Guns and Roses – what Labour has in store for game shooting

On 5 July, the United Kingdom awoke to a red dawn, as the Labour party forms its first government for 14 years, this time with a rather sizeable working majority. The aftershocks of this political earthquake in Westminster will be felt acutely by those in the countryside and by all those who enjoy game shooting, in particular those whose livelihoods revolve around game shooting. In Labour’s manifesto of 136 pages, there was no mention of the word ‘rural’, 87 words on farming and 50 relating to so called ‘animal welfare’, with a commitment to ban ‘snare traps’. They have also pledged to introduce full cost recovery for firearms licensing, in order to free up taxpayer money to put towards other areas of policing, such as urban knife crime prevention. The King’s Speech on 17 July will set out the agenda for the first session of the new government. 

Some consider Labour’s manifesto to be a curate’s egg; it certainly contains policies which seek to harm game shooting, but it perhaps isn’t as calamitous as it could have been. For comparison, one need only look at Labour’s 2019 manifesto, which pledged to look at banning driven grouse shooting. The Countryside Alliance has worked relentlessly to limit the danger posed within this Labour manifesto. However, only time will tell whether Labour’s talk of respect for the countryside, and acknowledgements of past failings, are genuine. 

Sir Keir Starmer, himself the great-grandson of a gamekeeper, has appointed Steve Reed, MP for Streatham and Croydon North, as the new Secretary of State for Defra, directly mirroring his former role in the shadow cabinet. At the recent Future Countryside conference, organised by the Countryside Alliance Foundation, Reed said that ‘people from urban areas – like me – will not tell people who live and work in the countryside how they should live their lives.’ This statement will be first put to the test when he publishes a report on a review of the 2021 addition of pheasant and red-legged partridge to Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, a list of non-native animals established in the wild. These controversial additions necessitated the introduction of a licensing framework for gamebird release on European sites in England, which has yet to function smoothly. The Secretary of State’s report was originally expected earlier in the year but was delayed by the calling of the general election. The Countryside Alliance hopes that the report will be entirely evidence based and will not make the misguided proposal that Welsh Labour previously made, to extend gamebird release licensing to all areas. 

As mentioned, two shooting-related pledges feature in Labour’s manifesto: the introduction full-cost recovery firearms licensing and a ban of use of ‘snare traps’. The terminology used in the manifesto remains unclear. When they say ‘ban the use of snare traps’, do they intend this to include humane cable restraints (HCRs)? HCRs are, as the name suggests, an humane method of predator control and very different to old snares. They are also an indispensable tool used in the conservation of many of our rarest and most treasured bird species. Their use is most important at the time of year when both young are at their most vulnerable and vegetation is too high to allow effective predator control by other means, such as fox control by shooting. It is essential that, unlike in Wales and Scotland, where HCRs have been banned, the government in Westminster follows the science and evidence and does not remove this crucial conservation method. Indeed, it would be contradictory for a Labour government to do so, if they also wish to hold true to their pledge to halt the decline of British species. 

The firearms licensing in Great Britain, although desperately inefficient in its current form, is a service for public safety and provides many rural people with their means both to earn a living and to manage effectively the countryside. It is therefore imperative that if firearms licensing fees are increased they must not put gun ownership out of financial reach of working people in the countryside. Any increases must come with service level agreements to ensure a functional system; must be calculated on the cost of an efficient and effective licensing system, and not the broken, inefficient and expensive system currently in place; and must acknowledge the inherent element of public service, which was reinforced when fee costs were last increased in 2015. The world has changed since the fee level was last set, and it would be unreasonable to reject any increase, given that inflation cannot be ignored. However, something akin to a ‘gun tax’, as some have dubbed full-cost recovery, would not be fair to rural people and would harm the countryside as a whole. 

The Countryside Alliance’s Campaign for Shooting will be at the forefront in ensuring that this Labour government treats game shooting fairly and delivers a firearms licensing system that is functional and cost-effective, and does not ban the use of humane cable restraints, a vital conservation tool.