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The Government's do-nothing response fails wildlife - and themselves
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Naturewatch had been excited by the Environment Audit Committee's report on wildlife crime, providing independent approval of several of our key recommendations, so we awaited the Government's response with much hope but some dread. While they agreed on most of the principles, they took issue with anything that required action, and did little more than re-state curent Government policy. For a party rapidly losing its reputation as being advocates of animal welfare, this was rather careless - especially with a General Election looming.
Making wildlife crime recordable
The Environment Audit Committee had stated the importance of making wildlife crime recordable.
Wildlife crime must be classified as recordable by the Home Office so that police forces across England and Wales know that sufficient priority needs to be given to tackling wildlife crime and so that they can allocate the necessary resources to this work. We accept that within this classification system there will probably need to be some form of grading of wildlife crimes to reflect the level of gravity of each crime. [Rec. 5]
The Government response on this is terse.
Most wildlife offences are triable summarily only. This means that Police forces are not required to notify the majority of wildlife offences for inclusion in the crime statistics, as only offences which are triable either way or indictable are notifiable. There are no plans at present to re-classify these offences as notifiable.
This is no more than a re-statement of present policy. The Environment Audit Committee had put forward their recommendation because they believe that the present policy is wrong. They had a right to expect a more reasoned response.
Full-time wildlife officers in every police force
The Government accepts the committee's view that unless the scale of wildlife crime is known, the right policies cannot be put into place. (Rec 26). This is not surprising: the recommendation is a statement of principle so agreement on it is cheap. However, it comes with a corollary which does require action: in style with their whole response, the Government takes issue at this point. Rec. 27 states:
We believe that there must be at least one full-time Wildlife Crime Officer for each Police force. These officers must be fully trained in intelligence gathering. [Rec. 27]
- to which the Government respond:
Accepted in part. The Government commends those police forces that have appointed full-time Wildlife Crime Officers, and encourages others to follow suit. However, the use of resources is a matter for the chief officer in each force based on operational demands and priorities. The Government is concerned however that there should be an effective response to wildlife crime, and believes that through better recording of incidents, and continued emphasis on training in intelligence gathering and recording, enforcement can be further improved. The strategy proposed by NCIS for reducing the threat to the UK of serious organised wildlife crime (see response to Recommendation 29 below) is an important driver in assessing how best to deliver an effective wildlife law enforcement response and will inform the assessment being undertaken as set out in the response to recommendation 4.
What this waffle effectively says is that while they think it a jolly good idea to have wildlife officers, they will not put forward any resources in order to enable this to happen. They are therefore trying to avoid the attendant responsibility.
Home Office involvement
Where the report criticises the Home Office for a lack of commitment to wildlife crime (Rec. 34), the Government limply talks about how good it is for departments to co-operate. While the collective responsibility within which any Government must operate makes this somewhat inevitable, it is the anemic way in which they re-state present policy that is contemptible.
Wildlife crime and other crime
The report concludes by emphasising the link between wildlife crime and other crime. Thus, resources invested in this will also have payoffs in fighting other crime. Again, the Government limply re-states Government policy.
Time for a change?
Perhaps it is that they have been in Government for eight years with landslide majorities that makes them immune to criticism - but it betrays an arrogance that does not sit well with their stated principle of being the party of animal welfare. The language of the response also reeks of a Government still obsessed with spin: far too often they 'agree in part', agreeing to a concept while disagreeing with any argument that there should be a change of policy. Their dismal response is a betrayal of wildlife.
