Threats to shooting are coming thick and fast, but we are on the front foot, writes Roger Seddon for My Countryside magazine.
Chris Packham and his anti-shooting group Wild Justice have repeatedly attempted to cause problems for the shooting community through the threat of legal action against Defra and its counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and by generating petitions for debates on issues like banning driven grouse shooting.
However, as we proved again in June, those who support driven grouse shooting and its associated moorland management practices have vastly superior arguments at their disposal – in this case an extensive catalogue of scientific research that refutes each of Wild Justice’s unsubstantiated claims. When Wild Justice announced their latest petition, the third in the last decade, we had half a mind to encourage everyone to sign it, given the marvellous opportunity the previous debate provided to reinforce the enormous benefits of grouse shooting and its associated management practices.
This latest debate can be considered another highly successful defence by the Campaign for Shooting, especially when one considers that we have a Labour government, and as recently as 2019, Labour’s election manifesto pledged to consult on banning driven grouse shooting. The U-turn in the party’s stance since 2019 must be in no small part down to the Countryside Alliance’s years of work to promote to and ignoring the consequences a ban would have on the businesses and lives of those in her constituency who rely on it. In summing up the debate, the Minister, Daniel Zeichner MP, confirmed that the government had no plans to ban grouse shooting, and having listened very closely to the powerful economic arguments that had been made by Sam Rushworth MP (Labour, Bishop Auckland) and Rishi Sunak MP (Conservative, Richmond and Northallerton), he fully appreciated the economic benefits that accrue from that sector of the rural economy. Before the debate, the Countryside Alliance circulated its comprehensive briefing note to all MPs, engaging with many to ensure a successful outcome. We were thanked by the proposer of the debate, John Lamont MP (Conservative, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk), as well as David Simmonds MP (Conservative, Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) for all the work that had been put in to ensure that members who came to speak were widely briefed about issues raised by the petition.
Just two weeks before the debate on grouse shooting, there was another debate in which MPs debated the use of ‘cages’ in farming, which could have become an opportunity for MPs to attack the use of enriched raised laying units in pheasant and partridge rearing. The Countryside Alliance, along with the Game Farmers’ Association, briefed several MPs who were poised to step in if shooting or game rearing came under attack. In the event this was not necessary, and it was welcome that the Minister, Daniel Zeichner MP, defended the already robust Defra Code of Practice for the Welfare of Gamebirds Reared for Sporting Purposes.
Firearms licensing is an area that concerns the Countryside Alliance greatly. It is also one where the Campaign for Shooting has been campaigning hard, with a pragmatic attitude. The government’s February 2025 response to the 2023 consultation on firearms legislation contained views that present a very real threat to the future of shotgun ownership. Its proposal to restrict shotgun ownership by aligning shotgun licensing with that for rifles would merely paper over the real problems in firearms licensing: namely the totally unfit system of separate licensing bodies that repeatedly fail to follow and license according to already stringent laws. That is why the Countryside Alliance is conducting a campaign calling for the introduction of a single, centralised licensing body to replace the 43 licensing bodies in England and Wales, i.e. local police forces, none of which was ever set up to conduct licensing. You can help with this by signing our ongoing e-lobby (see News page 11) to ask your MP to contact the Minister, calling for shotgun ownership to be protected and for the system to be reformed into an effective, efficient single body such as the DVLA, DBS or passport office.
The government has listened to us on firearms legislation in the past. That’s why we want you to speak up. It listened on sound moderators, also known as silencers/suppressors, which are to be removed from the definition of ‘firearm’ in law. This means these simple threaded tubes will no longer be subject to the same procedures and licensing as rifles: a sensible step that will ease administrative burdens for licensing authorities and help the rural economy flow without raising risk to public safety in the slightest. This government response came after years of campaigning and lobbying from the Countryside Alliance and our partners in the British Shooting Sports Council.
Our campaigns are not easily won, but we are having success. The obstacles and challenges are coming thick and fast. We are ever-ready to fight our cause, the cause we love, in parliament, in the media and on the ground – and we can’t do it without your support.