Sharpshooter

Government brandishing its green credentials could mean no more than red tape – but we should beware the ‘precautionary principle’

Oscar Wilde said: “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” This seems to describe the antics of Natural England (NE), which is taking on 200 more staff. Perhaps this is one of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s job-creation schemes. But let’s not be churlish; if a hiring spree helps NE to deal with the self-inflicted complexities of its wildfowling consent process, then I suppose we should be thankful. Sort of.

One of the defining features of any bureaucracy is how it makes things unnecessarily complicated, to the point where mere process of regulation becomes an end in its own right, rather than a means to an end. In the case of Eu-derived wildlife legislation, our civil servants have a history of justifying restrictions not because they should but because they could. So we have conditions imposed on wildfowling on a protected site but unlimited numbers of walkers letting their dogs run riot. What is the real object here: to conserve wildlife or to hammer shooting?

In 2015, the NGO trounced NE in a legal challenge about buzzard control licensing. That case reached court because NE did not have a properly independent and timely appeal process in place. When it comes to wildfowling consents, the same deficiency still applies; has NE learned nothing?

In the buzzard licensing case, the court found that NE had been inconsistent, not least because it had been unduly influenced by its fear of upsetting the bird lobby. This is a recurring theme. Put simply, NE is more worried about upsetting the antis than it is about upsetting law-abiding hunters. The meek, unfortunately, do not inherit the earth; they get trampled into the mud.

It is notable that at the time the NGO was forced to take NE to court, one of Austria’s provinces was allowing the legal culling of buzzards for the protection of vulnerable prey species. The Austrian authorities set an annual cull limit and required an annual buzzard bag return. Can you imagine NE doing that?

At the time, both the UK and Austria were members of the EU. Both countries were operating under the same EU legislation. Same regulations, yet two utterly different interpretations. What explains this huge divergence? Anyway, we have now left the EU. The Government is, once again, promising a bonfire of red tape.

But don’t hold your breath; despite having a big parliamentary majority and more than four years before it has to face the electorate again, the Government wants to burnish its green credentials. It is sensitive to accusations that leaving the EU

“Natural England is more worried about upsetting antis than law-abiding hunters”

might see wildlife protection slide. And this sensitivity is being sharpened by the antis’ penchant for crowd-funded legal stunts. And NE, like any bureaucracy, is highly motivated to protect its own backside.

Sooner or later, we are going to have to challenge NE’S over-blown interpretation of the much-vaunted ‘precautionary principle’ in environmental law. It is being used selectively against shooting. BASC has ring-fenced a seven-figure fighting fund for appropriate legal actions. Perhaps it is time we stopped being quite so nice.