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Animal Welfare Bill

My Lords, I acknowledge that it is important to distinguish between what I will call ““traditional”” shoots and those which have grown up very largely around large cities, particularly London, which appear to be very little more than live shooting practice. In Committee I said that the scale of some of these establishments is such that there is literally no market for what is shot, and the birds are buried in large numbers. There is no evidence, although a photograph has been produced. I wonder whether my noble friend has been able to establish the truth of this. The amendment does not cover my next point, although there is no real reason why it should in the context of what the noble Baroness said. I am not sure whether raising pheasants and partridge in cages is exclusively linked to cost, although cost is clearly a factor, or whether it is linked to the necessity of some of the shoots I am describing to maximise the number of guns, which could produce some results for the man or woman who is shooting. I read a suggestion from the shooting fraternity that, according to acreage and the rest of it, there should be a limit on the number of guns allowed so that the shoot does not simply provide live shooting practice.