Hunting Bill [back to previous text]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Elliot Morley): I was talking about past measures. The hon. Gentleman has picked up only a fraction of the conversation. Mr. Gray: ''Past measures'' is correct. If one considers what is happening in Scotland, one realises that the measures are rather ineffectual. I will take the Under-Secretary's word for what he said. I have never heard of a Government Bill—the Bill is signed by the Prime Minister—which not one single person spoke in favour of on Second Reading. Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): Apart from the Minister. Mr. Gray: Apart from the Minister. He may be a bit isolated in his enthusiasm. I am glancing down the Benches and rarely have I seen any general going into battle surrounded by so few supporters and friends. Perhaps he may find it helpful that the Conservatives are prepared to work with him in seeking to make a bad and unworkmanlike Bill into a better one. Alun Michael: Has the hon. Gentleman studied the Leader of the Opposition lately? [Interruption.] Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): I wonder why my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire did not refer to the words of the Duke of Wellington—it may have been the Duke of Marlborough, who would also have had something apposite to say on the matter—who said that he did not know what his army would do to the enemy, but by God they frightened him. Is that not the position that the Minister is in? Mr. Gray: That must indeed be the position of the Minister. I would not like to be arguing in favour of such a Bill, surrounded by people who made their total opposition to it known so very publicly on Second Reading. I have never encountered anything of the sort before. It is a brave position for the Minister to be in. Column Number: 007 That brings us on to the proposed reordering of the consideration of the Bill. Logically, we would start with part 1—the offence would be a suitable place to start—and move on to part 2. The Minister has argued that because the principles of cruelty and utility are so central to what is being proposed, it makes sense to start there and to move on to the offence later. The Conservatives have accepted that argument; there is some reason and usefulness in it. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing two things in that context. The first is that, as we made plain, under our consideration of cruelty and utility, we must be allowed to discuss those principles as applied not only to hunting foxes and hares with hounds, but to hunting deer, which technically speaking does not come under that part, and to hare coursing, rabbiting and ratting. It seems to us important, as the scientists in Portcullis house agreed, that all kinds of hunting of mammals with dogs should be considered at the same time and in the same way, and that the principles of utility and cruelty should be applied to all three groups of mammals. The Minister has agreed that, after consideration of the programme motion, we can discuss stag hunting, hare coursing, rabbiting and ratting in a debate on clause 8 starting on Thursday. The Minister has also generously agreed that, irrespective of what happens to clause 8 on Thursday and subsequently—we hope that it will be amended, and it may well be removed for all that I know—we should continue to use the cruelty and utility principles when we come to discuss hare coursing, stag hunting, rabbiting and ratting under part 1. With those assurances, we have agreed to his proposed reordering. We are also grateful to him for agreeing that the first substantial discussion should take place on Thursday. After thinking about the matter over Christmas, I have something on which the Minister might be happy to answer a simple question. Call me Machiavellian or a conspiracy theorist, but let us imagine for one second that those who surround him on his Benches are seeking to remove those parts of the Bill that do anything other than ban hunting with dogs. Certainly, no less an organ than The Guardian suggested over Christmas that that was the case. Let us imagine that the Minister's colleagues want to ban everything else. They just might seek to amend clause 1 to do that, or to have a whole variety of clauses withdrawn. In that case, the Minister would not have the opportunity to discuss his much-loved golden thread of cruelty and utility. I should be happy if the Minister wanted to put me right on this, but one wonders whether the reordering was not simply connected with the pure intellectual aim of dealing first with the central issues, but was tactical because he had heard from one or two of his hon. Friends what they intended to do to the Bill. 4.45 pm Alun Michael: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the reordering is purely because of the intellectual advantage of starting with the principles and then Column Number: 008 moving on to their application, and because Members on both sides have said that they would like to debate the principles that underlie the whole Bill. As I said earlier, those principles appear in clause 8 because that is the point at which it is necessary to make absolutely clear the principles on which the tribunal and registrar will have to take their decisions. Mr. Gray: The Minister's contribution is very useful, not least because—let us just posit the notion—if the later stand part debate were to result in clause 8 being deleted, the reordering would allow us still to consider the rest of the Bill using the principles of utility and cruelty, although his hon. Friends had deleted them. We might have to return to that. Incidentally, I very much hope that the Minister's hon. Friends will not seek to remove those principles from the Bill. They are good principles, and I believe that every aspect of animal cruelty legislation since the Protection of Animals Act 1911 is based on the comparison between cruelty and utility. They are perfectly sensible principles to use, although the particular definition that the Minister happens to have used in the Bill precludes a whole variety of aspects. We shall seek to amend that definition, but the principle of discussing the relative utility and cruelty of the activities is a perfectly good one, and we will happily have that discussion from Thursday. As the Minister correctly commented—I am glad that he saw the press release—our whole approach in Committee will be to seek to work sensibly with the Government to try to create a worthwhile regime out of what we believe to be a fundamentally bad Bill. To that end, we have tabled a new schedule that lays out in two pages a licence that would allow hunting to be regulated properly, but to continue in a sensible format. We hope that that will form a useful and important part of our discussions and that the Minister will not rule it out of court too quickly. We intend to work with the Government sensibly and to use the Committee as an opportunity not for the ranting and raving that has often marked similar debates in this Room in the past, but for sensible, intellectual and carefully argued discussions. We shall seek to persuade the Government, who may be ready to listen to some of what we have to say, so that the Bill returns to the Floor of the House as a better Bill than it is now. As we say in Scotland, I have my doubts, but Conservative Members will nevertheless take advantage of the opportunity to do our best to ensure that it is the case. Andrew George (St. Ives): I welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Roe, and look forward to the forthcoming debates. I shall restrict my remarks to the programme motion rather than commenting on the dilatory motion. This is the first time that I have served on a Committee on any Bill on wild mammals or hunting. I have so far managed to avoid this form of purgatory, and have not yet enjoyed—or rather endured—such an opportunity. Having served on the Programming Sub-Committee, I agree with the Minister's argument that it is important to deal with issues of principle before moving on to matters of practicality. Indeed, to do it the other way round would be perverse. It is a Column Number: 009 reasonable approach and I can see no reason why we should not accept it. I agree with the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, in that I have long argued that this Parliament has already spent far too long on hunting given that there are many more important issues such as the crisis in the middle east and our deep worries about the Palestinians and what is happening in Israel. It is therefore important that the Committee's time is used as efficiently as possible. The hon. Gentleman suggests that we should not inappropriately waste parliamentary time; I take it that he will not unnecessarily repeat any arguments or deliberately prolong the debate to detain hon. Members when we should be discussing other matters. Mr. Gray: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, although I should have thought, Mrs. Roe, that if I were to try anything of the sort, you would be the first to be on your feet to prevent me from doing so. In any case, he should know that as we have agreed an out-date for the Bill of 13 February, it would serve no useful purpose to try to talk it out. Andrew George: I am reassured by the hon. Gentleman's comments. That said, we must bear in mind that there are important issues to be debated throughout the Bill. We should not find ourselves detained for too long on the earlier parts so that we cannot debate later parts. I look forward to the forthcoming debate, because I and many other hon. Members want to raise several points before our consideration of clause 8 on Thursday. Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire): It is a delight to share with you, Mrs. Roe, yet another serving of no doubt completely new debating points on this subject. It is nice to see so many familiar faces. It is even nicer not to see some of the other familiar faces that are likely to be present throughout much of the debate. There is a degree of familiarity about the debate because so many of us have been here before. There has been an interesting and seminal move forward as a result of the Government's approach, which led to the debate of today's programme motion. When I first got involved in the subject five or six years ago, there was a great deal of confrontation and almost a binary situation in terms of intransigence. Because of the three-day hearing that took place last summer we have the opportunity in the debate—using the programme motion moved by the Minister—to address the issue seriously in a logical, practical and objective way. We have not had an opportunity to do that before. Ordering is the key point. The Minister accurately pointed out that we are starting with the principles. It is vital for us to recognise that what has changed in the debate is exactly the same thing that causes us to focus on clause 8. Clause 8 is at the heart of the debate, not just the Bill. That clause is where we have to begin; the principles underpinning whatever we seek to do regarding hunting with dogs and the other related matters. There is no other sensible way forward. We have failed to reach a sensible conclusion so many times in the past because we did not start with the principles. We did not have a clause 8 to debate in Column Number: 010 which we could consider utility and other related matters. As the hon. Member for North Wiltshire rightly pointed out, it is important that we get the principles right before we consider the details. It is very likely that we will take some time on clause 8. That is not because one seeks to filibuster in the Committee. There is no point in that, as we have heard, because the Committee ends on 13 February. Unless we achieve a degree of logical consensus on the principles, there is little chance that we will achieve a logical conclusion to our deliberations. In order to achieve that, we need more than a programme motion. We need a willingness to generously listen to different views. Clearly, there are some strongly defined views in the debate. The programme motion gives us the chance not only to put our own case forward, but to be willing to modify that case, as Members in this Room already have to some extent. That gives us a chance to do something very special; by showing that the Committee stage, when handled in a logical, appropriate and non-prejudicial way, enables us to create good legislation, even though at previous stages it had looked like we were going to end up in the doldrums or in complete gridlock on account of an unwillingness to find common ground. There will be a simple measure of whether the programme motion and our deliberations are proceeding in a positive or negative way. The degree to which people use words such as ''barbaric'', ''redcoats'' and ''indefensible'', instead of words such as ''comparative suffering'', ''evidence'' or ''objective fact'' will give us an indication of the extent to which the debate is a new process. My only slight regret is that it will be necessary for those of us who actively participated in the three-day hearings last summer to ensure that many of the guiding principles established through consensus on all sides are not lost in the debate. I appeal to hon. Members to listen generously to points brought out from those debates, assuming that they have not spent three days watching the video recordings; they may not have got them for Christmas. We are beginning what could be the final run for a debate in the lower House on hunting with dogs. We have the opportunity of doing credit not just to the House and the Committee, but to the subject; by showing that the House of Commons is capable of moving forward on the basis of facts, even when, previously, strong, differently defined and emotional positions made it difficult for us to achieve what I hope we shall achieve now. If we can move forward in that way, the Minister will have been prudent to introduce the Bill and to propose a programme motion that allows us to start with principles and move to the details. If, on the other hand, people insist on taking the positions that they have taken for a long time—even in the face of stronger facts that refute those positions—once again we could waste tens of hours of parliamentary time and achieve little of useful purpose. 5 pm As an optimist, I believe that most Committee members have a genuine interest in the subject and are Column Number: 011 more than capable of understanding the power of reason over emotion.

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