Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
11:30 am
Mr David Lidington (Aylesbury, Conservative)
My right hon. Friend makes a telling point. Throughout our debates on the details of the Bill, he and I have been concerned about the risk of malicious prosecutions brought by people whose animal rights agenda goes far further than that expressly provided for in the Bill. I am tempted to respond to his intervention with a lengthy diversion on the laying of information, but I shall refrain. That was the subject of my doctoral thesis, but it is probably better that I do not trespass further on your patience, Mr. O'Hara.
My right hon. Friend's core point is that it is a reality of rural life that a landowner's permission to hunt, stalk or flush out animals on his land is often given informally and arises from long-standing tolerance of country practices. It is unnecessarily bureaucratic and inflexible to expect such use of someone else's land to require the completion and preservation of detailed documentation to show that permission was sought and granted and the circumstances of that.
Amendment No. 87 refers to paragraph 8. It would allow the use of dogs for rodent control when someone reasonably believes that he has the relevant permission. It would apply the principles that I described in relation to paragraph 7(7) to the exception in paragraph 8 covering rodent control.
Amendment No. 70 tackles the same problem from a slightly different angle and would add to the general exceptions an exception in respect of land
``which he''--
the person hunting--
``had not been forbidden to use.''
That goes rather wider than the earlier amendment, which would put the stress on the reasonable belief of the person hunting that he enjoyed permission. It is a different approach to the issue.
Amendment No. 71 would add to the exceptions
``land available for public use''
and amendment No. 105 would add land
``onto which the quarry had escaped while being pursued''.
I suggest that amendment No. 105 is the minimum necessary addition to the exceptions in order to provide the protection of everyday legitimate activities of gamekeepers and others to which several of us on the Opposition Benches have referred again and again during our proceedings.
My great fear is that, as we have discovered with deer stalking, the Bill will have consequences that go much further than a prohibition on organised hunting with packs of hounds. I hope that the Government will reflect carefully on my argument that the drafting of the exceptions is inflexible and consider whether they can accept at least some of my amendments.