (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981)'. However, it is not possible to separately identify killing or taking wild birds from the offence within the court proceedings database held centrally by the Ministry of Justice.