Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition
Hunting Bill
4:30 pm
Mr David Lidington (Aylesbury, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to welcome you back to the chair, Mr. O'Hara. Members of the Committee will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who was speaking when this morning's proceedings were adjourned at 1 o'clock, must carry out duties in the Chamber this afternoon. In his introductory remarks on this group of amendments, he commented on the general exceptions to the offence in paragraph 1, which are proposed in amendments Nos. 119 and 57. He also commented on amendments Nos. 51, 55 and 59, which are more technical. I wish briefly to take the Committee through the other amendments, which form a wide-ranging group dealing with stalking and flushing out. It is important to try to present the various strands that are covered.
My hon. Friend made some reference to the phrase ``out of cover'', which amendment No. 54 would remove from the schedule. As he said, one reason for tabling the amendment was to explore the Government's definition of cover, because it is capable of many different interpretations. It is in the interests of certainty, in addition to the interests of those who might be affected by the Bill, that we try to resolve the matter and, if necessary, to amend the Bill to provide a tighter definition. There are also particular groups of people whose ability to control pests would be affected by the Bill. To my mind, there is considerable ambiguity as to whether their activities would be permitted by the exclusions in part II, or whether they would come under the offences described in part I. In particular, I want to refer to the position of Welsh gun packs.
As you will know, Mr. O'Hara, in many parts of Wales, foxes are hunted using dogs, but with followers on foot, rather than mounted on horses. The purpose of hunting with those packs is to trace the fox so that it can be shot. Often the hunting takes place in woodland areas, which are not only small copses or spinneys, but thick plantations of spruce trees covering many square miles. The pack of hounds might search for the fox and drive it through the woodland for some considerable time. The advice that I have received from those organisations connected with Welsh gun packs is that such a chase might take 40 or 50 minutes.
Having read the Bill carefully, I am genuinely uncertain whether the term ``flushing out'' would cover the circumstances that I have described. As I read the schedule, it would provide an exception for somebody who took one dog or a pair of dogs into a spinney to chase out a fox that would be shot by other huntsmen in the field on the other side of the copse. However, it is less clear whether the Government intend gun packs to be wholly exempted from the offence, as the Bill seems to allow.
If gun packs are to be exempted, that would be beneficial to many people in Wales in particular who depend on this method of controlling foxes, but it would be a major exemption, as the Bill's overall intention is to outlaw organised hunting with packs of hounds. If flushing out with a pack, as is now done in Wales, is to be outlawed, the Government must consider how foxes are to be controlled in thickly wooded upland areas. In such parts of the country, lamping—the method preferred by Lord Burns and his team—is not a practical alternative. If the hunting of dogs with gun packs is to be outlawed, what alternative methods will the Government recommend to farmers who need to keep foxes under control in parts of Wales?
I turn from amendment No. 54 to amendment No. 59 to say a few words about falconry. I found paragraph 7(3)(c) intriguing, because it clearly exempts falconry from the Bill and the criminal offences included in it. The purpose of amendment No. 59 is to enable the Committee to debate the matter briefly and to make it clear that the purpose of sub-paragraph (3)(c) is to provide an exception from criminal offences for the use of dogs as an aid to falconry.
The Government's proposed exemption for falconry is interesting, because the Bill seems to provide deliberately for wild mammals to be killed lawfully for sport. That raises an interesting question about the moral purpose behind the Bill. It is difficult to see the logic of, on the one hand, proscribing the hunting of a wild mammal with dogs, while, on the other, making a deliberate allowance for hunting a wild mammal with a hawk or falcon. I shall not detain the Committee with a detailed reflection on the relative cruelty to a quarry animal that is caught by a hawk or falcon as opposed to a hound.