FoI Friday – 4

Dear Defra

You may have noticed, though I wouldn’t bet on it, that there is an e-petition relevant to you rapidly gathering signatures.

Once it reaches 10,000 signatures, you will have to reply to it.  I point this out to you so that you might, with all this warning, make a better fist of it than you did to the last e-petition on this very subject which passed the 10,000 signature mark. Your response then was, quite frankly, appalling in missing the point almost entirely.  Please do better next time around – maybe start thinking of something to say now?

As you know, I have asked you, so far with no reply, whether ministers signed off the awful response to John Armitage’s e-petition. I’ll be interested to know whether, in due course, ministers will sign off the reply to my e-petition.

My additional question now, under FoI, which I asked of Natural England, but they said I should ask you directly (joined up government?) is as follows:

What interests, financial or otherwise, do Defra Ministers have personally (including through close family) in grouse shooting in the UK?

 

 

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2 Replies to “FoI Friday – 4”

  1. I expect you came across George Monbiot’s comments on DEFRA- he said it stood for:”Delivering Everything Farmers’s Representatives Ask”. I particularly liked Minister Eustace’s comment when the recent Nature magazine article came out saying badgers were only a small part of the problem. He said DEFRA’s scientists new better. Do civil servants regularly contradict their Minister?

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