Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Mike O'Brien (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; North Warwickshire, Labour)
I welcome you back to the Chair, Mrs. Roe. I was replying to an intervention by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) who asked about the meaning of the word ``stalk''. It is used in its ordinary sense to describe a dog approaching or pursuing stealthily as it tracks the scent of a mammal. Similarly, ``flush out'' is used in its ordinary hunting sense of to drive out from cover. The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953 defines dogs being at large as not on a lead or otherwise under close control. I can inform the hon. Gentleman that that is the broad approach that we take with regard to the words ``stalk'' and ``flush out''.
Amendments Nos. 69 and 87 are further attempts to create ambiguity and so blur the force of the condition. Rather than a stalker or flusher out having to have permission from the landowner, he would satisfy the condition and so be safe from possible prosecution if he reasonably believed—or, in the case of amendment No. 87, simply believed—that he had permission from the landowner. However, that would have to be an absolute matter because one either does or does not have permission. We should not muddy the waters by creating ambiguity on this matter.
Amendment No. 70 would allow stalking and flushing out to take place on any land that the person doing the hunting had not been forbidden to use. Along with the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), I think that the Committee should consider that proposition carefully. For example, if the amendment were made and I owned a field in North Warwickshire that I did not wish to be used for hunting, the only way that I could ensure that would be to get my secretary to contact every dog owner in North Warwickshire, and probably further afield, and expressly forbid them in writing to stalk or flush out in my field. That is a manifest absurdity. If I failed to do that or I advertently missed out some dog owners, those people would have the right to stalk or flush out in my field because I had not expressly forbidden them to do so.