You couldn’t make it up, but then, you don’t have to. The latest non-exec appointment to the Defra Board, made by the Secretary of State Therese Coffey herself, is a grouse moor owner from the Yorkshire Dales on whose grouse moor two Hen Harriers are reported to have disappeared. Although Defra somehow manage not to mention that in their announcement – click here.
I have followed Heather Hancock’s career with interest since I was a member of a BBC group which I think was called the Rural Affairs Committee which she chaired (pretty well as I recall).
Mrs Hancock wrote an odd report on the BBC’s countryside coverage in 2014 which seemed to say that the RSPB was on TV and radio too often and that this was because they knew what they were doing – see here. They aren’t featured anything like as often these days – maybe someone took notice of Mrs Hancock’s report.
Mrs Hancock was CEO Chair of the Food Standards Agency during a period (2016-21) when it did very little to warn the public of the health concerns of lead ammunition in game meat – see here
Mrs Hancock and her hubby, who likes to be known as Herbie, apparently own a grouse moor, Threshfield Moor, on which a Hen Harrier was reportedly seen to be shot in January 2020 and the same moor was the last known location for a satellite-tagged Hen Harrier which disappeared in October 2017 – see here.
Therese Coffey, herself a grouse-shooter’s moll (click here, and here) said:
Heather’s wealth of experience and knowledge make her the ideal candidate for this role, and I am confident she will provide superb insight as we continue our work to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.
Ideal? Depends what you are looking for, I guess. Time for a reshuffle.
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Was this post advertised and open to other candidates? If not is there opportunity to challenge the appointment? Any learned blog readers familiar with Govt/Civil Service procedure? I’d happily chip in a few quid for Wild Justice to take a look at this type of thing.
Bob – didn’t they ask you? I wouldn’t feel so strongly about it. Government departments need a mixture of views on their non-exec boards and Defra already has loads of conservationists like … Oh, it’s a shame they didn’t ask you!
This work ‘to leave the environment in a better state than we found it’ of which she speaks has been remarkably ineffectual so far.
Chair of the FCA, not CEO just for accuracy.
Nick – thanks, you are right – corrected. FSA not FCA (sorry, difficult to resist)
Says a lot about the strength of a political leader when self-interest over good old public service permeates its way through this rotten administration. This formulates just another example. I find it particularly irksome when the countryside alliance claims to speak for all country folk, of which I am one. Hunting is in, hopefully terminal decline, farming has been revolutionised meaning a lot less people and hence political clout. Shooting has grown as a business diversification but bird flue has to mean the curtailing and shrinkage of that. So politically these interests no longer are, in numerical terms the power house they once were. The NFU and the CA are boxing way above their weight reliant on the influence of yesteryear, yet nevertheless through a protectionist network of influence are getting away with the bluff. At this juncture there is no better time to stand and be counted.
But isn’t it interesting that the Grouse Moor isn’t mentioned ? Not from a probity/conflict of interest point of view (though these might just apply) but more that it clearly isn’t seen as an asset to be paraded by landowning, right wing tories any more. I wonder why ? Could dead Hen harriers have anything to do with it and the declining (plummeting ?) reputation of DGS.
Thirty years ago Threshfield Moor was unintensively managed with a ex policeman as keeper, it has a very different reputation now. Apparently said lady and her husband are seriously disliked by many locally, usually a good judge.