Standing Committee C
Wednesday 25 February 1998
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]
4.30 pm
Mr. Michael J. Foster (Worcester): On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. We made relatively slow progress this morning, so I intend to move a new sittings motion later this evening.
New clause 21
Stalking, and flushing from cover
`._(1) A person does not commit an offence under section (Prohibition of hunting, &c.)(1) if he uses a dog to stalk a wild mammal, or to flush it from cover, for the purpose_
(a) of obtaining food for human consumption, or
(b) of controlling the number of a particular species in a particular area, in order to safeguard the welfare of that species in that area, or
(c) of protecting sheep or other livestock, fowl or game birds from attack by wild mammals.
(2) Subsection (1) applies to a person only if he takes reasonable steps to ensure that the wild mammal is shot as soon as possible after it is located or emerges from cover.
(3) In this section "cover" does not include cover below ground level.'._[Mr. Michael J. Foster.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question proposed [this day], That the clause be read a Second time.
Question again proposed.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with
this it will be convenient to take the following:
New clause 17_Terrier work_
`._A person does not commit an offence under section (Prohibition of hunting, &c.)(1) if he uses a terrier for the purposes of digging out and shooting a wild mammal for the necessary management and control of the wild mammal or of wild mammals of that species.'.
New clause 8_Exemption in respect of certain places used by wild mammals_
`A person shall not be guilty of an offence under this Act if he causes or permits a dog to enter any structure or place, whether subterranean or not, used or likely to be used by a wild mammal for shelter or protection.'.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): That is the most useful information that we have had from the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) for some time.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire
(Mr. Paterson) asked earlier about the meaning of the word "species" and the phrase "a wild mammal". "Species" normally means the genus or type of animal, and the phrase "a wild mammal" needs no explanation_
there are, of course, many types of wild mammal, which can be divided into various categories or species.
The new clause would apply to red deer, foxes, sheep and other livestock, which are wild mammals, but not to fowl and game birds, which are not mammals. I presume that humans are mammals_"human consumption" is mentioned in paragraph (a)_but I do not know whether the hon. Member for Worcester has any scientific knowledge about that. Dogs, of course, are mammals. Beyond that, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire can use his own powers of investigation and an English dictionary. I hope that that answers his question about the meaning of those words.
More important is the legal meaning of the words in the new clause. I await with interest the reply of the hon. Member for Worcester to my questions. I hope that he will treat the committee with greater candour than he did earlier, when we discussed new clause 10. Over the past two or three weeks, the hon. Gentleman has produced a radically different Bill, although in November he presented us with what he said was a reasonably perfect Bill. It ill behoves the hon. Gentleman not to respond to our concerns.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), I am deeply concerned about the new clause, which is extraordinarily badly drafted and massively illogical. In fact, I should be rather pleased if the new clause became law, because it would give supporters of fox hunting many worthwhile loopholes by which we could perfectly happily defend our legitimate sport of fox control.
Paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) are the worst-drafted and most illogical paragraphs that I have ever come across. For example, they would allow
"a dog to stalk a wild mammal, or to flush it from cover for the purpose ... of obtaining food for human consumption".
I have reflected briefly on the meaning of that proposal_it would, for example, permit the use of dogs to flush out game birds. Opponents of the Bill are glad to learn that the hon. Member for Worcester wants to prevent the removal of game shooting from the litany of English country life, although I suspect that he and his advisers might try to do so subsequently. None the less, we welcome the preservation of grouse shooting and pheasant shooting in the Bill. That may be reflected in discussions elsewhere in the House on the right to roam consultation paper, in which the Government have specifically excluded grouse moors in Scotland, where the methods have changed since the driven shooting that Sir Alec Douglas-Home, that great Prime Minister of the grouse moors, and others took part in.
Mr. Garnier: I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) is the son of a bishop, so he may know that in the early 19th or late 18th century the Bishop of Durham initiated driven grouse shooting across the moors of Durham in the constituency of, I believe, the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster). I gather that when the bishop became too large to walk, he got the choir of Durham cathedral to drive grouse across the moor so that he could shoot at them as he sat in or near his carriage.
Not only Conservative Prime Ministers but members of the Church of England have engaged in field sports. We have seen the tolerant attitude taken by bishops in a letter in The Daily Telegraph today.
Mr. Gray: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for referring to the letter in The Daily Telegraph today from the six rural bishops who spoke in favour of field sports. However, he was incorrect in referring to my father as a bishop. He would turn in his grave if he heard himself described as such, because he was the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, to whom bishops are anathema. He would not necessarily have approved of my field sports activities because, regrettably, he was not a field sportsman. Paragraph
(a) of new clause 21(1) allows grouse shooting, and we welcome that.
Most deer that are hunted by hounds are eaten and all deer that are hunted by hounds are shot, contrary to the rather cheap publicity that is often put about by supporters of the Bill who describe deer being torn to pieces by hounds_an image of which they are so fond in another context. Deer that are hunted by hounds are shot and eaten and fit very neatly into paragraph (a). If that was not the intention of the hon. Member for Worcester, perhaps he will clarify the matter.
Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough, I hope that when the hon. Gentleman replies he will not repeat his performance on clause 10, when he ignored all the points that were legitimately made by hon. Members, barnstormed through his speech, refused to take any interventions or to respond to legitimate points raised and tried to get it over and done with in the shortest possible time. I am unclear whether he did so because of ignorance, inability to respond to our points, terror that our points would overturn his arguments or for some peculiar parliamentary procedural reason. I hope that on this occasion he will be able to respond to our points with more care.
Paragraph (a) is designed to abolish field sports, yet it provides a number of windows through which they would continue to be permitted.
Paragraph (b) is equally peculiar because it would allow fox hunting to continue in many parts of England. I shall give an example from my own experience because I am proud of the fact that I take part in fox hunting and I am keen to allow that experience, over many years, to be used for the benefit of the Committee's information. Those of us who are interested in such matters know that in the middle of Salisbury plain there is a colony of stone curlews, one of the rarest birds in Britain. The Royal Artillery hunt, of which I am a member, specifically hunts in and around the area surrounding the stone curlews and the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds and others are clear that it is only because foxes are hunted in that area that the stone curlews continue to exist there. Were it not for us hunting there, the foxes would proliferate and the stone curlews' continued existence would be in doubt.
As evidence of that I refer the Committee to the two or three years in the mid 1980s when the Ministry of Defence banned fox hunting over the impact area of Salisbury plain, after which local farmers petitioned the Ministry of Defence to allow fox hunting in that area for the very reason that depredations to their chickens, piglets and lambs in the area surrounding the north of Salisbury plain had become so appalling. So the continuing existence of that colony of stone curlews in the north of Salisbury plain is a specific result of fox hunting in the impact area of Salisbury plain.
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): In another recent case, wonderful wild birds called avocets used to live on the coast in Holland, but when hunting was stopped, sadly the foxes took over and all the avocets were eaten. Now there is only a grim, sterile desert, inhabited by foxes and magpies.
Mr. Gray: That is precisely the likely outcome if fox hunting is abandoned here.
This paragraph would be welcomed by those of us who are concerned about the stone curlews on Salisbury plain, because it would allow us to continue to stalk and flush out foxes using hounds in order to protect stone curlews.
We were talking about poor drafting; the paragraph is badly drafted because it is unclear whether using dogs to flush out mammals would be permitted if it promoted the existence of the mammals themselves or the prey of those mammals. In other words, one can interpret the paragraph to mean that if chickens, lambs and piglets in the area are in danger, fox hunting with hounds should be allowed to continue in order to protect them, although the next subsection dictates that the fox would then be shot rather than killed by hounds. The flaw in paragraph (c) is that the whole purpose of fox hunting is to protect livestock, fowl and game birds from attack by wild mammals. That is what fox hunting is all about: so under the new clause, fox hunting would be allowed to continue. We welcome that because it would allow us to continue the pastime that we believe is a sensible and useful part of rural life. However, it sits uneasily in a Bill, the ostensible purpose of which is to ban fox hunting.
The poor drafting extends to subsection (2), which says that the wild mammal must be,
"shot as soon as possible after it is located or emerges from cover."
I am worried about the lack of education about how the countryside works among those who support the Bill. Anyone who has been to see a hunt flushing game out of cover knows perfectly well that, when game emerges from cover, it does so at speed. It is entirely unclear how hon. Members expect game, hunted by a pack of hounds, to be caught and dispatched with a rifle as soon as possible. That is a massive loophole, which I am happy to bring to the Committee's attention because if by some awfulness the Bill becomes law, I would not want the Bill to be a laughing stock, as it would be if the new clause were accepted.
Equally, subsection (3) states:
"`cover' does not include cover below ground level."
Will it be necessary for those in control of the pack of dogs being used to flush out game to have surveyed the cover in advance to know whether there are runnels, drains or ditches in which the fox or other game may be hiding, or will they have to survey the cover after flushing the mammals out, or will the police have to survey the cover and decide whether it is below ground level?
The new clause shows ignorance of the ways of the countryside and of flushing out game, which the hon. Member for Worcester claims to favour, and is so badly drafted that even hon. Members who support the Bill should argue in favour of it being withdrawn. The new clause would bring the Bill and, once again, our deliberations into disrepute. I hope that the hon. Member for Worcester will answer my serious and valid points more fully than he did when replying to the debate on new clause 10.
| 
