Standing Committee C
Wednesday 25 February 1998
(Morning)
[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]
10.30 am
The Chairman: Before the Committee begins to consider new clauses, several points of procedure require clarification. First, the Committee will know that new clauses 3 and 9 have already been debated. I shall call them formally, but without debate. Secondly, there is a small mistake in the selection list. New clause 15 is included, but that is a mistake as it has not been selected. A revised list is available in the Room, which supersedes the one that was available last night and contains the correct selection. Finally, there is one small amendment to the grouping on the selection list. New clauses 21 and 17 are grouped together and new clause 8 will now be included with that group.
New Clause 3
Prohibition of hunting, &c.
`.--(1) A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog.
(2) An owner or occupier of land commits an offence if he permits another person to enter or use that land to hunt in contravention of subsection (1).
(3) The owner or keeper of a dog commits an offence if he permits another person to use the dog to hunt in contravention of subsection (1).
(4) It is an offence to own or keep two or more dogs for the purposes of their being used to hunt in contravention of subsection (1).
(5) In this Act a reference to hunting a wild mammal includes a reference to searching for or coursing a wild mammal.'.--[Mr. Michael J. Foster.]
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New clause 9
Forfeiture: supplementary
`.--(1) This section applies where an order has been made under section 4(1)(a) for forfeiture of an article.
(2) The order shall deprive the person convicted of his rights, if any, in the article; and the article shall be taken into, or remain in, the possession of the police.
(3) If a person, other than the person convicted, applies to the court which made the order, or to a magistrates' court in the same petty sessional area, the court may order the article to be delivered to that person if he appears to the court to be its owner.
(4) The court shall not make an order under subsection (3) unless it is satisfied that the applicant--
(a) had not consented to the person convicted having possession of the article, or
(b) did not know, and had no reason to suspect, that the article was likely to be used for the purpose of hunting in contravention of section (Prohibition of hunting, &c.)(1).
(5) No application shall be made under subsection (3) after the expiry of the period of six months starting with the date on which the order was made.
(6) An order under subsection (3) shall not affect the right of any person to take proceedings for the recovery of the article within the period of six months starting with the date on which the order under section 4(1)(a) was made; but that right shall cease on the expiry of that period.
(7) If, on the expiry of the period of six months starting with the date of the order, the article has not been ordered to be delivered up in accordance with subsection (3) or (6), it shall be destroyed as soon as possible.'.--[Mr. Michael J. Foster.]
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Mr. Michael J. Foster (Worcester): On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. Last week, I said that I did not intend to mention pigs because my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Mr. Cawsey) was not present. I should like you to rule, Mr. O'Hara, on whether you interpret that as I do so--that no mention was made of pigs not because of the hon. Member concerned, but because his constituency is, as we have been told numerous times, the pig capital of Britain.
The Chairman: I am not sure whether that is a point of order, but am happy to confirm that I have at no point confused the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole with a pig.
Mr. Foster: Thank you, Mr. O'Hara. That has saved my neck, I hope.
New Clause 10
Rabbits and Rodents
`Exceptions from the prohibition of hunting
. A person does not commit an offence under section (Prohibition of hunting, &c.)(1) if he hunts rabbits or rodents--
(a) on land which he owns or occupies, or
(b) partly on land which he owns or occupies and partly on neighbouring land, or
(c) at the request of the owner or occupier of the land where the hunting takes place.'.--[Mr. Michael J. Foster.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Foster: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 10 replaces old clause 5(2)(a). As previously mentioned, it makes an exemption to the offence of hunting, allowing the owner or occupier of land to hunt rabbits or rodents. It also caters for the situation in which a dog follows a rodent or rabbit on to neighbouring land. New clause 10(1)(c) is intended to allow an owner to call someone in to help dispose of rabbits or rodents.
The new clause is further proof that people will be safe to walk their dogs. They will not be prosecuted if their dog chases a squirrel, rabbit or vole. That point was raised on Second Reading. I hope that the new clause puts paid to that bogus interpretation of the Bill.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): I hope that the lack of artificial light in the Room will present no problems to Members who intend to speak. I shall endeavour to tease from the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) information on one or two points. The new clause expressly contradicts a principle outlined over the many weeks that we have spent discussing the Bill. Many of the Bill's supporters seem to have lost sight of its philosophical roots; indeed, some of them may never have known what they were.
We should reconsider a document published by the hon. Member for Worcester before the Bill was produced in July 1997. He issued a press release with the assistance of the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals, which set out three principles that he thought should be followed. New clause 10 directly contradicts them.
The hon. Gentleman said that the Bill's purpose was to enhance the protection of wild animals from cruelty by outlawing ``sports''--the inverted commas are his--that involved hunting with dogs in the United Kingdom. The second principle was that the sponsors and supporters of the Bill believed that hunting and killing of wild animals by dogs inflicts unnecessary suffering. Thirdly, he said that the Bill's supporters accepted that the populations of some wild mammals must be controlled, but believed that there are always more selective and humane solutions than setting dogs on wild animals for the purposes of pleasure. I can see the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) nodding his agreement with all that.
Each of those principles is relevant to new clause 10. Each betrays the sloppy thinking of the sponsors of the Bill, of which there has been much evidence during the past eight weeks or so. Wild mammals include not only the foxes, deer and hare to which the hon. Member for Worcester has referred over the past six months, but rabbits, rats and rodents. The Bill purports to protect wild mammals and should therefore protect all wild mammals. If it does not do so, it should say so.
The Bill excludes a class of wild mammals and would be more accurately titled, ``Certain Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill''. It would be more tellingly titled, ``Cuddly Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill''. The Bill splits off animals, such as rats, which are sentimentally unappealing or whose welfare has no political value among the financial backers of the campaign of the hon. Member for Worcester to protect hunted animals. Should we call it the campaign to protect cuddly hunted animals? There was evidence of that when the hon. Gentleman emerged from St. Stephen's entrance after Second Reading carrying aloft a cuddly toy. The world at large was able to see that a cuddly fox was uppermost in his thoughts--[Interruption.]
The Chairman: Order. The hon. and learned Member is making some serious points and the Committee should give him a hearing.
Mr. Garnier: Not many pieces of legislation contradict their own central doctrine, but this Bill does precisely that, as is demonstrated by the new clause. It permits the hunting of rabbits and rats with dogs. Whatever happened to the published principle that hunting with dogs causes unnecessary suffering?
The sponsors and supporters of the Bill believe that the hunting and killing of wild animals by dogs inflicts unnecessary suffering. The hon. Member for Worcester said that on the record last July, last November and doubtless on numerous other occasions, both between those dates and subsequently. He has been clear about that. But a wild rabbit is an animal and if the hon. Gentleman has a formula by which he can exclude rabbits from the category of wild animals, he must explain it to the Committee. I am sure that his hon. Friends will listen to him with increasingly attentive rapture.
The hon. Gentleman must resolve that problem because it is indisputable that rabbits live as wild animals in the countryside. Logically, I am entitled to test the hon. Gentleman's stated principle by substituting the word ``rabbit'', so that the new clause reads, ``The sponsors and supporters of the Bill believe that the hunting and killing of wild rabbits by dogs inflicts unnecessary suffering.'' Either they do or they do not. What explanation will the hon. and his supporters give to a bunch of animal rights demonstrators who object to the hunting of rabbits with dogs? How will they justify the hunting of rabbits for the purpose of pest control while outlawing, with heavy penalties, the hunting of hares even in East Anglia, where hares are so prolific as to be considered by some as an agricultural pest? The British mainland hare population is in the region of 800,000 to 1 million--I see the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) nodding in agreement.
|
