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Deer: Conservation

Asked by Sarah BoolConservativeDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled Answered 21 October 2025UIN 81759

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to streamline the deer management night licensing regime.

Answered by Mary Creagh

Defra provides a wide range of support to help landowners and managers tackle deer impacts on woodlands. This includes grants for managing their impacts and for capital items, as well as funding of relevant projects, including those that facilitate landscape scale action.

A dedicated Forestry Commission team of Deer Officers is in place, providing nationwide advice, facilitating grant support and encouraging landscape scale collaborative management.

Natural England are leading the Sussex Woods Protected Sites Strategy pilot, focused on reducing deer impacts on protected woodlands, which includes supporting landowners and managers to work together at scale to manage deer impacts.

We are considering plans for further action on deer impacts management and will outline these, including any implications for the existing regime for the licensing of managing deer at night, in due course.

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