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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent offences against protected species.

The Government takes crimes against wildlife seriously and there is a range of legislation in place to protect it. Most notably, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 protects all wild birds and some wild animals in England and Wales.

Under this Act, as well as the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and species-specific legislation such as the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, there are a range of offences around deliberate attempts to kill, injure or inflict harm on protected species of wildlife.

Additionally, Defra supports the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), which helps prevent and detect wildlife crime by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis which highlights local or national threats and directly assisting law enforcers in their investigations. Defra is providing £424,000 for NWCU in the financial year 2025-26.

Furthermore, the UK Wildlife Trade Regulations (WTRs) implement the UK’s obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to ensure trade in protected species is legal and sustainable. Breaches can lead to prosecution with penalties of up to seven years’ imprisonment or unlimited fines, providing a strong deterrent against wildlife crime.