An update on the General Licence from Rishi Sunak MP

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