Rishi Sunak MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2025 · Driven Grouse Shooting · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to follow the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). I last spoke on this subject in this very place back in 2016. A lot has changed in the last nine years—notably, 10 Chief Secretaries to the Treasury, seven Chancellors and, indeed, five Prime Ministers—but one thing that has not changed is my view on grouse shooting. For full disclosure, I should say that I have never shot grouse, pheasant or any other type of bird. That is not a request for invitations, but the fact that I do not shoot grouse has not changed my absolute commitment to grouse shooting. Why? Because grouse shooting is fundamental to hard-working people in constituencies such as mine. It is a part of our local social fabric, and it is one of the world’s great conservation success stories. Advocates of a ban often think that the only people who will suffer are rich men in plus fours with port-faced complexions, but as I said back in 2016, nothing could be further from the truth. The real victims of any ban would not be caricatures, but ordinary working people: the farmer’s wife who goes beating at the weekend so that her family can make ends meet; the young man able to earn a living, in the community that he loves, as an apprentice to a gamekeeper; or the local publican welcoming shooting parties with cold ales and warm pies. Let us be absolutely clear that those who support a ban on grouse shooting should only do so if they are prepared to look those people in the eye and explain to them why their livelihoods are worth sacrificing. Some question shooting’s contribution to the rural economy. As we heard, the petition itself uses the words “economically insignificant”, but there is nothing economically insignificant about 2,500 direct jobs and tens of millions of pounds paid out in wages. If anything, those numbers are an underestimate. From the Yorkshire B&B welcoming ramblers drawn to our area by the moors’ summer blossom, to the workshops of Westley Richards in Birmingham or Purdey in London, whose handmade shotguns are the finest in the world, the ripples of employment that grouse shooting creates reach every corner of our country. Grouse shooting makes an invaluable contribution not only to the rural economy, but to our rural landscape. A tendency among some conservationists is to act as though farmers and gamekeepers are somehow trespassing on Britain’s landscape, but without their hands repairing our dry stone walls or their dairy cows keeping the fields lush, the rural beauty of our countryside would soon fade. Heather moorland, as we heard, is rarer than rainforest, and 75% of it is found right here in Britain. It is a national treasure. From Heathcliff to Holmes, the moors have become a proud part of our cultural heritage, and no one has set out a viable, privately funded alternative vision for those uplands. Without the million pounds of private income spent by moor owners on land management every single week, that proud heritage would come to an end. Overgrazed by sheep, used to grow pine timber, or abandoned to bracken, the moors as we know and love them would be lost. That would be a disaster for British wildlife. Academic study after academic study shows that endangered wading birds such as curlew and lapwing are much more likely to breed successfully on managed grouse moors. The vast majority of rare merlin, the UK’s smallest bird of prey, are found on grouse moors. A recent study by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust in Northumberland reveals the devastating ecological impact on plover, snipe, lapwing and curlew populations of the withdrawal of predator control carried out by moor owners. There has been some discussion about the state of the hen harrier population, and although numbers reached a record high in 2023, more can and must be done, but we must be clear: a Britain without grouse shooting is not a Britain where the hen harrier would thrive. Research carried out on the Scottish grouse moor of Langholm and published in the Journal of Applied Ecology found that when gamekeeping ceased, the hen harrier population plummeted. Without gamekeepers to control the predators, they multiply and hen harriers pay the price. That is why the participation of 1 million acres of grouse moor in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs hen harrier brood management scheme is the right approach, and why gamekeepers supporting diversionary feeding is the right approach. Conservation will succeed only through partnership with the grouse-shooting industry and not through its destruction.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Public Service Reform · Hansard source

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  I commend the ministerial team, both on the innovation fund and—more importantly—the test-and-learn culture that has been referred to, which embraces a willingness to take risks and iterate. Does the Minister agree that in order for this work to be truly successful and transform our public services, we must also reform our governance and approval processes in parallel, so that they do not inadvertently stifle this welcome method of innovation?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  That is very kind of the Prime Minister. I know he is partial to the Lake district, but perhaps we can tempt him over to our end as well. Yorkshire is famous not just for its walks, but for being home to some of England’s greatest cricketers. Sadly, no one is going to put me on that list—but who knows? I now have a lot more time to practise. Cricket has the power to bring people from all communities together and give them fantastic opportunities, as was shown so powerfully by Andrew Flintoff’s recent documentary. We lead the world in female participation, and that will stand us in good stead when we host the women’s world cup in 2026 and when cricket becomes an Olympic sport in 2028. Can I therefore ask the Prime Minister to continue Government support for the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new initiative to get cricket into vastly more state schools, fostering a whole new generation of cricketers for us all to cheer on at every level?