I emailed Defra a month ago to ask them some questions ahead of the grouse shooting inquiry. There were quite a lot of questions and Defra were clearly rattled by them as they waited until the very last minute before replying yesterday (see below) with the biggest ‘no comment’ I’ve ever seen.
As I have written before, the response to our e-petition that was signed off by Rory Stewart, when he was a Defra minister, was a hostage to fortune which has come back to haunt his successor, Therese Coffey.
Defra is putting up the shutters – probably because it doesn’t have convincing answers to sharp well-informed questions. The ‘no comment’ is tantamount to an admission of the inadequacy of the original Defra response.
I’ll be blogging about this again a bit later today, but one way forward is clear – the Petitions Committee and the EFRA Committee should ask Defra to answer these questions and a whole lot of other questions. We need an inquiry which examines the evidence and also examines Defra’s avoidance of the evidence.
I have passed on the Defra response to the Petitions Committee and asked my MP to write urgently to Defra to insist on getting answers.
One might have thought that some Opposition MPs would be interested in the answers that Defra haven’t given too. And maybe that the media would also go looking for answers.
Parliament set up this petitions system. Defra has treated it, and the 123,076 people who signed the petition to ban driven grouse shooting with contempt. Defra’s responses to the public on the subject of driven grouse shooting have consistently been partial, have ignored the scientific evidence and simply trotted out the shooting industry’s erroneous arguments. Government cannot treat the public, and in this case parliament, and indeed the truth, with such contempt without damaging its reputation in a parliamentary democracy.
When government fobs off its citizens like this we need parliamentarians to stand up and fight our corner. I wonder whether they will?
More later…
PS I see that the Moorland Association has nominated Amanda Anderson to give their oral evidence next week.
[registration_form]
defrascation: a form of obfuscation
‘The Government’s manifesto also commits to protect shooting for all the benefits to individuals, the environment and the rural economy that this activity brings.’ This is correct, but it also said:
‘For Conservatives, Britain’s ‘green and pleasant land’ is not some relic from a bygone era, to be mourned and missed: it’s the living, breathing backdrop to our national life. Our moors and meadows, wildlife and nature, air and water are a crucial part of our national identity and make our country what it is. So we care about them deeply, want to protect them for everyone and pass them onto future generations.’
In the face of good evidence, I would look forward to Tory MPs attempting to reconcile the two positions.
Surely a useful tactic would be for all 123,076 people who signed the e petition to join the National Trust as members and start a members campaign to ban driven grouse shooting from National Trust land.
I have to admit to being disappointed that ‘only’ 123,076 people signed the epetition. The RSPB claims 1 million members. Why haven’t they all signed? Imagine how powerful that would be, a petition signed by 1 million people, the National Trust moving to ban driven grouse hunting. Maybe those 123,076 people who signed could also join the Hawk and Owl Trust and start to change their approach.
Once again showing my ignorance of all things political, a question.
Isn’t the Petitions Committee made up of MPs? And won’t those MPs be expected to defend, or at least, cover for Defra?
Paul – have a look at their website. there are MPs forom all parties. Their job is to make this petitions system, set up by parliament not government, work.
In reply to Chris Gee: this is precisely the tactic that local wildlife and outdoor organisations have done in Derbyshire. As a family NT member of many years, I helped form a coalition to lobby the National Trust. We are attempting to get a small but very achievable win just on the iconic Peak District moors around Kinder Scout, Bleaklow and Ladybower.
We have a petition both online, and in paper format, directed at Helen Ghosh and Andy Beer (NT regional director). It simply asks them not to replace the businessman Mark Osborne as shooting tenant on these estates (who they will shortly be evicting – see Mark’s blog for details), but to manage the moors for conservation and landscape integrity, just as they’re doing on nearby moorland and blanket bog.
Everyone is welcome to sign our petition. But better still, why not download the printable version, pass it around at local wildlife group meetings and then post it back to us? (The address is on the bottom of the petition form).
@MoorlandVision
The NT AGM is being held on 22nd October 2016 at their Swindon HQ. There are 21 nominees for Council, four of whom are women. There are six vacancies and all the recommended candidates are men! Voting closes, including on line, at 2359hrs on Friday 14th Oct. All members have received personal statements from candidates and voting papers. I can’t see any opportunity to ask questions on the agenda!
Richard
Questions – well resolutions – have to be prepared well in advance of the AGM (by June I seem to remember). So maybe next year, if we don’t see a shift in National Trust’s position regarding replacing their shooting tenant, we’ll start work on a resolution to the 2017 AGM. That’ll need at least 50 National Trust members signing up to support it.
Any NT member wanting to offer the provisional support – and help frame that resolution- can email their name and details to [email protected]. We’ll get back in touch if we decide to proceed.
I feel for you Mark. Had I been the recipient of this reply, I would be extremely aggrieved. It is base for its implicit contempt, arrogance and lack of acknowledgement to the majority of people’s concerns on wildlife crime, committed with the approval of their stance in this instance.
Of more concern is the seemingly total disregard for fact based evidence, or lack of it. They are accountable, not just to the government, but also the citizens of the UK, their reply seems to show utter contempt for the majority of the public at large.
Hang in there Mark, I know secretly you will be seething after receiving this atrocious letter.
Their point, that they can provide the Committe with evidence directly, is not without merit (although probably not the smartest move).
They say that they treated the rest of your questions as ‘outside of the information rights legislation’. Most of your questions appear to elicit Defra’s opinion/awareness on certain matters (in effect expecting Defra to generate information) as opposed to information held be Defra. Very few of the question can be interpreted as requests for ‘information recorded in any form’. Arguably the following questions are requests for ‘recorded information’:
– Does Defra have an estimate of the economic cost or benefit of driven grouse shooting to the economy? If so, what is it?;
– Which English SPAs had nesting Hen Harriers as part of their reason for qualifying for notification as SPAs?
– What were their Hen Harrier populations in those years? What are their nesting Hen Harrier populations now?
– Does Defra have a plan for [Peregrine Falcons, Red Kites, Goshawks, Buzzards and Short-eared Owls]?
– How much extra money has Defra allocated to each of the 6 action points in the plan since its publication?
– How many pairs of Hen Harrier in England have been fed through diversionary feeding in the last 20 years since this technique was trialled at Langholm – please give the numbers for driven grouse moors and other areas separately?
– Does Defra have any estimate of the number of illegal pole traps and/or poisoned baits which are set in the English uplands each year?
– Does Defra have any useful estimate of the scale of the problem that law enforcement agencies are trying to tackle?
– Does Defra have any estimate of how much resource would be necessary to tackle the scale of this illegal activity?
Since someone at Defra decided to treat your letter as a freedom of information reqest you should ask Defra to review their decision (or re-phrase your questions).
Adam – or, just take the mickey out of them like they are doing with us?
Adam – no their point was that they won’t provide evidence unless asked – that’s not quite the same is it.