‘Small section of urban Britain imposing views on rural areas’

He was speaking during a debate earlier this week, triggered by an e-petition which had received 104,000 signatures calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting.

The petition stated grouse shooting was “economically insignificant when contrasted with other real and potential uses of the UK’s extensive uplands”.

Labour Sheffield Hallam MP Olivia Blake said some 635 of her constituents had signed the petition, the highest number of signatories for any constituency in the country.

She said the strong response stemmed from a profound concern about “management practices that affect our community, where we have several grouse moors that are managed”.

Ms Blake said: “Grouse shooting has a profound environmental and ecological significance.

"It is a pastime rooted in privilege and exclusion, which inflicts immense harms on our uplands, our wildlife and our communities.

"It is hard to imagine that it has any place in a modern, fair and environmentally responsible Britain.

"I saw on one website that £7,000 a day is how much some estates charge for this excursion.”

However, Mr Sunak said banning grouse shooting would leave many families, the landscape and wildlife poorer.

He said: “Advocates of a ban often think that the only people who will suffer are rich men in plus fours with port-faced complexions, but as I said back in 2016, nothing could be further from the truth.

"The real victims of any ban would not be caricatures, but ordinary working people: the farmer’s wife who goes beating at the weekend so that her family can make ends meet.

"The young man able to earn a living, in the community that he loves, as an apprentice to a gamekeeper; or the local publican welcoming shooting parties with cold ales and warm pies.

"From Heathcliff to Holmes, the moors have become a proud part of our cultural heritage, and no one has set out a viable, privately funded alternative vision for those uplands.”

Thirsk and Malton MP Kevin Hollinrake, whose father farmed sheep, said the 400 of his constiuents who signed the petition had been “misled” and questioned what grouse moors could be used for instead.

He said: “The only ones I could find to replace the industry of grouse shooting were perhaps wind farms, forestation or sheep farming."

The former Business Minister said many people were indirectly employed by grouse shooting, and mentioned the Michelin-starred Starr Inn at Harome, and the Talbot at Malton, which chef James Martin helped establish.

Shadow Farming Minister and Keighley MP Robbie Moore said no burning to manage grouse moors would mean a build-up of vegetation and woody stock, “a negative influence on the sustainability of heather for bird species of all kinds”, and heather much more prone to catching fire.

The debate, which was described as “one-sided”, concluded with Defra Minister Daniel Zeichner MP emphasising the government had no plans to ban driven grouse shooting.