Having discussed the most important aspect of the debate on driven grouse shooting, the government response – click here, I will now turn to other aspects of the debate.
There are 650 MPs in the Westminster parliament, and 634 come from 13 political parties with an additional 15 independents and the Speaker. Grouse moors occur in Labour, Conservative, LibDem, SNP and DUP seats.
Fourteen MPs spoke in the debate though a couple of those were very short interventions. The MPs involved were six Conservatives (though one was a member of the Petitions Committee), four LibDems, three Labour and the DUP’s Jim Shannon who rarely misses an opportunity to speak in favour of shooting.
The Greens and the SNP were not present. Perhaps the SNP are so ashamed at the lack of progress in licensing in Scotland that they decided not to show their faces or perhaps, since this petition deals with devolved matters they gave it a miss but three MPs from Scottish constituencies did speak in this debate.
The absence of any of the four Green Party (of England and Wales) MPs was a blow as the Green Party has very different views on bloodsports from those of other parties, is well aware of the impacts of driven grouse shooting on greenhouse gas emissions and flood risk and has a good track record (through Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas) of being on top of this issue. Caroline has spoken in a previous debate on this subject when she was the sole Green MP and now we have four times the Green resource none was available. It was, as always, a busy day in Parliament and I notice that Adrian Ramsay made a small intervention in the Welfare Bill debate and that Ellie Chowns was giving Marian Spain (CEO of Natural England) a good grilling in the Environmental Audit Committee on whether sticking houses everywhere is good for nature. But Carla Denyer, expressed her solidarity with workers at the Prax Lindsey oil refinery and my inexpert quizzing of Hansard gave me no information on Sian Berry’s commitments.
And so the floor was largely occupied by Conservative MPs saying how much money grouse shooting brings in (very little, and it has non-monetary costs too), how everyone abhors wildlife crime (and yet the evidence shows that killing birds of prey is rife on grouse moors) and how 75% of the world’s heather moorland is in the UK (a claim so debunked that not even the shooting industry’s favourite source of facts, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, believes it or can support it – click here).
When you have a difference of opinion with others it is sometimes difficult to know whether they believe the stuff they are saying or whether they know it to be untrue. There is no excuse for John Lamont (Con, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk), Rishi Sunak (Con, Richmond and Northallerton), David Simmonds (Con, Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner), Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford, Greg Smith (Con, Mid-Buckinghamshire), Sarah Dyke (LibDem, Glastonbury and Somerton) or Robbie Moore (Con, Shadow Defra minister, Keighley and Ilkley) to quote this erroneous figure just because they saw it in a briefing from BASC or the Countryside Alliance.
The 75% ‘untrue-fact’ is pretty irrelevant to the argument, as is the ‘rarer than the Amazon rainforest’ fact that is so often mentioned. But the fact that an untruth can be promulgated without question in parliament is quite shocking. It may show that (understandably, in my opinion) MPs often don’t know much about the issues in front of them but it reminds me of the saying that ‘A lie can be half way round the world before Truth has got its boots on’. In my experience, it is only pro-shooting viewpoints that bang on about this, and its prominence in this debate on the pro-grouse-shooting side of the argument suggests that a former Prime Minister, a current shadow minister and a bunch of MPs don’t really know what they are talking about but read out the briefings nonetheless. I’ll come back to this in another blog.
The strangest contribution was from newbie-MP Sam Rushworth (Lab, Bishop Auckland) but the explanation for his enthusiasm for grouse shooting may lie in the £10,000 donation to his election campaign from local gamekeepers – click here.
The second-strangest contribution was from LibDem Angus MacDonald.
The second-best contribution was from LibDem Sarah Dyke who did at least appear to understand that there is a huge amount of bird of prey persecution going on on grouse moors (although Hansard has her saying at the end of her remarks that “Grouse shooting … plays an important role in preventing the destruction of unique species and habitats such as peatlands, and it prevents the illegal persecution of birds of prey.” which contradicts much of what she said before!
The logic of Sarah Dyke’s points (it’s great, but it isn’t working (it isn’t great actually)) would have been to end with ‘… and that’s why we LibDems favour licensing’ (or banning, or vicarious liability, or banning burning, or a big increase in resources to tackle the epidemic of wildlife crime , or something! But it just fizzled out without a punchline – pretty much an opportunity missed to impress voters and act like a rational and decisive opposition party with designs on governing.
And so we turn to the one MP who spoke anywhere near along the lines that the facts of the matter really demand – Olivia Blake (Lab, Sheffield Hallam). Olivia does know her subject and has spoken on this subject at Hen Harrier Days and in parliament before. Her Sheffield Hallam constituency goes from Sheffield itself up onto the moors of the Peak District and topped the list of constituencies with 635 signatures. If every constituency in the UK had been as supportive the signature total would have been over 400,000. If every constituency had such a knowledgeable and caring MP then the world would be a better place.
So, we find that a bunch of Conservative MPs, including a former Prime Minister and a current shadow minister cannot stick to the truth in this debate, that the LibDems said some good stuff but didn’t follow through with a plan for the future and that the SNP and Greens were missing. In that context, the minister’s affable blandness in pointing out that wildlife crime and environmental damage were both part of the landscape created by driven grouse shooting and the remarks of a young Labour MP with grouse shooting in her constituency, stand out as highlights.
Tomorrow I will come back to what this all means.
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