Jerome Mayhew

My right hon. Friend is of course right. I do not have the data—I am trying to stick with data in the argument I am constructing—but the principle he mentions is a sound one. If we focus our resources in the area where the risk is greatest, we are likely to have a better beneficial impact. [Paula Barker in the Chair] The Countryside Alliance estimates that the measures will have a huge impact on the value of shooting to the economy, with a loss of about £875 million. And for what gain? This is the difficult bit, because I am going to consider the value of a life. Of course, in one sense, every life is priceless, but in policy terms, we already attribute an economic value to life. In my other job as shadow Rail Minister, I asked the Office of Rail and Road to give me the economic cost of a saved life on the railways; the answer is £4 million. It is worth spending £4 million on a piece of infrastructure if, over the course of its use, it saves a life. That is the rule of thumb for rail. For road transport, it is actually much less than that. I am not suggesting that every death has the same value economically, because as a society we would be prepared to pay a lot more to prevent a violent murder than even a tragedy on the railway. But that is the level of magnitude at which, in policy terms, we as legislators have decided the economic value of a life sits. However, with these measures, the Government appear to be proposing a change in the law that will have an impact of several hundred million pounds—getting on for £1 billion—in order to reduce the number of deaths from a maximum long-term average of 3.8 to some number less than that, but still well above zero. On any rational basis, there is simply no argument that holds water that suggests the price of 20,000 jobs and an economic hit, particularly to the rural economy, of close to £1 billion, in order to save a percentage of 3.8 lives over the course of a year, is a credible policy position. I recognise that what I have said is deeply uncomfortable, because we are talking about real people who suffer from tragedies. I join everyone in my deepest sympathy for people who have been affected by this issue in their family, or among their friends, but as a legislator it is my duty to look beyond that. That is why I have set out the data—to help the Minister approach this issue in the right way. I have said that my constituents are baffled, but they are also angry, because this feels like a tin-eared approach to the rural way of life. The measures fail to understand the community connections that bring rural communities together, and it feels like a Government who would propose them have no idea of who we are or how we live our lives. It feels like the Government do not understand and do not care—or perhaps they do, which would be even worse, but instead disapprove of our way of life. It feels like an attack on the rural way of life and economy without justification. The previous Conservative Government, as has been mentioned, did not consult on the proposed change to the law for a very good reason: it is a terrible idea.