“There should be no hunting in Britain” – Rebuffing Baroness Jones

Wednesday’s debate in the House of Lords on ‘reducing the risk and mitigating the effects of wildfire’ was, for the most part, a masterclass in intelligent, rational, and focussed debate. Introduced by the Earl of Caithness and featuring maiden speeches by the newly ennobled Michael Gove and Alistair Jack, peers from across the House acknowledged the growing issue of wildfires in Britain and many advocated for the role of controlled burning in managing fuel loads and reducing the impact of moorland fires.

If you missed the debate, you can watch the full proceedings here. Or catch up on our personal highlights below:

Unfortunately these civilised proceedings were briefly interrupted by Baroness Jones of Moulescoomb, a Green Party peer and former Deputy Mayor of London.

Rather than focussing on the pressing issue of wildfires in England – which have already caused more than £350 million worth of damage to land this year – Baroness Jones used the debate as a platform to attack the shooting industry in general. Even though no one had mentioned shooting thus far in the debate.

And while there is plenty of overlap between grouse moor management and wildfire prevention (a point we have been at pains to emphasise for five years now), Baroness Jones specifically attacked pheasant shooting – a sport that has absolutely nothing to do with UK wildfires.

So, to save you watching the full rant, we've broken down Baroness Jones’ biggest porkies below.

1. “We have some inherent, invested practices here in Britain that actually make it much more difficult to protect our own ecosystems… I’m talking of shooting.”

This statement is completely farcical and demonstrates just how detached the former Southwark Council member is from the reality of the countryside.

Across the UK, shoots manage some 7.6 million hectares of land for conservation – approximately two thirds of the country’s rural land area. There is hardly any conservation in Britain that does not coexist with shooting in some way.

Added to that, shoots spend approximately £350 million a year on conservation and land management, putting in 3.9 million workdays – the equivalent of 16,000 full-time conservation workers.

Without shooting, Britain’s countryside would look unrecognisably barren, with any remaining conservation work coming at a much greater expense to the public purse.

Rather than making it more difficult to protect our own ecosystems, shooting serves as a vital lifeline for nature that aligns the priorities of private landowners, conservationists, and the state towards protecting the countryside.

 2. “Lead bullets are highly poisonous and toxic to people, especially if you eat them in pheasants. We have to stop it.”

This point isn’t so much wrong as stating the obvious, while creating a straw man argument to badger the shooting industry with.

Shooting groups have long recognised the need to move away from lead shot. In 2020, BASC and eight other organisations set out plans to voluntarily transition towards more sustainable forms of ammunition, free from lead shot and single-use plastics. There are now more than 150 types of these sustainable cartridge available and thousands of people have attended BASC training events for sustainable ammunition.

While this transition is not yet complete, Baroness Jones is wrong to completely ignore the substantial, voluntary progress that the shooting community has made towards phasing out lead shot. The attack is as childish as it is pointless.

3. “[We should] stop the practice of pheasant shooting altogether. There should be no hunting in Britain; it’s a selfish, senseless way of behaving.”

Once again the former London Assembly Member couldn’t be more out of touch with the people of the countryside if she tried.

How on earth does she think meat arrives on our plates? It doesn’t just magically appear at the supermarkets. More often than not it’s farmed, often in pretty squalid conditions that offer animals only the most basic quality of life.

Animals reared for game meat, by contrast, enjoy a free, outdoor existence that would make even the most organic chicken green with envy.  

620,000 people in Britain are involved with shooting related activities, generating £2 billion per year for the economy and 74,000 full-time jobs. That’s more than the nuclear deterrent (30,000 jobs) and the steel industry (approx. 40,000 jobs) put together!

This is an industry that invests strongly in local communities, that drives conservation efforts right across the country, and that brings people together in the fresh air, bringing untold benefits to the National Health Service. It could hardly be less selfish.

4. “It is inherent in our country that people actually like nature and I know that Labour doesn’t entirely get the concept of nature but it is important to support it and strengthen it”

Here perhaps we might finally agree with the Baroness. Nature is at the very heart of what it means to be British: from Blake’s “green and pleasant land” to John Constable’s paintings of bucolic perfection.

But throughout her speech, the former candidate for Camberwell and Peckham constituency has shown little regard for or understanding of that countryside. Indeed, she has completely neglected the urgent issue of wildfires – which are currently ravaging huge swathes of the English uplands – to go on a tirade about rearing pheasant chicks.

Labour may not get the countryside – indeed their attack on farmers through inheritance tax reforms proves it – but evidently the Green Party doesn’t either. Why else would Baroness Jones spend four minutes of precious parliamentary time going after a sport that forms the bedrock of our nation’s conservation efforts, while supporting jobs and a sense of community in parts of the country that are far too often left behind?

But perhaps the answer lies in her question. The Baroness talks about “the concept of nature”, not nature itself. She doesn’t understand the reality of it: the messiness and compromise and hard work that goes in to conserving what is inherently beautiful. You can’t run the countryside like a south London park – it’s high time the Baroness learned that.