General license for bird control revoked

[Netmaker 904]

16 hours ago, Rimfireboy! said:

Same here, I always have my cormorant license with me in case of someone having a go.

copied this from guns on pegs don't know if it has already been added it may, may not answer a few qestions

 

Following Natural England's withdrawal of the General Licence, starting tomorrow (25th April 2019), the rural community have been left in shock and looking for information as to how they continue to conduct the vital pest control that needs to take place at this time of year. An email from Rishi Sunak, MP for Richmond in Yorkshire, sheds much needed light on the situation.

11 comments

Here is the information received from Rishi Sunak MP, at 8pm this evening (24th April). Thank you to D’Arcy Wyvill of Constable Burton Estate for making contact with Rishi Sunak to get this response.

Thank you for contacting me about the Natural England removing the 3 General Licenses tomorrow. 

Like you, I was shocked to hear this news and extremely disappointed. I fully appreciate and understand the considerable disruption this action causes to our agricultural community and rural economy and the livelihoods of many.
 
As soon as I heard the news yesterday, I was in touch with the relevant Minister to strongly convey my thoughts. This evening, I spent over an hour with the Minister and the Chief Executive of Natural England (and her team). Together with many rural MPs, we have expressed our frustration in no uncertain terms and impressed various things for NE and DEFRA to now act on to improve the situation. 
 
Why are we here? In a nutshell the 3 general licences that cover the control 16 wild bird species were not lawful as NE did not have an appropriate assessment of need to underpin them (even though they have been using them for years). A court case due to be heard today/tomorrow (brought by environmental campaigners) would have found against NE and NE felt it therefore had no choice but to revoke the licenses.  It seems clear that there has been a failure at NE. They should have taken remedial steps far sooner so as not to end up in this situation now  - there should be accountability for this at the appropriate time.
 
But in terms of practical next steps, this is what I currently believe will be happening and what I am pushing for:

1. From midnight tomorrow the 3 general licences covering control of 16 bird species will be removed 
    
2. Starting Monday, NE will be issuing new general licenses that will cover “the vast majority” of existing uses of the 3 licenses. These new licenses will be more specific (so as to be more legally sound, each license will have to cover one specific species together with one set of circumstances. eg wood pigeon and economic damage to crops). 
    
3. It will take “weeks, not months” for all these new general licenses to be issued (perhaps more than 30 licenses)
    
4. A schedule of what new licenses are coming when may be available as soon as tomorrow but by Monday 
    
5. NE are now working with key stakeholders (specifically bodies like BASC, Countryside Alliance, GWCT, NFU etc) to get from them the list of priority bird control situations that need to be covered ASAP
    
6. In the interim, until a new general license for your particular situation has been issued, NE are working on a simplified “individual license/notification” system which should be up and running tomorrow night. This would involve a landowner filling in an online form, ~5 mins of various tick boxes an brief explanation of what they want to control and why. Ideally they should then receive a very quick, if not immediate, response giving them permission to keep controlling for those circumstances so for the time being. The legal basis for this is being worked out as we speak. 
    
7. I have impressed upon NE the importance of putting this all in a simple guide for farmers, gamekeepers, landowners etc which NE say they plan to have ready tomorrow. I have also asked for them to consider establishing a simple hotline number for people to call for advice 
    
8. As the list of new licenses comes online please let me know if your particular use case is not covered. I have secured a contact at NE that I can feed these into for them to prioritise.
    
9. In the summer, NE will conduct a full review of the license system

I am very sorry this has happened. I know the real disruption and concern it is causing you and our community. Rest assured, I am fully focused on this issue and working as hard as I can to improve the situation. 

I believe the Ministers in charge understand the gravity of this change.
 
I will be in touch again when I have more information. I would be most grateful if you could forward this email to any of your friends and colleagues who you believe will be affected by this. 
 
Thank you again for contacting me and also for your support even though you have every right to feel let down by what has happened.  
 
Kind regards,
Rishi    
 
Rishi Sunak
Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks)
Minister for Local Government 

[Alsone 789]

On 25/04/2019 at 17:27, Meece said:

 

So if this is their stated aim and they are charging the members up to £80 a year for full membership whats it for ?  Insurance cover can be bought for £30 from ccc3 and probably other sources.  And 6 crappy magazine's ?.

Basic saying they didn't know doesn't show much for their knowledge or grip on the situation does it.  If this happened in any commercial company or oganisation there would be investigations and resignations / charges would be persued.

 "Our aim is to safeguard the future of shooting in the UK".   Not doing very well at it are they.  4 monkeys up 3.1/2 sticks comes to mind.  Still you do get 6 mags for your £50 of the sub. Your more than at liberty to waste your money cos that's what basc will do with it.

TBH knowing that WJ might challenge the licence and foreseeing NE instantly revoking them without warning, apparently on their own legal advice, is another thing.

The BASC have gone all out since it happened. Their FB page contains several posts a day now of updates on the work they're doing.

It also looks as if Michael Gove may strip NE of their ability to issue licences: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/02/natural-england-stripped-responsibility-shooting-licences-according/

On 26/04/2019 at 20:51, timmytree said:

Read the thread in the airgun section.

Basically CP and Wild Justice disagreed with the gl because a lot of shooters werent abiding by the rules. They crowd funded and got 100,000 supporters. WJ lawyers then proved to Natural England that the GL as it was applied was illegal and not being obeyed by many shooters. That was in February. A court case was possible, WJ asked NE to sort out the GL by January 2020. NE lawyers decided that the GL should be shut immediately. So instead of 11 months to sort it, NE gave us 2 days because they are gutless and incompetent. (government dept. IE Michael Gove type incompetence)

If all shooters had obeyed the GL this wouldn't have happened.

What rules? Trying non lethal methods 1st?  Seriously who's going to do that. The problem with Woodpigeon etc, is sheer numbers due to the excess of food due to commercial cultivation. Non lethal methods only move the problem to adjacent fields where other farmers then suffer loses, and birds soon get used to bird scarers (look how useless scarecrows are these days!), and then return. The only way to control an over population is by reducing numbers and considering you can't remove the food source, the only way to do this is through culling.

The legislation governing this was poorly thought out containing a non lethal clause ( I think the EU had a hand here). It's not necessary when the shot licences are reviewed every few years and shot species can be taken in / out of protection according to their numbers.