Our petition to ban driven grouse shooting has passed 46,000 and, fingers crossed, is making good progress towards the 100,000 signatures target that will secure a debate in the Westminster parliament on the future of intensive, unsustainable grouse shooting. Thank you to all who have signed so far – 50,000 signatures is not far away and we are still only in the second of the six months that are allocated to such petitions. If you haven’t yet signed then please consider doing so now – click here. Many thanks!
Here are some thoughts:
Where this petition stands: since the Westminster petitions process reopened after the general election, 1173 petitions have been submitted of which 599 have been rejected as not meeting the criteria for such petitions and 574 petitions have been published. Of those 574 petitions, only 34 have so far passed the 10,000 signature threshold which generates a response from government (see below for more on this).
Of those 574 published petitions (and of the current top 34 which have passed 10,000 signatures) the ‘Ban driven grouse shooting’ petition is 11th most signed. Here are the top 11 and some environmental petitions further down the list;
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- 1. Call a general election 3million signatures
- 2. Suspend all immigration for 5 years 206,000 signatures
- 3. WASPI women 153,000 signatures
- 4. Don’t change inheritance tax on farms 145,000 signatures
- 5. Make 16 years the minimum age for children to have social media 123,000 signatures
- 6. Don’t apply VAT to independent school fees 113,000 signatures
- 7. License use of fireworks 84,000 signatures
- 8. Apply to join EU 64,000 signatures
- 9. Reverse changes to Winter Fuel Payment 58,000 signatures
- 10. Decriminalise abortion 47,000 signatures
- 11. Ban driven grouse shooting 46,000 signatures
- 13. End the Badger cull 43,000 signatures
- 21. Ban fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship 22,000 signatures
- 24. Run a public information campaign on climate crisis 22,000 signatures
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However you look at this list, I think you’d have to agree that the ban driven grouse shooting petition is currently the top environmental petition in the list – that is somewhat remarkable. Of the 10 petitions currently with more signatures, four (3, 4, 6 and 7) are about fairness but also are about people paying more/less tax or receiving more/less state benefits, two are never going to happen through a petition (1 and 8), three (2, 5 and 10) are about major contentious social issues and one, which amazes me, is about fireworks.
I have signed each of petitions 11, 13, 21 and 24 in the list above and would be happy to see them all debated but the one I am closest to is the Ban driven grouse shooting petition. I am proud of its standing in this list and we in Wild Justice are determined to get a debate on this subject and we are working calmly and steadily towards that goal. Thank you for all the support.
Previous grouse shooting petitions: since the Westminster parliamentary petition system arose, driven grouse shooting has been a subject for campaigners. This is because intensive management of the uplands for grouse shooting combines the killing of hundreds of thousands of wild creatures (both legally and illegally) every year, causes wildlife harm through unsustainable management, increases flood risk and greenhouse gas emissions and is pretty much irrelevant to the UK economy – it’s a hobby for rich people.
Previous petitions on the subject were:
It is clear that public support for change on this issue has risen and hardened over that period and remains high now. And that has been the case despite a conspicuous lack of support from any ‘major’ wildlife conservation charity – I may come back to that as this campaign unfolds.
The government response: I was travelling home from London yesterday evening when I noticed that the current petition to ban driven grouse shooting had received a government response. It’s an awful response. It’s just as well that those thought bubbles you see in cartoons aren’t real as the crowded delayed train from St Pancras to Wellingborough (I must claim back some of the ticket cost because of the delay) would have been treated to some expletive deleted thoughts! I’ll certainly come back to its details but it rates as just as bad as the responses from previous Conservative Defra ministers – in fact it could easily pass as a response from a Conservative administration looking as it does, as if it were actually written by the shooting industry.
Defra has ignored the advice of the Climate Change Committee on grouse shooting, ignored the science on flood risk, ignored the animal welfare aspects of killing wildlife for fun and belittled the stench of wildlife crime which accompanies the hobby of Red Grouse shooting.
The current Defra ministers appear to have forgotten that in opposition Labour Shadow Secretary of State, Luke Pollard, in 2020 called for licensing of grouse shooting and his predecessor, Sue Hayman (Defra minister Baroness Hayman) was committed in 2018 to an independent review of grouse shooting a bit like the Werrity review in Scotland which led to legislation on licensing – click here. The government response was an opportunity for Defra to signal that this issue was one on which they intended to act at a future date, at the very least. The lack of any such mention might mean that this government will do nothing or it might mean that they aren’t savvy enough, or maybe brave enough, to take on vested interests. When Keir Starmer asked the country to vote for change before last year’s general election it appears, across a number of issues, that he meant a change of faces and not a change of policy.
Writing as a Labour Party member: the Defra response to this petition is deeply disappointing and I expected something better – something cleverer, better informed and more thoughtful. But then I have been disappointed by the current government since about its fourth day in office. If a general election were called tomorrow then I would not be donating to Labour (as I have frequently done in recent years), I would not be delivering leaflets locally (as I have done in the last five or six general elections and in a bye-election) and I would not be using this blog and my social media to support Labour. I would, however, vote for my current MP, Lee Barron, who seems to me to be doing a good job for his constituents. But I’m not sure I will be living here when the next general election comes and a strong showing from the Green Party may figure in my choice of a new home.
Labour has time to turn things round generally but it only has a limited time to reengineer its dire position on grouse shooting. If we can get this petition to 100,000 signatures, and I believe we can and will, then a Labour minister will have to stand up in Westminster Hall and spell out the government plans. They, and the job might fall to Mary Creagh, should remember that Harold Wilson chided the Conservatives for their ‘grouse moor conception of national leadership’ – click here – but it seems that the current day Labour administration is just as keen on grouse shooting as the three Conservative old-Etonian Prime Ministers of the late 1950s and early 1960s: Eden, Macmillan and Douglas-Home. Surely, time to move on?!
Ban driven grouse shooting – please sign – click here.
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