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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of issuing guidance to local authorities on non-lethal deterrents for managing urban gull populations that comply with the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Natural England has previously issued this guidance on managing wild birds using non-lethal measures. Neither Defra nor Natural England has assessed the merits of developing further targeted guidance for local authorities on this matter but we understand that NatureScot has recently updated its guidance and published data on the impacts of licensed activity on gull populations in Scotland. Natural England has also, this year, commenced a project on large gull management at the regional and national scale regarding both urban and rural gull populations.