Hare close season Bill would ban shooting from February to September

A Bill to establish a statutory close season for brown hares, running from the start of February to the end of September, was presented to the Commons on 13 October by Ruth Jones, the Labour MP for Newport West and Islwyn. The Bill, which would also give mountain hares in England and Wales full legal protection, was agreed without a vote and is set down for a Second Reading on Friday, 19 March 2027.

What would the Bill change for shoots?

Hares are currently the only game species in England and Wales without a statutory close season, and most organised hare shoots take place in February and March, after the end of the game bird season. The Bill, printed as Bill 154, would prohibit the killing or taking of brown hares through the spring and summer, repeal the seasonal prohibition on the sale of hares in the Hares Preservation Act 1892, and extend to mountain hares in England and Wales the Schedule 5 protection Scotland introduced in 2021.

Presenting the Bill, Mrs Jones told the House that the timing of late-winter shoots “almost exactly aligns with the hare breeding season, meaning that shoots can devastate the local population”. She cited the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s estimate that “a February hare shoot can remove 60% of the breeding stock”, and University of Bristol research on the orphaning of leverets.

Where do hare numbers stand?

Mrs Jones told MPs that academics at the University of Bristol estimate the brown hare population peaked at about 4 million in the late 19th century, that the 1996 national brown hare survey put it as low as 817,000, and that 2022 estimates stood at fewer than 600,000, with British Trust for Ornithology surveys reporting a recovery only in the last few years. On mountain hares, she linked the species’ decline in England to habitat loss and what she called “intensive culling efforts linked to red grouse shooting”, a characterisation the moorland sector disputes.

The shooting organisations’ position

The Countryside Alliance set out its opposition to a proposed Welsh close season for hares on 12 October, arguing that hare management is best delivered through existing practice rather than new statutory restriction. The Government’s animal welfare strategy, published in December 2025, already carries a commitment to introduce a close season for hares, and Baroness Helic’s separate Hares (Close Season) Bill is before the Lords. Mrs Jones paid tribute to Baroness Helic’s work and said: “We have had the warm words; now it is time for action.”

What happens next

Ten Minute Rule Bills rarely progress without Government backing, but the cross-party list of presenters, which includes Sir Desmond Swayne, Sir Roger Gale, Tim Farron, Ben Lake and Simon Hoare, signals pressure from several benches. The Second Reading is set for Friday, 19 March 2027; any statutory close season would need Government time, or adoption of the Lords Bill, to become law. Shoots running February hare days face no change this season, but the direction of policy is now plain.