Hunting Bill [back to previous text]

Lembit Öpik: I understand, but the hon. Gentleman and I have differing views on the matter. Faced with legislation that contained these proposals in their present form or no principles at all, I would still choose the flawed construction of the Bill. However, I reserve my judgment. The clause is better than having no principles, but it is unfairly limiting. In addition, as the Middle Way Group does not want to play politics, I would be sending a confusing signal by voting against clause 8. Another reason is that the group has said that it wants us to debate principles rather than points of detail. It does not feel right to vote against the clause at this stage. To those who say that the Middle Way Group has lurched towards the pro-hunt lobby, I remind the Column Number: 8 Committee that we have been fairly consistent in our opposition—on clause stand part and more generally. The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire and I believe that there has been some movement from the pro-hunt lobby. There has not been so much movement from the pro-ban lobby and I counsel them to be careful. The irony is that if they persist in trying to ban a process, rather than to improve animal welfare, they will make animal welfare worse. Despite the strong language of the hon. Member for West Ham, who sadly is not here at the moment, I do not believe that a total ban could be enforceable. As hon. Members think about this and further amendments, I ask them to lay aside the momentum behind their fixed position and be willing at least to entertain the possibility that some of the positions put forward by the Middle Way Group would benefit everyone. We have put our money where our mouth is. We are conducting research to try to get to the heart of the matter. In the last few sittings, we have welcomed amendments that we had not thought of that were tabled by hon. Members who are ostensibly on the other side. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is a good example. If we do that, we can make progress and improve the clause, even if we have to do so on Report. Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): I rise to speak on clause stand part because clause 8 is the centre of the Bill. I know that the Minister feels that there is a degree of antagonism between us. I wish to get rid of that. I want to explain why I have moved in my views and why I feel that he has not done what he could have done in trying to frame this clause. Whereas I was antagonistic towards the idea of yet more regulation and control, I realise that if we are to have a consensual result we have to move to the position where we can set out a fair way to ensure that those things that people who dislike hunting believe happen, do not happen. The difficulty is that once we move from the position of doing nothing about it to banning it we need firm ground on which to stand. My problem with the clause is that the Minister has not staked out any firm ground. He did not answer my criticisms about whether he had a moral or philosophical basis for the clause. He did not answer the two key issues. To have a philosophical or moral base, the clause has to be applicable in all circumstances that are parallel. Otherwise, it is partial and particular. Secondly, it needs to have at least some support from those who have spent their lives looking at things from a moral, philosophical or theological point of view and it does not have that either. The difficulty is therefore that not only does the clause have no strength upon which to depend, but because the Minister has presented his two tests in this way, he gives strength to others to apply them in other areas. I have used a number of examples because those do not concern only man's treatment of animals. They are also about man's treatment of humans and of babies. It is extremely embarrassing for those who take the view that they take on this subject if those tests are applied in such delicate areas as abortion. Column Number: 9 The Minister failed to prove to the Committee that he has a philosophical or moral base. The second base he could have would be a rational one. He could say that he did not expect this to be taken outside this context, but given the mess that we are in this is a reasonable, rational basis on which to proceed. It is not rational to decide that a registrar is needed to deal with foxhunting, but to decide in advance that one can take an absolutist position on stag hunting or hare coursing. Not only do I think that it is not rational, it is not rational, because the Minister has so far failed to show us the golden thread that links his thoughts to one, but not the other. He has not shown us why one should be subject to clause 8 and the other should not, he has only given us his personal view why that should be so. Mr. Garnier: Will my right hon. Friend give way? Mr. Gummer: I will do so in one moment. That fact is disappointing, especially in the circumstances to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire rightly drew attention. The Minister has a past, which in this particularity I share with him: he has been through the mill on this Bill, or a similar one, before. On the previous occasion, he gave it as his indisputable and actual belief that there should be no hunting of any kind. He has changed his mind, as he has every right to do, but he must therefore explain why he has changed his mind in one particular, and yet in precisely the parallel case he has not. The Minister has failed to take us seriously enough to make that distinction. Mr. Garnier: My right hon. Friend accurately suggested that the position taken in the clause was not rational and neither was the Minister's espousal of it. Much that we do in politics is not rational. The way in which our constitution has evolved is not necessarily rational either, but at all stages it is reasonable. That is why it achieves public and popular acceptance. However, the proposal is neither rational nor reasonable and I urge my right hon. Friend to continue to criticise the Bill in his usual trenchant way. Mr. Gummer: I will not follow my hon. and learned Friend on the distinction between rational and reasonable as I was going to use a word other than reasonable in order not to confuse them. I was going to use the word ''practical''. I was going to say that sometimes what seems to be the rational way forward must be mitigated by practicality, which is the third ground on which the clause could have been based. I am concerned about a rationality that makes subjective distinctions between different species. It is hard to accept a proposal that makes the rabbit a wholly different being from the hare, especially as one of the first Bills to propose banning hunting was produced by someone who, when asked on television to choose between a rabbit and a hare was unable to distinguish between them. Dogs or hounds do not distinguish easily between various types of running game, but rabbits are not unlike hares for all sorts of reasons, not least that rabbits can be a pest and so can hares, as I know from painful experience, as they have done significant damage to some trees that I planted. Column Number: 10 There is a difficulty in the rationality of the distinction between the different mammals and the way they are to be treated. Therefore, the third ground concerns the matter of practicality. I do not want the Minister to accuse me of suggesting that we should not do things because I am threatening him with great law breaking. But I want to tell him about the practical problems that will result from the clause. He is suggesting that quite complicated decisions will be made, and a great deal of work done, by the law enforcement service. I mentioned to the Minister earlier—he felt that I had done so incorrectly, so I shall now say it differently—that in practical terms, severe damage will be done by this irrational, not very philosophic and certainly not moral clause. 6.30 pm Someone who lives in a country area such as mine has grown used to expecting that the police might be unable to come to their aid, even if there is a severe reason. I have two recent cases to illustrate that. In one, last August, someone was hit over the head on his doorstep. He did not manage to get a policeman that night, or until he went down to the local police station with a bandaged head at 12 o'clock the next day. He had been promised a policeman but was then told that that was impossible because there were not enough policemen or police cars. In the second case, someone drove illegally across four counties even though the police had been notified. When the policeman arrived to take evidence on the taking of the car, he commented, ''You're No. 8 on my clipboard.'' That was although the man was driving under the influence of drugs across that county and neighbouring ones. It is not easy for people in the countryside to expect such law enforcers to take greater responsibilities on to their shoulders, unless they can see that the argument for that is rational and practical. That is why clause 8 is so difficult for me to sell to my constituents, as I would wish to if it were a consensual clause. They will say that it does not stand up practically and sensibly and will mean that the people who will try to enforce it will do so at the cost of not enforcing laws that are, for us, more rational, practical and sensible. That is why the practicality test is so important. It is not practical to ask people to make the distinctions that they are here supposed to make; nor is there any practical reason for making those distinctions. I cannot see practicality in saying that the registrar can deal with foxes but not with stags. I cannot see practicality in saying that he can deal in certain cases with some kinds of mammals but not with others. I cannot see practicality in the fact that although I can set dogs on rabbits, if the rabbits disappear and are replaced by a hare, I should be stopped by the police. That is not practical, rational or moral, and should not be here.

©Parliamentary copyright 2003	Prepared 21 January 2003