Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
2:00 pm
Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)
When we adjourned, the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) had just entered the Room, heard a few of my sentences and said that they were rubbish. I shall not repeat them, because I would be in difficulty with you, Mr. O'Hara, if I were to explain to her the gravamen of the argument.
I was arguing that we are discussing the natural activities of dogs. The hon. Lady did not hear—I am sure that she would have been surprised if she had been here so to do—that one of her hon. Friends had suggested that it was incumbent on the owners of dogs to ensure that their dogs were able to distinguish between rats and rabbits and to run after the one but not the other. I was led into that germane discussion in response to her hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mrs. Lawrence), with whom she can speak later. If it is rubbish, the hon. Lady must argue with her hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, who suggested, oddly, that the Bill is concerned not with hunting but with the training of dogs.