A law intended to protect Red Squirrels may be scrapped after the Solicitor General, Oliver Heald, told a Committee of MPs hearing the Deregulation Bill last week that it was “no longer useful or observed”.
Mr Heald told a committee on Deregulation:
“The order requires occupiers to report the presence of grey squirrels on their land to facilitate the eradication of that species.
“However, it is no longer considered feasible to eradicate grey squirrels, so the requirement to report their presence on one’s land is no longer useful or observed.”
Chi Onwurah MP, who is on the House of Commons Committee examining the Deregulation Bill, was present at the meeting, told OnTheWight,
“I too thought Northumberland was the last English preserve of the red squirrel. I am glad to learn there is a significant population on the Isle of Wight as I have visited on a number of occasions and it is a beautiful island.
“I am sure they share my disappointment in the Minister’s lack of enthusiasm for the hard work of our communities to protect red squirrels and hope they will never the less work with Northumberland to preserve them.”
Heated debate
The subject resulted in a heated debate amongst several of the Committee members.
Chris Williamson MP (Lab Derby North) argued,
“The red squirrel population was already in decline, which had more to do with loss of habitat, disease and modern farming practices, rather than the grey squirrel.”
This was swiftly countered by Jim Shannon MP (Democratic Unionist Party) who replied,
“We will have to disagree here. There is a great deal of evidence to indicate that grey squirrels have had a direct impact on red squirrels. They carry a pox that red squirrels can catch and succumb to, so their numbers have decreased as a result.”
He went on to say,
“Grey squirrels are aggressive and tend to want everything for themselves—much like some people in this room. Whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, those are the facts.”
Within the buffer zone
The Solicitor General told the Committee that he’d heard red squirrels were known to habitat Lancashire, “but basically they are in the north of England and Scotland.”
Thankfully, he did go onto mention the Isle of Wight,
“There are buffer zones surrounding the red squirrel reserves, including, apparently, on the Isle of Wight, and there is an important, if small, budget for that purpose.”
Adding,
“The populations on Anglesey, Isle of Wight and the Poole harbour islands are subject to local action plans.”
Final word
One of the great quotes from the debate was from Gavin Barwell (Con – Croydon Central), who said,
“That was a debate on squirrels that I will never forget — I was not entirely sure whether the red squirrel was a metaphor for socialism.”
Source: Telegraph
Image: zoutedrop under a CC BY 2.0 license
