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Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I am sure that the whole Committee will have listened to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, with great respect. Noble Lords will respect her views, even though they may not be universally popular. However, I would say to the Committee and to the noble Baroness that I reached my decision by another route. Many years ago, I was in favour of a ban; I have now become a "non-banner". The reason for that change is because, as the right reverend Prelate has just told the Committee, if we are not careful, no one will be able to do anything because one person's pleasure will become another person's ban. As we heard from my noble friend Lord Davies of Coity, next on the list will be shooting and, after that, will be fishing. In terms of cruelty, they are all cruel in one way or another. So we have to be careful what we are doing.
I listened, as I always do, to the great speech of my noble friend Lady Mallalieu. I agree with her. We have not only the stench of burning carcasses in the fields around the country but also the stench of hypocrisy around this issue. Many people who wish to ban
hunting--and, indeed, many other things--are quite prepared to put up with things which are just as bad or even worse.I sometimes think that I am a member of a mad house rather than a Parliament. As has been mentioned, we are here discussing the culling of vermin while we are contemplating the destruction of perhaps up to 30 million well animals. That is the advice that we are getting from our scientists. To kill 30 million foxes--which are vermin--at the present rate of culling would take 750 years. If we killed only 1 million well animals--which do not do any damage to anyone; they make the landscape look much better and provide us with food--it would still take 25 years for the hunt to kill as many foxes, which are vermin.
When people talk about cruelty, barbarism and so on, all kinds of actions are barbaric. In fact, I think that the slaughter policy is complete madness--there are alternatives--but the people who have sent this Bill to us appear to be contemplating this mass slaughter, this animal holocaust, with complete equanimity. That is why I say there is the stench of hypocrisy around the place.
I shall risk this comment. We have heard that cats kill 200 million small mammals and birds; that is 5.5 million a day. I hope that we shall not hear from people who own cats that we are barbarians and cruel.
As to the two alternatives, I believe that the self-regulatory body has been working. It is not a myth; it is not something in the distance; it has been working. Huntsmen and others have been happy to subscribe to it and to obey the rules which have been thought out and imposed. I believe that that should continue to go forward. It is the real way forward and I am inclined to support it.
What worries me about the middle way--I have thought about it deeply--is that it will be bureaucratic. The penalties are, quite frankly, far too heavy. The penalties contemplated will even include banning people from owning a dog for life, make no mistake about that. They are very arduous indeed.
We all know that bureaucracies, once set up, like to creep forward and forward and forward. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, knows that very well because he is a member of the European Union Select Committee. He has very often told us how we have this creeping bureaucracy in Europe. I should tell him that all bureaucracies creep.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He is quite right, of course, about bureaucracy in the European Union. Unfortunately, try as we might, we are unable to amend it. I hope that if we can persuade the Committee to vote for the middle way we can amend the current proposals and make sure that it is not under any circumstances a back-door way of banning hunting.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I am afraid the noble Lord is completely and utterly wrong. We can amend European bureaucracy by repealing the European
Communities Act 1972. Indeed, on 31st January 1997, this House gave a Second Reading to a Bill which would have amended that Act.Nevertheless, we have to give the Commons something to cling on to. If we go for the self-regulation, as I believe we should, it would be open to Members of the Commons--the Bill has to go back there--if they are open minded, to say, "Well, chaps, along in the Lords there, even though we do not quite agree with them about self-regulation, there is another proposal for the so-called middle way. We will agree to that and send it back to them for their further consideration".
Under those circumstances--bearing in mind that the Bill has a long way to go; it will not finish in two or three hours or two or three days--I believe that we should opt for self-regulation and then see what happens.
7.15 p.m.
Viscount Astor: We have heard all sides of the argument, even if we have not heard from all Members of the Committee who wish to speak. I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 1 and 4, the first grouping, and to the other amendments later, as I am sure will other Members of the Committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said that this was not a political issue. In one sense it is not a political issue-- it is a free vote and there are different views on all sides of the House; the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, on one side and my noble friend Lady Fookes on the other--but, of course, this was in the Labour Party manifesto. We have to ask why have the Government waited for four years to bring the Bill forward, knowing that an election was imminent. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, judged his party too kindly, giving it credit for behaving properly, as perhaps he would have done had he been a member of the Government.
I have a number of questions briefly to put to the Minister about the part of the Bill that we are currently debating. As my noble friend Lord Cope said, there are provisions in the Bill which reverse the burden of proof. That has been put to us by legal opinion, and I should like the noble and learned Lord to explain to the Committee why that is not the case.
As it stands, the Bill has a number of rather strange parts. If one looks at page 2, it refers to hunting with "a dog". That is an extraordinary term. It should be hunting with "dogs". I do not know how you can hunt with one dog. The term seems designed to catch innocent walkers who occasionally let their badly behaved dogs off the lead.
As drafted, the Bill would certainly catch drag hunting. Some members of the Committee who are against fox hunting have said that people will be able to continue to go drag hunting. But, under the Bill as it stands, no drag hunts could possibly take place because of the risk involved. Should hounds cross the line of a fox or a hare and decide that it was more entertaining than the drag they were following, the hunt would then be breaking the law, and no hunt can
afford to do that. As regards drag hunting, as the Bill stands, no one could take the risk of taking part in it for fear of prosecution.Under the Bill as it stands, if a landowner gives permission for someone to walk his dog and the dog, unbeknownst to him, misbehaves, it seems to me that the landowner would also be liable for prosecution. I should be grateful for the noble and learned Lord's comments on that.
Under paragraph 19 of the schedule, on page 6 there are powers of entry without a warrant. But most extraordinary is the provision in paragraph 18:
- "the constable may stop and search a vehicle, animal or other thing".
As we see from a quick reading of the Bill, if your dog chases a rabbit and then changes its mind, finds a hare and starts chasing that, if you chase the dog you are hunting; if you leave it alone and say that it is out of your control, you are not. Obviously, if the dog does that, you would want to stop the dog doing it and get it back. You would then be committing an offence. Finally, there is the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about a dog who goes down a hole. The provision for a ban does not work. It would catch innocents taking their dogs for a walk; it is morally wrong; and it would not work in practice.
Turning to the moral debate, I have only one point to make. I commend to any Members of the Committee who were not present at Second Reading the very fine speeches made by the three right reverend Prelates. I was delighted to give way earlier to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford, who made an extremely good point and an interesting speech; and I am always delighted to give way to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart.
I said that I should be brief, and I shall. This is a bad Bill at the wrong time. Although we are being offered a free vote, the Bill is being taken in government time and it is promoted by government Ministers. They cannot hide behind a free vote. They cannot deny responsibility for deciding when to bring the Bill forward both in another place and in this Chamber. A vote to ban hunting would be an insult to all those who live in rural areas at this time of national emergency.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): The role of the Government is as follows. The Labour Party stated in its manifesto that a free vote would be held on this issue. A Private Member's Bill was proposed in another place. There
was a free vote in relation to that. Subsequent to that Private Member's Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was commissioned by the Home Secretary to write a report which I believe all Members of the Committee who have taken part in this debate have found useful in informing the debate. Once the noble Lord finished his report, the Government made time, using the method that was used in relation to the Sunday Trading Bill which had been used by the previous government as a means of giving the legislature a chance to decide what it wished to do about hunting. They did so because there are very strong feelings about hunting--feelings that are not shared in relation to shooting and fishing. That is why the Government have made time in relation to it; that is why it has been done in this way. It gives the legislature the opportunity to express its view on this important issue, which needs to be resolved. That is why we have done it in this way.I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cope, that the Government should answer any legitimate questions that have been raised in relation to the legislation, and that is what I shall do. What I shall not do is engage in the debate as to whether it is right to ban hunting, whether it is right to have regulation or whether it is right to have licensing. That is a matter for the legislature to decide. That is the way in which we have addressed the issue. The Government have made it clear, as Members speaking on behalf of the main Opposition party have said, that this is to be a matter for a free vote.
We have had a good debate. Perhaps I may single out two particular speeches: that of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the brave, clear speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. Perhaps I may deal with the particular issues raised. The first was the appropriateness of debating this matter today, when the countryside is going through the trauma of foot and mouth disease. If we could have done anything today in debating the matter to assist in relation to foot and mouth, we should have done it; but there was not anything we could do. The Government must fight the disease with every skill that they have. But, equally, things must go on in other areas, just as they have in relation to other pieces of legislation. Having embarked on this legislation, I am sure that the right course is to continue with it. That is what we are doing.
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