Protect the Wild has worked alongside Grantham Against Bloodsports to uncover how much hunts are benefitting from taxpayer money. The evidence is staggering, and reveals just how reliant the hunting industry is on government handouts. Yet this is likely only a fraction of the true figure.
Grantham Against Bloodsports approached Protect the Wild with a trove of documents and spreadsheets. Those files contained years’ worth of effort into uncovering the hunting industry’s financial benefits, searching through publicly available records whilst simultaneously doggedly pursuing freedom of information requests. The result was two decades’ worth of insight into the subsidies, grants and relief that hunts have received, even though hunting with hounds was banned.
The total for which GAB and Protect the Wild was able to find evidence is £2,451,885.32, breaking down in the following categories:
| Type | Value |
|---|---|
| Farming Subsidies | £1,012,008.50 |
| Business Rate Reliefs | £958,564.54 |
| Covid Grants | £481,312.28 |
- The report on farming subsidies is available to read here
- The report on council benefits is available to read here
Both farming subsidies and Covid grants are cash payments given to hunts. Meanwhile, business rate relief is money that hunts should pay but are exempt from due to their size as a business. All three categories represent finances that taxpayers have footed.
Some hunts have benefitted far more than others. The largest recipients are the South Dorset, Belvoir and Quorn hunts, which together account for over £500,000 in public funding. According to files from farmsubsidy.org and Dorset Council, the South Dorset Hunt received £192,747.71 in EU farming grants, plus £33,437.94 in business rate relief and Covid support.
The Belvoir and Quorn hunts received £74,540.78 and £47,811.12 respectively in farming payments. In addition, the Belvoir Hunt gained £39,887.16 in rate relief and £30,359.78 in Covid grants, whilst the Quorn Hunt received £81,821.50 in rate relief and £39,500.14 in Covid aid. Both fall under Melton Borough Council, which has provided a total of £191,568.58 to the two hunts. They also benefit indirectly through the Melton Hunt Club, an organisation that raises funds for meets in the Melton Mowbray area involving the Belvoir, Quorn and Cottesmore hunts. Between 2006 and 2022, the club received £121,101.61 in farming subsidies.
In some cases, the value of relief and subsidies amounts to a notable portion of a hunts’ annual accounts. That means they are as reliant on government handouts for survival as they are on their subscribers and fundraising events.
Hunting’s Illegality Problem
In some cases, financial benefits have come even as the hunt itself has had members convicted for illegal hunting. The Quorn Hunt, as one of the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer and government support, has had members face numerous charges and convictions. Huntsman John ‘Ollie’ Finnegan and whipper-in Rhys Matcham were charged with illegal hunting but prosecutors dropped both their cases during the trial in August 2021. Nonetheless, Finnegan was convicted in December 2022 for a different incident. Records show the Quorn Hunt was receiving payments and rate relief until at least 2022.
Meanwhile, two terriermen for the Kimblewick Hunt were convicted in November 2019 for dropping a bagged fox for the hounds to hunt. Despite this, Buckinghamshire Council gave the hunt over £8000 in rate relief the following year and records from 2025 show it is still in receipt of this relief. Magistrates convicted three members of the Crawley and Horsham Hunt in 2012 while it was still claiming EU farming subsidies into 2013. South Shropshire master-huntsman Daniel Cherriman plead guilty to illegal hunting in 2022, whilst documents from Shropshire County Council showed the hunt still receiving business rate relief in 2023. Three terriermen for the hunt were then filmed interfering with a badger sett during a hunt meet in January 2024, with David Conde pleading guilty to the crime, and the other two still awaiting a trial at the time of publishing.
In total, 75 different hunts are represented across the two spreadsheets. Many continue today, whilst some have since amalgamated or folded altogether. It’s no surprise then that, even where courts haven’t convicted members of these hunts, evidence from activists has shown many are still involved in illegal hunting. Furthermore, there is evidence that many other hunts also receive and have received these benefits. Grantham Against Bloodsports said:
“We encourage others to submit Freedom of Information requests to their own local councils to uncover the extent of public subsidies to hunting groups in their areas.”
Criminality is so widespread throughout the hunting industry that police around the country are starting to take the problem seriously. In 2023, Matt Longman, the National Police Chiefs Lead on Fox Hunting Crime, described illegal hunting as “prolific”. We are supporting this prolific criminal activity.
Cut the Financial Cord
All of the nearly £2.5m is our money. It is raised from taxes paid by people in the UK and abroad, intended for organisations and businesses that are contributing to society and the environment. This is an image hunts like to project, of course, but evidence over the past two decades has proven otherwise. Illegal hunting is endemic throughout an industry that appears to rely, in part, on taxpayer money to function. We are funding their ability to terrorise and murder wildlife.
Speaking of farming subsidies, Grantham Against Bloodsports said to Protect the Wild:
“Going forward, we firmly believe that no financial support should be provided to any hunt or landowner found guilty of illegal activity on subsidised land.”
This should extend to business relief as well, given that the benefit is primarily given for the kennels or stables, both of which are foundations for hunts to continue operating.
The government is set to launch a consultation on the hunting ban in the near future. It’s essential that anti-hunting legislation is holistic, that it doesn’t claim hunting is bad on the one hand whilst financially condoning it on the other.