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Seagulls (Coastal Towns)

I thank my hon. Friend for those observations. I agree that that is one of the ways forward that we should consider. To address the very worst problems, where people's lives are being made a misery, consideration should be given to changing the existing licensing controls in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to allow owners of large sites where significant numbers of birds are causing, or are likely to cause, a legal nuisance, to apply for a licence to take measures to prevent or deter the colonisation of land in their occupational control. At present, someone cannot apply for a licence to deal with a nuisance. They can apply for a licence to prevent serious damage to agriculture, to preserve public health or air safety and to conserve other birds. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether adding nuisance to that list is something that Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has considered or will consider. Consideration also needs to be given to legislation allowing local authorities to require land owners to take preventive or remedial action to deal with actual or likely noise, smell or other nuisance caused by gulls colonising land or structures in urban areas. The problem is not easy to solve. Indeed, there might be a temptation to put it to one side in the ““too difficult”” category, but that would be wrong. As we have heard, many thousands of people from all around the country are being affected, and we owe it to them to come up with a range of measures to make their lives more tolerable.