Petition to Close due to General Election.
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Hi Everyone
I have just seen from the Petition site that:
‘All petitions will now close at 00:01am on 3 May 2017
There will be an early General Election on Thursday 8 June. This means that Parliament has to be dissolved at 00:01am (just after midnight) on Wednesday 3 May, and that all parliamentary business – including petitions – has to stop.
Find out more on the Petitions Committee website’The Petitions Committee website basically, says that all the Petitions are completely cancelled. Any signatures cannot be carried over. A new Petition has to be started after the General Election.
If BHPS starts a new Petition after the Election we will all have to sign again!
I was very sad when I read the news about the petition, I don’t see any reason why the existing petitions couldn’t be re-opened after the election, but then it’s a great way for the government to get rid of a pile of work and sweep everything under the carpet! Meanwhile these traps are out there multiplying!
As Nic pointed out earlier, DEFRA contradict themselves in their response to the petition,
Where the safety of protected species cannot be reasonably assured, the use of non-lethal methods of capture, such as cage trapping, should be employed so non-target species can be released unharmed if accidently captured.
There is no way the safety of protected species can be assured with these traps, so why on earth did DEFRA ever give the go ahead. Surely there is some legal route we could go down on this…any ideas anyone…any legal boffins out there???
Hi Penny
It does seem a bit daft that the petition can’t continue after the election. I don’t really see the logic. It just seems a lot of work wasted. I only took one of your posters to a pet shop yesterday, before I had seen the notice on the petition site. I suppose I will have to go round and collect them all again now.
My latest letter from Defra said the usual – that trappers are ‘legally obliged to take reasonable steps to exclude non-target species. Therefore, they must attempt to set the trap in a way that excludes hedgehogs. If they cannot do this then they should consider not using the trap or using it in areas where hedgehogs are not present.’
I can’t understand how they cannot see how crazy that is, when hedgehogs can be just about anywhere – especially anywhere where there are rats and stoats. Why would they licence a trap when there is almost nowhere where it could sensibly (legally) be used. Also the people buying the traps are not necessarily told about the trap being used to kill hedgehogs in New Zealand.
And, by the way, they said: ‘Anyone who believes an offence has taken place should report the matter to the police as they are the enforcing authority.’
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