Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
A responsibility is placed on the Government. The Under-Secretary cannot wash his hands of this like Pontius Pilate and say, ``It is up to Deadline 2000 to write the Bill for me.'' That will not work. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has said, the House wants to abolish organised hunts of foxes, hares and mink; that is fair enough. However, the Under-Secretary has to accept that the 650 Members of the House of Commons are not fully seized of the points that we have been discussing. He must know that and there is an obligation on the Committee to try to look at the serious points that have been made about the detail of pest control of rats and rabbits. I hope that the Under-Secretary will not shuffle all this off into one corner and say, ``It is up to Deadline 2000. They drafted the Bill.'' That is not right. He has to make the Bill into a good law.