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

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to tackle hare coursing; and what assessment they have made of whether hare coursing is increasing.

The Government recognises the impact which the crime of hare coursing has on rural communities.

Measures to strengthen law enforcement and increase the powers of the courts were introduced through the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. They have been widely welcomed. The new offences and higher penalties introduced by the Act are all being used and imposed by the courts.

Wildlife crimes such as hare coursing are not ‘notifiable’ so there are no official Home Office statistics or identifiable trends to judge robustly whether such crimes are increasing or decreasing across the country. Decisions on whether to make wildlife crimes notifiable sit with the Home Office. It is reasonable to assume the 2022 legislation, along with improved police tactics, intelligence and information sharing as well as the use of community protection notices (CPN) and criminal behaviour orders (CBO), has had an effect in terms of reducing levels of hare coursing.