| Hunting Bill
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Alun Michael: I should be grateful if I could persuade the hon. Gentleman to be precise in his use of two words, because I think that he is confusing himself. One is ''suffering''—different degrees of suffering might be involved in different circumstances—and the other is ''cruelty''. As was pointed out in our first sitting, cruelty means unnecessary or avoidable suffering. Early in his remarks, the hon. Gentleman read a definition close to that to define his use of the term but he is now switching between the terms, sometimes using ''cruelty'' when he means ''suffering'' and vice versa. It would be helpful for all Committee members if we could be precise in our use of the two words. Column Number: 58 Mr. Gray: The Minister makes a very good point and I am grateful to him. He makes my argument for me, because I argue that the Bill should refer to unnecessary suffering, which is the definition of cruelty. That the two elements, utility and cruelty, should be brought together in one clause is the very nature of amendment No. 100. Unfortunately, the Bill currently separates utility from what I think should be described as cruelty. We must work out a hierarchy of cruelty—instances of inflicting unnecessary suffering, if there is such a thing—so that each can separately be compared with utility. If the Minister accepts amendment No. 100, I will entirely agree with him that the word there should be not cruelty, but suffering. The question then to be decided is whether that suffering is necessary or not. That is precisely what we are trying to achieve through amendment No. 100. Let me adduce in support Lord Burns, whose report is widely accepted by Committee members, although some of us interpret it in different ways. On the subject of suffering, or cruelty, it might be helpful to cite some of that report. He consistently refuses to categorise hunting with hounds as ''cruel''. He says:
He continues:
In the case of fox hunting, he goes on to say:
Later on he says:
In other words, in Lord Burns's report—he went on to expand on the matter during debate in the House of Lords—he accepts that there should be a comparative hierarchy of suffering for each of the methods of controlling foxes. That applies equally to other mammals, and I hope that some of my hon. Friends may expand on the arguments regarding stag, rats or rabbits later. If the Bill were allowed to become law, it might ban one of the things that Lord Burns says specifically is less cruel than other activities that remain legal. Snaring and shooting remain perfectly legal. If the Bill became law and the tests of cruelty and utility were not amended, the net and bizarre effect would be that one method of killing pests would be banned and another, which is less cruel by Lord Burns's definition, would be left. It is terribly important that we do not leave the matter for the registrar and the tribunal to decide. How can a registrar sitting in Whitehall decide whether the use of an airgun by night is more or less cruel than the use of hounds to kill a fox? Why should that be his job? It should be our job: we are legislators. The Secretary of State is the person who sets down such matters. It should be our job to explain to the registrar, the tribunal and the nation our view of how mammals should be killed. Column Number: 59 One thing is for sure: we are not talking about killing fewer foxes. Everyone accepts that we are talking about killing at least the same number. If the experience in Scotland and thinly hunted areas of England is anything to go by, the abolition of hunting with hounds results in more foxes being killed. During the foot and mouth outbreak, a farmer in my constituency who farms about 2,000 acres, told me that he went lamping on two nights, with a number of guns, without leaving his own land. I often use the story as a dinner party game, which I tried out recently on a friend of mine. I asked him how many foxes he thought the farmer killed in the course of those two nights. Most people would say six, 10 or 14. The actual number was 126. The farmer said that he obliterated the fox population, wiped them out and that they will not come back for years in a large area of the countryside. That is what happens when one does away with hunting with hounds and replaces it with shooting. Mr. Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is the solution to the problem of foxes being pests? [Interruption.] Mr. Gray: I am sorry, but the Under-Secretary was chatting away on the Front Bench and I missed the hon. Gentleman's intervention. Mr. Pickthall: I was trying to suggest that the hon. Gentleman has just advanced a powerful argument to show that fox hunting with hounds is totally unnecessary for pest control. Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman would be right if he wanted to see the removal of foxes from the whole of England. If he wants to see farmers blast them in the way that my friend in my constituency did—[Interruption.] I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) in a minute and we will come back to Scotland. If the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) wants what is currently happening in Scotland to happen in England, where farmers are obliterating foxes from the landscape, doing away with hunting with hounds is a good way. Now, we shall hear from the hon. Member for Dumfries. It is quite interesting to know that the Scottish Parliament discussed the abolition of hunting in Scotland, and we who represent English constituencies had no say in that matter. Were I to turn up in Holyrood and say, ''Hello, I'm from north Wiltshire. I've come to discuss foxhunting in Scotland,'' my goodness, there would be an outcry, yet the hon. Member for Dumfries has chosen to come to England and pontificate on the subject of foxhunting in England. I shall not give way to him often, but let us hear just once what he has to say. Mr. Russell Brown (Dumfries): I am deeply grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Whether he likes it or not, I am an elected Member of the House of Commons. He does not wish any of my colleagues from Scotland or me to take part in the debate. We are elected Members, but he would rather the Bill went from this place to the other place where not one individual is elected. There is something fundamentally wrong with his position. My point follows on from the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire. When my Column Number: 60 hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) presented his private Member's Bill in 1997, the argument was about foxes and pest control. During the past five years, it has been clearly proven that that argument was flawed. It was a matter not of pest control but something else, and I am not totally convinced as to what that was.My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire is right: even the hon. Gentleman's example shows that shooting foxes is a far better way to control them than hunting ever has been or ever will be. Mr. Gray: That was a most revealing intervention from the hon. Gentleman from Scotland. He is indeed a Member of the House and is, of course, entitled under the constitution to speak. None the less, the matter affects England and Wales only. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and to his neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan), who go out of their way neither to speak nor to vote on matters that affect England. Mr. Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Gray: No, I will not. The position that they have taken is an extremely honourable one. For a Scot to come here and pontificate on hunting in England and Wales, albeit he is perfectly entitled to do so, seems extraordinarily dishonourable. Peter Bradley (The Wrekin): The hon. Gentleman is a Scot. Mr. Gray: The Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley), says from a sedentary position that I am a Scot. He is right—I am a Scot, which is why I do not mind at all talking about Scotland. However, I represent an English constituency in which hunting is centred—there are seven or eight hunts in and around my constituency. Therefore, I am perfectly content to speak about foxhunting in England, despite the fact that I was born in Glasgow, am proud of it and know as much about Scotland as the hon. Gentleman does. However, I would not go to Edinburgh or Linlithgow to intervene in the debate on hunting in Scotland, whereas the hon. Member for Dumfries does it here. Mr. Gummer: I remind my hon. Friend of a more important point, which is the anger of people whose livelihoods and futures are being affected by people over whose livelihoods and ways of life they have no say. The hon. Member for Dumfries is doing significant harm to the relationship between English and Scots people, and that is why he should shut up. Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point—he is right—but we should not continue this constitutional discussion, which is beyond the scope of the Committee. The hon. Member for Dumfries made an interesting and straightforward point. He said that the example that I gave and the experience in Scotland show that the use of guns and the obliteration of foxes is a much more effective and sensible means of pest control than is hunting with hounds. However, he is entirely wrong. A study published about a year ago by the Game Conservancy Trust examined the situation in Norfolk, Column Number: 61 Leicestershire and the uplands of Wales. It was discovered that in Norfolk there is almost no foxhunting—but there are no foxes either, because gamekeepers were obliterating them. In the uplands of Wales, where foxhunting is more difficult, farmers are concerned about the state of the fox population. In Leicestershire, which is a successful and important centre of foxhunting in England, the population of foxes is reasonably large and extremely healthy. In other words, foxhunting has a role to play in the preservation of biodiversity and the species.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2003 | Prepared 9 January 2003 |
