Tag: scottish parliament

The Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell is the latest politician to lodge parliamentary questions about the grouse moor licensing shambles in Scotland.

As a recap, regular blog readers will know that NatureScot made a sudden and controversial decision last autumn to change its approach and amend the brand new grouse moor licences that had been issued to sporting estates in Scotland under the new Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

See previous blogs here, here, here, here, and here for background details.

The changes made by NatureScot significantly weakened the licence by changing the extent of the licensable area from covering an entire estate to just the parts of the estate where red grouse are ‘taken or killed’, which on a driven grouse moor could effectively just mean a small area around a line of grouse butts. The licence was further weakened by NatureScot reducing the number of offences outside the licensable area that could trigger a licence revocation.

Freedom of Information responses later revealed that NatureScot had capitulated on grouse moor licensing after receiving legal threats from the grouse shooting industry. Secret and extensive negotiations then took place between NatureScot and a number of grouse shooting organisations, excluding all other stakeholders. NatureScot refused to release the legal advice it had received and on which it had apparently based its changes to the licence.

A couple of days ago, Minister Jim Fairlie responded to a series of parliamentary questions on this subject, lodged by Colin Smyth MSP (Scottish Labour). The Minister readily acknowledged there were issues with the changes that had been made to the grouse moor licences, but it was quite clear that he didn’t have any immediate plans to address the significant weakening of the licences (see here for his responses).

Now Mark Ruskell MSP from the Scottish Greens has lodged four more parliamentary questions about NatureScot’s behaviour and decision-making:

S6W-34987 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government for what reason NatureScot reportedly did not invite each of the groups involved in the development of the Grouse Code of Practice to (a) meetings and (a) engage in consultation with it to discuss grouse licence conditions.

S6W-34988 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) meetings and (b) other discussions NatureScot and Scottish Land and Estates have held to discuss (i) the legal opinions regarding the wording of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 and (ii) what land should be included in a 16AA licence to shoot grouse.

S6W-34989 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government whether NatureScot will release the notes of (a) meetings and (b) any other discussions it has had with Scottish Land and Estates to discuss grouse shoot licensing.

S6W-34990 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government what (a) meetings and (b) other discussions took place between ministers and/or its officials with NatureScot in advance of the agency introducing new guidance related to “area of land” and new conditions to 16AA licences; whether these changes were approved and, if so, (i) by whom and (ii) when.

These questions were lodged on 18 February 2025. Responses are due by 4 March 2025.

The Scottish Government’s Minister for Agriculture & Connectivity, Jim Fairlie MSP, has responded to a series of parliamentary questions lodged earlier this month by Colin Smyth MSP (Scottish Labour) on the grouse moor licensing shambles in Scotland.

As a recap, regular blog readers will know that NatureScot made a sudden and controversial decision last autumn to change its approach and amend the brand new grouse moor licences that had been issued to sporting estates in Scotland under the new Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

See previous blogs here, here, here, here, and here for background details.

The changes made by NatureScot significantly weakened the licence by changing the extent of the licensable area from covering an entire estate to just the parts of the estate where red grouse are ‘taken or killed’, which on a driven grouse moor could effectively just mean a small area around a line of grouse butts. The licence was further weakened by NatureScot reducing the number of offences outside the licensable area that could trigger a licence revocation.

Freedom of Information responses later revealed that NatureScot had capitulated on grouse moor licensing after receiving legal threats from the grouse shooting industry. Secret and extensive negotiations then took place between NatureScot and a number of grouse shooting organisations, excluding all other stakeholders. NatureScot refused to release the legal advice it had received and on which it had apparently based its changes to the licence.

Here are the answers given by Minister Fairlie yesterday to Colin Smyth’s four parliamentary questions about this fiasco:

This is an interesting response about NatureScot’s continued refusal to release the legal advice it received about making changes to the grouse moor licences.

For interest, I have recently submitted a request for an Internal Review of NatureScot’s FoI response in December, where it refused to release the legal advice it had received. I don’t believe NatureScot’s decision was lawful so I’m seeking further clarification on its decision making. Depending on NatureScot’s response to the Internal Review request, I may escalate this to the Information Commissioner if my suspicions of unlawful behaviour are founded.

The second paragraph of the Minister’s response ignores totally the criticisms about NatureScot’s new licence condition. I.e. that (a) it is practically unenforceable, and (b) that it reduces the number of offences outside the licensable area that could trigger a licence revocation.

The Minister’s last sentence, “We are considering whether any further steps need to be taken to address this issue” is a simple non-committal to doing anything about the flawed new condition.

It reflects poorly on the Scottish Government but if the Government isn’t intending to address the issue itself, then there are other routes that other, more engaged politicians can take to address it. More on that to come.

Hmm. I’m not sure that Colin’s question was referring to NatureScot seeking approval from Police Scotland, but rather approval from the Scottish Government, although the wording of the parliamentary question isn’t as clear as perhaps it could have been.

Either way, it is my understanding that Police Scotland did not support the proposed new licence condition because it recognised that it was practically unenforceable. NatureScot appears to have ignored this expert advice.

It’s good that the Minister openly admits that raptor persecution can take place anywhere on a property and not just on the actual grouse moor.

However, the repeated statement about NatureScot’s new (and flawed and unenforceable) licence condition is pointless. Again, it reflects poorly on the Scottish Government but if the Government isn’t intending to address the issue itself, then there are other routes that other, more engaged politicians can take to address it. More on that to come.

Some more parliamentary questions have now been lodged to dig further in to NatureScot’s behaviour and decision-making in relation to the changes it made to the new grouse moor licences. I’ll blog shortly.

UPDATE 28 February 2025: More Parliamentary questions on grouse moor licensing shambles in Scotland (here)

Regular blog readers will know that NatureScot made a sudden and controversial decision last autumn to change its approach and amend the brand new grouse moor licences that had been issued to sporting estates in Scotland under the new Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

See previous blogs here, here, here, here, and here for background details.

The changes made by NatureScot significantly weakened the licence by changing the extent of the licensable area from covering an entire estate to just the parts of the estate where red grouse are ‘taken or killed’, which on a driven grouse moor could effectively just mean a small area around a line of grouse butts. The licence was further weakened by NatureScot reducing the number of offences outside the licensable area that could trigger a licence revocation.

Freedom of Information responses later revealed that NatureScot had capitulated on grouse moor licensing after receiving legal threats from the grouse shooting industry. Secret and extensive negotiations then took place between NatureScot and a number of grouse shooting organisations, excluding all other stakeholders. NatureScot refused to release the legal advice it had received and on which it had apparently based its changes to the licence.

Thanks to those of you who wrote to the Scottish Government’s Minister for Agriculture & Connectivity, Jim Fairlie MSP, last month to ask what the Scottish Government intended to do to fix the massive loophole that now exists in the amended licence. I’ve yet to see any substantial response from him.

Meanwhile, it seems other politicians have taken a keen interest in proceedings and Colin Smyth MSP (Scottish Labour) has now lodged the following parliamentary questions:

S6W-34517: To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish the (a) legal and (b) other advice obtained by NatureScot regarding which areas of land should be covered by a 16AA licence under the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

S6W-34518: To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported criticisms from members of the conservation sector regarding the changes made to grouse shooting licences by NatureScot and, in the light of this, what steps it plans to ensure that the operation of section 16AA licences fulfils the intentions of (a) it and (b) the Parliament.

S6W-34519: To ask the Scottish Government on what dates NatureScot met (a) Police Scotland and (b) the National Wildlife Crime Unit before seeking approval for a new grouse licensing condition regarding raptor persecution from land and estates.

S6W-34520: To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on (a) the comment by NatureScot on 19 July 2026 that “raptor persecution undertaken in connection with grouse moor management could take place anywhere on a property, not just on the grouse moor itself”, and (b) whether the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 needs to be amended to ensure that the 16AA grouse shooting licence covers an applicant’s whole landholding and not the grouse moor only.

These questions were lodged on 6 February 2025 and answers are expected by 6 March 2025.

There’s more going on behind the scenes. Watch this space.

Regular blog readers will know that I’ve been trying to uncover the reasoning and process behind NatureScot’s sudden decision last autumn to change its approach and amend the brand new grouse moor licences that had been issued to sporting estates in Scotland under the new Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

The changes made by NatureScot significantly weakened the licence by changing the extent of the licensable area from covering an entire estate to just the parts of the estate where red grouse are ‘taken or killed’, which on a driven grouse moor could effectively just mean a small area around a line of grouse butts.

NatureScot also added a new licence condition that it claimed would allow a licence revocation if raptor persecution crimes took place outside of the licensable area, but many of us believe this to be virtually unenforceable.

This new condition also means that all the other offences listed in the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Act that are 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) are NOT covered by the new licence condition. The new condition ONLY applies to raptor persecution offences (see previous blogs here, here, here, here, and here for background details).

As I blogged on 18 December 2024, NatureScot was clearly playing for time by stalling on releasing overdue FoI documents that I had asked for to try to find out what was behind the complete mess grouse shoot licensing has become.

Finally, on 19 December 2024, by sheer coincidence, I’m sure, NatureScot provided a response, amounting to 162 pages of internal and external email correspondence between July and October 2024, relating specifically to the changes made to grouse licence conditions.

Here is the cover letter sent to me by NatureScot, explaining what information was being released and what was being withheld

And here is the substantial correspondence that NatureScot had with representatives of the grouse shooting industry prior to NatureScot making changes to the licence:

It’s a lot to take in, and as you can imagine, it’s taken a while for me and my colleagues to digest the contents. To be frank, there’s nothing in the material released that we didn’t know or suspect had probably gone on, but the detail is very enlightening.

It’s very clear that the level of engagement between NatureScot and Scottish Land and Estates (SLE, the lobby organisation for grouse moor owners in Scotland) was truly staggering. SLE (and latterly, BASC) were granted at least eight exclusive meetings with NatureScot staff between 15 July and early October to discuss the grouse licensing issue, without a word to any other stakeholders that this issue was being discussed.

No notes of these meetings, or any of the many phone calls between SLE and BASC and NatureScot staff, has been provided in the FoI response.

Also missing from the FoI response is the legal advice that NatureScot received about making changes to the grouse licence, despite it being clearly critical to NatureScot’s decision making.

However, on the back of that legal advice, it is clear that SLE and BASC were given exclusive previews by NatureScot of proposed changes to the licence to agree before they were implemented.

From the perspective of those of us who campaigned long and hard for a robust system of grouse moor licensing, and engaged diligently with the process of the Wildlife Management Bill as it progressed through Parliament and the subsequent meetings to determine the accompanying codes of practice, I’m not sure how this fits into NatureScot’s oft-repeated claim to seek “openness and transparency”.

The policy intent of the legislation, part of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Act, which was overwhelmingly passed by the Scottish Parliament, was crystal clear – “to address the on-going issue of wildlife crime, and in particular the persecution of raptors, on managed grouse moors. It will do this by enabling a licence to be modified, suspended or revoked, where there is robust evidence of raptor persecution or another relevant wildlife crime related to grouse moor management such as the unlicenced killing of a wild mammal, or the unlawful use of a trap”.

Given the amount of evidence that SLE was invited to give during the Committee stages of the Bill’s progression, including representations by their legal representative, one wonders why SLE didn’t question the interpretation of the draft legislation defining land to be covered by a licence at that stage?

SLE certainly raised questions and objections about many other aspects of the legislation during that process but maybe didn’t want the kind of public debate in front of MSPs that raising this issue at that time would have led to?

Instead, the land management sector, and in particular SLE, pursued an extraordinary level of behind-the-scenes access to NatureScot staff after the legislation had been agreed through the democratic process, who in turn bent over backwards to accommodate all their demands, simply to head off the threat of legal action over interpretation of the new grouse licensing legislation, specifically how much of an estate should be covered by a licence.

At this point, it’s legitimate to question SLE’s motives for trying to limit the amount of an estate that is licensed. Surely, if an estate’s employees aren’t committing wildlife crime, the extent of the licence shouldn’t actually matter?

Anyway, it’s clear that discussions with SLE about a “legal issue” began in early July 2024, shortly after the period for grouse shooting applications had opened. It’s also apparent that shooting representative organisations were already advising their members via social media to delay submitting applications until the issue that “relates to the area of land to which the licence relates” was resolved.

The FoI documents show that RSPB picked up on this and emailed NatureScot on 18 July 2024 asking for details. The response from NatureScot, sent the following day, appears to be reassuring, stating:

“We are clear that licences we issue should relate to the full landholding and not just land over which grouse are taken and killed, because as you well know, raptor persecution undertaken in connection with grouse moor management could take place anywhere on a property, not just on the grouse moor itself”.

I, and I’m sure most readers of this blog, completely agree with this sentiment. We all know of many, many cases of raptors killed by gamekeepers on grouse shooting estates in places well away from where actual grouse shooting occurs – in woodlands, at nests on crags, in adjoining farmland. I don’t doubt that the majority of MSPs who passed the legislation would also have shared this view. Indeed, why would anyone who genuinely wishes to see raptor persecution addressed not agree?

However, we now know that NatureScot went from saying they were comfortable that the process in place was robust (on 16 July) to bending over backwards to accommodate every suggestion SLE made about new conditions, despite recognising early on that the “policy intent” of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Act might not be realised if areas covered by licences were too small.

Interestingly, the document also shows that NatureScot’s internally-agreed line of communications (from 19 July 2024) would be that they were “working closely with stakeholders to develop a workable licensing scheme for grouse shooting that supports those who manage their grouse moors within the law and acts as a strong deterrent to raptor persecution”.

Really? This has proven to be completely misleading and disingenuous at best. In reality it’s clear that the only organisations NatureScot was working closely with were SLE and BASC, even giving them advance notice of proposed new licence conditions for their comments and approval.

In contrast, there is no correspondence with the police or NWCU to ask their opinion on the proposed new conditions and their enforceability, or any hint of wider discussion or consultation with any other organisation, despite other’s involvement in giving evidence to Parliament or contributing to the Grouse Code of Practice.

Instead, there has been a concerted effort to placate representatives from the industry responsible for the illegal slaughter of huge numbers of raptors and other protected species, resulting in a significant number of investigations and prosecutions, just to head off legal threats. The rest of the world only became aware of these changes to the licences when it was all cut and dried, a done deal, published on NatureSot’s website.

As I have written before, not only is the area to be covered by a licence down to the whims of the licence applicant, whatever the non-legally binding expectations of the licensing authority that it would include the whole grouse moor, but a new condition that I and many others believe to be unenforceable has been added.

A stinging, but apparently unanswered, email sent from the RSPB to NatureScot on 10 October 2024 sums it up:

“This new ‘wildlife crime licensing condition’ will apply outside of the licensed area of a landholding but only where offences committed are related to management of the grouse moor. In a scenario where a buzzard is found dying in an illegally-set pole trap on a sporting estate, 2km away from the licensed grouse moor, we question what evidence will be required, and how it will be obtained, to allow an assessment if that crime was linked to grouse moor management, particularly if it was an estate that also had pheasant shooting?

“In summary, we believe that this new condition means that establishing a link between raptor persecution offences and grouse moor management, and to act as a meaningful deterrent to wildlife crimes, will now require a burden of proof that will be virtually impossible to achieve”.

So much for these licences being a deterrent to raptor persecution! We also now know that NatureScot didn’t undertake a single measure of compliance monitoring or checks on the use of the 250 licences it issued for the 2024 grouse shooting season (see here).

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that a culture of appeasement to the land management sector has become embedded in NatureScot. I’ll have a lot more to say about this over the coming weeks, (there is an ongoing related issue that has so many similarities but I can’t write about it yet, pending legal advice) but there is a growing sense of unease amongst conservationists with regard to decisions being taken by an organisation that should be leading on protecting Scotland’s wildlife.

In the meantime, concerned blog readers may feel moved to write (politely) to the Scottish Government’s Minister for Agriculture & Connectivity, Jim Fairlie MSP, (email: MinisterforAC@gov.scot) to ask him what he intends to do to fix the huge loophole that NatureScot has created in the first Bill he led on in Government.

I’ll be very interested in the responses you get.

You might also increasingly be thinking that licensing grouse shooting just isn’t going to work, and the whole thing should just be banned. If so, please sign this petition.

Further to the news that Scotland’s new grouse moor licences have already been significantly weakened thanks to legal threats from the grouse shooting industry (see here, here, here and here for background), a blog reader wrote to the Scottish Government to express concern about the restriction in the area now covered by the licence.

This has changed from covering an entire grouse-shooting estate (as initially and reasonably interpreted by NatureScot) to just an unaccetably small part of an estate where red grouse are ‘shot or taken’, which effectively on a driven grouse moor could mean an area around a row of shooting butts.

That blog reader has kindly given permission to publish the response received from the Scottish Government’s Wildlife Management Unit:

It’s good to see a formal, public response from the Scottish Government who, up until now, has kept quiet since the news broke about the shambolic new licence condition a few weeks ago.

In its response, the Government uses the same phrasing that NatureScot did in terms of having an ‘expectation’ that the new licensed area would cover the full extent of the grouse moor. As I mentioned previously when NatureScot expressed the same ‘expectation’, I don’t believe this has any legal weight whatsoever because what matters here is the wording of the legislation, not what NatureScot or the Government ‘expects’ to happen.

The Government’s response also doubles down on NatureScot’s claim that the new condition is ‘legally robust‘ and acts as ‘a strong deterrent to wildlife crime‘.

The new condition may well be legally robust (although we don’t know that for sure because NatureScot is yet to release the legal advice it received prior to making this change to the licence) but what it most certainly isn’t is ‘a strong deterrent to wildlife crime‘. It’s nothing of the sort, for all the reasons I discussed here.

What is good about this response though is that the Government understands that the licensing scheme is not having ‘the intended effect‘ of the Scottish Parliament when the legislation was passed in March. That’s a start.

There’s a lot happening behind the scenes to address the ‘vast loophole‘ that’s been left by NatureScot’s flawed attempt at plugging the chasm. I can’t say anything further at the moment but rest assured this issue is receiving close attention from a number of influential and knowledgeable people.

UPDATE 24 January 2025: NatureScot capitulated on grouse moor licensing after legal threats by game-shooting industry (here)

UPDATE 10 February 2025: Parliamentary questions lodged on grouse moor licensing shambles in Scotland (here)

UPDATE 3 November 2025: Breaking news – Scottish Government commits to closing loophole on sabotaged grouse moor licences (here)

The controversy surrounding changes to Scotland’s new grouse moor licences continues (see here, here and here for background) and is now being picked up by mainstream media.

The Guardian‘s Scotland editor, Sev Carrell, wrote about it yesterday and he included quotes from two wildlife charity directors who refer to the situation as a “shambles“.

Anne McCall, Director of RSPB Scotland, is quoted:

“We believe that these changes completely undermine the primary intention of this legislation to tackle raptor persecution and will only give comfort to those who intend to keep killing our birds of prey.

Leaders across the rest of the UK are looking to Scotland and this legislation to show them the art of the possible, with an example that they might soon follow. But the promise of a real deterrent to criminality on Scotland’s grouse moors has been allowed to descend into a shambles“.

Robbie Marsland, Director of the League Against Cruel Sports (Scotland & Northern Ireland) is quoted:

“Deliberately killing a protected bird of prey was a wildlife crime before the new legislation was enacted, and remains so, despite this shambles.

But any suggestion that ‘grouse moor management’ only applies to a small area around the shooting butts is clearly ludicrous. For example, when the league conducted an 18-month survey of six shooting estates we found traps and snares littered across the entire estates“.

An unnamed spokesperson for NatureScot says the revised licences “were robust“. They’re clearly not!

The article also states that, ‘The Scottish government and NatureScot said they were considering amendments to the act, but refused to specify what would be done’.

You can read the article in full, here.

UPDATE 24 January 2025: NatureScot capitulated on grouse moor licensing after legal threats by game-shooting industry (here)

UPDATE 10 February 2025: Parliamentary questions lodged on grouse moor licensing shambles in Scotland (here)