Politics is never far from our work, not least because we have one rule about the Countryside Alliance office which is that it has to be within walking distance of Westminster. Last week we held a reception in parliament which was attended by many MPs and peers from Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and a range of other parties. Our President, Baroness Mallalieu, spoke of the importance of working with politicians of all parties for the benefit of the rural community which she, as a Labour peer, is well placed to judge.

Our Chairman, Lord Herbert, stressed the breadth of our work in the countryside to protect what “is a priceless national asset”, but he returned to the government’s commitment to ban trail hunting as an obvious example of legislation that would harm the countryside and was motivated by prejudice, not principle. He said: “Should a government pick on issues, on a minority community, and relitigate on issues from three decades ago, that government will be thought of as completely out of touch. Hunting was banned 20 years ago. It is trail hunting now. Re-banning hunting is not a very smart or necessary thing to do. What it means is preventing people from very legitimately riding out with hounds and engaging in an entirely benign activity”. Further, he warned that: “If the countryside is challenged, then we will go back to the days where we are fierce and go back to the days of talking about liberty and livelihood, and the absolute unacceptability of prejudicial legislation which is picking on rural minorities. Relitigating these issues would be absolutely absurd”.

This was uncompromising language, but for all the goodwill in the room the situation for rural communities is currently as stark as at any time in recent memory. Inheritance tax changes on agricultural property threaten the future of many family farms, as does the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme and uncertainty over the future of agri-environmental support. As well as legislation to ban on trail hunting, which we could see as early as next year, the government also has a manifesto commitment to end the use of snares. This would reduce even further the ability to protect threatened species, especially in the uplands. In addition, since coming to power, it has hiked fees for firearms licensing and, most worryingly, said that it will consult on new restrictions on shotgun ownership.

All this is brewing into a perfect storm which threatens to sour the relationship between the Labour government and the countryside, whilst overshadowing policies which do have a positive impact on rural communities. We welcome, for instance, today’s announcement of a policy which will see 99% of new build homes fitted with solar panels. The Alliance has been calling for solar panels to be mandated on both new domestic and commercial buildings to reduce the requirement for solar farm development on productive agricultural land. If, however, Ministers choose to pursue ideological politics they will get little credit for those sensible policies they do produce.

Today (1 May) marks the official start of the hunting year as staff and Masters take on new roles at hunts across the country. As Lord Herbert said we will be fierce if the livelihoods of staff, the liberty of the hunting community and the future of hounds is threatened. This is not a fight the government needs to have, or one which will benefit anyone.