Hunting Bill [back to previous text]

Mr. Gray: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) is right and that what he says is greatly to our advantage? The registrar will be deluged with tens of thousands of applications on the first day, and it will take many years for them to go through the courts and the European Courts. We will be hunting for years and years after the Bill becomes law. That is the absurdity of its drafting. Mr. Garnier: It may well be that there is plenty about the Bill that is absurd, but I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West made an amusing but erroneous point. If amendment No. 321 or amendment No. 177 came into force, the registrar would not be able to go home in the evenings because he would be constantly dealing with applications. More importantly, the amendments tabled by Labour Members are cruel and hard hearted, as the proposals would effectively destroy the hunting organisations that would be the main applicants for licences to hunt. If a hunt is entitled to carry out the activity for only three or six months, it will be impossible to maintain a continuous employment set- Column Number: 5 up for hunt staff or an efficient and well-run organisation of the sort that the registrar will want to see when considering a group application. Of course, the hon. Member for Worcester and the Members who support amendment No. 321 do not care about that. They have come on to this earth to ensure that hunting is banned, and they will do anything to ensure that it is. Amendment No. 177, which is a Trojan horse of an amendment, and its junior cousin, amendment No. 321, are nothing but a brazen attempt—a dressing-up of a proposal—to destroy the registrar's ability to carry out his work. They involve futile and silly obfuscation, which I trust the Government will be able to push well to one side. The Government should be in no doubt: a similar proposal will be introduced on Report, and I dare say that there will be similar moves when the Bill comes back from the Lords. For Labour Members, the general thrust is that hunting should be banned. In their view, there can be no compromise on anything resembling a licence to hunt. 2.45 pm Rob Marris: I hope that you will give me some latitude, Mrs. Roe, because, in discussing the amendments, I wish to refer to clause 51, which I mentioned when I intervened on the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier). After a registration application has been lodged and until final determination by the registrar—whether it has been lodged for renewal after three years, as the Bill is drafted, or after three months, as sought by the amendment—hunting can continue under clause 51(3)(b). Therefore, the arguments advanced by Opposition Members—particularly the eloquent arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Harborough—are nonsense. Mr. Gray: I was slightly thrown by the brevity of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, not least because I was looking for amendment No. 45 to clause 51, which I fear may change the interim arrangements. However, I was unable to find it in the short time that the hon. Gentleman was on his feet. In every Committee stage of every Bill, there is one moment that one can look back on as a highlight, and I think that this morning's debate on this group of amendments constituted the highlight for a variety of reasons. I thought that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal was a highlight for its wit and the clever way in which it exposed the reality behind the amendments. The speech of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale was equally a highlight because of the wild impracticality of much of what he said; the notion of rogue foxes, and of going out to catch one fox, reapplying on each occasion and making sure that it was the right fox. No doubt we would have to know what the fox's address was, although whether that information would be revealed to the animal welfare groups is another matter. We will have to examine that. Clearly it was not a practical speech. If the purpose of the Bill is animal welfare and to stop practices that Labour Members believe should be Column Number: 6 stopped, that has been achieved by passing clause 8. The cruelty versus utility test in clause 8 will, as hon. Members have seemed to agree, be sufficient to stop most practices of which they disapprove. In that case, why should registration for those who achieve it—I imagine that remarkably few will do so—not be allowed to stand for as long as its terms are not breached? It is extraordinarily bureaucratic and small-minded to say, ''The Government will put you through a narrow hoop and make you jump over a series of high barriers to become licensed. Not only that, but they will ask you to do it every three months or every six months.'' The amendments achieve nothing from the standpoint of those who are opposed to hunting, and they certainly achieve nothing from the point of view of, say, the gamekeeper who, under one of the amendments, would be required to apply four times a year for a licence to use his dogs in the legitimate pursuit of his occupation. I very much hope that the hon. Gentlemen who tabled the amendments will see the wisdom of their ways and will not press them to a vote. If they do, Opposition Members will certainly oppose them. I have not dealt carefully enough with the Government's two amendments, amendments Nos. 333 and 334, which would insert into the Bill the registrar's ability to limit the amount of time for which he will register the hunt. Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test): Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Gray: I am in the middle of a particularly good argument. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to add to it. Dr. Whitehead: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman considers that he is in the middle of a really good argument. That is progress. My concern, which I mentioned in an earlier intervention, is that as far as I understand it—again, I mention this in a spirit of inquiry—schedule 1 would cover a gamekeeper with a dog pursuing the sort of activities suggested by the hon. Gentleman. What he is talking about is already in the Bill. Therefore, his argument is not quite as good as he thought it was. Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman clearly has not read schedule 1, which exempts a person who is flushing out of cover with one or more dogs, for the purpose of eating the animal; or that may be one of the purposes. That would not cover the gamekeeper who is out with four or five dogs. One can also think of occasions when a shoot would be out using dogs for a rough shoot, putting game up. If a person let four or five dogs on to a fox that happened to get shot by the hunt, he or she would be breaking the law. Therefore, a number of purposes for which a gamekeeper might use several dogs would not come under the exemptions in schedule 1. I hope that that clarifies the point for the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. If the hon. Gentleman believes that all the activities that the gamekeeper can do using dogs are exempt, Opposition Members will be delighted. Dr. Whitehead rose— Column Number: 7 Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman must listen to me before he jumps up again. We will point out when we discuss exempt hunting under schedule 1 why we do not believe that all those activities are exempt and why unfair restrictions would be placed on the legitimate activities of, say, the gamekeeper. If the hon. Gentleman believes that that should be the case and we can demonstrate to him that it is not, we will look forward to him speaking and voting with us on schedule 1 and to him seeking to persuade his right hon. Friend the Minister to listen to what he says. However, that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about how often people should reapply for registration. Dr. Whitehead: Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman must not try to tempt me into a discussion about whether the Bill would allow gamekeepers to carry out their legitimate occupation. That is not what we are discussing here. We are discussing how often a gamekeeper needs to come back and re-register, assuming—I hope that I am wrong—that he needs to register. Perhaps that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. Under at least one of the amendments proposed by Labour Members, that would be every three months, so the gamekeeper would apply four times a year, which would be absurd. More important than any of that little diversion is the point that it would not save one fox or one animal. It would not add in any shape, size or form to animal welfare, and nobody could argue that it would. If someone can achieve registration, why should it not be for three years? Why should it be for less than that? Before I was interrupted, I was about to say that I was more satisfied with Government amendments Nos. 333 and 334, which propose that, on some occasions, the registrar should be able to decide how long registration should be for. I imagine that normally it would be for three years. However, if the circumstances in a certain area were changing or if the hunt were prepared to register for a shorter time, it could be for less. If the registrar wanted to give an individual or a hunt the benefit of doubt, he might say ''We'll let you try it for a year, fellows, and see how you get on, and after that we may renew it.'' Assuming that that is the intention behind the Government amendments and that registration will normally be for three years—although on some occasions, and for good reason, the registrar might vary that—I would not necessarily oppose them. My instinct is to press our amendment to a vote, to oppose Labour Members' amendments that are taken to a vote—they would make a mockery of the Bill—but not necessarily to oppose the Government's amendments, which are not unreasonable. The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael): The hon. Gentleman was right to say that it has been an interesting and entertaining debate. We heard assumptions about the level of fox predation and references to rogue foxes. We heard about the value of drawing a general conclusion from a specific. We also heard about the problems of the foxes of Montgomeryshire, which might be well advised to catch a bus to Cumbria, where my hon. Friend the Column Number: 8 Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) says there are hunters who would welcome them; I suspect that my hon. Friend would not take the same view. The starting point for me is that three years seemed a generous but not unreasonable period in the context of an ongoing need to control the population; in other words, where there was a general problem. That is why we framed the Bill in those terms. However, I have thought about the lack of flexibility and the variety of circumstances that might need to be addressed, issues that were raised not least by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall). There is serious discussion in the Burns report of the need to be clear about the circumstances that may need to be controlled. Paragraph 5.12 refers to predation on lambs and states: ''It is not easy, however, to establish with any certainty how serious a problem fox predation represents. Predation is not usually witnessed; it is not always possible to distinguish between the killing of healthy lambs and scavenging dead or dying ones; and other predators, including domestic dogs, also kill lambs.'' Paragraph 5.14 states: ''The best estimate seems to be that a low percentage (less than 2 per cent.) of otherwise viable lambs are killed by foxes in England and Wales. However, levels of predation (or perceived predation) can be highly variable between farms and between different areas.'' I do not recall—and I certainly could not put my hands on—references in Burns to rogue foxes. They made a guest appearance this morning, when Opposition Members mentioned them to illustrate the need to protect livestock. It is therefore slightly ironic that Opposition Members then sought to cast doubt on their existence. However, the Committee's proceedings are sometimes full of puzzles.

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