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Standing Committee F
Tuesday 4 February 2003
(Morning)
Mr. George Stevenson
Clause 1
Hunting wild mammals with dogs
Amendment made: No. 117, in
clause 1, page 1, line 6, after 'registered' insert
'for the purpose of pest control'.—[Rob Marris.]
8.55 am
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. This is the Committee's 16th sitting and, so far, we have dealt only with part 2 of the Bill. A substantial amount of work lies ahead on an unwhipped Bill on a subject that has been under consideration for the best part of 100 years. It is a difficult and controversial Bill, so would it be in order to ask for the Programming Sub-Committee to be reconvened to consider extending the time available to the Committee?
The Chairman: Such consideration would be more appropriately requested through the usual channels and if that is done, I shall be prepared to consider any request made to the Chair.
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life (Alun Michael): On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. It is clear that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) is preparing for some rhetoric. The offer of plenty of time for debate has existed since the beginning. Clearly, he wishes to shift his ground in the usual channels. We know how to treat that.
The Chairman: That is not a point of order. Three minutes of valuable time have been taken up on points of order. Perhaps we can now move on.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take the following:
New clause 1—Hunting of wild mammals—
'The Government shall issue licences in pursuance of Schedule (Licences) to those individuals and groups who wish to hunt a wild mammal. A person who takes part in hunting without such a licence will be committing an offence.'
New clause 2—Register of licensed individuals and groups—
'The Secretary of State shall maintain a register of those hunts and individuals licensed to hunt under section (Hunting wild mammals), together with the terms of the license issued to them, which shall be open to public inspection.'
New schedule 2—Licences—
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1. A licence will be granted by the Secretary of State to the groups, clubs or individuals whose names and addresses appear in an appendix to the licence to use hounds or other dogs to hunt the species of wild mammal detailed in the appendix, in accordance with the following terms and conditions.
2. All applications for licences to hunt mammals using dogs shall be made in writing to the Secretary of State, who may not unreasonably withhold such a licence, always understanding that the applicant undertakes to adhere to the terms of the licence.
3. The licence shall be issued on a three-yearly basis.
4. The licensee will pay a fee to cover the cost of the administration of the licence, which will be set from time to time by the Secretary of State but will initially be the sum of £50 for an individual, or £250 for a group.
5. The Secretary of State will investigate any complaint made to him of an alleged breach of the terms of the licence, and if the allegation is well founded under English law, he may take appropriate action against any individual or group as he sees fit from the following:—
(a) issue a public warning or censure of any group or individual;
(b) appoint on such terms as he thinks fit a person to supervise the activities of the individual or group;
(c) suspend the licence for such period as he sees fit, but which may not be any longer than twelve months, after which the group or individual could reapply;
(d) revoke the licence for an indefinite period;
(e) ban an individual from any of the licensed activities for life.
Revocation of the licence shall only occur with twelve months notice in writing.
6. The licence and its constraints shall extend to group officials and mounted and dismounted followers and to spectators who are members of the group or club. The licensee shall use reasonable endeavours to ensure that they comply with the terms of the licence.
7. The licensee may only enter land to exercise the terms and conditions of this licence where he has obtained prior permission to do so from the individual or organisation that is legally responsible for the granting of such permission. On any occasion on which dogs stray onto land where there is no landowner's permission, the licensee will use reasonable endeavours to withdraw them as soon as practicable.
8. The licensee will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that adequate and proper arrangements are made to protect the safety of participants, followers and any others who accept authority of the licensee.
9. The licensee will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that statutory law and relevant byelaws are observed in proper exercise of the licence.In particular the licensee will take reasonable care—
(a) to prevent disturbance to agricultural livestock;
(b) to prevent disturbance other users of the land;
(c) to ensure that the fences, gates, tracks and other appurtenances over which the licence is exercised are left in good order to the satisfaction of the landowner; and
(d) to ensure compliance at all times with any statutory requirement relating to the protection or welfare of all animals.
10. The licensee will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that group members, followers and spectators are fully aware of the terms of the licence including any instructions to minimise damage to property and disturbance to other wildlife, legitimate users of the countryside or neighbouring residents.
11. The use of firearms is prohibited, with the exception of those firearms used for the humane destruction of wild animals.
12. The digging out of wild mammals is only permitted for the purposes of wildlife management and with the express permission of the landowner or person with legal authority to exercise such permission; except where the wild mammal is injured or sick, when it may be dug out and humanely destroyed.In the event of a sick or injured mammal being dug out without the landowners's permission, the licensee must keep a written record that explains the justification for so doing.
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13. The licensee will submit a written report to the Secretary of State within thirty days of the final fixture under the terms of this licence detailing—
(a) the number of days on which licensed activities occurred;
(b) the number of the hunted mammals seen or disturbed;
(c) the number of the hunted mammals chased;
(d) the number of the hunted mammals killed; and
(e) any records pertaining to digging out under paragraph 12.
14. The Secretary of State, or agencies appointed by him, will undertake the monitoring of activities, and from time to time may appoint officers to attend fixtures, in order to ensure compliance with the terms of the licence. The licensee will ensure that full cooperation is given to the appointed officers.
15. The licensee will indemnify any third parties against any loss or damage, injury or death arising from the exercise of the licence. Groups and clubs will during the period of the licence maintain an insurance policy with a reputable insurance company to an amount of not less than £5 million in respect of any one claim. The amount of such insurance shall not limit the liability of the licensee. The licensee will produce the said insurance policy and receipt for the premium paid not more than 14 days after the issue of the licence.'.
Alun Michael: Clause 1 sets out clearly the purpose of the Bill and I need say no more than that because hon. Members will want to speak to their new clauses and new schedule, to which I shall respond in due course.
Mr. Gray: As we move on to clause 1 and our proposal that it should be removed and replaced with new schedule 2 and new clauses 1 and 2, we come to an illogicality at the very heart of the Bill. Irrespective of which side of the argument one is on, it is important to try to make the Bill workable, sensible and logical from a legal standpoint, leaving aside our debate on whether hunting with dogs should be allowed and under what circumstances. If it is not a good Bill, it will not, as the Minister said, stand the test of time. We want to correct the substantial and fundamental illogicality in the clause because it is bizarre to start from the presumption that hunting with dogs should be outlawed and become a criminal offence unless it is possible to prove to the registrar that the cruelty and utility tests are satisfied or that it should become exempt.
In Committee, Opposition Members have gone to great lengths in the past few weeks to try to prove that some practices are crueller than others, but the Committee has been unable to conclude which are more and which are less cruel. Is hunting with dogs more or less cruel than shooting with a shotgun at night? Is it more or less cruel than gassing or snaring? We do not know and despite our debates in Committee we have signally failed to reach a clear conclusion about which practices are more and which are less cruel. We have consistently decided to leave that decision entirely to the registrar and the tribunal. That is an illogical place from which to start.
The only purpose in outlawing hunting with dogs in the clause, leaving aside the exemptions and the registration, would be if there were undeniable evidence that hunting with dogs was, in some way or another, cruel. Otherwise, there is no purpose in doing so. If all we seek to do is examine whether hunting is
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cruel, it would be sensible to leave that to the registrar or the licensing system to sort out. The only purpose in making hunting illegal would be if there was a presumption that it was cruel in some way or other. All the considerations have failed to establish that it is cruel.
Lord Burns went to great lengths to say that he had not concluded that hunting was necessarily cruel and the majority of scientists involved in the hearings at Portcullis house were of the same opinion. Even in Committee, no evidence has been advanced to show that hunting with dogs is necessarily cruel. Some people would say that it is more cruel than other methods and there has been some debate about its relative cruelty. We tried to introduce what I described as a hierarchy of suffering and to include in the Bill a list that stated which practices were crueller than others. Government Members defeated that proposal. They have consistently refused to say that hunting with dogs is, by definition, cruel and I challenge them to say so. Is hunting with dogs, by definition, cruel? The clause implies that it is. The suggestion is that hunting is a cruel practice, which will be allowed only in certain registered circumstances. However, everyone who has considered the matter has concluded that hunting is not necessarily, by definition, cruel.
Indeed, the very fact that the Committee is sitting here today considering the matter proves that there is no such presumption. If there were, presumably, the Government would have introduced a Bill to ban hunting with dogs outright, as they have done in the past, yet they have not done so. The fact that the Minister, who argued passionately in favour of an outright ban during the previous Committee stage, has returned with this Bill and now says that, in some circumstances and for some reasons, hunting with dogs may be reasonable demonstrates that there is no conclusion that hunting with hounds is cruel. There is a fundamental illogicality at the heart of the Bill in the form of clause 1.
Everyone knows that the Bill will not necessarily mean the death of one fewer fox. Nobody claims that it will, with the exception of a few people who believe that foxes should all be allowed to die of old age. Very few people on the Committee argue that all foxes should be allowed to live. Indeed, considering the Scottish experience, the presumption is that if hunting with dogs were banned, at least the same number of foxes, and very probably considerably more, would be killed. We are talking not about the number of foxes killed, but the means by which they are killed and which practices are more or less cruel.
New clauses 1 and 2 and new schedule 2 take the Government's stated aim at face value. That stated aim is that the Bill is about animal welfare and not about human behaviour, people in red coats, horses or any of the things associated with hunting. The Conservatives want to discuss which methods of killing foxes and other animals would be more or less cruel and which would be more or less acceptable from an animal-welfare standpoint. In that context, it is worth quoting something that Lord Burns said during
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the Portcullis house hearings. He said that ''the bulk'' of the concerns that the Burns report raised about hunting
''might be addressed through licensing, a regulatory approach or by changing the rules of the hunt''.
At no stage did he say that the concerns should be sorted out by banning or by registration of the sort in the Bill, or that there should be a presumption against hunting.
Lord Burns mentioned licensing or changing the rules of the hunt. That is precisely what we propose under new schedule 2. New clauses 1 and 2 simply make matters possible; new schedule 2 is the heart of the group. The new schedule lays out in some detail precisely which practices can and cannot be used by a hunt. We have attempted to run through the whole gamut; it is a reasonably substantial schedule with, from memory, some 20 or 30 paragraphs. It covers all the aspects that people might want to know about, including that licences are to be issued
''by the Secretary of State to the groups, clubs or individuals'',
that all applications are to be ''made in writing'' and that licences are to be
''issued on a three-yearly basis'',
with the applicant paying the cost. The schedule states that the Secretary of State shall investigate ''any complaint made'' against the licensees and that certain penalties are payable for breach of licence, varying from a ''public warning'' to a ban for life. The group or individual applying for the licence would have to be responsible for followers, in so far as they were under their control—obviously, they could not be responsible for passers-by.
The schedule contains regulations on where licensees could go—they could enter land only with the permission of the landowner—and on using ''reasonable endeavours'' to ensure that participants are safe, even coming to an arrangement with guards to that effect. It states that the
''use of firearms is prohibited'',
contains detailed regulations about the
''digging out of wild mammals''
and requires written reports to be returned to the Secretary of State within 30 days of the end of the season, laying out precisely what the hunt has been up to. There are various other, similar constraints.
That draft licence is based on licences given by the Labour Government for the past six years, and before that, to hunts that hunt across Ministry of Defence and Forestry Commission land. We have tried to amalgamate those licences and give them a workmanlike structure, which might be attractive to both sides of the Committee. We are not saying that the draft licence in new schedule 2 must be the be-all and end-all; but if we believe that some hunting practices need to be constrained and that there is something wrong with the way in which hunting works at the moment, then let us as legislators in Parliament say what is wrong and how it should be put right. Let us come up with a sensible licence, like a shotgun, alcohol or driving licence. Let us lay down plainly
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what hunts have to do and state that, if they breach the terms of the licence, they will have to pay the penalties laid down.
If we included the licence in the Bill, it could be amended only by primary legislation and could not be changed by subsequent Secretaries of State. The licence could be negotiated. The Committee might better spend its time negotiating terms and conditions, laying down what some Labour Members think should be banned and what many Opposition Members think should be allowed. We would then have a sensible debate about what type of licence to have and could tell people who wish to hunt: ''There you are—there are the terms and conditions. That is what you have to do to be allowed to hunt. If you breach those terms, you will suffer penalties varying from the removal of your licence to a ban for life.''
That seems an eminently sensible and liberal approach. We would show what was wrong and what we wanted to happen. Requirements on individuals would be laid out in a straightforward and clear way. That stands in stark contrast to the lay-out of the Bill, which leaves that entirely to someone outside this place. We in the Committee, as legislators, will have said that we do not know and cannot say whether hunting with dogs is more or less cruel and lamping by night is better or worse—and that we do not intend to say, but shall leave the matter to the registrar, then a complex structure of the tribunal, High Court and points of law. We will be saying that we are unable yet to say what is good, bad or indifferent about hunting, but that it will all become clear over the many years of legal cases that lie ahead.
I challenge the Committee, Parliament and the Minister to include in the Bill, straightforwardly and in writing, precisely how we want hunting with dogs of any kind to be regulated. That seems eminently reasonable. One of the fundamental purposes of legislation is for us to lay down here exactly what we want to happen in the country. Otherwise, we are saying: ''We don't know, it is all too difficult. We'll leave it to a civil servant to sort it out'', while Labour Members hope that the civil servant will ban hunting and Opposition Members hope that he will not. That seems a fundamentally unsatisfactory form of legislation.
That shows the fundamental illogicality in clause 1. It presumes that hunting, for some reason, is a bad thing. It presumes that it is cruel, despite the lack of evidence to that effect and the fact that we have not said here that it is. Despite that presumption, the clause then says, rather bizarrely, that under certain circumstances hunting might be allowed. In new clauses 1 and 2 and new schedule 2, we propose that the presumption should be the other way round; that we will allow the use of dogs for the pursuit and killing of mammals of one sort or another under certain conditions. The conditions are plain. If they are breached, there will be trouble. That seems to be a liberal, sensible and legally logical way of laying out the Bill.
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The Bill is badly drafted. For that reason, clause 1 should not stand part of the Bill. New clauses 1 and 2, and new schedule 2 should replace it.
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