Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
7:00 pm
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
I will be as brief as possible. I begin by taking up the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex made in relation to the brief title of the paragraph. If the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury is to make complete sense, the words ``rodent control'' will have to be altered to ``rodent, mink and rabbit control'' or specify rodents and mink or rodents and rabbits. That is simply a matter of tidying up. The same difficulty arises in relation to the brief title of paragraph 9, which refers to the retrieval of game, but really applies to the retrieval of rabbits and hares. Under the Game Act 1831 rabbits are not designated as game. That is a short technical point, but if we are trying to get the Bill right, we might as well do the best we can.
As usual, my hon. Friend and Member for Mid-Sussex hugely amused us all, irrespective of our views on the subject. He also greatly informed us. It may be that the way in which he contributes to our debates allows us to learn a great deal more, not least because his manner and tone is not threatening or aggressive. As a consequence, even those who disagree with him on the matter of principle—that is, whether or not hunting should be banned—stop to listen and reach a different, if not greater, understanding of the issues involved.
In my opinion, this group of amendments exposes the huge misunderstandings that currently exist. I am sure that they are mainly unwitting and unintended, but if the Bill passes into law without the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, great damage will be caused to those who live and work in the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mis-Sussex referred to the Agriculture Act 1947, which allows MAFF to issue notices on farmers or landowners to deal with certain species of animals that become a pest. The NFU has a policy that is based on experience and real life in the country. It says:
``Farmers consider it imperative that the full range of methods currently available is maintained. We have concluded that any further reduction in the range of techniques available would seriously compromise farmers' ability to control agricultural pests effectively and would jeopardise effective management of farm holdings. To this end, the NFU will exercise constant vigilance in respect of proposals for changes in either domestic or EU law.''
The NFU cannot speak in Parliament, except through those of us on the Committee. I have no shame in standing up for the farmers in my constituency who wish to be able to manage rabbit populations that affect their crops. My part of Leicestershire is most noted for beef production and for fattening young beef calves, which are bought in Wales, the north-west of England and sometimes in Scotland, and brought down to feed on the rich grassland of the Welland valley. However, thanks to the common agricultural policy and all the grants and so on, farmers on marginal and grazing land have been encouraged to move to the production of wheat and other arable crops, and farmers in Leicestershire are now suffering from an increase in the rabbit population.
We have heard talk of Railtrack, and I do not wish to labour the point, because that would be tedious. However, as a co-opted Leicestershire Member of Parliament on the Leicestershire and Rutland Country Landowners Association committee, I have been invited more than once to draw to the attention of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the damage caused by rabbits that live in railway embankments to farm crops planted either side of railway lines.
I accept that a ban, under the Bill, on the use of dogs to hunt rabbits would not make it wholly impossible for riparian farmers to control the rabbit populations that infest their crops. We have heard discussion on the use of gas. Farmers can use rifles to shoot rabbits at night. We have heard that described as lamping: people go out, stand on the back of Land-rovers and turn on their headlights. When they see a rabbit ahead of them, they shoot it with a .22 or other rifle or even a shotgun. Of course, one shot with a shotgun and that is it for the rabbit. None the less, it seems wholly unreasonable to block off every means currently and normally available to control rabbit populations.