Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I beg to move,

That the following provisions shall have effect in place of the resolution agreed on 18th December:

(1) during proceedings on the Hunting Bill the Standing Committee shall, in addition to its first sitting on Tuesday 7th January at 4.30 pm, meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8.55 am and 2.30 pm;

(2) the Bill shall be considered in the following order: Part 2, Part 1, Part 3 and Part 4 (in each case including related Schedules, New Clauses and New Schedules, with each Schedule being taken immediately after the Clause which introduces it);

(3) proceedings on the Bill (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 13th February 2003.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mrs. Roe, and it is also a pleasure to consider this topic under your chairmanship again. [Hon. Members: ''Hear, hear.''] Opposition Members' applause may not have been quite so loud for that, but I am sure that they agree.

The resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee deals with the Committee's sittings and the order in which we will consider the Bill. A number of members of the Committee have asked for a general debate today before we start the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill and the consideration of amendments. In the Sub-Committee, it was pointed out that although it is possible to table amendments during the recess, opportunities to do so are limited. Allowing two extra days before we come to the amendments will be to the Committee's advantage, and I am grateful to you, Mrs. Roe, and to other members of the Sub-Committee, for agreeing to it.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. It is extremely difficult to hear at this end of the Room.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

I am sure that the Minister has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said and will try to rectify the problem.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) was so far away that I could hardly hear what he was saying. There must be a problem with the speakers; perhaps those who deal with them can turn them up because I should hate for my hon. Friend to miss any of the pearls that I want to put before the Committee.

A number of members of the Committee have asked for a general debate and for more time to table amendments to clause 8 before we start the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. That makes sense because the Bill is carefully constructed to reflect clear principles and a great deal of evidence, and it is sensible to be clear on what it is about. Following this short debate, a dilatory motion—like those used in Adjournment debates—will be moved. It will give members of the Committee an opportunity to seek clarification or to

explore possible amendments before we get into the detail and debate the Bill. Following discussion and advice, I took that step with the agreement of the lead members of the Committee from both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, as well as you, Mrs. Roe.

The Committee will be more interesting than is sometimes the case because all its members—this is true for all the parties—have a free vote. Members have the responsibility of thinking for themselves, which is dangerous territory; not only for the Government, but for the Opposition. More seriously, it is a challenge to all of us to examine carefully the arguments and the evidence at each stage. I expect this to be an interesting and lively Committee.

We have agreed a timetable that offers the Committee more than enough time to discuss all the details of the Bill. I shall be happy to sit as late as necessary to expand the hours available to the Committee during the coming weeks if that is required to ensure that everyone has as much time as they want to explore the details of the Bill.

On the order of consideration, it is important to explain at the start that the Bill is constructed on the basis of principles. The two main principles are those of preventing cruelty and recognising utility. Those principles are set out explicitly in clause 8 to show the basis on which the tribunal and registrar must make their decisions, but there are also principles or tests against which any activity to which the Bill applies can be recognised as an exempt activity because it meets the two tests in full or a banned activity because it can never meet the two tests. Clause 8 establishes the test that the registrar and tribunal will have to apply and sets out the key test for everything to which the Bill applies. It is logical to start with clause 8 and to ensure that all hon. Members have had the opportunity to explore all those principles before we come to the practical details of the Bill.

In speaking to the dilatory motion, I shall say a little more about the principles underpinning the Bill, the history of how they have been tested in depth during recent months and how the Bill is designed to reflect both principles and evidence. For the moment, I simply urge the Committee to accept the programme of work implied by the motion.

I should, perhaps, welcome the comments made by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), through the Press Association. I have not heard these comments from him, but I am sure that I shall have that opportunity shortly. I understand that he indicated that his party is ready to work with the Government to create a workmanlike regime based on evidence and principle that will stand the test of time. On that basis, I look forward to his wholehearted support for this well-designed Bill and I am sure that the Committee will proceed smoothly.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

First, may I add our wholehearted welcome to you, Mrs. Roe? There was nothing half-hearted about our ''hear, hears'' a moment ago. I was surprised that the Minister failed to mention his Labour colleague who will be joining

you as your co-Chairman, Mrs. Roe. We also welcome him and note that the Minister omitted to do so.

It has been a long time—a year—since we sat in this Committee Room discussing yet another foxhunting Bill. There was another measure two years before that, and another two years further back. It is a spectacular waste of parliamentary time to be sitting here, doing that again. [Hon. Members: ''Go away, then.] Labour Members would like us to go away. It was not our preference to come up with such a Bill on foxhunting; the Government have introduced it and it is our important duty to try to make it better.

The Minister was right in saying that the press release that the Countryside Alliance kindly issued on my behalf this afternoon—

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Ah.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am not sure why that should astonish the Minister. The Countryside Alliance is a wonderful organisation and we work closely with it. It supports the principles that we seek to uphold in this Committee, so it should not be a revelation that we work closely with it, the Middle Way Group, the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association and most other organisations that are concerned about the countryside and animal welfare in this country, unlike the Labour mob opposite.

The press release that I issued this afternoon stated that we are ready to work carefully with the Government in this Committee and to seek to turn what we believe to be a badly flawed, unworkable and bureaucratic Bill into some sort of workmanlike Bill that is in the best interests of the countryside and hunting. The Minister is right; I am ready to work with him. I hope that he will listen carefully to our arguments and to a reasonable number of our amendments—I think that we have tabled 100 so far—and I hope that he will be ready to find ways of turning a very bad and complex Bill into a much more workmanlike means of ordering hunting in the countryside.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the Conservatives are opposed to the Bill on principle. We believe that it is bad and unnecessary and will interfere with a way of life in the countryside. Nobody needs or wants that. Today, on the Floor of the House, the Secretary of State for Defence talked about deploying troops to Iraq and the fact that we are facing a war. To echo the Prime Minister's new year's message, we will face all kinds of horrors in the year ahead. I simply fail to understand why on earth we should be considering this nonsense today. None the less, the Conservatives are ready to discuss the matter with the Minister and convert this into a workmanlike and common sense Bill.

The Conservatives welcome the fact that the Bill implicitly recognises the continuing and central role and usefulness of hunting with dogs in the countryside, particularly in relation to controlling vermin. That is an important concession from the Government. The Government are led by the Prime Minister, and the Bill is proposed by the Prime Minister. For the first

time, the Government have conceded that there is a use for hunting with dogs in the countryside.

We welcome that concession and we intend to work with the Government to turn that change and fundamental support for hunting with dogs into something workmanlike. [Interruption.] I think that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) referred to using dogs for flushing. He obviously has not read the Bill, which does not refer at all to the use of hounds for flushing out vermin. That is happening in Scotland; his friends in Scotland did that. The Bill does not refer to the use of hounds for flushing out to guns, with the sole exception of a reference to no more than two dogs. The Under-Secretary is quite wrong. He had better read the Bill before he gets stuck into discussing it. [Interruption.] If the Under-Secretary wants to intervene, I will happily give way. My understanding is that, from a sedentary position, he referred to the use of dogs for flushing out. If that is his understanding of what is in the Bill, he is wrong. The Bill does not refer to that.

Mr Elliot Morley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)

I was talking about past measures. The hon. Gentleman has picked up only a fraction of the conversation.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

''Past measures'' is correct. If one considers what is happening in Scotland, one realises that the measures are rather ineffectual. I will take the Under-Secretary's word for what he said.

I have never heard of a Government Bill—the Bill is signed by the Prime Minister—which not one single person spoke in favour of on Second Reading.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Apart from the Minister.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Apart from the Minister. He may be a bit isolated in his enthusiasm. I am glancing down the Benches and rarely have I seen any general going into battle surrounded by so few supporters and friends. Perhaps he may find it helpful that the Conservatives are prepared to work with him in seeking to make a bad and unworkmanlike Bill into a better one.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Has the hon. Gentleman studied the Leader of the Opposition lately? [Interruption.]

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I wonder why my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire did not refer to the words of the Duke of Wellington—it may have been the Duke of Marlborough, who would also have had something apposite to say on the matter—who said that he did not know what his army would do to the enemy, but by God they frightened him. Is that not the position that the Minister is in?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

That must indeed be the position of the Minister. I would not like to be arguing in favour of such a Bill, surrounded by people who made their total opposition to it known so very publicly on Second Reading. I have never encountered anything of the sort before. It is a brave position for the Minister to be in.

That brings us on to the proposed reordering of the consideration of the Bill. Logically, we would start with part 1—the offence would be a suitable place to start—and move on to part 2. The Minister has argued that because the principles of cruelty and utility are so central to what is being proposed, it makes sense to start there and to move on to the offence later. The Conservatives have accepted that argument; there is some reason and usefulness in it. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing two things in that context.

The first is that, as we made plain, under our consideration of cruelty and utility, we must be allowed to discuss those principles as applied not only to hunting foxes and hares with hounds, but to hunting deer, which technically speaking does not come under that part, and to hare coursing, rabbiting and ratting. It seems to us important, as the scientists in Portcullis house agreed, that all kinds of hunting of mammals with dogs should be considered at the same time and in the same way, and that the principles of utility and cruelty should be applied to all three groups of mammals. The Minister has agreed that, after consideration of the programme motion, we can discuss stag hunting, hare coursing, rabbiting and ratting in a debate on clause 8 starting on Thursday.

The Minister has also generously agreed that, irrespective of what happens to clause 8 on Thursday and subsequently—we hope that it will be amended, and it may well be removed for all that I know—we should continue to use the cruelty and utility principles when we come to discuss hare coursing, stag hunting, rabbiting and ratting under part 1. With those assurances, we have agreed to his proposed reordering. We are also grateful to him for agreeing that the first substantial discussion should take place on Thursday.

After thinking about the matter over Christmas, I have something on which the Minister might be happy to answer a simple question. Call me Machiavellian or a conspiracy theorist, but let us imagine for one second that those who surround him on his Benches are seeking to remove those parts of the Bill that do anything other than ban hunting with dogs. Certainly, no less an organ than The Guardian suggested over Christmas that that was the case. Let us imagine that the Minister's colleagues want to ban everything else. They just might seek to amend clause 1 to do that, or to have a whole variety of clauses withdrawn. In that case, the Minister would not have the opportunity to discuss his much-loved golden thread of cruelty and utility.

I should be happy if the Minister wanted to put me right on this, but one wonders whether the reordering was not simply connected with the pure intellectual aim of dealing first with the central issues, but was tactical because he had heard from one or two of his hon. Friends what they intended to do to the Bill.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the reordering is purely because of the intellectual advantage of starting with the principles and then

moving on to their application, and because Members on both sides have said that they would like to debate the principles that underlie the whole Bill. As I said earlier, those principles appear in clause 8 because that is the point at which it is necessary to make absolutely clear the principles on which the tribunal and registrar will have to take their decisions.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister's contribution is very useful, not least because—let us just posit the notion—if the later stand part debate were to result in clause 8 being deleted, the reordering would allow us still to consider the rest of the Bill using the principles of utility and cruelty, although his hon. Friends had deleted them. We might have to return to that. Incidentally, I very much hope that the Minister's hon. Friends will not seek to remove those principles from the Bill. They are good principles, and I believe that every aspect of animal cruelty legislation since the Protection of Animals Act 1911 is based on the comparison between cruelty and utility. They are perfectly sensible principles to use, although the particular definition that the Minister happens to have used in the Bill precludes a whole variety of aspects. We shall seek to amend that definition, but the principle of discussing the relative utility and cruelty of the activities is a perfectly good one, and we will happily have that discussion from Thursday.

As the Minister correctly commented—I am glad that he saw the press release—our whole approach in Committee will be to seek to work sensibly with the Government to try to create a worthwhile regime out of what we believe to be a fundamentally bad Bill. To that end, we have tabled a new schedule that lays out in two pages a licence that would allow hunting to be regulated properly, but to continue in a sensible format. We hope that that will form a useful and important part of our discussions and that the Minister will not rule it out of court too quickly.

We intend to work with the Government sensibly and to use the Committee as an opportunity not for the ranting and raving that has often marked similar debates in this Room in the past, but for sensible, intellectual and carefully argued discussions. We shall seek to persuade the Government, who may be ready to listen to some of what we have to say, so that the Bill returns to the Floor of the House as a better Bill than it is now. As we say in Scotland, I have my doubts, but Conservative Members will nevertheless take advantage of the opportunity to do our best to ensure that it is the case.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Roe, and look forward to the forthcoming debates. I shall restrict my remarks to the programme motion rather than commenting on the dilatory motion. This is the first time that I have served on a Committee on any Bill on wild mammals or hunting. I have so far managed to avoid this form of purgatory, and have not yet enjoyed—or rather endured—such an opportunity.

Having served on the Programming Sub-Committee, I agree with the Minister's argument that it is important to deal with issues of principle before moving on to matters of practicality. Indeed, to do it the other way round would be perverse. It is a

reasonable approach and I can see no reason why we should not accept it.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, in that I have long argued that this Parliament has already spent far too long on hunting given that there are many more important issues such as the crisis in the middle east and our deep worries about the Palestinians and what is happening in Israel. It is therefore important that the Committee's time is used as efficiently as possible. The hon. Gentleman suggests that we should not inappropriately waste parliamentary time; I take it that he will not unnecessarily repeat any arguments or deliberately prolong the debate to detain hon. Members when we should be discussing other matters.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, although I should have thought, Mrs. Roe, that if I were to try anything of the sort, you would be the first to be on your feet to prevent me from doing so. In any case, he should know that as we have agreed an out-date for the Bill of 13 February, it would serve no useful purpose to try to talk it out.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I am reassured by the hon. Gentleman's comments. That said, we must bear in mind that there are important issues to be debated throughout the Bill. We should not find ourselves detained for too long on the earlier parts so that we cannot debate later parts. I look forward to the forthcoming debate, because I and many other hon. Members want to raise several points before our consideration of clause 8 on Thursday.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

It is a delight to share with you, Mrs. Roe, yet another serving of no doubt completely new debating points on this subject. It is nice to see so many familiar faces. It is even nicer not to see some of the other familiar faces that are likely to be present throughout much of the debate. There is a degree of familiarity about the debate because so many of us have been here before.

There has been an interesting and seminal move forward as a result of the Government's approach, which led to the debate of today's programme motion. When I first got involved in the subject five or six years ago, there was a great deal of confrontation and almost a binary situation in terms of intransigence. Because of the three-day hearing that took place last summer we have the opportunity in the debate—using the programme motion moved by the Minister—to address the issue seriously in a logical, practical and objective way. We have not had an opportunity to do that before.

Ordering is the key point. The Minister accurately pointed out that we are starting with the principles. It is vital for us to recognise that what has changed in the debate is exactly the same thing that causes us to focus on clause 8. Clause 8 is at the heart of the debate, not just the Bill. That clause is where we have to begin; the principles underpinning whatever we seek to do regarding hunting with dogs and the other related matters. There is no other sensible way forward. We have failed to reach a sensible conclusion so many times in the past because we did not start with the principles. We did not have a clause 8 to debate in

which we could consider utility and other related matters. As the hon. Member for North Wiltshire rightly pointed out, it is important that we get the principles right before we consider the details.

It is very likely that we will take some time on clause 8. That is not because one seeks to filibuster in the Committee. There is no point in that, as we have heard, because the Committee ends on 13 February. Unless we achieve a degree of logical consensus on the principles, there is little chance that we will achieve a logical conclusion to our deliberations. In order to achieve that, we need more than a programme motion. We need a willingness to generously listen to different views.

Clearly, there are some strongly defined views in the debate. The programme motion gives us the chance not only to put our own case forward, but to be willing to modify that case, as Members in this Room already have to some extent. That gives us a chance to do something very special; by showing that the Committee stage, when handled in a logical, appropriate and non-prejudicial way, enables us to create good legislation, even though at previous stages it had looked like we were going to end up in the doldrums or in complete gridlock on account of an unwillingness to find common ground.

There will be a simple measure of whether the programme motion and our deliberations are proceeding in a positive or negative way. The degree to which people use words such as ''barbaric'', ''redcoats'' and ''indefensible'', instead of words such as ''comparative suffering'', ''evidence'' or ''objective fact'' will give us an indication of the extent to which the debate is a new process. My only slight regret is that it will be necessary for those of us who actively participated in the three-day hearings last summer to ensure that many of the guiding principles established through consensus on all sides are not lost in the debate. I appeal to hon. Members to listen generously to points brought out from those debates, assuming that they have not spent three days watching the video recordings; they may not have got them for Christmas.

We are beginning what could be the final run for a debate in the lower House on hunting with dogs. We have the opportunity of doing credit not just to the House and the Committee, but to the subject; by showing that the House of Commons is capable of moving forward on the basis of facts, even when, previously, strong, differently defined and emotional positions made it difficult for us to achieve what I hope we shall achieve now.

If we can move forward in that way, the Minister will have been prudent to introduce the Bill and to propose a programme motion that allows us to start with principles and move to the details. If, on the other hand, people insist on taking the positions that they have taken for a long time—even in the face of stronger facts that refute those positions—once again we could waste tens of hours of parliamentary time and achieve little of useful purpose.

As an optimist, I believe that most Committee members have a genuine interest in the subject and are

more than capable of understanding the power of reason over emotion.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I also welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Roe. It will be a great pleasure to serve under you.

The hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) and I had the same feeling—that we had wandered on to the stage set of ''Casablanca'' at the moment when the usual suspects were being rounded up. For me it is a novel experience to serve on a Standing Committee such as this.

I expect that there will be a long debate on clause 8, to which a number of amendments have already been tabled. The same may also be true of clause 1. I hope that Government Members will not think that time is being wasted when that long debate takes place.

It being half an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, The Chairman put the Question, pursuant to Sessional Order C (9) relating to Programming (28 June 2001).

Question put and agreed to.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

I remind the Committee that there is a financial resolution in connection with the Bill. Copies are available in the Room. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting of the Committee.

Mr Nick Ainger (Government Whip (technically a Lords Commissioner, HM Treasury); Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire, Labour)

I beg to move, That further consideration be now adjourned.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

In the traditions of the House, I am grateful for the opportunity almost to contradict the motion that has just been moved by introducing a wide-ranging debate on a motion for the adjournment, although I believe that it is technically known as a dilatory motion in a Committee.

In the spirit of earlier exchanges, may I add to the welcomes? The hon. Member for St. Ives should be welcomed to the new experience, as he described it, of being a member of the Committee considering a hunting Bill. I hope that he will enjoy that. It may also be the first occasion on which he has represented his party on the Front Bench in a Committee. If it is, I welcome him also to his Front-Bench responsibilities. I am not sure that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has participated in many Committees, but I believe that it is his first occasion on the Front Bench in this role.

I am also pleased to welcome the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) to a role that seems not to have existed for a while—that of the speaking Whip. During my time as a Labour Whip in opposition, which is now quite a few years ago, I was given licence to speak on many occasions by the Front-Bench team and, as a result, thoroughly enjoyed the Committee sittings. I simply extend a note of sympathy to the Government Whip, because I am not sure that we shall be that over-generous. However, one never knows.

The subject of hunting with dogs has been controversial for many decades. That controversy and the strength of feeling on both sides of the argument have been reflected time and again in the House. There has been a lack of meeting of minds. More often than not, people have hurled slogans across the Committee Room or the Floor of the House. The strength of feeling behind those slogans does not diminish the fact that they were slogans, nor does it enhance the quality of debate. People on both sides of the argument have a great deal to contribute if we can move beyond that and consider the principles that have been debated in the run-up to the Bill. We want people not to give up their beliefs or surrender their views about principles, but to engage with the ways in which principles can be applied in practice when we are developing good legislation. People have tended simply to defend traditional sporting activity on the one side or to seek to end the outrage of cruelty to animals on the other. It is also true that no Government have taken the initiative to introduce legislation. Time and again, individual Members have used the private Member's Bill to introduce draft legislation to test the views of Parliament.

Neither side should accuse the other of setting too high a priority on the issue. The record of voting and debates in the House shows that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the debate have turned up in droves to seek legislation or to object to it. We may say, as many people do, that this is not the most important issue that Parliament must address or the most important issue in the countryside, but it is important. It is a moral and practical issue that must be resolved.

Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)

The right hon. Gentleman rightly asks all members of the Committee to be flexible in their approach to the Bill. I have studied the list of hon. Members on both sides of the argument. How does he suggest that those who have stated on numerous occasions in Committee and in the House their beliefs that hunting is cruel and should be banned outright should bend their minds to the problem? I believe that the he will find it extremely difficult to persuade hon. Members who almost give the impression that they came to the House only to ban hunting to change their minds or alter their opinions.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I have the same challenge with all members of the Committee. Some Opposition Members gave the impression, particularly by their behaviour during the Second Reading debate, that they had come to the House simply to defend hunting. Let us not cast stones in one direction or the other. As I said, the issue has been dealt with through private Member's Bills for many years. It is inevitable that people will have nailed their colours to the mast and expressed their opinions during debates on previous Bills.

The challenge for members of the Committee—I indicated this in saying that everyone is here on a free-vote basis—is to take responsibility for judging how to vote on amendments and on the Bill as a whole, with the objective of considering how good legislation and the things that they believe in can be delivered. In view

of the hon. Gentleman's comment, I suggest that both sides must consider that more widely.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire referred to his relationship with the Countryside Alliance, which he said was putting out his press releases, and he gave a list of the organisations to which he listens. I may be forgiven if I missed in that fairly short list of organisations any suggestion that he is interested in the views of animal welfare organisations.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend did mention them.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I shall examine the Committee record with care, because I thought that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire did not indicate an interest in the views of animal welfare organisations. I am glad to enable him to clarify that.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I certainly did; if not, I certainly intended to do so. The Minister might consider what the Game Conservancy Trust, the National Farmers Union and the Country Land and Business Association are saying. A host of animal welfare organisations—I include the Countryside Alliance among them, as anyone who is interested in hunting is interested in animals—dislike what the Minister seeks to do in the Bill.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman has dug himself deeper into the hole that he started digging with his earlier remarks. He referred to organisations such as the NFU, the Countryside Alliance and the Nature Conservancy—a range of organisations have taken an interest—and I have given them an opportunity to provide evidence and have been prepared to listen. In his intervention, he did not refer to animal welfare organisations, such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which have played an important part in the debate for many years.

In taking the evidence, I have listened to all those organisations, as have some people who take a different view, including the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire, who seeks to enhance his role as the speaking Whip.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

One reason why I was so grateful to the Minister for the three days of hearings in Portcullis house in September 2002 was because they gave the Middle Way Group its first opportunity to engage with the RSPCA, the League Against Cruel Sports, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and other groups, which have consistently refused to discuss and to explore certain issues. The organisations to which the right hon. Gentleman just referred are often intransigent, and I am therefore very grateful for the three days of hearings in September.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for perhaps balancing up the way in which those on the Conservative Front Bench have approached the issue, which we should approach in the open spirit of listening to everybody because, as someone once said, we should never be afraid of the truth. If the truth comes from people with whom we disagree, we should nevertheless be willing to listen to their arguments. I am about to demonstrate how generous I am in that regard.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I wonder whether the Minister will help us by reflecting on this: if those of us who believe that the Bill is unnecessary were to find a way—it might not be the middle way—in which some sort of regulation were allowed, would he be able to bring on board those Government Members who believe that hunting should be banned? The difficulty with his argument is that if he came to us with a range of Government Members who felt that they could take an in-between position, it would be much easier for us to do the same. I do not hunt but, as someone who is adamantly opposed to the whole proposition on the grounds of freedom and liberty, I would be prepared to go quite a long way towards to him if he were to say from the beginning that those Government Members who adamantly take an opposite position in Committee had assured him that they would move towards us. If he cannot say that, much of what he says is otiose and empty.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The last thing that I would do to the pleasant and innocent shadow Minister is to ask him to speak on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman. I will not speak on behalf of Government Members, who are in Committee with a free vote. On the profile of members of the Committee, the narrowness of the representation on the Conservative Benches is dramatic. I look to Conservative Members to approach the Bill in the same objective and reasonable way in which I ask all members of the Committee to approach it. I shall return to the other part of the right hon. Gentleman's question in a moment.

I stated earlier that the controversy has gone on for a long time. The issue is both moral and practical and it needs to be dealt with not because the Government have said so but because individual Members have brought private Member's Bills before the House to tackle the issue of hunting with hounds. As I said, people on both sides of the debate have appeared in large numbers every time there has been a vote. The House of Commons has made the issue one that needs to be resolved. The Government have reacted by promising to enable Parliament to reach a conclusion.

The Government have made two previous attempts to make progress on hunting. One was the options Bill, which gave Members the opportunity to vote for, in effect, three Bills, drafted under the guidance of the three organisations that have most propounded ways forward on hunting. That Bill failed in the House of Lords before the last general election.

The Government also established the Burns inquiry. Although some people have criticised it for not providing a solution—it did not produce a magic wand at the end of its deliberations—it is fair to say that both sides have recognised its value. The Countryside Alliance and the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals asked me, when I took on these responsibilities, neither to reopen nor cast aside the Burns report, but to use it as a starting point for considering legislation. I am happy to confirm that I have done so, and I recommend the reading of the Burns report to any Committee members not already familiar with it. I say that

because selective quotation by organisations of particular parts of it are no substitute for examining the whole report and taking its recommendations in the round. I undertook not to rerun or abandon the Burns report and I believe that both sides were right in asking for that. That was the first element of consensus that I discovered.

The two principles that emerge from reading the Burns report are utility and cruelty. The definition of cruelty in English law is clear: to cause unnecessary or avoidable suffering. I ask hon. Members to bear that definition in mind. There is sometimes a tendency in discussion to slip between the terms suffering and cruelty. They are not the same thing. If the language of our debate is to be clear and efficient, it is essential to understand that cruelty is defined as causing avoidable and unnecessary suffering,

Utility is also important and I shall say a little about it in a few moments. It is clearly important that those who have to manage land and protect livestock or crops from the predations of vermin need a means of doing so. It is reasonable in a civilised society to seek a means that involves the minimum suffering—in other words, that avoids cruelty. That is an important underlying principle of the Bill.

I stress the extent to which, in preparing the legislation, I have listened widely to what people have had to say. On 10 April, following my statement to the House on 21 March, I wrote to every organisation known to have an interest in the matter, especially those that had been involved in the Burns process. That included organisations on all sides, and those with a neutral view on hunting. Along with the detailed comments then received, some 7,000 contributions simply said, ''Leave hunting alone'', which matched roughly the same number that just said, ''Ban hunting''. However, many contributions looked under the surface of those two slogans to examine the practical issues: what cruelty issues are involved, what needs to be stopped and what principles should be applied.

My second circular was again welcomed by both sides as posing the right questions. I was grateful for the trouble to which many on both sides went to respond to those questions and provide evidence. I also sought to listen to everybody and meet all who had a view to put forward. Some of those views were expressed reasonably and thoughtfully; some were expressed more through the mode of the loud hailer. That is the nature of an issue about which people feel passionately.

Reference has already been made to the three days of hearings that took place in Portcullis house in September. That was important because the Countryside Alliance, the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals and the Middle Way Group took part in the sessions and their design. All three signed up to the process, the topics to be debated, the list of experts to be invited and the way in which we would conduct ourselves. All three organisations took part in the sessions by asking questions of the experts. Because of the way that we

conducted those sessions, several experts—sometimes with quite widely different views—took part in a single discussion with representatives of those three organisations.

It is a tribute to parliamentary democracy and those organisations that they took part in such constructive sessions. It is also a credit to many hon. Members who turned up to listen. Some were associated with one group or another; others simply listened to the discussion. In a democratic society, if we cannot deal with matters that are as passionately fought over as hunting, there is a problem at the heart of that democracy. Of course, there must be a resolution at the end of the day, and someone has to have successful proposals. It is right that proposals should be based on the widest possible attempt to listen to everybody, and to listen to uncomfortable truths that may come from the other side of the debate.

I pay tribute to the way in which the three organisations were willing to do so. Each of them made it clear that they were not resiling from their principles. They were not seeking a fudge or a compromise and nor was I. I wanted to examine and test the ideas that had been argued over like a set of old bones for many years, and to see whether, by exposing ourselves to that rational discussion, we could find a way to draft good legislation based on principles and recognising practicalities. I hope that I shall persuade the Committee that we have achieved that in the legislation.

The discussion took place and the evidence was given in public. The questions and answers were heard in public. They are on the record and available on video, in transcript and on the website. They are available in this House and the other place. To those who have not yet had the opportunity of accessing them—whatever their views are or may end up being—I suggest that those discussions add to the knowledge and the quality of the debate, enabling people to deal with the issue.

I have introduced the legislation on the basis of the discussions, the evidence and careful thought about the matters put forward. The Bill is based on clear and practical principles. It is wrong to describe the Bill as unclear, as some people have. It is based on two principles set out in clause 8. It is right to start with that clause to make that clear. The registrar and the tribunal will have to apply those principles in deciding whether an activity should be allowed to continue, where that activity comes under the registration system.

The principles led to the conclusion that some activities could never satisfy the requirements, and that others generally did satisfy them. Let me consider those issues briefly. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire suggested that we should deal with the issues in general terms before we come to them specifically. Deer hunting is banned absolutely by the Bill. It may meet the utility test in that there may be a need to control numbers and to protect crops. Paragraph 5.75 of the Burns report states:

''It is generally accepted that red deer numbers in Devon and Somerset need to be controlled.''

However, Burns went on in effect to apply the cruelty test, saying in paragraph 6.39:

''Stalking, if carried out to a high standard and with the availability of a dog . . . is in principle the better method of culling deer from an animal welfare perspective. In particular, it obviates the need to chase the deer in the way which occurs in hunting.''

We shall of course return to the issue in detail, and a considerable body of evidence needs to be taken into account. I give that quotation simply as the headline of Burns's conclusions, which underpin my view that deer hunting can never satisfy the two principles that are set out in clause 8.

Mr Adrian Flook (Taunton, Conservative)

When we discuss deer hunting, I have no doubt that I and other Conservative Members will equally be able to prove that the physiological evidence of Professor Bateson and others who initially said that they were against stag hunting has since been compromised by other evidence. The Minister has given a one-sided opinion.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

No. The hon. Gentleman is expressing a view that is held in some quarters, but I can tell him that I have gone beyond looking at the Bateson report to consider the further evidence that was made available to the Burns inquiry—that is why I quoted the Burns conclusion—and other evidence that has since become available. As I said, we shall go more deeply into the evidence on deer hunting when we reach the relevant clause.

Briefly, on hare coursing, there is little or no need to control hare numbers on the ground of utility. In fact, hare coursing can in no way meet the utility test. Paragraph 5.94 of Burns states that hare coursing is

''essentially carried out for recreational purposes and''—

has—

''a relatively small direct impact on hare numbers.''

Furthermore, the national organisations describe their own sport as an activity that is about testing the speed and agility of the animals, not about achieving the utility that is defined in clause 8.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

The Minister said that we must not quote selectively from Burns, so may I continue to quote from his conclusions on the issue? He says

''the impact of a ban might well be that, in the absence of other changes, the population would decline in those areas. This would partly result from a loss of suitable habitat but also, in a few areas, from the shooting of hares to deter poaching and illegal coursing.''

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman invites me to go much wider than I had intended. He uses the words

''in the absence of other changes''.

Of course, when designing legislation it is very important to consider its implications, which is why we took the time to do so. It is also important to recognise the pernicious nature of illegal hare coursing, in terms not only of any cruelty involved, but of its impact on many communities in rural counties. Members of Parliament on both sides of the House have made representations to me—and, indeed, to colleagues at the Home Office—about the impact of illegal hare coursing. The Bill deals with illegal hare coursing, as well as with coursing activities that are currently legal, in a practical and straightforward way.

At the moment, the illegality in a complaint of illegal hare coursing arises from the trespass, so the police are required initially to make inquiries about whether the people concerned had permission to use the land for coursing. Given the nature of rural policing, that is a considerable challenge and many police officers say that it makes it impossible for them effectively to police the issue. The Bill makes it very straightforward. If people undertake coursing, the activity itself will be illegal. The test for the police is straightforward and therefore enforcement will be straightforward.

Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)

I have had this argument with the Minister before and it does not stand up to examination. If illegal hare coursing takes place, the problem is not in asking the owner, manager or farmer of the land whether he permitted it. One just knocks on his kitchen door and says, ''Did you give permission?'' The answer is yes or no. The difficulty is in catching the people who are doing the illegal coursing. The Bill will simply add to the number of people who will fall outside the law. Finding evidence of whether the person or persons had permission to course on the land is a matter of the greatest simplicity, subject to police numbers.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I have to tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that what he has just said is absolute nonsense. At the moment, part of the problem is the extent of intimidation—and actual damage—undertaken by the, in some cases, extremely unpleasant people who are involved in illegal hare coursing. He is in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that those who undertake illegal hare coursing are content to stand around waiting for the police to find the landlord, who may not even be in residence or may not be available to answer questions, before returning to enforce the law. At the moment, that law simply relates to trespass. The Bill will be extremely effective in dealing with hare coursing. I am happy to take the hon. and learned Gentleman on in relation to law and order, because the Bill will be extremely helpful in relation to those issues.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am still mystified by this argument. Intimidation or other reasons mean that an activity that is currently illegal cannot be properly policed. How can making another activity illegal mean that policing will suddenly be fine? If the Minister is right and thugs are intimidating landowners into not complaining about illegal coursing, how is it that all of a sudden the thugs will be no longer there?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am happy to point out that the hon. Gentleman clearly has not understood what the Bill does. I urge him to read it, as he enjoined my colleagues to do earlier.

I responded on the point of illegal hare coursing because it was raised by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker); I did not intend to raise it at this stage. I was simply pointing out that one of the side effects of the Bill, which deals with cruelty and utility, is that it will enable the police to deal with the pernicious activity of illegal hare coursing, which causes such problems.

At the moment, hare coursing is illegal only because people are trespassing. Such people are committing a civil offence, not a criminal one, and it is harder to prosecute and penalise them. The police need to establish whether people are trespassing before they can undertake to do anything. Not surprisingly, given that the likelihood of being able to prosecute successfully is so minimal, the police question the point of dealing with the issue. Rural communities are outraged by the impact of illegal hare coursing and the police are unhappy that they have not got the tools to do the job on behalf of those communities. The Bill will solve that problem.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I wonder whether I could help to bring the two sides together. I understand what the Minister is saying. Of course it is true that there are many cases in which obtaining information from a landowner as to whether trespassing has occurred is difficult. It would be wrong not to say so. However, there is a counter-distinction, which is a problem. Certain clear rules pertain to legal hare coursing. One of the reasons why such coursing is legal is that those rules are obeyed, unlike in illegal hare coursing. Has the Minister not thought that if there are people who are able to do something legally now and who are led to do it illegally in future because of the Bill, the central problem of policing will return? That is not an argument for not making hare coursing illegal; it is simply a question of whether that will cause a problem. We must accept that if hare coursing is made illegal, many people who at present can do something will not be able to do it in future. It surely would be odd if some of them did not decide to do it because they did not accept that the Bill was reasonable.

The problem for the police is not the one that the Minister has put forward; it is that there are not many of them. In my constituency, one can wait four hours for a policeman when somebody has been hit on the head. If the Minister honestly thinks that the police will be able to deal with the issues that will arise, he is wrong.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

First, nobody is made to break the law. If people choose to break the law, it is their decision and they carry the responsibility for it.

Secondly, to stick to the type of hare coursing that is currently illegal, the only illegality is the trespass, and the problem is having the means to deal with it. The Bill will make that activity a criminal offence that will carry a fine of up to £5,000, and there will be powers of confiscation as well. The Bill gives the police a tool to deal with law breaking. Opposition Members who have written to me on hare coursing have argued strongly that we should introduce precisely the measures that the Bill contains in relation to illegal hare coursing. The advantage is the clarity that that gives; one knows what activity is going on and that it is illegal. The evidential challenge to the police is small, so the amount of time involved in administration is small.

The Bill gives a tool to deal with the problem where it is large enough to require police attention. Certainly

the evidence that I have received from Opposition Members and from some of my hon. Friends is that, in some parts of the country, it is a particular problem that needs to be dealt with, and the police need the tools to do the job.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

The Minister is right; the Bill has the effect that he describes. However, he is wrong to say that hare coursing is illegal only as an act of trespass. I believe that it is also a poaching offence under one of the Game Acts. There is an alternative remedy there; those penalties could have been toughened up, too. I believe that there are two offences rather than one.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman will discover that the main problem with poaching is whether people have permission to undertake certain things. Therefore, we are in the same bind; we must also demonstrate, for instance, that animals are from a piece of land and have not been introduced to it for the specific purpose of coursing. The hon. Gentleman is helping my case rather than weakening it.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I do not want to pin the Minister down unnecessarily on this point, as we shall debate the question at great length at a future date. However, with respect, he has not answered the central point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and has failed to deal with the issue of police resources and prioritisation.

In a rural area, call-outs are necessarily prioritised. For example, leaving aside cases where someone has been smashed on the head, a policeman called to a burglary where the burglar has left the property will not deal with the case for a number of hours. That is in an ordinary, non-contentious case. What advice will be given to chief constables to prioritise hare coursing and what additional resources will be made available by the Home Office to enforce that law?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman mounts an interesting argument. I suggest that he examines it in a little more detail with an ice pack on his head, because he may start to recognise how invalid it is. Several forces have looked for specific ways of dealing with the mischief of illegal hare coursing—Cambridge is a good case in point—because it is such a nuisance. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary says that Lincolnshire is also addressing the problem. I have had a great deal of correspondence about it from Members who represent rural Lincolnshire constituencies.

People at different levels of the police have told me consistently that even in those places where hare coursing is a real nuisance, the tools to control it and to ensure that they can undertake prosecutions and nip the activity in the bud are not available to them. They need the tools to do a good job.

Of course, the extent to which police resources are put into dealing with traffic problems, burglary or hare coursing is matter of policing priority. I would not expect the police to put resources into hare coursing if it is not a problem in their area. However, if it is a problem, the Bill will give them the tools to do the job.

Incidentally, on resources, I say with some pride that I commissioned research on the problems of

rurality for the police when I was deputy to the Home Secretary. It led to £30 million of additional finance going to the rural forces in recognition of the pressures that they experience. The previous Conservative Government signally failed to address that.

Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)

Is the Minister prepared to make available to the Committee an indication of the number of police forces with which he has had a conversation along those lines? How many police forces proactively came to him or his colleagues to ask for greater powers to be made available so that they could prosecute those conducting this illegal activity? We have heard that he has had an approach from Lincolnshire. It would be very interesting to know what other forces consider the problem a priority for which they need extra tools.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Perhaps I ought to provide a list of Conservative Members who wrote to me about the matter on behalf of the counties that they represent. Frankly, that sort of debating point does not impress me at all. In some places, illegal hare coursing is a bloody nuisance and may involve intimidation, violence and damage, and it is clear that there are no powers to deal with it.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend. I have discussed illegal hare coursing with the Lancashire police, because it has been a particular problem in my constituency for many years. I have discussed with them the new tools, as referred to by my right hon. Friend, and they agree that they would make their lives much easier. They respond to public complaints about illegal hare coursing and are confronted with threats and intimidation, including threats of arson to farmers' homes and buildings. They have great difficulty prosecuting under the trespass laws, so the Bill will help them enormously.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that evidence, which supports what I have heard from other hon. Friends and Opposition Members. I intend to move on, because we will return to illegal hare coursing when we consider the detail of the Bill.

The simple point that I was making before I responded to the intervention—I would not describe my response as a mistake, although it has taken us into some specific issues—was that hare coursing is not directed at any utility. It is about comparing the speed and agility of dogs and as such does not meet the utility test. If people consider the activity as described by its practitioners in the context of clause 8, they will understand why it is absolutely clear that it should not be a permitted activity.

At the other end of the spectrum is ratting. I refer members of the Committee to Burns, who concluded in paragraph 2.66 that ratting makes

''a useful contribution to pest control.''

There is a case under the test of utility for eradicating rats on the basis of animal welfare, the protection of crops and, to a degree, human health. A case is also very strongly made in much of the evidence that I have seen under the test of cruelty, because the alternatives for dealing with rats are poisoning, or trapping and snaring; both of these can cause considerable suffering and are indiscriminate, in that they can affect species

other than the intended victim. Ratting satisfies the utility test and the cruelty test, in that the alternatives are arguably crueler. Rabbiting meets the utility test because it is carried out for food and for pest control, and the cruelty test because it causes less suffering than alternative means of control such as poisoning and snaring.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister mentions that rabbiting meets the utility test because it provides food. Would he care to tell us where clause 8(1) mentions the provision of food under the definition of utility?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I said, ''and for pest control''. The two elements together satisfy the test. I then mentioned the way in which rabbiting meets the cruelty test.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Perhaps I was not clear enough. The Minister says that one reason that rabbiting is fine is that it provides food. If he glances at clause 8(1)(a) to (h) he will find that the provision of food for human consumption does not form part of his definition of utility. Was he mistaken when he said that the provision of food makes rabbiting acceptable?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

No, I was describing the activity, not the way in which the test applies. The test applies in relation to pest control. That is perfectly straightforward. If the hon. Gentleman looks at clause 8, he will see that it deals with that.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

I do not want to detain the Minister, as I am sure that we will return to this subject later, but would he be willing to consider the possibility that that list is not exhaustive? All sides, for example, accepted that recreational activity should be regarded as a utility to some extent but that, too, is not in the list. Will he assure us that he will at least consider that other elements might usefully be added?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The hon. Gentleman seeks my assurance that I will consider that. I can assure him that we will debate it. The definition of utility was tested in the hearings in Portcullis house that I referred to earlier, in which the hon. Gentleman participated. In my view, utility must mean providing something that is actually useful. It seems to me that the definition of utility in clause 8 focuses on necessary undertakings. That is a good test of necessity because it resonates with the avoidable or unnecessary suffering in the second test.

Of course, we will debate clause 8, and arguments about inclusion or exclusion of certain elements may be made by either side, which is what the Committee is all about. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will listen to what is then said, but I will not go beyond that now.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I imagined during the Portcullis house hearings that the definition of utility with which we were dealing was that provided to Members in the Minister's letter of 10 April. That lists a range of other issues to be included, which are absent from the definition in the Bill. Why did he change the definition from the one that he used on 10 April?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman was present at the discussions in which we decided on what issues we would take evidence during the Portcullis house hearings. I suggest that he return

to the list of expert witnesses and topics agreed by the three organisations. In the letter to which he refers, I set out a series of questions.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

In a letter to hon. Members on 10 April, the Minister wrote:

'' 'Utility' addresses the need for particular activities, particularly in the work of land and wildlife managers. It might be described as the need or usefulness of an activity for vermin control, wildlife management, habitat protection or land management and conservation.''

The definition in the Bill is substantially reduced from what that letter suggested.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Absolutely it is, because the whole point of setting the widest possible definition there was to test which of those aspects should be contained in clause 8. If the hon. Gentleman returns to the letter that I sent in May, which focused attention on the issues that would have to be considered in drafting legislation, he will find the answer to his own question there as well as in the debates that subsequently took place to decide on the evidence to which we would listen in Portcullis house.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am sorry to give the Minister a hard time on this one, but I take him back to his discussion of rabbiting. He said that that fulfilled the utility tests because it provided food. When I pointed out to him, correctly, that that was not in the definition, he said never mind about food—rabbiting fulfils the utility test because it is vermin control, which does appear as part of the utility definition in the Bill. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill sufficiently carefully, but vermin control does not appear in clause 8. I think that he is referring to the exemptions at the end. Vermin control certainly applies there, but it does not appear in the cruelty versus utility tests in clause 8.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am flattered that the hon. Gentleman applies such critical exegesis to every word I utter, to such an extent that some of the more extreme Welsh chapel sects would be proud.

I was saying that the tests set out in clause 8 when applied to ratting and rabbiting are satisfied and that is why those activities are excluded in the Bill, but we can debate that if hon. Members want to argue otherwise when we come to the detail of the Bill in due course. Clause 8 states that

''The first test for registration in respect of proposed hunting of wild mammals is that it is likely to make a significant contribution to the prevention or reduction of serious damage which the wild mammals to be hunted would . . . cause to''

and then goes on to list livestock, game birds and so on. If that is not a definition of a pest, I do not know what is. I am not using the word ''pest'' as if it were in clause 8 because it is not. I am using it in its general colloquial sense, which I suggest to the hon. Gentleman fits very well with clause 8.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

If, indeed, that is the case, may I ask two questions? The Minister said that under schedule 1 vermin control is one of the reasons for exemption for ratting and rabbiting. If he believes that clause 8 includes vermin control, will he accept our amendment

to that effect, which includes the words ''vermin control''?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

No, I shall not discuss an amendment that the hon. Gentleman has tabled until I have examined it to see whether it is necessary, whether it adds anything to the Bill and whether it is consistent with the principles of the Bill. Those principles are set out in clause 8, so the hon. Gentleman should look at what constitutes a pest as defined in clause 8. There is no need to be clever with a dictionary. The Bill says what it says and I believe that it is clear. However, I shall be happy to discuss the details with the hon. Gentleman when we come to the clause and schedule.

I am a little surprised that we have gone into some of the detail because I was trying briefly to set out the principles on which the Bill is established. However, that has been useful because it has helped to demonstrate the sort of engagement that is necessary to understand exactly the clear principles on which it is based—the principle of recognising utility, but ensuring that nothing cruel is done. That has been accepted on both sides of the Committee. The chairman of the Countryside Alliance, John Jackson, has said on a number of occasions that if an action is cruel it should not take place, so that is another element of consensus. The issue is to look at what needs to be done and then at what needs to be undertaken as set out in clause 8(1) and to apply the test of whether it is cruel and whether it can be undertaken in a less cruel way that avoids unnecessary or avoidable suffering. That is what the Bill is all about.

Conservative Members made a couple of comments about licensing and registration systems and they clearly have a different idea of the sort of system that could come into place. Members of the Middle Way Group may not accept my judgment on this, but one reason why I could not accept one of its proposals in the previous Bill was because it amounted to the licensing of cruelty, which is not acceptable. The Bill does not do that because those activities for which any individual is registered have to be undertaken in a way that is not cruel. Clauses 27 and 28 include a requirement that an activity must be humane and cause minimal suffering, which will be automatic conditions for registration. Any suffering that is avoidable must indeed be avoided, which is why the principle of eradicating and avoiding cruelty is applied consistently throughout the Bill.

Where the clinical evidence is less clear cut than in the case of, for instance, deer hunting, the Bill will set up an independent process. Each side's views on foxhunting are even stronger than those on deer hunting or ratting, but the legislation should be able effectively and clearly to deal with foxhunting. The problem is that the views on both sides are stronger than the clinical evidence. Despite the intervention of the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) on deer hunting, there is strong clinical evidence on it, but the evidence is not strong in relation to other activities.

The process will set out an opportunity for those who wish to undertake any particular activity to demonstrate its necessity and to go on to demonstrate that there is no way of undertaking it that involves less

suffering or is more likely to avoid suffering. Those principles are made clear in the Bill. The process is described in the rest of part 1, but the key point is that it will ensure that hunting may continue only where the two tests are satisfied. The Bill will give the registrar and the tribunal no flexibility in that respect, which is the right way to achieve the objective of preventing cruelty in relation to any activity, including foxhunting, which is what people on all sides of the debate really want. The issue tends to be addressed through simple summaries, but we have to produce legislation in Committee to deal with an issue, namely cruelty, to which Parliament has returned time and again. We must ensure that cruelty is prevented while recognising activities that are necessary for the purposes set out in clause 8.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

Does my right hon. Friend think that the Bill would be improved if the word ''cruelty'' were used in it? I cannot find that word, and a definition would make the Bill clearer.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

Such a definition would not make the Bill clearer, but I understand my hon. Friend's point. The definition of cruelty is clear in English law and has been established by the courts and in legislation over the years. To be cruel is to undertake something that involves unnecessary or avoidable suffering to an animal. That definition of cruelty is very clear, and it is used consistently throughout the Bill. I am happy to consider his point, but I can assure him that there is no difference between our objectives. A definition set into the Bill would not add anything, and indeed it might conflict with clearly established principles in law. It might therefore have an opposite effect from the one that he seeks. However, I am happy further to consider that matter in the course of our discussions.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

I have received a letter from a Mr. Brittain in Ludlow. He asked me to inquire whether the Minister will apply the tests of cruelty and utility equally to hunting, shooting and fishing in the course of the debate. If he will not do so, why not?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

The answer is no because we are debating a Bill on hunting with dogs. We have a clear manifesto commitment to enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on hunting with dogs. That issue has been raised in the House time and again and both sides have debated it. We shall fulfil that manifesto commitment and we shall not be diverted into a discussion on shooting and fishing. I say to the hon. Gentleman that we have a clear commitment on shooting and fishing. They are not under threat and are strongly supported.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether he believes fishing to be cruel?

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

No, I do not. That strays outside the scope of the Bill, so it is not a matter for consideration as far as I am concerned. Obviously, it is for you, Mrs. Roe, to determine what issues hon. Members can raise. It is not for me to constrain the Committee, but as far as I am concerned fishing is not in the Bill, it is not an issue before us and it will not come before us. I am expressing a personal view in that case.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I am not going to press the Minister on fishing, but I am going to press him on the driving of game birds, which does involve dogs. The driving of game birds often puts up other wild mammals and other types of game birds. Burns states:

''Gamebirds are often driven towards guns by a combination of human beaters and dogs. We have received many representations that stress that dogs, no matter how well trained, may pursue other animals that are put up in the course of a beat. Concern has been expressed to us that any legislation to ban hunting should also take this into account.''

Intellectually, it is totally indefensible to say that it is cruel to use hounds to control vermin, but not cruel to put up game birds. It simply does not make sense.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

My simple response to the hon. Gentleman is, ''Nice try''. I am not going to be diverted from the responsibility and the commitment that we have to deal with the issue of hunting with dogs. The Bill is based on principle. It is practical, will be effective and enforceable, and I hope to see it on the statute book in the near future. I hope that I will see it passed with the support of Conservative and Government Members. There is no doubt that it is necessary to reach a conclusion on the issue.

As the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said in his introduction, far too much parliamentary time has been spent on the issue. We will not stop the use of parliamentary time on the issue of hunting by ignoring it and hoping that it will go away. We do not intend to ignore it and hope that it goes away. We intend to deal with it, and deliver on the manifesto promise to enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on the issue.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I do not intend to delay the Committee. Although I welcome the mechanism of the dilatory motion, it seems to be a useful opportunity for other Committee members to let us know their views about the general principles that lie behind the detail of the Bill, rather than any sort of Second Reading debate. The debate should concern the detail of the Bill and what we shall be discussing during the next few weeks, rather than the general principles that lie behind it. I have already said that we believe that the general principles behind it are bad, and we voted against the Bill on Second Reading.

This ought to be an opportunity to debate some of the principles that we intend to apply to the amendments that have been tabled. In that context, I say that when the Minister talks of settling the issue—as he often does—he could nearly always substitute the word ''settle'' with the word ''ban''. He seems to believe that settling the issue for good, which is what the Labour party manifesto requires, somehow or other ought to lead to a ban of a large number of presently perfectly legal activities.

Mr Elliot Morley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)

That certainly settles it.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Under-Secretary's comment, from a sedentary position, makes it plain that even though he is on the Front Bench as a Minister of the Crown and is supporting his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister who has promoted the Bill, he thinks that settling the issue under the Labour party manifesto means a ban. That is my understanding of his intervention. The

Under-Secretary is not correcting me, so my understanding was obviously right.

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

I would like to clarify something because I do not want the hon. Gentleman to mislead the Committee. Was there not a free vote on each side on Second Reading?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

There was indeed, but I understand that not many Government Members took advantage of it. The astonishing thing is that so many of them spent the whole of Second Reading explaining how much they hated the Bill, saying, ''The Bill is a bad Bill. This is disgraceful. Scandalous. We are going to amend it. We do not want this frightful Bill. It is absolutely ghastly.'' They heaped opprobrium on the head of the Minister. None the less, they voted in favour of a Bill that they had previously said was bad. That seems an odd way to behave on Second Reading, but we are not here to discuss that.

We must settle this issue, and there are several useful ways in which we could do so. The Conservatives have proposed a licence as a new schedule to the Bill. It is an extremely detailed two-page document that discusses every aspect of hunting with dogs. I, and I daresay others, would be perfectly happy to discuss the licence further and possibly to amend it during the Bill's passage through both Houses of Parliament, in the hope that, ultimately, we would have a licence that would allow hunting to continue under carefully laid down conditions.

After all, that is what has happened for 50 years on Government land; that is to say, on Ministry of Defence and Forestry Commission land. Over the past five or six years, Labour Ministers have probably signed licences to allow hunting to continue on Forestry Commission land. The Conservatives would be happy to consider something akin to that and, as a gesture of our good will, we have proposed the detailed two-page document. We are ready to discuss it further with those who seek to settle the matter. We are prepared to do that only if ''settle'' does not mean ban, because I suspect that that is what some have in mind; the Under-Secretary, from a sedentary position, has rather confirmed that.

Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test, Labour)

When the hon. Gentleman refers to a gesture ''of our good will,'' is he speaking on a whipped basis, for himself or for a number of people? Three Members who a number of people thought were going to be on the Committee are not on the Committee. Will he clear that matter up?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

For the sake of good order, as the lawyers say, I want to make it absolutely plain that this is not a whipped matter. It is a free vote for the Conservative party and for the Liberal Democrats, as they made plain on Second Reading. I understand that it is a free vote for the Labour party. It is not a whipped matter in any shape, size or form. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will be silent for a second, I will answer his question. My job in speaking from the Front Bench is to speak in favour of hunting. I am here to defend hunting; that is not in question. I make no secret of the fact that I hunt. I

have taken part in such discussion for 25 or 30 years and of course I support hunting. Some hon. Members on the Opposition Benches—from the Liberal Democrats—do not agree with me. So we are not talking about ''us against you lot'' on the Government Benches. There are one or two Labour Members who support hunting; I am sad that they are not on the Committee. I think that we have one or two people who are opposed to hunting.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I will continue for a moment, if I may. The real point is that, as far as the Conservative party is concerned, this is a clear free vote issue. As the shadow countryside Minister, I have chosen to speak up on behalf of hunting. I was not required to do so by my party or by anybody else, but because I feel so passionately about it, I have chosen to do so.

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

A number of Conservatives voted in favour of the Bill on Second Reading, but none has been put on the Bill. Is that correct?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

We have only eight members; Labour has 21. That is the simple answer. I hope that I have made it clear that this is not a whipped matter.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a discussion of party politics has absolutely nothing to do with the principles that we are here to debate?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

That is an extremely good point. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Further discussion about whether this is a matter of party politics would be absurd. Of course, it is noticeable that large parts of the Labour party are opposed to hunting and large parts of the Conservative party and of the Liberal Democrat party are in favour of it, but taking it beyond that would be absurd.

It is equally absurd for the Minister to argue, as he did a moment ago, that the fact that Conservative Members have turned up to take part in all of the debates about hunting over the years shows that they are in favour of such debates. Of course we took part in the debates. Of course we voted. Of course we are taking part in the Committee. If we did not do so, we would be allowing the legislation to go through without any form of opposition. We also turn up to speak and vote in every single debate on every single Bill in the House of Commons, no matter how bad that Bill may be.

Perhaps, in line with new Labour, the Minister does not like opposition. He thinks that the Opposition should stay at home, that we should not speak up on behalf of hunting and that we should allow the legislation to go through with a nod of our head. That is certainly what he and his right hon. Friends in the Cabinet would like to happen. Perhaps they think that that would be in line with modernisation. We do not believe in that and we will oppose what he plans to do.

I want to talk briefly about the principles that we intend to apply in tabling our amendments and what lies behind those that we have already tabled, especially with regard to cruelty and utility. The Minister is right to say that those principles are central, because without them the Bill becomes a poor

and thin thing indeed. It is extremely important that the principles of utility and cruelty should be compared one with the other.

Some activities that are demonstrably cruel and should not be allowed under any circumstances—such as bear-baiting and other activities that have been banned in the past—have no utility at all. Other activities are quite cruel, but because they have a large utility they are allowed to continue. Most of the people in this Room, who are sitting on leather chairs, wearing leather shoes and may go home later to eat a steak, are taking part in activities that involve a certain degree of cruelty, but the utility greatly outweighs the cruelty. In considering cruelty and utility, it is most important that the two should be balanced one against the other. The Bill does not do that.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

Can the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee where he would fit hare coursing into that argument?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

We will go on to talk about precisely how the principles of utility and cruelty apply to particular sports. Earlier, the Minister made the interesting point that the one area of activity to which utility against cruelty does not apply is hare coursing. His rather fallacious argument was that although we can discuss utility versus cruelty as it applies to deer hunting because that is hunting, hare coursing is not hunting, so one cannot seek to apply the two tests to it. The Minister has also advanced the equally absurd argument that deer hunting should be banned outright because there is what he describes as incontrovertible evidence that it is by definition vastly more cruel than it is useful. He said that on Second Reading, and he keeps on saying it. We keep asking him to let us see that evidence and to tell us why it is any more incontrovertible with regard to deer than it is to hares, rabbits, rats, foxes or mink. If he has incontrovertible evidence as to why hare coursing in particular should be banned, and why it should not be submitted to a test of utility against cruelty, he must tell the Committee what that is. We shall return to that on Thursday and thereafter when we discuss the matter in general.

The first principle behind our amendment is that cruelty and utility must always be considered together. That is a principle of the law that has been applied since the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which referred to unnecessary suffering. The key aspect of that phrase is that the two concepts are inextricably linked. One cannot consider only suffering or only utility; the one must be balanced against the other.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman reaching the nursery slopes of the moral arguments involved. Can he explain whether he believes that an activity that has utility should be allowed even if it is cruel; that is, even if it involves unnecessary or avoidable suffering?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister invites me to enter into a debate that I am sure we will have on Thursday. We could consider all kinds of human activities in terms of whether they have utility and whether their utility exceeds the cruelty involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) mentioned a

matter that was raised in The Daily Telegraph by the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) two or three days before Christmas. The hon. Gentleman, who has been very up-front in opposing hunting for all these years, came out against the tests for utility and cruelty because if those tests were applied to shooting and to fishing—his great love is coarse fishing—they, too, would be abolished. The Minister says that we must not talk about that because it is not in the Bill. However, we must consider the general principle behind the Bill; if we find that that principle, if applied to another activity, would result in the banning of that activity, it may well be a bad principle. Coarse fishing has no utility of any kind. One catches the thing and puts it back again after keeping it in a bucket for some time. There is zero utility; the fish is not eaten and no pest is involved. Vets have not yet come to a firm conclusion on the matter but, by definition, if coarse fishing involves any cruelty whatsoever, that cruelty must outweigh the utility.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

As my hon. Friend was accused of being but on the nursery slopes of morality, does he agree that the first test of a moral principle is whether it can be applied universally? If it cannot be, it is not a moral principle. Anybody who has read moral philosophy, theology or philosophy knows that to be a basic and necessary provision. There is no moral case on this issue, because it cannot be applied universally.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend is right. We must apply this moral principle to all sorts of areas. One thinks of boxing. What is the cruelty involved in boxing against the utility of it? Doubtless, many Labour Members—although not me—would question the utility against cruelty of halal butchery. My own view is that the utility is greater than the cruelty, but the two must balance one another.

What is the utility, compared to the cruelty, of cigarette manufacture? It is useful for the Government, because they raise large quantities of tax from it, but it involves huge cruelty to human beings, to no utility apart from a momentary pleasure. What is the cruelty compared with the utility of what the Government are about to do in Iraq? Those are interesting, moral matters and my right hon. Friend says that they are a universal matter. We must apply these principles to them all; they must be compared with one another.

Secondly, we shall discuss the precise definition of both utility and cruelty. I was amazed that in earlier exchanges the Minister seemed to have such a scant grasp of his own definition of utility in clause 8. We believe that the definition of utility is not only much narrower than the one set out in his letter of 10 April, but that it is fundamentally a bad definition which, if allowed to stand, would bring down all sorts of other legitimate human activities. We have therefore tabled a series of amendments that would expand the definition of utility to cover a variety of other things, so that the registrar can consider such matters as vermin control, which is not mentioned in the Bill, the stable management of the quarried species, habitat protection, avoiding the spreading of disease or the provision of food for human beings. We believe that

all those are of some utility. They do not appear in the Minister's definition of utility in clause 8. We shall try to amend it so that they do.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

If the hon. Gentleman wants to deal with the issue seriously, as he has suggested—I am sure that he genuinely wishes to do so—he must not misrepresent earlier elements in the process. I made it clear that the April letter was about inviting comment and evidence, so of course it did not contain a definition that I said would be in legislation. It invited suggestions and comments from a wide range of people, and we have arrived at the definition in the Bill as a result of all that evidence.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

It is interesting to hear a Minister renege on a letter that he wrote less than six months ago, but it might be useful for the Committee if I repeat the precise wording. When one receives a letter from a Minister of the Crown, normally one can believe what he says. It is important to read the precise wording, which has been advised by many civil servants and crawled over very carefully. In his letter of 10 April the Minister says:

'' 'Utility' addresses the need for particular activities, particularly in the work of land and wildlife managers. It might be described as the need or usefulness of an activity for vermin control, wildlife management, habitat protection or land management and conservation.''

That seems to me to be a straightforward exposition of what the Minister thinks. The letter does not say, ''Some people think this and I would be grateful for your comments''. It does not say, ''Maybe this will be the outcome, but tell me all about it''. It says, ''This is my view, this is the definition of utility, and it is reasonable for us to rest on it.'' If the Minister is about to leap to his feet and say, ''Oh, no, we can't'', I fear that some of the other things that he has said in the past six months could equally be called into question.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

That is total nonsense and afraid the hon. Gentleman is doing himself no credit. He read out the words, but clearly did not even hear himself read them. The letter says, ''It might be''. I wrote inviting evidence from a wide range of organisations to assist in defining the two concepts of cruelty and utility, which, as I said, were the two principles to come out of a full reading of the Burns report, in order to have proper definitions in the Bill. I discovered that there was no need to go beyond the definitions of cruelty that already exist in English law. It is a well-tested concept, and the principle is already clear. However, there was a need to consider the definition of utility in the Bill and I invited people to help develop it by giving evidence.

We also had three days of hearings at Portcullis house, one of which was devoted to the concept of utility, before we went on to consider the interrelationship between utility and cruelty. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has simply got it wrong.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

We have hit a raw nerve. In the future, I shall treat the right hon. Gentleman with care.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

The Minister is being disingenuous. We discussed wildlife management, habitat protection,

land management, conservation and recreation during the three days of hearings at Portcullis house. I thought that we had proved conclusively that they should be taken into account in the test of utility. The first I knew that the Government had in fact ignored them was when the Bill was published. The omission of those crucial issues lies at the heart of my opposition to the Bill. I had intended to vote for Second Reading, but I changed my mind and voted against it when I saw that the Government had ignored the evidence from the Portcullis house hearings.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend is right. We have flagged up sufficiently that the precise definition of utility is absolutely central to the way that the Bill is constructed. We have tabled a series of amendments and call on the Government to consider them and possibly accept some of them.

The Minister's inadvertent slip when talking about rabbiting a moment ago showed that he believes that vermin control and food production for humans are included in the utility definition. In fact, they are not.

Alun Michael rose—

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I have certainly hit a raw nerve.

My understanding of the Minister's comments is that rabbiting was allowed because it fulfilled the two utilitarian purposes of protection of food for human consumption and vermin control. When I pointed out that the first purpose was not included in clause 8, he said that vermin control was. We have been over this ground, and I am not sure that it will help the Committee to go over it again.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

If the Minister's definition of utility has changed from the one in his letter, he must explain precisely what has led him to define it differently. There is no reason why he should not change his mind, but he must explain why at a proven and proper time. In addition, on the basis of his letter, some of us defended him against those who said that he did not take the matter seriously. My hon. Friend is not the only person who believes that we have been seriously misled and treated in a cavalier manner. The Minister is still not taking the matter seriously. The fact that he is so angry shows that he knows that he is wrong. That is why he has been jumping up in this manner.

Alun Michael rose—

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I know that it is not normal, but I must give way to the Minister straight away.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

It is reasonable to express irritation when petty issues are raised and misrepresented in the way that the right hon. Gentleman and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman have just done. As Opposition Members are so interested in my correspondence, I point them to the subsequent letter that I circulated to all hon. Members and others on 31 May, in which I sought views on the definition of utility. After describing the discussion of utility up to that date, I asked in paragraph 9:

''For what specific purposes does any particular activity of hunting with dogs have utility? What tests should be used to determine whether or not an activity has sufficient utility? Who should take the decision and how?''

I invited wide participation in reaching an appropriate definition. Opposition Members did not bother to read that letter but have culled convenient quotations from one place and another. They will not get credit for participating properly in the Committee.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister says that it is a petty matter. I shall flag up our basic intention. The definition of utility in the Bill is woefully inadequate. Hunting with hounds correctly carries out a variety of functions that do not appear in the Bill. The thrust of our amendments to that part of clause 8 will be to widen the definition of utility.

My next point, very briefly—I am keen for others to get a word in—is on cruelty. The definition of cruelty in the Bill seems to us to be inadequate. We will seek to change it to make it more in line with, for example, the 1911 Act, and to bring it into line with the latest thinking from scientists. In particular, we will seek to redefine cruelty so that it is no longer an absolute. There is no absolute thing that is cruelty; we believe that it is comparative. We can all agree that one thing is more cruel than another, but none of the scientists or, very importantly, Lord Burns, has come to a precise definition of cruelty. We can decide only what is more and less cruel.

We shall be asking the Government whether they believe that snaring, which the Minister mentioned a moment ago, and shooting with shotguns or rifles by day or night are more or less cruel than hunting with hounds. That is central when discussing cruelty. We cannot say simply, ''Oh, that's cruel. Isn't that awful, we must ban it.'' If we took that approach, we could call all sorts of things cruel and ban them, such as all slaughter of animals. We shall try to elicit from the Government their thinking on which ways of controlling vermin are more or less cruel.

Three things are central in our approach: first, ensuring that the two tests are balanced; secondly, ensuring that the definition of utility is expanded to be workmanlike and sensible; thirdly, ensuring that the definition of cruelty is changed to take account of previous laws and the comparative nature of cruelty. I hope that the Minister will listen to sense on those matters.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The Minister and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire have had the opportunity to cover a number of issues and have taken interventions, so we have been able to get an idea of where the pinch points in our debates will be. It has been right to have the opportunity for a more free-ranging debate at this stage, and I thank the Minister for that.

I notice that the Minister, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal and others said that they were hoping that we would come to this debate with an open mind. The way that they expressed that hope suggested that they assumed that it was a forlorn one. However, as someone born and brought up in the countryside who was a supporter of hunting in my area and who now takes a different view, I come to the debate with an open mind. My conversion from one point of view to the other does not mean that I have closed my mind to the debate; I am interested in issues of consistency and principle as well as practicalities.

Throughout the debate, I shall be especially interested in the Bill's practical implications for viable commercial farming in rural areas. I shall be seeking reassurances from the Minister that the legislation will not unfairly impinge on rural commercial and agricultural activities.

Given that the House has previously resolved, by a very substantial majority, to support a ban on certain hunting activities, the boot is now on the other foot for this Committee, as we examine the case for hunting being totally unregulated or partially banned. I do not think that they saw themselves on the nursery slopes of a moral issue, dealing with practicalities, but as being on what they assumed were the sunlit uplands of the moral high ground, as far as individual freedom was concerned. I shall be interested to hear from hon. Members who take a pro-hunting stance why they want to revisit the matter from the perspective of unregulated hunting or a partial ban through a different method of licensing.

On Second Reading, some hon. Members argued, on occasions very passionately, against a ban on hunting and for the right to hunt. They saw the practical issues as the nursery slopes of a moral issue, and, on the issue of individual freedom, jumped up to what they assumed were the sunlit uplands of the moral high ground. Towards the end of that debate, I intervened on the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and asked a question to which I should like an answer during today's debate because, like the West Lothian question, it has been repeated so many times.

The west Cornwall question, as I shall term it, concerns the pre-eminence of freedom for the individual. Some countrymen—I know people like this in my constituency and other constituencies—who have been born and brought up in rural areas and who know the countryside inside out are offended by hunting. Some people who come from towns—it does not matter where they come from but I want to deal with the country versus town issue—buy up land and declare that they must have pleasure from hunting in the same environment in which the countryman lives. Whose freedom are we seeking to protect?

Are we protecting the freedom of the individual who is offended by hunting or the freedom of the individual who gets pleasure from hunting? Perhaps the hon. Member for North Wiltshire was running out of time when I asked that question and did not have a chance to deal with it because he said that it was silly. Maybe I am on the nursery slopes as far as the moral issue is concerned, but I would not want to be on the moral high ground where others are standing because I am not sure that it is particularly sound ground on which to be.

Gregory Barker rose—

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I am happy to be instructed by anyone, whether they are or are not on the side of those who are offended by hunting.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman because I have received a letter from a Mr. Everett from Kent. It states:

''It seems odd that any Parliamentarian in our liberal tradition should wish to pursue so illiberal a policy as a ban, as some of your colleagues . . . have suggested. John Stuart Mill''—

whom I am sure, as a Liberal Democrat, the hon. Gentleman will greatly respect—

''in 'On Liberty', 1859, said 'The only purpose for which power can rightly be exercised over any member of any civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others'. I do not think this Bill falls within this description. I can only wish you strong lungs and an eloquent tongue in defeating the illiberal elements of this proposed legislation.''

Mr. Everett has, very profoundly, answered his question.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

Mr. Everett, who also wrote to me, has a particular interpretation of a quote from John Stuart Mill, who is, of course, an honourable philosopher. The question is which minority is being persecuted. Is the countryman who was born and brought up in the area, who cares about the countryside and who is offended by foxhunting being persecuted? Is the individual who comes down from the town and says that he must have pleasure in the countryman's vicinity being persecuted?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman sets up almost as false a dichotomy as the one that he sought to decry. He now seems to be saying that everyone on hunts, which people who live in the country do not like, comes from the towns, which is absurd. The important question is whose interests are we seeking to look after and safeguard in discussion of the Bill and whose are we ready to ride over? With regard to riding over, there is a very simple answer that may not be very philosophical. Farmers and landowners who wish hunting to take place on their land allow it, and those who do not wish it to take place on their land do not. That seems to be an absolutely straightforward equality for both parties.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

It seems that that is always the case, but the hunt meet is often in the centre of the village or the town and that is a presentation or demonstration of the activity in the countryside. People may say that because they own the land they can decide what goes on there, but if they own all the land in the area is it therefore up to them to dictate to the people who live in that area what they can and cannot do in that area?

Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

Let me finish this point because it is important that people understand the ways of the countryside. The way of the countryside is that it is not just the people who own the land who decide what happens there, even if one person owns all the land in an area. I take a different view of land ownership. Such people are merely custodians of that land and they are not there to dictate to those who live in the countryside what shall and shall not take place there.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is no unequivocal evidence—the three-day hearings showed this—that killing a fox with dogs is necessarily more cruel than an alternative? Surely he is not saying that even if it could be shown—a big if—that killing a fox with dogs is less cruel than the alternatives, someone's right to prevent that less cruel alternative should be paramount? That would contradict the need to consider animal welfare. Does he accept a point that has already been made and does not need much new exposition—that we are concerned

about the lack of universality in the approach? The definition in clause 8 could easily be regarded as justification for banning pheasant shooting, fishing and even the ownership of cats.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

My hon. Friend is leading me to territory into which we will have an opportunity to go during the course of the Bill. On the definitions and parameters of the Bill, Parliament might at some stage—not necessarily in the Committee—want to debate the universality of some of the principles in a whole range of Bills to see whether there is consistency in several areas of legislation. That would establish whether this country, through the legislative Chambers of both Houses, has consistent legislation and whether we are applying principles in one area of policy but not another.

The fact is that we are here to debate the carefully defined parameters of the Bill. We can stray beyond that if some hon. Members wish to point out potential inconsistencies, but I want to return to the freedom of the individual, about which I know the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex feels strongly.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

I want to endorse what the hon. Gentleman says because it is self-evidently true that it is not only landowners who live in the countryside; other people are involved. I would like him to concentrate his mind on one particular case: the Warwickshire hunt. It has access in its own hunting country to more than 1,000 farms covering 70,000 hectares. Twelve farmers effectively ban the hounds, of whom only four have more than 100 acres. Sixteen farmers discourage or ban horses, while accepting the hounds for dispersal and culling foxes. Access for hunting free of charge covers more than 99 per cent. of the entire rural land area of the Warwickshire hounds. Although the hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point, it remains the case that the hunt is far more widely welcomed than any Government Members would have a clue about.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The popularity or acceptability of hunting is another issue for debate. As I made clear on Second Reading, some members of my family farm and in some circumstances will not allow the hunt on their land for good practical farming reasons. We can discuss those issues when we debate the matter. I hope that there will be an opportunity in Committee—I thought that it was lost on Second Reading—to tease out exactly how some people who promote or support foxhunting can sit on the sunlit uplands and argue that they are defending the freedom of individuals.

I am describing a scenario that genuinely exists in many rural areas where individual freedoms also need to be protected. There is, at least, a potential conflict and it is arguable whether it is clear who is being persecuted and whose freedom will be denied by the Bill. My point—it has agitated a number of hon. Members, so I have been detained on it—is simply that the argument about the freedom of the individual to have the right to hunt is at the very least unclear.

Other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall not detain the Committee unnecessarily. There will be a number of tests for the Minister in the forthcoming debate. I said on Second Reading that he had been

brave to introduce the legislation. He has put himself in a sort of lepers' colony because his Back Benchers will not support the line that he has taken. He has taken a particularly brave line and, although I do not necessarily agree with it, I shall be interested to hear his justification for both the cruelty and utility arguments and justifications during our debate on Thursday.

The Minister must demonstrate that the proposal would not result in licensed cruelty or an unworkable fudge that would need to be revisited and that it would not, as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and others suggested, result in unacceptable inconsistency in relation to other mammals, such as rabbits and rats, or a regulatory nightmare as the hunting lobby frustrates the licensing and appeal process by continually appealing, causing the sort of perpetual traffic jams that are sometimes seen on the M25. I also urge the Minister to demonstrate that the Bill will permit proper and efficient pest control on farmland and that farmers will not be criminalised by some of the proposals. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle set hares running during the Minister's earlier contribution on hare coursing and that issue will have to be revisited because many landowners will want a reassurance that if they do not permit coursing on their land, but it nevertheless takes place, they will not be liable. We must explore the issue further.

Finally, the Minister must demonstrate fundamentally whether the Bill can achieve the requirements of utility and lack of cruelty at an appropriate threshold better than an outright ban. A number of hon. Members will challenge him on that and he may be creating a complex legal nightmare for himself and the registrar when an outright ban might be a more effective way forward.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

As this is my first contribution to the Committee's deliberations, may I say how delighted I am that you are in the Chair for this sitting, Mrs. Roe? I am sure that you and Mr. Stevenson will serve the Committee well throughout our deliberations, which finish just in time for Valentine's day, I notice.

I want to make a few comments on the general principles of the Bill. I should like to have said something on Second Reading, but, alas, I was taken unwell on that day and was not present until just before the vote was taken. As I walked into the Chamber just as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) was referring to Conservative Members as neo-Nazis, with all the pandemonium that followed, I wondered whether I was in the right debate, but I am pleased that the Bill received a Second Reading and that, as a result, we can discuss in Committee where the Bill will go. I welcome the fact that we have a Bill, because it is important that the Government deliver on their manifesto commitment to put such legislation before Parliament on a free vote and that the House, and finally Parliament, can decide what to do with it.

I support the work that my right hon. Friend the Minister has done on the Bill. The hon. Member for

North Wiltshire said that he thought that my right hon. Friend would have no friends in the Committee and would sit alone. I want to put the record straight. That is not true. Certainly Labour Members of the Committee are extremely grateful for the hard work that he has done on the Bill and for giving the Committee, and later the House, the opportunity to resolve the matter. I am sure that my right hon. Friend has many supporters, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, perhaps, who does not have many supporters in his party—[Interruption.] Or friends. Therefore, I thought that the comment by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire about the Minister was rather unfair.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Am I right in interpreting the hon. Gentleman's remarks to mean that he supports the principle behind the Bill?

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall get there and he will see what I support.

I believe that my right hon. Friend has done a good job and I am grateful for the time, effort and commitment that he has given to this cause over many years, and not just to the Bill.

We were talking about the amount of parliamentary time that has been spent on this matter. I have been in the House since 1997, and this is not the first attempt at a hunting Bill. I was a sponsor of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) in 1997. It was pointed out that, when we have such debates, those who are most wound up about the issue appear to be on the Opposition Benches. They have got the matter completely out of context.

I have some sympathy with the point that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire made when he said that we had to come because the matter was being debated. We did not choose to debate it. I disagree with that point.

When my right hon. Friend made his almost legendary golden thread statement to the House, the Conservative Benches were packed. I had not realised there were still that many left: there is still a job to be done. A large number of Conservatives were present. That statement was followed by an extremely important statement about education and, if it is not unparliamentary to say so, the Conservative Members buggered off, and we were left—[Interruption.]

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that statement.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

I did not realise that ''buggered off'' was unparliamentary, so I sincerely withdraw it. I can certainly say that the Conservative Members left the Chamber, with one or two honourable exceptions. As the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire is a member of the Committee, I must say in fairness to him that he was present for the statement, but the number of Conservative Members present went from more than 100 to about five, which says something about their priorities: hunting was everything; education was nothing. That says a great deal about where the Conservatives are on this issue.

There is something in the Bill. I have come to the Committee looking forward to the comments that

hon. Members will make to see how we move through this process. I was on the Committee that considered the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester and on the Committee that considered the Government Bill just before the 2001 election. I made some dear friends as we went through that process—we seemed to spend a great deal of time together—but it struck me that, although people found it easy to say what they wanted to be banned completely, they did not know how to deal with all the issues around that. In Committee sittings in particular, one gets bogged down in all sorts of exemptions.

I have never experienced a Bill that would have resulted in a complete ban; there has always been some degree of exemption. I am sure that everyone on the Committee knows that, but it should be made clear for the sake of people who have a more transient interest in the issue. Although the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester introduced in 1997 is often described as a total ban Bill, it never was. It contained a series of exemptions. We will go through the arguments as we go through the Bill. Rats are one of the most obvious exemptions from the 1997 Bill and the 2001 Government Bill. I was speaking to someone in my constituency this morning who reminded me that it does not matter where one is, one is never more than 5 yd from a rat. Looking at the Opposition, I can see what he meant. The point is that there have always been exemptions.

If we consider the basic principles underlying the Bill, we can see that it splits matters into three categories. I am sure that we will have many arguments about what goes into those boxes. At one level, there are things that cannot be done under any circumstances. The Bill suggests that those things should be deer hunting and hare coursing. At the other end of the spectrum, there are things that do not require any permission from anybody. Ratting is the obvious example.

The Committee needs to discuss how to deal with the things in between. Having sat through Committee meetings in the past, I can see a kind of logic in that. However, I will be listening carefully to the arguments and I need to hear what goes where. What is in which boxes? If there is to be a middle process, how will it be delivered and made workable? We have a serious job to do. This Committee is probably the greatest scrutiny that the Bill will receive in the Commons. It is unlikely that as much time will be given to it when it returns. We need to do a careful job and I am sure that we will.

Much has been said about cruelty, utility and freedom and I am sure that we will hear more. I do not want to repeat all the speeches that I have made on the subject in the Chamber, because I know that all hon. Members will be avid readers of my contributions. I do not think—and I never have done—that most people who live and work in the countryside, who are responsible for its stewardship and for controlling pests, act in a deliberately cruel way. There may be odd people who do, as there are in all groups in society, but in most cases people in the countryside do

the job that they think right. It is worth bearing in mind that hunting with dogs plays a very small part in fox control. Most of the time the people concerned choose not to use hunting with dogs. If it is the most humane method available, why do the people who undertake the work make hardly any use of it? We need to consider that.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman's thoughtful contribution prompts me to remind him that the extent to which hunting with dogs is used varies hugely from region to region. For example, in my constituency, about 60 per cent. of foxes are killed in that way. We must recognise that, even if the broad figure is about 5 per cent., in some concentrated areas hunting with dogs is regarded as the most effective means of fox control.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

It is inevitable that everyone will bring their experiences from different parts of the country to the table. We will have the opportunity to discuss those experiences and make of them what we will. I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that hunting with dogs is a seasonal activity. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham once said that we do not have a close season for cockroaches and I understand his point. People in the countryside are not being deliberately cruel and that is why, when it comes to pest control, hunting with dogs is not on the agenda.

As regards freedom, the hon. Member for St. Ives asked whose freedom we are talking about. That is a good point. On Second Reading, I cited the example of a village in Essex where everyone signed a letter to the hunt saying, ''We don't want you assembling and hunting in our village: please don't do it.'' The police, thinking that there might be an incident when the hunt was next there, contacted the huntsmen, who said, ''Actually, we're going to a different village.'' The police went to the original village anyway, in case there was any trouble, and the hunt turned up there. Hon. Members talked about people who waste police time. Nothing wastes the police's time more than telling them that one is going to hunt in a certain village, then going to another one. When one of the huntsmen was asked by a local reporter, ''Why are you here, when the villagers unanimously wrote to you to say, 'We don't want you here'?'', he replied, ''What's it got to do with them?'' That says a lot about some people's attitude to hunting with dogs. I agree with the hon. Member for St. Ives—whose freedom are we trying protect?

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

If the hunt did indeed take its hounds to that village when it had received a request not to do so, it certainly should not have done. It was thoroughly bad manners on the part of the hunt, and it should be censured.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

I suppose that my point is that large numbers of people who hunt are bad mannered.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

That is utterly untrue. On the contrary, in a lifetime of hunting, only a short period of which has been ruined by hunt saboteurs, I have always found that one of the things that hunt saboteurs most detest is the good manners, courtesy and hierarchy of the countryside. The occurrence that

the hon. Gentleman mentioned is so exceptional that I have no hesitation in roundly condemning it.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

It is unlikely that the hon. Gentleman and I will agree on the subject, but I accept that he has made an honourable statement with genuine feeling.

I want to move on to the legality or illegality of hare coursing. Again, whose freedom are we protecting? There has been a great deal of illegal hare coursing in my constituency. In Epworth, which is in the Isle of Axholme, the editor of the local newspaper, The Epworth Bells—I can get Committee members a weekly copy if they would like to follow it—wrote to me about a campaign that it was running about the problems of illegal hare coursing in the area.

When one speaks to the police about this, one finds that there is scenario A and scenario B. The difference between the two is obvious. In scenario A, the police turn up and can see that hare coursing is taking place, but they do not know whether it is legal or illegal. Where do they go to find out? I wish that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) was right when he suggested that if they pop to the farmhouse, where there will be a steaming kettle and a piece of apple pie waiting, they will be told that the people there own the land. However, it is not like that. In my constituency—I cannot believe that I am alone in this—when issues such as rights of way and diversions arise the biggest question is that of who owns the land. The local council, the parish council, and many others are involved in the great arguments that follow. Scenario A is not a simple solution for the police—it is a difficult situation.

Scenario B, under the Bill, is that hare coursing is simply illegal. I am not a police officer, but I can imagine which would be the easier case to deal with. As regards police numbers, in the area that I am talking about—thanks to the rural policing grant—numbers have gone up from one sergeant and eight constables to one inspector, two sergeants and 16 constables. That is the reality of what is happening in rural areas.

I spoke to a friend of mine, a barrister colleague, about the legislation—what we should make illegal and how difficult that would be. The hare coursing debate today was about legality and ease of enforcement. My friend told me that what should concern us in Parliament is the law and legal principles. Enforcement—difficulties in it or otherwise—is for the people whose job that is, such as the police, the courts and legal professionals.

Our job for the next few sittings is to put together a Bill that will work, not to worry about numbers of police officers. How many debates on previous Bills have involved arguments about how many police officers there are and whether they are in the right position? That is for them to decide and for us as parliamentarians to respond to, should we decide to help them with more resources.

This Saturday, I went with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to Glanford park to see Scunthorpe

United in a glorious defeat against Leeds United; 2–0, with a penalty that never was.

Mr Elliot Morley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)

A moral victory.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

Yes, I think that that is exactly the right phrase.

One of the things to be noticed there, which some people even commented on, was the number of police officers. We do not often get the Leeds Uniteds of this world coming to us, and there were police officers everywhere. They had had to be moved in from all over the county to deal with the match. Where is the logic in Opposition Members saying that we cannot ban hare coursing because there might not be the police to enforce it? We could ban the FA cup on that basis.

Mr Adrian Flook (Taunton, Conservative)

For the sake of clarity, could the hon. Gentleman inform the Committee how many of those police officers Scunthorpe United had to pay for?

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

I should be happy to do that, because I was chairman of the police authority for four years and that was a big issue. On the policing of football matches, those police who are there for matters of general public order are provided by the police authority; those there to oversee public safety within the grounds, which clubs could steward for themselves, are paid for by the local club.

I was not going to make this point, but I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. It has always annoyed me that, in the working man's and woman's games—we have locally the Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Hull football clubs, and the rugby clubs of Hull and Hull Kingston Rovers—the clubs, in part, pay for the policing of their events. However, when it comes to a hunt, policing is suddenly provided free, at my expense as a council tax payer.

Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman is making an unfortunate comparison. Police are needed at hunts to protect those who are hunting, who are currently lawful, from the ''antis'', who are unlawful.

Mr Ian Cawsey (Brigg & Goole, Labour)

The police's job is always to protect innocent people against those who break the law, but a look at any history of hunting would show that that is not restricted to one side or the other. There has been good and bad on both sides. I think that I am right in saying that the only person who has been killed at a hunt was an anti-hunt person, not a pro-hunt person. The people being looked after by the police are on both sides. The police are there to see to public safety.

This Committee is going to be interesting, and we have much work to do. Once again, I praise my right hon. Friend the Minister for what he has done to get us to this point. I hope that, after our deliberations, we will return to the Floor with a Bill that is in good shape and that we will be proud to put on the statute book.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I wonder whether we could concentrate for a moment on an issue that was raised earlier. The issue is very general, and we will probably not have the opportunity to return to it. What lies behind these definitions of cruelty and utility?

Again and again, the Minister for Rural Affairs has said that he sees the measures as arising from moral principles. I am not in any way denying his attachment to moral principles or his right to say that he approaches such matters from a moral point of view. However, it is important to consider how far that is true here, for a reason that the hon. Member for St. Ives referred to; if the Bill includes a definition that is not capable of universal application, it will ultimately be universally applied in the future. I have been in the House for a long time, and one of the favourite arguments on both sides of the House is to say, ''In considering this matter, we looked at what we did in a previous Bill. We have to bring this matter into line with the definition in that Bill.'' That is not only a debating matter; it is a question of serious law making. People need to believe that the laws under which they operate have a commonality of base, and a serious moral and political intent.

I do not think that it is wrong at this early stage to consider clearly what we mean by the use of the word ''moral''. It is a surprising use of the word because I do not know of another occasion when people have adduced morality as the basis for an argument in which they have not been able to adduce a series of moralists to explain why that moral principle is so.

There was a certain amount of argument as to whether the interpretation of John Stuart Mill was right or wrong. In fact, the interpretation of the gentleman who wrote to my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for St. Ives is a generally accepted explanation of what Mill meant. It could, of course, be interpreted in some other way, but if one considers the rest of Mill's writing, he clearly did mean what he said in such terms. One could say that such a moral understanding of Mill is out of date, but a definition of freedom from someone who is universally respected on both sides of the House ought to be worthy of some respect.

The problem I start with is that I need a definition that is universal, and one which has been argued out and tested by those whose profession, position, qualifications and respect gives some credence to their position. We do not have either of those factors in this case. It is surprising that we do not if the moral issue behind the Bill is so pervasive.

Any discussion about animal welfare provides serious moral problems because most people have ambivalent views about the issue. There is no doubt that people do not have the same moral view—if that is the word we are going to use—about rats as they have about whales. It appears that they do not have the same view about rabbits, curiously enough, as they do about hares. However, one cannot make a moral distinction of that kind. I accept that I am fonder of rabbits than rats, but I know that to be a subjective and not a moral position. We need to be careful about importing into the discussions a position that we claim is moral, but is a subjective effect of our upbringing, attitudes and experience of, for instance, rats and rabbits.

Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test, Labour)

Mill's harm principle, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, described freedom as being an unimpeded activity subject to not doing harm to others. In that definition, which I am sure he will recall, Mill talked about the notion of agency in order to undertake access to unimpeded freedom. The debate among the welfare liberals in the early 1900s concerned that definition. If one does not have agency, one cannot access unimpeded freedom and do harm or no harm to others. The point about the people who own all the land being able to do what they like on it falls foul of Mill's harm principle for that reason.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I do not believe that that detracts from the question of whether Mill would have thought that hunting did harm to others in such circumstances. That is a different and perfectly reasonable argument, but it does not remove us from my point, which is that it is valuable to discuss what those who have made a profession of the issue think about such matters. Those of us who want to have a moral argument discover that it is very hard to find any moral arbiters, whether philosophical or theological—I am a politician, so I must not say that there are none, but that there are none that I have so far discovered—of any standing, John Stuart Mill notwithstanding, who have opined on the matter. That is a real problem for those who are putting forward the moral position.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The right hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood my point, which was about relating harm to individual freedom. Leaving aside sensitivities and the arguments about cruelty to animals, the question is whose sensitivity is harmed most in relation to their individual liberties by hunting. Is it the sensitivity of those who take pleasure from the activity or the sensitivity of those who are offended by it? That is the issue with which I was dealing; not harm to the animal itself. I do not believe that my question about who has the pre-eminent freedom has been answered.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I do not wish to deal with that now, because I do not wish to delay the Committee. Were I to do so, I would have to discuss whether John Stuart Mill was talking about sensitivity. I believe that sensitivity is a rather subjective concept that he would find rather difficult to uphold. Rather than spend the whole time arguing about John Stuart Mill, I wish to make only one point. To justify an argument based on morality, two elements must be considered. First, there must be some support for the argument among those who have objectively considered it from a philosophical or theological point of view. There seems to be very little indication of that in this case. The second element, which is just as important, is that there must be a degree of universality.

The example that I shall use will be painful to some, but I must use it because it is the best example that I can give. I recently attended a conference in Spain at which I heard Dr. Nathanson, who ran the most important, largest abortion clinic in the United States, describe in a lecture why he changed his mind about abortion. He described exactly what happened to what I shall call a baby but others may call a foetus. The cruelty involved in a 12-week abortion was horrific. It can now be filmed, so that one can see what happens as

the baby is sucked out, limb by limb, and the head is actually crunched. We have discovered that all of that is felt by the baby. The new information about the cruelty that is involved changed Dr. Nathanson's mind about abortion.

If one applies a definition for cruelty or utility, it must be universally applied. I gave my example to show that if we cannot apply a definition across the board, we cannot claim for it a moral basis but something else. We have to admit that the issue is extremely difficult to resolve and that people take extreme views on either side. Therefore, as a society, we must come up with a compromise; something that is the best that we can do. We cannot claim a moral basis because we cannot find one. The moral argument is too complex and too diffuse, and the Bill is therefore not going to be defined on a moral basis but will proceed on certain assumptions.

Unless we compromise, we will put ourselves in a very difficult position with regard to all our other judgments. I am pressing the Minister because he would be on firmer ground were he honestly to accept that the Bill is the best compromise that he can put together in order to have some hope of getting support from Government Members, while perhaps not putting off all Opposition Members.

It would be better if the Minister did that because if we discuss the issue in moral terms, he needs to get on to a public platform and discuss it with the Bishop of Hereford, who would win. I am not an Anglican but I know that he would win because he understands the issues concerned in a way that none of us—unless there is a member of the Committee of equal standing—would like to argue. If I took the opposite view, I would not like to argue it with the Bishop of Hereford.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The right hon. Gentleman raises important moral issues. However, I shall return to the issues of the freedom of the individual and of judging which freedom is pre-eminent. On television during the Christmas period, for example, Channel 4 showed a Chinese artist whose exhibition included the eating of the flesh of a dead foetus, apparently for an artistic purpose. The programme will have offended a lot of people. Given that it was on a terrestrial channel, who has the greatest freedom; the probable minority of people who would feel persecuted if they were not entitled to see it and who gained some pleasure out of watching it, or the probable majority of people who were offended by it? Whose freedom is pre-eminent?

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I now have to say something to the hon. Gentleman that he ought to know as a liberal; the issue concerns not sensitivity but toleration. Tolerance is about allowing people to do things with which one profoundly disagrees, which is the mark of a tolerant society. That is why the moral issue is so important. Many things that are allowed today were not allowed when I first entered the House. I argued that some of those things should be allowed even though I profoundly disagreed with them.

I have used this example before, but it is fair. When I was Minister for Agriculture, I reassessed ritual

slaughter. I had the difficult task of examining both Jewish and Muslim practices for the killing of animals. Intellectually, I find the argument to be non-existent. Ritual slaughter occurs because of a view of Holy Scripture that does not seem either rationally or theologically acceptable. However one wants to present it, it is done in a significantly more cruel way than is necessary; it would not meet the Minister's test.

Ritual slaughter is significantly more cruel that it needs to be because there are other ways of killing animals that are much less cruel; cruelty is clearly involved. I concluded that, in a tolerant society, to say that Jews and Muslims could not kill animals in a way that they felt to be religiously necessary would do something very harmful to the nature of that tolerant society. That seemed to be the right thing to do. However, had I followed the Minister's ''morality'', I would have applied a test that made it impossible for me to do what most members of the Committee would feel was right. The decision was not easy because I personally feel that it is wrong to do something that is manifestly, measurably and obviously more cruel than an alternative to it. That is a fact.

My record on animal welfare shows that I proposed or supported a number of Bills dealing with such matters, not least one about badgers. I do not think that I can be criticised for not considering such matters carefully. However, that moral argument will lead the Minister into terrible trouble when we debate the whole range of issues. On the comparison with coarse fishing he does not have a moral leg to stand on and it is no good saying that the moral principle applies only to hunting with dogs. He may say that that convenient principle, which happens to be the best compromise, applies only to hunting with dogs, but he cannot say that it is a moral principle because his every successor will be arraigned in the House and his words will be quoted. People will say, ''The Minister said that this was a moral principle. I am applying the Minister's moral principle to which the Government committed themselves.'' That is clear and obvious. The Minister must resile from that position because, first, he cannot defend it and, secondly, it puts him in a significantly difficult position.

My final comment in this general debate concerns the nature of the compromise that has been put before us. The internal contradictions in the Bill are serious and the Minister showed that only a few minutes ago. The slip of the tongue that has been referred to was understandable. We all understand what he was getting at, but he made that slip because he knows just how difficult it is to be certain about any of the issues. Is the shooting of pheasants morally acceptable if they are picked up and eaten? Is it less morally acceptable if some are missed? It is difficult to accept his views. I would like him to have a nice little plan showing that the topic is, perhaps, hares and stating the standards applying to hares and next to them the standards applying to rabbits, and then apply those same standards to rats. I have tried hard to do that and it is extremely difficult. The Minister may convince me as time goes on, but he has not been convincing so far.

I want to offer the Minister some bedtime reading. The ''Just William'' books were some of my favourites as a child, but I did not understand what a superb critique they were and the almost cynical comment they made on English middle class life of the 1930s. The books were remarkable and I recommend them because they are so funny. They are available on tape, read by Kenneth Williams, and it is hugely valuable to read or listen to them. I bought some tapes to keep my children quiet in the car when I go to my constituency and was myself entranced again.

In one wonderful story by Miss Richmal Crompton, she wrote about William going to meet a bird fancier. A woman in the village had a bird sanctuary with a bird table and bird bath. William inspected the birds and said that he did not much like them because they cannot be taught to do tricks and are difficult to handle. He said that he would prefer a rat sanctuary with a rat table and a rat bath, and to stop people attacking rats, so he would set that up. He could not understand why the woman with the bird sanctuary was appalled. She shrieked and screamed that rats were dirty, nasty animals and that birds were lovely, beautiful, feathered creatures. The issue for the Minister is simple. I end where I began. It was not a moral distinction by William or by the woman. It was a subjective distinction, which arose from the fact that most of us have anthropomorphic views of animals. We think of them in that way, but we should not do so; we must consider them objectively.

We cannot say, in these debates, ''I am prepared to eat meat, because I don't have that kind of view about cows, but I am not prepared to have birds shot.'' We cannot, as legislators, say, ''I am prepared to have rabbits shot and hunted, but hares can only be shot.'' We cannot, as legislators, say that we will make a distinction between this animal and that animal on the subjective basis already shown and in a tolerant society.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful and important speech. May I own up to something that I think he would want to know? When I served under him at the Ministry of Agriculture at a time when he was taking some difficult decisions on ritual slaughter, I never told him that when I was a teenager I had a rat hunt that comprised three or four terriers. I came to the conclusion of my own free will that that was not being nice to the rats and I gave it up. Does my right hon. Friend think that I am a better moral person for having done that?

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

The fact that that was my hon. Friend's decision seems to me to be neither moral nor immoral. The fact that he thought it important to come to such a decision shows him to be a much more moral person than he would have been had he not even thought about it. The issue remains that we are legislators. We are not the imposers of moral positions. That is where I finish with the point made by the hon. Member for St. Ives about sensitivity.

It is true that it is the duty of us all to respect the sensitivities of others, but our greatest respect is for the right of people to do that which we deeply oppose. That is more important today than it has ever been, because in many matters we are asking the public to accept openness in our society, which they find hard to do. I am one of those who have found it hard to do over a number of issues. I found it hard over Sunday trading. I believe that it is better for people to have a day on which they do not trade, but I came to the conclusion that it was not right for me to impose on others a judgment that I had made on grounds that they may not share.

It is because we are asked to make judgments that to us are deeply inimical that we must also ask others to accept that we must stand by those things that we believe are important. It would be an odd society that became much more liberal on a range of issues that have historically been seen to be fundamentally immoral and totalitarian about something that no distinguished moralist, theologian or philosopher has ever said is immoral.

Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South & Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal for allowing us to end this sitting on a high intellectual note. We must be careful in particular to deal with the suggestion that we should absolutely respect the right of people to do things with which we disagree absolutely. I mention child abuse simply to illustrate the range of issues involved when one applies any specific principle.

It is right that we have debated principles today. If the Bill is not decided on the basis of principles rather than on the basis of ''I am for it'' or ''I am against it'', if we do not seek a Bill that consistently applies the right principles and if we do not, as members of the Committee have done today, check those principles and question their application and the practicalities, we shall not make good law.

The only point that has been unhelpful is the suggestion that we must look to the interpretation of individual philosophers to reach a conclusion. Our obligation in the Committee is to think for ourselves. I welcome the fact that there are signs that a good deal of thinking is going on in this first sitting. I look forward to many of the issues that have been raised and trailed here being examined in detail when we come to the amendments. Of course we must consider what is relevant. I should tell the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal that I have spent time over the last few months saying, ''What if we apply the principle in this way? What are the practical outcomes?'' as well as trying to get the right principles in the Bill, as I hope I have. However, we shall return to that at our next sitting.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to Eight o'clock till Thursday 9 January at five minutes to Nine o'clock.