The gaping loophole in the Scottish grouse shoot licences is a step closer to being closed off after a Government amendment was voted through at Stage 2 of the Natural Environment Bill just before Xmas.
If you recall, grouse moor licensing was introduced as part of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, as a result of the continued illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors and the associated difficulties of identifying an individual suspect and prosecuting them.
The idea was that a licence to shoot Red Grouse could be amended / withdrawn / revoked by NatureScot if evidence showed that illegal raptor persecution had taken place (importantly, based on the civil burden of proof, i.e. balance of probability, rather than the criminal burden of proof, i.e. beyond reasonable doubt). It was expected that the licence would cover an estate’s entire landholding, not just the areas where Red Grouse are shot, because raptor persecution crimes often take place beyond the boundary of the moor (e.g. in woodland).
However, in November 2024, just three months after they began, the licences were significantly weakened after legal threats from the grouse shooting industry were used to successfully sabotage the licensing regime. Instead of now covering an entire estate, it was announced that the licence holder could decide on the extent of the area the licence covered, specifically the area where Red Grouse are ‘taken or killed’.
Effectively, this could mean simply drawing an arbitrary line around their grouse butts, denoting the reach of a shotgun pellet, and argue that THAT is the area where they take/kill grouse and thus that should be the extent of the licensable area:
In addition to this, the changes made to the licence by NatureScot meant that a whole suite of other relevant offences listed in the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Act that were supposed to trigger a licence revocation (i.e. offences on the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996, Conservation (Natural Habitats etc) Regulations 1994, Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023) were NOT covered, which was clearly going against the intent of Parliament when the Wildlife & Muirburn Act was voted for.
Conservationists and some politicians, notably Mark Ruskell MSP from the Scottish Greens, campaigned throughout 2025 and kept the pressure on the Scottish Government to address this loophole. Mark Ruskell lodged amendments at Stage 2 and 3 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill during 2025 (see here) but didn’t press it because by that time, Minister Jim Fairlie had announced the Government’s intention to lodge an amendment during the Natural Environment Bill instead. (Mark also lodged an amendment (#31) to the Natural Environment Bill, just to make sure the subject was covered, but withdrew it in favour of supporting the Government’s amendment).
The Government’s proposed amendment (#35) to the Natural Environment Bill was lodged on 7 November 2025 – I blogged about that here. Minister Fairlie wrote to the Rural Affairs & Islands Committee on 30 October 2025 to notify the committee of the Government’s intention:
Predictably, certain members of the Rural Affairs Committee wanted to push back against the amendment, presumably at the behest of lobbyists from the grouse shooting sector, and there followed a series of back and forth letters between the Committee and Minister Fairlie, with the Committee wanting more ‘clarity’ about the need to close the grouse licensing loophole and the Minister providing the rationale behind it. That correspondence can be read here:
In the middle of all this correspondence, the Scottish Government’s amendment (#35) was debated at Stage 2 of the Natural Environment Bill during a Rural Affairs Committee hearing on 19 November 2025.
I’m not going to repeat the detail of that debate, nor of Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton’s counter amendments (#35a, 35b, and 335) because you can read it in the official report of that meeting (page 78 and Cabinet Secretary Gillian Martin’s response starting on p84) and also in the official report of the continued debate on 10 December 2025 (starting at the bottom of page 124). Both reports are provided below:
The Government’s amendment was pressed, as were Rachael Hamilton’s three counter amendments, and the votes went as follows:
Amendments #35a, 35b and 335 in the name of Rachael Hamilton were all defeated by seven votes to two (the two Conservatives on the Committee, Finlay Carson & Tim Eagle the only ones to support the amendments).
Amendment 35 in the name of Jim Fairlie was agreed by seven votes to two (the two Conservative MSPs being the only ones opposed to it).
This all looks promising, assuming the Bill will progress without further new amendments at Stage 3 to sabotage progress again, although even if there are, they’re unlikely to pass given the entire Parliament can vote at Stage 3, rather than just a small cross-party committee, and the Conservatives simply don’t have anywhere near sufficient numbers to push this through against a Government-led amendment that also has the support of the Greens, Labour and Lib Dems.
Good.
The Scottish Government deserves credit for acting to close the loophole but massive credit also to Scottish Green Mark Ruskell MSP for holding the SNP’s feet to the fire.
It won’t be the end of the story though. As I blogged in November, the effective implementation of the amended legislation will still rely heavily on NatureScot standing up to the powerful landowning lobby, who I have no doubt will try every trick in the book to avoid licence revocations when the inevitable raptor persecution crimes and other ‘relevant offences’ are uncovered on grouse shooting estates.
NatureScot’s track record is not at all convincing on this (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here and here for a few examples of many).
In the short term, the ineffectiveness of the licensing scheme would be frustrating if the wildlife killers were still getting away with their crimes. But in the longer term, if licensing is shown to be ineffective, as many of us think it will be, then the Scottish Government will only have one option left – a complete ban on all grouse shooting.
Raptor Persecution UK 
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