Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition
Hunting Bill
12:00 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
I welcome your return to the Chair, Mr. O'Hara. As I was explaining to the Committee in the 30 seconds or so before the end of the previous sitting, the amendments would change the exceptions to the general offence for which the Bill provides to cover any wild mammal, with the exception of the defence of hunting rodents. The Bill applies those exceptions only to the stalking or flushing out of foxes, hares and rabbits, the retrieval of a rabbit or a hare that has been shot, searching for an animal that has escaped or has been released, or rescuing an animal that was or might be injured.
Paragraph 7 provides exceptions for stalking and flushing out. Amendments Nos. 52 and 53, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), would change the exception for flushing out and stalking from a fox, hare or rabbit to any wild mammal. It seems to me, to my hon. Friend, to other hon. Friends, and perhaps to some Liberal Democrat Members, that there is no sense in animal welfare terms in restricting the species that can be flushed out or stalked. What reason could there be for distinguishing between those three creatures on the one hand and any other mammal on the other—for example, a mink or a deer? Why, therefore, does the Bill distinguish between them in terms of animal welfare or necessary pest control? Surely the arguments that apply to the categories for which allowance is already made could and should apply equally to other animals that we wish to bring within the terms of a broader and more all-encompassing exception.
It would be interesting to know whether Deadline 2000, which seems to be acquiring a certain regularity of mention in Committee, has any documentary evidence to show that a mink, for example, will suffer unnecessarily from flushing out or stalking actions, whereas the fox will not. It is difficult to know on what basis Deadline 2000 has reached what seems on the face of it—although I am happy to await further and better particulars—an arbitrary distinction.
As the Bill is drafted, the provisions on stalking and flushing would seriously hinder pest control. Land managers need to have at their disposal, and be able to exercise, the maximum possible means of control. That has been a recurrent theme in the Committee's discussions, as in previous Second Reading debates. Despite their best endeavours, Government Members have not been able to invoke support for their point of view on this aspect from any of the main representative organisations. That is because those organisations favour maximum flexibility for their members and recognise the Conservative Opposition as their robust ally in that quest.
Land managers need the maximum means of control. The Bill already recognises that stalking and flushing out are acceptable and necessary practices in species management, so it is not as though Government Members have an overriding intellectual or moral objection. We do not know for certain, but some of them may have such an objection, particularly Back Benchers, who hold a variety of extreme, bizarre, largely indefensible and frequently incoherent opinions on the subject. In fairness, we have not heard such comment from Ministers on the Government Front Bench—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ) is laughing. I shall be interested to hear whether she has any views on the subject and wishes to defend them. It is good of her to find time to be with us in Committee, in view of the fact—