Standing Committee C
Wednesday 21 January 1998
[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]
10.30 am
Clause 1
Offences
Amendment Proposed [14 January]: No. 19, in page 1, line 5, to leave out the word "hunt" and insert the word "kill". [Mr. Bennett.]
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following amendments:
No. 21, in page 1, line 9, after "protection", insert
", for the purposes of killing a wild mammal,".
No. 23, in page 1, line 12, leave out "hunt" and insert "kill".
No. 25, in page 1, line 15, leave out "hunt" and insert "kill".
No. 27, in page 1, line 18, leave out "hunting" and insert
"killing any wild mammal".
Since 14 January, other amendments have been tabled, and it will be convenient also to debate the following: No. 41 in page 1, line 5, leave out "hunt" and insert "injure".
No. 172, in Clause 5, page 3, line 24, leave out from "to" to "any" in line 25 and insert "bait".
No. 173, in Clause 5, page 3, line 24, after "to", insert
"use, cause or permit a dog to".
No. 174, in Clause 5, page 3, line 26, leave out
"or death is caused by a"
and insert
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. The sitting motion that I tabled earlier this week has not been selected. That is a pity, to say the very least. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) and other supporters of the Bill expressed the hope that the Bill would be dealt with expeditiously without the use of delaying tactics or filibuster. I acquit the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), who is not in his place, of taking anyone by surprise, as he said on Second Reading that he would table many amendments. What his motives are I cannot say, but he has done so. This morning's amendment paper contains around 150 new amendments, although we have reached our third sitting and are yet to leave the first line of the substantive part of the Bill.
Debating our original sittings motion before Christmas, several Members made it clear that they deprecated any use of parliamentary tactics or filibuster. The hon. Member for Worcester said:
"The Committee should not indulge in deliberate delaying tactics doing so would be wholly wrong. The British public and many hon. Members do not necessarily understand some of the House's more arcane practices." [Official Report, Standing Committee C, 17 December 1997; c. 4.]
I can assure the Committee that the hon. gentleman is learning fast.
The hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) also not here this morning said:
"If there are concerns about the legislation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester said I doubt that there are, because I know the trouble that he took to find expert advice before drafting the legislation" [Official Report, Standing Committee C, 17 December 1997; c. 6.]
The Chairman: Order. I am reluctant to intervene on the hon. and learned Gentleman. As I have not selected his motion, it is fair to give him an opportunity on a point of order to make his point. However, he is in danger of engaging in the debate that would have taken place had I selected his motion. I ask him to make his case as succinctly as possible.
Mr. Garnier: I hope that you will give me a little indulgence, Mr. O'Hara. We are talking about an extension of the criminal law. The Bill would have the power to send people to prison or fine them heavily. If we are to criminalise hundreds of thousands of innocent British citizens, the Committee must address itself to the promises that Members gave. I do not impugn anyone's motives, but the consequences of the Committee's current conduct will be to bring the Committee into disrepute.
Mr. Ivor Caplin (Hove): Absolute rubbish.
Mr. Garnier: Sedentary interventions of that calibre merely amplify my point.
Mr. Caplin: Could I intervene?
The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman cannot intervene on a point of order.
Mr. Garnier: I will do my best to ignore the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin). There are a number of other citations from Hansard of 17 December, to which I will not refer because of your strictures, Mr. O'Hara. The general point that they all made was that filibustering and delaying tactics were to be deprecated.
The Bill extends the criminal law. It makes criminals of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. If the Committee is to recover the respect of the general public that it ought to have, I suggest either that it be brought into order by curtailment and making more economic use of time, or that it agree to my sittings motion.
Members of the Committee clearly want to talk a great deal about the Bill. We are still on line 1 of clause 1. If the hon. Member for Worcester is sincere in his desire to get the Bill on to the statute book, he will either bring his right hon. and hon. Friends into order, or he will agree to my sittings motion that we sit on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish clearly does not think that we have enough time. I find it extremely surprising that the hon. Member for[Mr. Garnier]
Worcester who is conducting the Committee thinks that we have enough time. I urge you, Mr. O'Hara, to reconsider your decision not to select my sittings motion.
The Chairman: Chairmen are guided by precedent. We have examined the record and the precedent for the moving of a procedural motion in Committee by someone other than the sponsor of the Bill is most unusual. In the past 30 years, that has happened on only three occasions and those were in the most exceptional circumstances.
In my judgment, we are not in the most exceptional circumstances. Therefore, I see no justification for departing from that strong precedent. The hon. and learned Gentleman points out that we are debating changes in criminal law, about which we should proceed with the utmost caution. If we are to proceed with the utmost caution, we should give full and frank opportunity for such matters to be considered. However, precedent guides me. Precedent for my acceptance of a procedural motion that is not tabled by the sponsor of the Bill is extremely rare. I do not find the exceptional circumstances that would justify my selecting the amendment. However, I gave the hon. and learned Gentleman the opportunity to make his case, which he did with a little correction succinctly.
Mr. Garnier: I am most grateful for that explanation. Will you clarify a matter for me, Mr. O'Hara? I think that you said that it was unusual. Is it unheard of?
The Chairman: I said extremely rare. Three times in 30 years is extremely rare.
Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald): Further to that point of order, Mr. O'Hara. The word filibuster has been used. There is such a thing as a careful and thorough examination of the Bill, and there is something else called a filibuster. We look to the Chair to keep us in order, not, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) suggested, to the sponsor of the Bill. Is it your view, Mr. O'Hara, that what we have had so far is a thorough examination of the Bill?
The Chairman: So far, those parts of the Bill that have been examined have been examined extremely thoroughly.
Mr. Michael J. Foster (Worcester): On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. I would like to draw the Committee's attention to an incident that took place yesterday afternoon and that is central to the purpose of the Committee. It took place in Kent, between Paddock wood and Tonbridge, on the Eurostar rail
The Chairman: Order. Events that took place in Kent are not the business of the Committee and are, therefore, not the subject of points of order.
Mr. Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole): Good morning, Mr. O'Hara. I note that we have already had the better part of 10 minutes spent, an ungenerous fellow might say, filibustering. At the end of the previous sitting, we were having a good debate on amendments tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish. I hope that today will be similar and that we will examine the Bill carefully.
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough said in his point of order that the Bill was designed to turn hundreds of thousands of innocent people into criminals. Of course, that is not its intention it will not be applied retrospectively. If the Bill is enacted, anyone who chooses to break the law will, ipso facto, not be innocent because they will have chosen to break the law. The hon. and learned Gentleman presented something of a false argument, but I say this in a spirit of conciliation that proves the need for careful deliberation. When the Bill reaches the Report stage we should be confident that we have produced a robust, fair and good piece of legislation that fulfils the requirements laid down on Second Reading and the wishes of the British public, who strongly support it.
At our previous sitting, we began to discuss the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish. He said that the amendment was intended to change the offence from that of intentionally hunting a wild mammal with dogs to that of killing a wild mammal. Members on both sides of the Committee agreed that our debate about the amendment went to the heart of the Bill. How far should the Bill go and what should it reasonably cover? My hon. Friend, who is not currently in the Committee, presented several arguments and showed that the amendment would bring the Bill more in line with the public's wishes. The public are concerned about the unnecessary savaging to death of a fox, a hare or any other wild mammal. However, the amendment seems to imply that the public are therefore not concerned with other aspects of hunting, namely its random nature, the chase, the inconvenience that is caused to others and the stress that is caused to the mammal being hunted.
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