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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the existing evidence base on gamebird rearing, release and shooting in England.

As set out in the Land Use Framework and the Animal Welfare Strategy for England, this Government committed to strengthening the evidence base on gamebird rearing, release and shooting in England.

Defra’s Gamebird rapid evidence review was published in 2020 and is available here. Further research into these findings was published in 2025 and available here. A Call for Evidence, launched on 4 September will gather any further information and evidence on the potential environmental impacts of gamebird release, including native biodiversity and to improve our understanding of both the positive and negative impacts associated with these activities.