A response, of a kind, from Defra

Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting passed 16,800 signatures yesterday. Thank you to all who have signed. Yesterday also saw Defra’s response to the e-petition – earned when the 10,000th person signed the e-petition (but it has taken a while). I’m not much impressed by the response. Are you? I’ll tell you why not…

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…

What’s up at Natural England?

This blog has learned that the new Chair of Natural England, Andrew Sells, has been taking a strong line on the consultation over the General Licence. He doesn’t seem terribly keen on the consultation at all – or is it the views of the public in response to the consultation that he dislikes?  Or is…

Everyone loves the Hen Harrier – don’t they?

The science suggests that there should be a lot more Hen Harriers in the UK uplands than there are at the moment. Let’s just take Scotland for the moment.  The science says there should be c1650 pairs (I have taken the central point of an estimate and then rounded it) in Scotland on the basis…

Defra response to John Armitage’s e-petition

John Armitage’s well-supported e-petition has received the following response from Defra: ‘As this e-petition has received more than 10 000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response: The Government is aware of incidences of illegal killing of birds of prey and Ministers take the issue very seriously. To address this, senior Government…