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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to bring forward legislation to introduce a close season for hares in England.

This Government’s Animal Welfare Strategy is clear we will consider how to bring forward and introduce a close season for hares. 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. This Government needs a suitable primary legislative vehicle in place to deliver this change. Defra will do its utmost to look for suitable opportunities to take this measure forward. It is unlikely this could be done before the start of the 2027 breeding season.