Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
12:45 pm
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is right. The more one looks at that paragraph, the more one realises that it is opaque and may be difficult for the courts to interpret.
Large numbers of people may be brought into magistrates courts. There was talk earlier of the exception of flushing--using dogs to flush out game. We must remember that we are talking about a rural situation—the big hunts have gone because hunting on that scale is easy to prove--that is difficult to control and where the population is widely dispersed. All sorts of farmers and game keepers who engage in rural activities and use dogs in various ways will now be dragged into magistrates courts. Although they have clerks to advise them, magistrates courts do not claim to be the High Court. They will try to interpret what my hon. Friend and I consider to be a difficult statutory point.