PEOPLE who sell and deal in game will no longer need to hold a licence, the farming minister Jeff Rooker announced at the weekend.

Lord Rooker, who was visiting the CLA Game Fair, said the government had decided to abolish the licences as part of a sweeping reform of the legislation on game licensing and management.

He told a delighted audience: "Many of the laws surrounding game licensing are outdated and irrelevant.

"We don't need laws that were originally intended to stop peasants killing pheasants.

"The countryside has moved on a long way since then, and many people in both urban and rural England and Wales would like to sell or eat game.

"These proposals remove an unnecessary burden from shoots and retailers alike, making it easier for people throughout the country to buy local game.

"These proposals, if implemented, would fulfil the promise we made in the Rural Manifesto to modernise the game and licensing laws and make sure they promote and encourage the game industry instead of tying it in red tape."

A number of organisations, including the British Retail Consortium and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) have been calling for some time for the game laws to be changed.

Andrew Opie, the British Retail Consortium Director of Food Policy, said: "Modern food retailing is extremely sophisticated.

"It achieves the highest standards of quality and hygiene and the requirement for a separate licence simply to sell game is an anachronism from another age.

"Retails suffer thousands of pounds of administrative costs applying for licences and coping with inconsistent local authority enforcement. Scrapping the licence would save that unnecessary expenditure and broaden choice for customers."