Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 100, in

clause 8, page 3, leave out lines 11 to 14 and insert—

'(1) The test for registration in respect of proposed hunting is that its utility in preventing or reducing environmental damage outweighs any suffering that may be an unavoidable result of the hunting.

(2) In subsection (1) ''environmental damage'' means damage to—.'

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 101, in

clause 8, page 3, line 26, leave out subsection (2).

Amendment No. 174, in

clause 8, page 3, line 27, leave out from first 'that' to end of line 30 and insert

'the proposed hunting is not the cruellest method of making the contribution mentioned in subsection (1).'.

Amendment No. 24, in

clause 8, page 3, line 30, leave out 'significantly.'.

Amendment No. 175, in

clause 8, page 3, line 30, at end add—

'(3) The Secretary of State shall give guidance to the registrar as to the relative cruelty of—

(a) trapping and ensnaring,

(b) gassing,

(c) poisoning,

(d) shooting with a rifle by day,

(e) shooting with a rifle by night,

(f) shooting with a shotgun by day,

(g) shooting with a shotgun by night,

(h) shooting with an air gun, and

(i) killing by dogs.'.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

It might be worth putting on the record that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) has agreed that he does not mind being called my hon. Friend, although, technically, that is not so. [Interruption.] I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to his place. I am glad that he had as much difficulty as the rest of us in getting up so early. We shall try to be here at five minutes to nine in future.

Following our initial canter around the course on Tuesday, we now come to the main business. The sitting on Tuesday provided a useful opportunity to look at the principles behind our amendments and the way in which we wish to amend the Bill. I am glad that we had that opportunity and I am grateful for it.

I particularly commend to the Committee the

speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) who, with his usual clarity, demonstrated that the Bill lacks any true moral justification. He argued that if there were any morality behind it, it should be easily and equally applicable to other human activities. That is the definition of morality. It is a moral law that can be applied to a variety of different activities and clearly the Bill cannot do that. Morality demands universality of application and clearly the Bill, with the cruelty and utility tests, does not. The truth was recognised most noticeably in The Daily Telegraph on 27 December—

Mr Mike Hall (Weaver Vale, Labour)

What does that have to do with amendment No. 101?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman sits quietly and thinks carefully about that. I shall explain precisely what it has to do with amendment No. 101.

Mr Mike Hall (Weaver Vale, Labour)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. Should the hon. Gentleman not address his comments through you in the Chair instead of addressing me in a sedentary position?

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has noted the point.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I have indeed noted the point and if the hon. Gentleman checks Hansard he will find that throughout our discussion about his sedentary comments a moment ago, I used the third person and spoke through you, Mrs. Roe. I am not aware of making a slip in protocol, but if he can prove me wrong I shall be happy to apologise to him.

The hon. Gentleman said that it was important that I addressed the amendment. If he sits quietly and listens carefully, he will find that what his hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) said in The Daily Telegraph on 27 December has a direct and important application to amendment No. 101. I hope that when our sitting has finished he will let me know that he agrees with that view.

In that article, the hon. Member for Reading West made it clear that in his view the cruelty and utility tests in the Bill would have an unfortunate effect on a variety of other activities. As we understand it, he speaks for the Labour party on shooting and fishing. He is a well-known coarse fisherman and fishes in my constituency with the Malmesbury fishing association.

Mr Mike Hall (Weaver Vale, Labour)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to read a newspaper in Committee?

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

That is not a point of order.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Opposition take the view that what we will be discussing from today until 13 February is a matter of the greatest importance to the countryside and to the nation. We do not intend to indulge in childish and frivolous antics of the sort that we have seen twice from the hon. Gentleman because we intend to take the matter seriously. I shall quote from The Daily Telegraph because it contains a quote from a Labour Member, which is extremely important in justifying amendment No. 100. I therefore hope that you will forgive me, Mrs. Roe. The hon. Gentleman obviously does not want me to quote from The Daily

Telegraph because he does not like the notion of what is about to come his way; it is coming his way and no amount of frivolous tactics will stop me.

The hon. Member for Reading, West is the Government's appointed representative on shooting and fishing. He said:

''You cannot make a utility case for course angling, for horseracing, for keeping pets or for greyhound racing . . . In my judgment, those tests could easily be used against lots of other sports. What is the utility of the Grand National or of greyhound racing? At the moment you can argue the case for course fishing on the grounds that cold-blooded creatures don't feel pain. But who is to say that in 20 years' time science might have changed the current scientific position?''

He is backed up by Bob Clark of the National Federation of Anglers, who said:

''Course fishing has a problem with these tests which must be taken out. We are concerned on behalf of our 230,000 members that the desire by some MPs to get a ban on hunting with dogs doesn't affect other sports in the future, which this Bill clearly does. If MPs want to get hunting banned for class-based reasons, they will do it. However in their desire to ban hunting with dogs, they need to be careful they don't bring angling into the argument.''

The hon. Member for Reading, West and the National Federation of Anglers have summed up neatly the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal was making so plainly on Tuesday, namely that because the Bill lacks a moral heart it would quickly snaffle other legitimate human activities. Amendment No. 100 would correct that error.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

For the record, does the hon. Gentleman recall that on previous occasions we established that research conducted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals indicates that fish feel pain?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. Scientists are considering that matter with some care, but the RSPCA has made it plain in the past that it believes that fish feel pain. Coarse fishing—this does not apply to the same degree to fly fishing where at least one is catching a salmon or trout to eat—is practised by many people in this country, but it has no utility. One cannot eat what one catches, which gets thrown back. As he correctly pointed out, the RSPCA has said many times that fish may well feel pain. In angling, there is some pain, some cruelty and minimal utility. If the principles in the Bill were applied to coarse fishing it would have to be banned, and none of us in the Committee wants that to happen. It is therefore terribly important that we find a way to amend the definitions of cruelty and utility in the Bill to ensure that it does not bring in coarse fishing, horse racing, dog racing or a variety of other activities.

Miss Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley, Labour)

I am slightly puzzled by the hon. Gentleman's argument—perhaps it is too early in the morning. As far as I know, fish are not mammals that people plan to hunt with dogs, which is what the Bill covers.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me the opportunity to explain the argument to her in simpler terms than those I have used so far this morning. If there is a good reason for applying the

tests to hunting with dogs, we must try to discover whether the tests would produce an end result that none of us wants if they were applied to other human activities. If the tests were applied to fishing, shooting, dog racing, racing horses and most modern farming practices, we would have to conclude that those practices were immoral, cruel or wicked, in which case at some point down the road people would try to ban them. That is why it is important that we should consider the correctness—the rightness or wrongness—of the principles behind issues of utility or cruelty by referring to other activities.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend is right. I am slightly distressed by the trivial way in which this debate is being treated by Labour Members. My hon. Friend will agree that, once the Government enshrine in statute law tests for the way in which human beings should treat one category of animal, the animal rights activists will inevitably insist that the same tests are applied to other categories of animal. As night follows day, that logic is irrefutable. That is the central danger of the Bill and why, on reflection, I voted against it: it sets such a dangerous precedent for other animals as well.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend is right. That is the thinking that lies behind amendment No. 100 and those grouped with it.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

If night follows day, as the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) suggests, logic dictates that he would favour repealing legislation passed by the House in the 19th century banning bear baiting and dog fighting. [Interruption.] That is the logical extension of what he is suggesting.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I have tried to express myself in reasonably simple language. I shall try once again for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman to make what we are proposing plain. The 19th century legislation that banned bear baiting has not led us to the conclusion that other human activities are immoral. There is no way in which one can conclude—[Interruption.]

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Order. I cannot hear the hon. Gentleman if there is a constant barrage. I am happy to allow a slight exchange across the Room, but I must ask hon. Members to enable everybody to hear the hon. Gentleman who is supposed to be on his feet.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

My hon. Friend was a little hard on the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber). The issue surely is this. If the Minister is prepared to say that the basis of the Bill is a compromise and not a moral statement, my hon. Friend's argument does not obtain. It is because the Minister has misled the hon. Member for Amber Valley by suggesting that there is a moral base to the Bill that we shall get into this mess. The definition of cruelty in bear baiting could be applied to all the other issues. The only question is: why cannot this be applied?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I hope that I do not do him a disservice when I say that he was a little late in the Committee this morning and may have missed a handsome tribute. I used the arguments that he made on Tuesday as the basis for the amendments.

It might be sensible, as I dealt initially with the moral justification for the amendments, to talk about them now in more detail.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I would rather not, as I have given way to the hon. Gentleman twice already this morning, I think. We have talked about morality. We must begin to talk about the amendments.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

We need to clear things off as we go.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the whole point of universality, which the Minister for Rural Affairs discussed on Tuesday, is that if we applied the same rules, there would still be bear baiting? The difficulty is that we appear to be using different criteria for different sports and activities. I presume that that is the big issue that the hon. Gentleman is trying to raise.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

That is right. Hon. Members who keep referring to bear baiting should look back at the debates on that subject in Hansard. The reason why it was abolished had nothing to do with cruelty to animals; it was abolished because the working man was thought to be spending far too much money gambling on the outcome. [Interruption.] The Minister laughs. When did he last check the reason for the banning of bear baiting? If he checks, he will find that it had nothing to do with cruelty to bears; it was because the working man was wasting his time.

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

Given that the hon. Gentleman wants a response, I suggest that if he studies the arguments about activities that have been banned in the past, including bear baiting, cock fighting and bull baiting, he will find that his arguments against intervention in or regulation of hunting are similar to those used by old-fashioned Conservative representatives in the last century.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

That is not even slightly the case. However, I am allowing myself to be diverted down some interesting and amusing sidelines and away from discussion of the amendments. Hon. Members will have an opportunity to catch your eye later, Mrs. Roe, and bring up their hobby-horses.

Amendments Nos. 100, 101 and 175 are intended to clarify the definition of cruelty and utility and crucially, in terms of amendment No. 100, the relationship between them. The Conservatives believe that the Government have got the relationship between cruelty and utility wrong and that they should not be applied as separate tests, but should be inextricably interwoven. When any human activity is being considered, one should balance cruelty and utility and decide which is greater or less.

The phrase ''environmental damage'' refers to the current definition of utility. If we are able to change the definition of utility, as we hope to do, it will be necessary to change amendment No. 100 consequentially, so that it covers other activities as well.

Amendment No. 101 deletes the cruelty test because it would be replaced by our proposed joint cruelty and utility test. The purpose of the amendments is plain. A central part of all animal cruelty legislation, including

the Protection of Animals Act 1911, on which much animal welfare legislation is based, is the definition of cruelty to animals as

''the intentional infliction of unnecessary suffering.''

That is a legal definition that has stood the test of time. It is often used in courts across the nation and judges are used to coming to a conclusion by referring to it. Suffering happens; it is part of the world. Every time we eat anything, some degree of suffering is involved. For something to be illegal, the suffering has to be unnecessary. In other words, the test of unnecessary suffering is comparative and relative rather than absolute and is concerned with method rather than outcome.

The cruelty and utility tests should be intertwined in the same way. Cruelty should be weighed up against utility and vice versa; neither test should be sufficient on its own. Cruelty, however great or slight, may be allowed if the utility is greater. I hope that the Committee will agree to amendments Nos. 100 and 101, which would give the registrar the ability to make it absolutely clear whether an activity should be allowed.

I move to amendment No. 175. Cruelty cannot be defined absolutely; it can be defined only comparatively. That is central to the argument underlying what has been said so far. Neither Lord Burns, nor, as far as I am aware, any of the scientists in Portcullis house, nor any scientists who have considered cruelty over the years, have come up with a one-sentence definition of cruelty. They cannot do it. There is no such thing as cruelty, leaving aside definitions that refer to the act itself. Cruelty is unnecessary suffering. What is unnecessary suffering? Unnecessary suffering involves cruelty. There is no clear and straightforward one-sentence definition of cruelty.

We cannot say that one activity is cruel and another is not; all that we can say is that one activity is more cruel than another. That is central.

Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there are certain phrases that cannot be defined exactly, but nevertheless have a clear meaning? For example, would he suggest that there was no such thing as genocide because one cannot decide precisely what is or is not genocide, or precisely at what point non-genocide becomes genocide?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am not certain that I want to enter a debate on the precise definition of genocide, although, off the top of my head, I should have thought that it was reasonably easy to arrive at a clear definition of it. It seems fairly clear that Adolf Hitler took part in genocide, but I am ill qualified to comment on genocide and I do not intend to enter a debate on it.

The important point is that to say that, if something is cruel, it must be banned, would follow logically only from saying that we knew exactly what cruelty was. Genocide is banned. Whatever one's definition of it, it is banned. If one commits genocide, one goes to prison, or worse. If one commits cruelty, one does not. All of us in this Committee perform many cruel actions very often. We might squash a fly in our sitting

room, which to some degree is cruel. However, the cruelty is very small, the utility is very large and so we carry on doing it without even thinking about it.

Every time we train a horse to race or a dog to race at Walthamstow dog track, some degree of cruelty is involved but, because the utility is greater, we allow the cruelty to happen. Every time we sit in a leather chair—as all of us are now—that involves killing a cow. We hope that that is done without cruelty but it must involve it to some degree, because we are depriving that cow of its life. However, we condone that because we like green leather chairs in the House of Commons.

We must constantly balance the utility and cruelty involved in an activity, and my real point about cruelty is that there is no clear and straightforward definition of it. It is always comparative.

Miss Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley, Labour)

I am not altogether clear whether, if the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is difficult to define cruelty precisely, that means that he could not support amendment No. 174, which requires someone to decide which is the cruellest of various methods. Amendment No. 175 seeks to ask the Secretary of State to give precise guidance on the relative cruelty of nine different methods. Presumably, that guidance would provide the test of which method was the cruellest and would be barred. I am unclear whether the hon. Gentleman is supporting amendment No. 174.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Lady is unclear about quite a lot this morning. Of course, amendment No. 174, promoted by the Middle Way Group, and amendment No. 175, which I promote, are in effect alternatives to each other. Amendment No. 174 suggests that that group believes that there is no evidence that hunting with dogs is the cruellest method of dealing with the pest. Amendment No. 175 offers the Secretary of State a hierarchy of different ways of achieving the same aim. The two amendments are alternatives, but not different in any sense. If amendment No. 175 were to fall, I would certainly support amendment No. 174. I am not quite sure what point the hon. Lady was making.

The central point in justification of amendment No. 175 is that the definition of cruelty must be not absolute, but comparative. One activity is more or less cruel than another.

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

I should be grateful if I could persuade the hon. Gentleman to be precise in his use of two words, because I think that he is confusing himself. One is ''suffering''—different degrees of suffering might be involved in different circumstances—and the other is ''cruelty''. As was pointed out in our first sitting, cruelty means unnecessary or avoidable suffering. Early in his remarks, the hon. Gentleman read a definition close to that to define his use of the term but he is now switching between the terms, sometimes using ''cruelty'' when he means ''suffering'' and vice versa. It would be helpful for all Committee members if we could be precise in our use of the two words.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister makes a very good point and I am grateful to him. He makes my argument for me, because I argue that the Bill should refer to unnecessary suffering, which is the definition of cruelty.

That the two elements, utility and cruelty, should be brought together in one clause is the very nature of amendment No. 100. Unfortunately, the Bill currently separates utility from what I think should be described as cruelty. We must work out a hierarchy of cruelty—instances of inflicting unnecessary suffering, if there is such a thing—so that each can separately be compared with utility. If the Minister accepts amendment No. 100, I will entirely agree with him that the word there should be not cruelty, but suffering. The question then to be decided is whether that suffering is necessary or not. That is precisely what we are trying to achieve through amendment No. 100.

Let me adduce in support Lord Burns, whose report is widely accepted by Committee members, although some of us interpret it in different ways. On the subject of suffering, or cruelty, it might be helpful to cite some of that report. He consistently refuses to categorise hunting with hounds as ''cruel''. He says:

''Arguably the precise cause of death is irrelevant''.

He continues:

''what is more critical is how quickly insensibility and death result''.

In the case of fox hunting, he goes on to say:

''There seems little doubt that in the vast majority of cases, the time from insensibility to death is no more than a few seconds.''

Later on he says:

''We are less confident that the use of shotguns, particularly in daylight, is preferable to hunting from a welfare perspective. We consider that the use of snares is a particular cause for concern.''

In other words, in Lord Burns's report—he went on to expand on the matter during debate in the House of Lords—he accepts that there should be a comparative hierarchy of suffering for each of the methods of controlling foxes. That applies equally to other mammals, and I hope that some of my hon. Friends may expand on the arguments regarding stag, rats or rabbits later.

If the Bill were allowed to become law, it might ban one of the things that Lord Burns says specifically is less cruel than other activities that remain legal. Snaring and shooting remain perfectly legal. If the Bill became law and the tests of cruelty and utility were not amended, the net and bizarre effect would be that one method of killing pests would be banned and another, which is less cruel by Lord Burns's definition, would be left.

It is terribly important that we do not leave the matter for the registrar and the tribunal to decide. How can a registrar sitting in Whitehall decide whether the use of an airgun by night is more or less cruel than the use of hounds to kill a fox? Why should that be his job? It should be our job: we are legislators. The Secretary of State is the person who sets down such matters. It should be our job to explain to the registrar, the tribunal and the nation our view of how mammals should be killed.

One thing is for sure: we are not talking about killing fewer foxes. Everyone accepts that we are talking about killing at least the same number. If the experience in Scotland and thinly hunted areas of England is anything to go by, the abolition of hunting with hounds results in more foxes being killed. During the foot and mouth outbreak, a farmer in my constituency who farms about 2,000 acres, told me that he went lamping on two nights, with a number of guns, without leaving his own land. I often use the story as a dinner party game, which I tried out recently on a friend of mine. I asked him how many foxes he thought the farmer killed in the course of those two nights. Most people would say six, 10 or 14. The actual number was 126. The farmer said that he obliterated the fox population, wiped them out and that they will not come back for years in a large area of the countryside. That is what happens when one does away with hunting with hounds and replaces it with shooting.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is the solution to the problem of foxes being pests? [Interruption.]

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am sorry, but the Under-Secretary was chatting away on the Front Bench and I missed the hon. Gentleman's intervention.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

I was trying to suggest that the hon. Gentleman has just advanced a powerful argument to show that fox hunting with hounds is totally unnecessary for pest control.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman would be right if he wanted to see the removal of foxes from the whole of England. If he wants to see farmers blast them in the way that my friend in my constituency did—[Interruption.] I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) in a minute and we will come back to Scotland. If the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) wants what is currently happening in Scotland to happen in England, where farmers are obliterating foxes from the landscape, doing away with hunting with hounds is a good way.

Now, we shall hear from the hon. Member for Dumfries. It is quite interesting to know that the Scottish Parliament discussed the abolition of hunting in Scotland, and we who represent English constituencies had no say in that matter. Were I to turn up in Holyrood and say, ''Hello, I'm from north Wiltshire. I've come to discuss foxhunting in Scotland,'' my goodness, there would be an outcry, yet the hon. Member for Dumfries has chosen to come to England and pontificate on the subject of foxhunting in England. I shall not give way to him often, but let us hear just once what he has to say.

Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries, Labour)

I am deeply grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Whether he likes it or not, I am an elected Member of the House of Commons. He does not wish any of my colleagues from Scotland or me to take part in the debate. We are elected Members, but he would rather the Bill went from this place to the other place where not one individual is elected. There is something fundamentally wrong with his position.

My point follows on from the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire. When my

hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) presented his private Member's Bill in 1997, the argument was about foxes and pest control. During the past five years, it has been clearly proven that that argument was flawed. It was a matter not of pest control but something else, and I am not totally convinced as to what that was.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire is right: even the hon. Gentleman's example shows that shooting foxes is a far better way to control them than hunting ever has been or ever will be.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

That was a most revealing intervention from the hon. Gentleman from Scotland. He is indeed a Member of the House and is, of course, entitled under the constitution to speak. None the less, the matter affects England and Wales only. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and to his neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan), who go out of their way neither to speak nor to vote on matters that affect England.

Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

No, I will not. The position that they have taken is an extremely honourable one. For a Scot to come here and pontificate on hunting in England and Wales, albeit he is perfectly entitled to do so, seems extraordinarily dishonourable.

Mr Peter Bradley (Wrekin, The, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman is a Scot.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley), says from a sedentary position that I am a Scot. He is right—I am a Scot, which is why I do not mind at all talking about Scotland. However, I represent an English constituency in which hunting is centred—there are seven or eight hunts in and around my constituency. Therefore, I am perfectly content to speak about foxhunting in England, despite the fact that I was born in Glasgow, am proud of it and know as much about Scotland as the hon. Gentleman does. However, I would not go to Edinburgh or Linlithgow to intervene in the debate on hunting in Scotland, whereas the hon. Member for Dumfries does it here.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

I remind my hon. Friend of a more important point, which is the anger of people whose livelihoods and futures are being affected by people over whose livelihoods and ways of life they have no say. The hon. Member for Dumfries is doing significant harm to the relationship between English and Scots people, and that is why he should shut up.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point—he is right—but we should not continue this constitutional discussion, which is beyond the scope of the Committee.

The hon. Member for Dumfries made an interesting and straightforward point. He said that the example that I gave and the experience in Scotland show that the use of guns and the obliteration of foxes is a much more effective and sensible means of pest control than is hunting with hounds. However, he is entirely wrong. A study published about a year ago by the Game Conservancy Trust examined the situation in Norfolk,

Leicestershire and the uplands of Wales. It was discovered that in Norfolk there is almost no foxhunting—but there are no foxes either, because gamekeepers were obliterating them. In the uplands of Wales, where foxhunting is more difficult, farmers are concerned about the state of the fox population. In Leicestershire, which is a successful and important centre of foxhunting in England, the population of foxes is reasonably large and extremely healthy. In other words, foxhunting has a role to play in the preservation of biodiversity and the species.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend was advocating his arguments so clearly and well, he may not have heard the sedentary comment from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe. When my hon. Friend was talking about fox control, I heard the Under-Secretary say, ''If they need to be'', which I think is a fascinating observation from an agriculture Minister.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The debate is giving us all sorts of insights—[Interruption.] Of course, I will allow the Under-Secretary to correct himself. We are having an interesting morning. One or two people on the Government Benches have suggested that the obliteration of foxes by shooting seems a good idea. Now, we are apparently hearing the Under-Secretary say from a sedentary position that all foxes should be allowed to live to a ripe old age in an old folks' home.

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

That is one of the many daft comments that the hon. Gentleman has made. The official view from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and from the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is that foxes are not considered to be a major predator of livestock. They can cause localised problems and no one is disputing that. Therefore, whether foxes need to be controlled depends on circumstances. To suggest that there is a terrible problem with foxes throughout the country is ludicrous.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

It is interesting to hear the official DEFRA view on fox control. I suggest that the Under-Secretary might want to pay a visit to my constituency, or some of the constituencies in Wales and the uplands, and tell farmers that in DEFRA's official view, foxes are not a serious worry. I am not sure that he would find a great deal of support in the countryside for that, but it is interesting to hear his view.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I will, but I must say that out discussion is becoming slightly disjointed. [Interruption.] Hon. Members find that funny. By giving way generously as I have done so far, we may lose the thrust of the important arguments being made. We will not go down the golden thread line.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I simply wanted to bring the hon. Gentleman back to the key thrust of his argument. He gave the example of his friend on his 2,000-acre estate shooting 126 foxes. I ask him to moderate his

argument. I speak in the debate as a Cornishman coming to England, if he does not mind, but representing farmers. He implies that if fox hunting is banned, farmers will be bloody minded and shoot every fox in sight. That is the implication of his argument and I urge him to moderate the impression he gives of the farming community, which does not take that view. In many cases, and I have given examples to the Committee, it has found adequate ways of managing the problem of pest control in the countryside as and when it requires.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman often speaks as if he is the only Member of Parliament who represents farmers. I am proud of the fact that I represent a large number of farmers. I do not represent hunters; I represent a large number of dairy farmers. North Wiltshire is the centre of the dairy industry in England. The hon. Gentleman need take no high moral stance. He is right that by no means all farmers use hounds to kill foxes, or allow the hunt on to the land to kill foxes. By no means do all farmers use shooting to kill foxes. He describes them as being bloody minded. If I were a farmer and my livelihood were disappearing—under the gentle care of the Minister and the Under-Secretary it is pretty poor at the moment—and my lambs, sheep and calves were predated on by foxes—[Hon. Members: ''Calves?''] Yes. There is plenty of evidence of predation on calves.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Order. I really cannot hear the hon. Gentleman speaking with this persistent banter. I ask hon. Members to give him an opportunity to speak. If they wish to intervene, I am sure that he would be prepared to allow them to do so.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Perhaps hon. Members are right and we should talk of more modest farms. Mrs. Cara Voelcker of Avil's farmhouse, one of the largest egg producers in the UK, is in my constituency. Her chickens are largely free range, and it is a large, important and very successful operation. She told me that eight foxes were shot the previous week, but there were 12 more predating on her chickens. Finding a way of getting rid of foxes is important if one wants free range, high quality, barn-raised chickens. Her difficulty is that because the farm is right on the M4—near to where the Solicitor-General was stopped yesterday for going at 99 mph—the hunt cannot get there and she has to shoot them.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

Would the hon. Gentleman do the Committee a big favour by making available at the next session the evidence that he has of fox predation on live calves?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The evidence I suspect is slight. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point in picking me up on that. I will investigate whether there is any evidence, but I accept the hon. Gentleman's gracious and courteous correction of my slip. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not produce such evidence. There is no doubt, however, about fox predation on lambs, or chicken operations such as the one that I described in my constituency.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

My understanding is that Lord Burns put the estimate of

the loss of viable lambs at 2 per cent. That seems pretty low.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I do not think that that figure is quite correct. My instinct is that if I had 100 lambs, and 2 were killed by foxes, that would seem a large number. Equally, if I were Mrs. Voelcker of Avil's farmhouse, losing a large number of free range hens to foxes, and I shoot eight and find 12 more the next day, I would have a real problem. The hon. Gentleman may think that 2 per cent. is not much, but it seems quite a lot to me.

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

If we are going to bandy numbers around, it would be helpful to use percentages of predation, rather than of flocks. That shows the contribution of, for instance, fox activity to losses by farmers. It is sensible to relate that figure to overall numbers. Instead of talking in casual percentages, we should try to be precise.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister makes an extremely important point. Foxes account for more or less 100 per cent. of the total predation on lambs. [Interruption.] The Minister says that we need to be clear about the accuracy of the percentage of predation on lambs by foxes. What predation on lambs is there other than by foxes?

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

There is a variety—for instance, natural causes. Farmers lose lambs in a series of ways. Some die of natural causes, some through illness, and some through problems of cold. It is a question of comparing fox losses to other losses, to establish the impact of fox predation.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister has corrected himself. A moment ago, he said that we must be aware of the percentage of predation on lambs that is accounted for by foxes. That figure is 100 per cent. Possibly, stray dogs account for the occasional loss. I understand the Minister's point. He made a mistake a moment ago. What he meant to say was that we should compare the percentage of lambs killed by foxes to the number that die, for example, in childbirth or through disease. Those losses are manageable by farmers. They are part of farming and one of the things that farmers have to put up with.

One should not have to put up with foxes coming on to the farm to kill chickens and lambs. One can do something about that. Should Mrs. Cara Voelcker, who has a terrible problem with fox predation, find some way of bringing hounds to deal with the foxes, or send some boys out at night with lamps to shoot them? We ought to be discussing which method of dealing with foxes is the best method of dealing with predation. Lord Burns is the first to accept the question of comparative cruelty. I ask hon. Members to pay attention to this important quotation from the report:

''In assessing the impact of hunting on animal welfare we are persuaded that it is necessary to look at it on a relative, rather than an absolute, basis. It should not be compared with only the best, or the worst, of the alternatives.''

In other words, the man the Government paid to look into controlling foxes concluded that it was not acceptable to say, ''Hunting with hounds is bad; do away with it. Other things are good.'' It is necessary

for us to come up with a hierarchy of the different ways of dealing with foxes, which is what amendment No. 175 would do.

As soon as possible, we need to know which of these methods the Secretary of State considers to be the least cruel: trapping or ensnaring, gassing, poisoning, shooting with a rifle by day or by night, shooting with a shotgun by day or by night, shooting with an airgun, which is perfectly legal, or killing with hounds. It is certain that the abolition of hunting will not reduce the number of foxes that are killed; it is therefore merely a question of the means by which they are killed. I shall not delay the Committee for much longer, but I shall touch on each method of killing listed in amendment No. 175 and draw the obvious conclusions, which the Secretary of State should bear in mind when he is discussing methods of killing foxes.

Poisoning is the easiest method with which to deal. We know that the poisoning of foxes is illegal, with one notable exception. About 20 or 30 years ago, I saw farmers injecting eggs around chicken runs with strychnine and I saw the agony in which the foxes died. When one picks up the foxes' carcases the next day, their mouths are contorted in agony. Poisoning is a disgrace and it must never be reintroduced; we can easily put it at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Yesterday, in a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, the Under-Secretary and I discussed the one exception to poisoning being illegal. Under the rabies contingency plan, which would be used to control an outbreak of rabies in the United Kingdom, the Government are the only people who are allowed to poison foxes in an urban environment. I am not sure that that is right and I welcome the fact that the Under-Secretary made it plain that the Government are examining poisons other than strychnine. Nevertheless, we can agree that poisoning is the worst possible way in which to deal with foxes.

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

That is right. The hon. Gentleman asked some reasonable questions on the rabies contingency plan in that Committee. I want him to understand, however, that, if it were felt to be appropriate, the Government have the power to use poisons in existing plans. The review of the contingency plan made it clear that there are other ways to deal with wildlife, such as fox vaccines, which have been very successful on the continent. It also depends on whether rabies was introduced by a dog or a fox. If a dog introduced rabies, the chance of rabies getting into the fox population would be limited. The use of poison depends on the circumstances and I should not want hon. Members to think that it would be an automatic response.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Indeed not, and I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for clarifying that even in urban areas there are other ways to deal with foxes. None the less, poison remains in the arsenal of weapons that the Government could use if there were a rabies outbreak in a town. I am glad that they are examining the issue and may remove poison from their arsenal. Poisoning is by far the worst option in dealing with foxes.

Moving up the hierarchy, gassing is not technically illegal, although it is impracticable because a licence has not been given to any form of gas that could be used on foxes, which effectively makes it illegal. Gas is cruel and difficult to use. Furthermore, a fox's earth may have other mammals in it. Gassing is obviously the second worst method in the hierarchy.

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

That is why it is not allowed.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The Minister says that snaring is not allowed.

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

Gassing.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Gassing is technically allowed under law, but no gases are licensed for use. Effectively, it is not allowed, but technically it is legal.

Snaring is a much more interesting issue. It is legal and there is no reason why a landowner or farmer should not put as many snares as they like around their land. There is no reason why they should not leave them and check them occasionally to see how many foxes they have caught. In addition to foxes, other animals get caught in snares. Snaring is probably one of the worst ways in which an animal can die because they can be left in agony for a long period of time, dying from an injury caused by the snare, starvation, cold or exposure, which are not nice ways to go. Snaring is not a good way to kill foxes unless professionals do it. In some heavy game shooting areas—the Labour party is in favour of game shooting—such as Norfolk, where there are large numbers of gamekeepers who check their snares, the practice is justifiable. When snaring is done by amateurs, it is probably the least helpful way of dealing with foxes.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

We should also put it on record that the estimate for snaring is that 50 per cent. of the catch is animals other than the target species. Therefore, it is an imprecise way of controlling any population.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is an imprecise method. It is worrying to catch sheep, deer or other mammals in snares. If the snares are not checked regularly, serious damage can be caused to animal welfare.

I think that all members of the Committee would agree that snaring is reasonably high on the list of things that we do not like. Indeed, an early-day motion that I suspect a number of Labour Members signed recently said that we do not like snaring. In view of that, we shall have to think of something else. If Labour Members do not like hunting with dogs or snaring, we shall have to think of other ways of controlling predators.

There is no law against shooting a fox with an airgun. I do not agree with most of the present discussions about the greater control of airguns, because it is useful for children and young people to learn how to shoot using them. However, my stricture to my son is that he must not shoot at an animal or a bird because the likelihood of wounding is high; it is extremely unlikely, certainly with a .22 gun, that one

will kill the mammal. That seems to be one of the cruellest ways of dealing with any predator. Therefore, I tell my children that they must not shoot at anything other than a target, but it is fine that they should have the weapon and use it in properly controlled circumstances.

None the less, if the Bill became law, it would be in order for any 12-year-old to shoot a low-powered airgun at any mammal and the Government apparently have no view in the Bill on that issue. They say, ''We will deal with hunting with hounds, but if you want to send your 12-year-old out with a .22, you can do so. It may be illegal elsewhere, but under the Bill it will remain perfectly legal.'' Therefore, snaring will be legal and the use of an airgun will be legal.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

In amendment No. 175 the hon. Gentleman groups trapping and snaring together. Does he mean to do that? On one of my cousin's farms, a poultry farm, whenever there is a fox problem, he sets up his own trap—I consider it to be a humane trap—where the door shuts down on a cage with a dead chicken inside and the fox is shot as soon as it has completed its meal. Last year, he shot 18 foxes when they became a problem. When he groups trapping and snaring together, does he include what I consider to be humane traps?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting and useful point. There may be other methods of entrapping and the sort of trap that he describes could be more widely used. That is what I am asking the Secretary of State to do—to tell us whether he believes that one method of killing foxes is more humane and others less humane. If he can produce good evidence to show that humane traps could be used widely and are less damaging than snaring, I would happily decouple the two in the first part of the amendment. That is what I seek guidance from the Government and the Committee on: they must tell us. We must not leave it to the registrar to decide whether snaring or humane trapping is better. It must be up to us as legislators to say, ''Here's how we want the mammals of our countryside to be managed''. It must be up to us to say which we believe to be more cruel and which less cruel.

If hunting with hounds were banned, the greatest likelihood is that foxes would be shot. I covered much of that issue earlier. Lord Burns makes it plain that shooting foxes with a rifle is probably reasonably humane, but that shooting them with a shotgun, by day or by night, but particularly by day, is not. He makes it plain that hunting with hounds is likely to be more humane than shooting with a shotgun.

Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)

Does my hon. Friend agree that evidence from Scotland shows an increase in the number of wounded foxes left out on the hills after being shot? That is negative in terms of both cruelty and utility.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. Setting aside the case of a marksman using a rifle, all the evidence so far suggests that using a shotgun, by day or night, results in an extremely high likelihood of a fatal wounding rather than a clean kill.

As yet, we do not have many figures. I understand that some useful work is being done on wounding rates and I hope to hear the outcome of that study within the next 12 months or so. Currently, the evidence on shooting foxes with shotguns does not really exist. All that I can say is that Lord Burns, directed by the Government, concluded that shooting foxes with shotguns is cruel.

Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth & Camborne, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman is referring a great deal to the Burns inquiry. Does he accept that evidence in the Burns inquiry showed that some foxes are disembowelled as a result of being hunted by hounds? Does he call that humane?

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I would be interested to know where Lord Burns said that foxes are disembowelled. If one imagines 40 dogs the size of Alsatians hitting something the size of a poodle, one realises that the notion that foxes are disembowelled is laughable. Even if the hon. Lady were right and disembowelling were the normal means by which hounds dispatched foxes, would disembowelling, which would presumably be quick, be more or less cruel than shooting a fox with a shotgun and allowing it to die of its wounds over a month, in a dry drain with nothing to eat? Which is less cruel: a fox being disembowelled or a fox being shot and dying of gangrene?

Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth & Camborne, Labour)

I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman's argument, which is that hunting with dogs results in a quick kill.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Lady obviously has not been listening. I was not arguing that on this occasion—although I would argue it on other occasions. I was suggesting that it is important that the Committee, the Government and the Secretary of State give guidance to the registrar and the tribunal about what they believe to be the better method of dealing with foxes.

The hon. Lady said that she thinks that disembowelling is the worst death imaginable. All that I said was: if disembowelling were a method of dispatching foxes, would it be better or worse than a fox dying of gangrene in a drain after being shot? That is the nature of the debate behind amendment No. 175, which challenges the Government to come up with some sort of clarity of vision and wisdom as to which method of dealing with foxes is easier.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

The question, as it is put on paper and deduced by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton), appears difficult to defend, but I refer my hon. Friend to a report by a group of 400 vets. The report states:

''The kill occurs as a swift, almost instantaneous, procedure made possible by the considerable . . . weight advantage the hound has over the fox.''

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

That is an extremely good point. None the less, it leads to a value judgment about whether hunting with hounds is better, worse or indifferent compared with other methods of killing foxes and that is not the nature of the current debate. We are debating whether the Bill should indicate to the registrar which method is better or worse. For the sake of this argument, I remain open-minded and if

the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne can persuade me that disembowelling, as she describes it, is worse than dying of gangrene a month later, that will be a clear indication to the Secretary of State as to—[Interruption.] Can I put on record that I do not intend to give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries during the rest of the Committee stage? It seems that his presence here is illegitimate. He does not know about—

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. Is it right for the hon. Gentleman to say that the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries is illegitimate?

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire can choose to whom he gives way, but we know that the hon. Member for Dumfries is here through the Committee of Selection.

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

Further to that point of order, Mrs. Roe. Given that some Opposition Members do not seem to understand devolution, it is important to say that any Member legitimately elected to this House can be on the Committee, selected by the Committee of Selection.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

Further to that point of order, Mrs. Roe. The hon. Member for Dumfries has a legitimate right to be here, but not a moral right.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Order. We should continue with the debate. Points have been made and I have answered them.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal makes a good point, although I know that it is not what the hon. Member for Dumfries wants to hear. I am keen to listen to the Minister, who represents a Welsh constituency, because Wales is affected by this Bill, as is England, but I fear that it would not be morally justifiable for the hon. Member for Dumfries to intervene.

The hon. Member for Worcester has a long record on speaking on such matters and I shall happily listen to him. He knows about the topic, although I do not agree with him on it. However, I do not intend to take lessons from Scots—people representing Scottish constituencies—on the matter. I want to listen to people representing English and Welsh constituencies. I do not mean to be rude to the hon. Member for Dumfries and I am glad that he is here, but I will not be taking further interventions from him. I am happy to take an intervention from the hon. Member for Worcester.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that if we are to have an evidence base on which to make progress with the legislation, it will be useful to hear about the experience in Scotland? It would be useful to hear from Scottish Members of Parliament in this Committee about what is happening there, where hunting with dogs has arguably been banned, although there is some dispute about the implication of the legislation.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

The hon. Member for Dumfries will have plenty of opportunities to let us know how matters are going in Scotland. I do not like what I read in the

newspapers and I look forward to hearing his views elsewhere. However, we are discussing a matter that affects only England and Wales. It is reasonable for us to be informed about what is happening in Scotland and there are plenty of ways in which we can be, but for a Scottish Member of Parliament to pontificate on fox hunting in England is as absurd as if I were to go to Holyrood to pontificate there on hunting in Scotland. I therefore reiterate that I do not intend to take interventions from the hon. Member for Dumfries. I will happily talk to him in the Corridor afterwards. I hope that he has extensive experience of hunting in Scotland, and I shall happily listen to that, but that should not happen in the Committee.

Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)

It is regrettable that the Minister has said that Opposition Members do not understand the principles of devolution. What people in my part of the world, the west country, do not understand, is why any Member of Parliament from Scotland should have a say on the future of their lives, especially when they have not been afforded an opportunity to do that in their own part of the world.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

I think that the Committee should return to the amendments under discussion at the moment. This is not the place to discuss devolution.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I entirely agree with you, Mrs. Roe. It is important that I wind up my remarks reasonably quickly, so that other right hon. and hon. Members can take part in the debate.

The key point that we are making through amendments Nos. 100, 174 and 175 is that the definitions of cruelty and utility in the Bill will have unfortunate results not only for the registrar's consideration of foxhunting and other forms of hunting with hounds, but for a variety of human activities. By seeking to require the Secretary of State to introduce a cruelty hierarchy of different ways of killing foxes, and by seeking to amalgamate the two tests of cruelty and utility, we are telling the Government that we accept the principle of regulation through cruelty and utility tests that is behind the Bill, but think that it is badly drafted. We believe that the registrar and the tribunal will not be able to make a sensible decision on which method of dealing with pests is more or less cruel.

We ask the Government, if they want their Bill to have any usefulness at all and to be accepted in the countryside and by the nation, to accept that it must be better drafted, so that the registrar can come to decisions that can be understood and are well founded in law. I believe that the amendments would significantly improve the Bill, and I commend them to the Committee.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

May I join my colleagues in saying what a pleasure it is to sit under your chairmanship, Mrs. Roe, albeit to discuss a sad and distressing Bill?

I would first like to say that nowhere in the Burns report does Lord Burns conclude that hunting is cruel. In supporting the amendment, I want to make some

points about the hierarchy of cruelty that the Ministers so balefully fail to understand. The Under-Secretary has made it his parliamentary life's work to see the destruction of foxhunting. I do not know about the Minister for Rural Affairs, but I know that he is against foxhunting. I do not expect an open mind from the Labour party, so I want to set the Minister a test, because I understand that he claims, although in a deeply unconvincing way, to be something of a countryman and naturalist.

I should like the Minister to assess out of 10, with 10 being the score for maximum pain and zero for no pain, the relative pain and suffering caused to animals by the following: a man hunting a fox with hounds; a man shooting a fox; a fox killing a new-born lamb; a man trapping a fox; a fox killing a pheasant; a fox eating a pheasant chick as it hatches; a man shooting a pheasant; a man poisoning a rat; a greyhound coursing a hare; a stoat killing a rabbit; a cat playing with a dying mouse; a sparrow hawk killing a blackbird; a man keeping a wild bird in a cage; a man keeping a dog on the wrong diet in an overheated house. Can he give me a hierarchy of those when he responds on cruelty?

I want Government Members, especially the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne, whom I do not suppose has ever been hunting, seen a hunt—

Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth & Camborne, Labour)

I actually come from a rural area. The lane in which I live has a hunt kennels. I regularly see the hunt leave, passing literally outside my front door. Many of my friends have been hunting and I have followed the hounds on foot and watched hunts on several occasions, through my teenage and adult years. I ask him to withdraw his comment.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

The hon. Lady is certainly a great deal luckier than she looks.

Foxes are not pets, but magnificent wild animals living the life of freedom and danger for which nature brilliantly designed them. They have done so for countless thousands of years. For centuries, their lives have been inextricably linked to the patchwork of our magnificent countryside, much of which, throughout the length and breadth of the land, was laid out for hunting and shooting. Those interests do a great deal to shape the beauty of the landscape, and foxes share the marvellous woods, fields and hedges with the farmers and their livestock. All who go to visit the countryside see and enjoy a landscape that, in many cases, was laid out specifically for hunting.

Mrs. Roe, you will return me to order very quickly if I stray from it, and I am trying hard not to do so, but I should like to draw the Minister's attention to an article in The Daily Telegraph on 14 December. That is one of the few newspapers that still have an environmental correspondent of some distinction and writers who write about country matters and sport with knowledge. The Minister would do well to read it.

Lucy Whaley, the wife of a master of foxhounds in Scotland, wrote an article in December that ended with a telling paragraph, which I thought would be relevant to the debate. It contained three recent, true stories about foxes. The first is about so-called hunting in Scotland and the farce of the law there:

''One: this week a fox was shot and wounded as he ran from the wood. He somersaulted and ran on. Hounds hunted him into an earth, where he was bolted, shot at again and eventually killed—some 20 minutes after he was first wounded. Two: a friend found a fox dying of gunshot wounds in her barn, stinking of gangrene. Her husband was away and there was no foxhound handy, so she bravely shut her eyes and whacked him on the head with a spade. Three: at an English hunt last week, we saw a fox 'coursed' ''—

to explain to the Under-Secretary, hunted by sight rather than scent—

''by hounds across two fields. As he negotiated each hedgerow, he gained a lead and escaped—which would not have happened if he had not been strong and healthy. Which was the luckiest of these foxes?''

If the Bill is enacted, we will impose a catastrophe on the countryside. The Under-Secretary laughs. He has no idea what will happen to the fox population. There will be mass destruction of foxes because people will go out and shoot foxes where now they do not. At present, the use of hounds is an attempt to maintain a healthy fox population.

A primary focus of the legislation is to regulate human behaviour, not to protect animals. A lady who is married to a cousin of mine is a former master of foxhounds. She is a devoted conservationist and extremely knowledgeable about the countryside. She handed me a Christmas card with a picture of a fox looking out over a vale, underneath which was written:

''The fox looked out on a winter's night Wishing that man would treat him right, Allow him to roam and maybe to run, But spare him the trap, the gas, and the gun.''

No one can claim that a pack of foxhounds provides the most efficient form of fox control, but efficiency is not necessarily the same as humanity. I wish Government Members would try to understand and absorb some of that argument. The aims of foxhunting are to eradicate the weak and the sick, to disperse the fox population, which is extremely important in the countryside, and to promote a healthy, vigorous species.

I was profoundly and truly impressed by the speech during our first sitting of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal. It is the first time in my 20 years as a Member of Parliament that I have listened to a speech given in a contentious Committee that was made at such length, without a single note, and during which one could have heard a pin drop because of the importance of what was being said. I endorse entirely what my right hon. Friend said and wish that I had the silken tongue to say it in the same way.

Government Members must understand that hunting is about management and balance, not extermination. It is certainly not about cruelty, and the hon. Member for Worcester knows that that is the case. It is not the most efficient way of controlling pests, but it is an important part of the eco-management of the countryside. Nothing in the Bill, which we are trying to make better through our amendments, will do anything to improve the eco-management of the countryside.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

I rise to speak to amendment No. 24. I put my name to the amendment, which was originally tabled by the hon.

Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), who, not surprisingly, in the light of the views that he has expressed this morning, has withdrawn his name from it.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to clarify this point. The removal of the word ''significantly'', which amendment No. 24 proposes, was linked to the removal of the word ''not''. Without it, it becomes worse, from my point of view. That is why I withdrew my name from the amendment.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

Precisely. I thought that it was a strange amendment when I first read it, in terms of what I expected the hon. Gentleman's views to be.

I should tell the Committee, first, that I am a member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I give it money, rather than receiving any money from it. Secondly, I remain to be convinced about the idea of registration of these activities. However, while registration remains in the Bill, I and others will seek to improve the registration aspects in part 2. That is why I and my hon. Friends have tabled this and other amendments to that part of the Bill.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Order. Would the hon. Gentleman be very kind and raise his voice, as I believe that some members of the Committee are having difficulty hearing him?

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

I shall certainly try, Mrs. Roe. Would you like me to repeat any of what I have already said? [Hon. Members: ''No.''] I thought not, Mrs. Roe. I and other hon. Members seek to improve the registration part of the Bill. I and my hon. Friends are not convinced about the registration process.

The amendments that we are debating, principally amendment No. 175, would change the clause in a way that changed the whole nature of the Bill. The Bill and the core of it in clause 8 are not a balance between utility and cruelty: they are sequential tests. In his amendment, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire seeks to make it a see-saw. I do not believe that it is. The second of those tests is in subsection (2). The Minister may correct me on this, having spoken to the legal draftsmen, but the word ''significantly'', which amendment No. 24 would remove, suggests a higher hurdle than I wish to see. That is why the amendment has been tabled.

In our slightly broader discussion this morning, I was interested to hear the hon. Member for North Wiltshire talk about his friend with a farm of about 850 hectares who goes out with lamping, does pest control and shoots 126 foxes. He was rightly picked up on that by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire. If we are talking about pest control, as we shall in considering later amendments this morning, that is the core of it. Hunting foxes with dogs is not about pest control in a utilitarian way. If there is to be pest control of foxes, let us debate that and discuss the apparently efficient method that his friend with the large farm used. It seems much more efficient than hunting foxes with dogs.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Let us be clear. We are talking not about efficiency but about suffering. I am interested in the answer to this question; what methodology would the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West propose to measure the difference? If he wishes to remove the word ''significantly'', presumably he has a means of comparing the shooting of foxes with killing them with dogs. If he can explain the hierarchy as he sees it and how it would be applied, that will be helpful.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

That is an interesting intervention. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, it would be better put to the Minister. The amendment changes the emphasis in the Bill, but the hierarchy—to use the hon. Gentleman's word—is already in subsection (2). The hierarchy question, which has been partly addressed by amendment No. 175, should be put to the Minister. Amendment No. 24 would simply change the height of the hurdle in subsection (2). I should mention to the Committee that at the conclusion of the debate, I shall press the amendment to a vote.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I rise primarily to speak on amendment No. 174, although I should like to associate myself with many of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire in his very fine opening speech.

Amendment No. 174 is one of the Middle Way Group's first attempts to make clause 8 acceptable. Clause 8 is the heart of the Bill, and it is inevitable that the debate on it will be long and drawn out because it is probably the most important part of the Bill. If clause 8 were made acceptable, the whole Bill would become acceptable; if it remains as currently drafted, both it and the Bill will remain unacceptable.

We are having a great deal of difficulty in getting the terminology right on suffering and cruelty. For these purposes—and for one or two others, which are outside the terms of this Committee—I refer to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire as my hon. Friend. He and I feel that it is important to understand what we are trying to do. Killing inevitably involves suffering and, as he said, even killing a fly involves a limited degree of suffering. Cruelty begins when suffering exceeds utility, which is why it is important that the tests are not sequential, which, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West rightly pointed out, they currently are. It is important to balance suffering and utility, which is why sequential tests—one of the flaws in clause 8—are not appropriate.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

Does my hon. Friend agree that that distinction is crucial on the question of religious slaughter? All members of the Committee would say that religious slaughter is cruel; I hope that the Under-Secretary is listening because this concerns his distinction between suffering and cruelty. Religious slaughter is in all cases cruel, but because its utility is greater than our belief in its cruelty, we have accepted it. That is why suffering and utility have to be brought together rather than being kept apart.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I appreciate the spirit of my right hon. Friend's point, which also allows me to pay tribute to

one of the finest speeches that I have heard in Committee or on the Floor of the House in my 10 years as a Member of Parliament. The spirit of his remarks is correct, but I am more pedantic about wording. Religious slaughter involves suffering but has a utility because it serves a purpose for religionists who want to eat meat killed in that way. Its utility exceeds the suffering it causes, which means that it is not cruel. Although we are having a semantic discussion, my point is that we accept things that we do not like because we know that they have a greater purpose, whatever it may be.

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

I do not want to get involved in the issue of religious slaughter, but it is worth saying—the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal is probably aware of this—that religious slaughter has not been left unchanged in this country over the years. It has been changed on a number of occasions in relation to practices that have been considered cruel. The casting crate, for example, has been prohibited, and the majority of halal slaughter in this country involves pre-stunning. The right hon. Gentleman should find out how shechitah is carried out and the standards that are applied. Although it is important to examine whether an activity is cruel, people should not think that practices have not been improved and that cruelty issues have not been addressed.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

The Under-Secretary's contribution is very helpful. I entirely agree with his remarks and am grateful to him for his intervention, which in a way makes the Middle Way Group's point. Where a practice is unacceptable to a group of people, it is often possible to negotiate changes—sometimes marginal, sometimes substantial—to make a practice more tolerable to the rest of society. That is one of the principles at the heart of the Middle Way Group's consideration of hunting, and that is the kind of change that we have been advocating. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for supporting the Middle Way Group's arguments.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the middle way and trying to balance different interests in society, an approach with which I agree on many issues. Should United Kingdom residents from South Korea be allowed to eat dogs in this country? How would he balance that?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

That is a fascinating philosophical argument, but we will get dangerously out of order if we discuss it. I have not considered that question and need time to think about it. Inherently, the answer is no, but I may be wrong, in which case I should want to change my view.

Mr Peter Bradley (Wrekin, The, Labour)

That is the middle way for you.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Life is inherently more complex than those who want to ban hunting admit. The single most important word in the Burns report is ''paradox''. Everywhere Lord Burns looked he found ''paradox'', which lies at the heart of the debate. What appeared to be cruel was not cruel when it was properly examined. I invite Labour Members not to see things in black and white terms. There are lots of shades of grey—I have unintentionally paid tribute to my hon. Friend the

Member for North Wiltshire—that need to be examined, which is what we seek to do with clause 8.

When I first heard the Under-Secretary's intention, I thought that clause 8 was an admirable attempt to try to introduce those shades of grey into the debate. When I saw how it would actually work, I realised that it is simply a black-and-white attempt to ban hunting by the back door, which is why it is unacceptable. It would ban hunting by all but a couple of packs. We are trying to amend the cruelty and utility test to ensure that clause 8 becomes acceptable and does what we thought the Under-Secretary meant it to do when he briefed us.

Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test, Labour)

I was interested in the debate that took place a moment ago on the halal slaughter of animals and on stunning. I was about to make the point, which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made, that almost all animals at a halal butchery are stunned. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal conceded that that changed the nature of the debate on the point. The parallel with foxhunting is that the cruelty nexus would be changed if a fox were stunned before it were hunted, but that is not possible given the very nature of foxhunting.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his characteristically elegant intervention, which was rather more flippant than those that he usually makes. I enjoyed it but I shall not comment on it.

Mr Mike Hall (Weaver Vale, Labour)

If the hon. Gentleman does not get his way with the amendment, will he vote against clause 8 in the clause stand part vote?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. The answer at this stage is that I am not sure. I intended to make this point as a point of order, but decided not to; notwithstanding the extraordinarily long debate we will have on amendments to clause 8, I hope that you will be prepared to consider having a brief stand part debate, Mrs. Roe, because what happens to clause 8 in Committee is immensely important. I should like to put the same question to the hon. Gentleman; do his hon. Friends intend to vote against clause 8? I expect that they will vote against it, in which case the Bill will be destroyed and the golden thread will be cut. At some stage, we will discuss this outside the Committee, but I hope that you will be prepared to consider a clause stand part debate, Mrs. Roe. If, as I suspect they do, the hon. Gentleman's colleagues intend to vote against clause 8, we should know the reasons why, and that would be best done in a clause stand part debate.

Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)

Can we return to the question of halal slaughter as a parallel issue, Mrs. Roe? When I was the Minister with responsibility for the issue, I made many of the changes on halal slaughter to try to improve the situation. In making those decisions, we did not have a sequential test; we looked at utility and cruelty together in order to make the decision. If the Bill does not do that, it will call into question the basis on which we have looked at other issues.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Precisely. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention, which was exactly right. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and I have added our names to my hon. Friend the

Member for North Wiltshire's amendment because we share that perspective. It is a question of balance, not a question of sequence. It is tremendously important that we should get the tests of utility and suffering right and then balance them.

For my money, the tests are one of the Bill's central weaknesses. They reveal the true intention of many Labour Members, who want simply to ban one form of killing animals because they do not like the people who do it. Clause 8 would ban the most visible form of killing the mammals in question. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said, it would displace the killing of those animals to more cruel methods, which is its danger. I am not trying to score points, although I sometimes will. I am genuinely inviting Government Members to realise that if they accept the clause—by voting against stand part, they probably will not accept it—the effect will be that more foxes will die by crueller methods. That is tremendously important.

Mr Mark Tami (Alyn & Deeside, Labour)

If the hon. Gentleman is saying that shooting is more cruel, surely the logic of his argument is that farmers should not be allowed to shoot foxes.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Shooting is key to the debate. We have had much discussion about it already, and I disagree with some of the things that have been said on both sides of the debate. I shall address the matter later at some length rather than briefly respond to the hon. Gentleman's useful intervention.

Another point about the crueller methods to which the killing of foxes and other animals will be displaced is that Lord Burns said that they are more cruel, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said in his remarks. Given that we all broadly accept the Burns report, we must accept the truth of his observation. That is why I believe that this part of the clause is so unacceptable.

I intend to discuss some of the real-world experience that the Middle Way Group has gained on the issue of suffering and cruelty. I will leave my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire to make more conceptual remarks, as is his wont, in later consideration of this group of clauses.

Real-world experience indicates that most vets support foxhunting. Frankly, I put their judgment on cruelty above that of Members of the House and above mine. When my dog died—I will not give the whole of this long anecdote—the veterinary practice that I go to asked me not to get a replacement dog from the RSPCA, which is anti-hunting, because banning hunting would be cruel to animals. It is interesting that the National Canine Defence League does not take a view on hunting. Most of the vets in my constituency support hunting, and I have received passionate letters from some of them.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

Given that the hon. Gentleman is talking about one of my constituents, it would be useful to the people of Worcestershire if he were to name the vet who gave him the advice about the RSPCA.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I will happily supply the name. He practices as a vet at a very popular practice in the hon. Gentleman's constituency but lives in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer). I told the story at the NCDL stand at the Three Counties showground. The veterinary assistant, who I did not recognise, was nearby and confirmed that it was he who gave me that advice. The hon. Gentleman is digging a hole for himself. Vets overwhelmingly support hunting, which is an important issue for the Committee. Cruelty must be addressed very carefully; not in an attempt to ban hunting but in an attempt to judge it.

The Middle Way Group has been primarily concerned with two issues. The first is human freedom—the liberty for people to do what they choose—and the second is animal welfare. Those two considerations are at the heart of our thinking. Our genuine conviction is that the Bill will reduce animal welfare. I invite the hon. Member for Worcester to try to understand the argument.

The hunting lobby has made several errors over the years in its presentation of its arguments about hunting, leading to many perfectly understandable misunderstandings on the other side of the debate. The hunting lobby is guilty of enabling misunderstandings to grow. A simple example is that it has said in the past that the fox is always killed with a quick nip to the back of the neck. It may happen that way sometimes but, generally, it does not. However, the important point is that when a fox is hunted, it always dies quickly, according to the Burns report. The idea of a clean, clinical nip to the back of the neck is about as ludicrous as the surgical disembowelling suggested by others. The hunting lobby was wrong to suggest a particular method of death that probably does not occur in the majority of cases.

Mr Mike Hall (Weaver Vale, Labour)

First, I condole with the hon. Gentleman on the loss of his dog. Did he get a rescued dog from the RSPCA or from another place? Secondly, the fox does die reasonably quickly once it is caught, but it does not die quickly; a chase can continue for some time.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I got my dog from the NCDL, which is a charity based in my constituency to which I am happy to pay great tribute. The dog is a beagle but was not a hunting dog. It was actually a laboratory animal before I rescued it.

Mr Peter Bradley (Wrekin, The, Labour)

What is it called?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

It is called Tansy. For those who wish to see her in more detail, a photograph is available on my website. I hope that you will excuse that small diversion, Mrs. Roe.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I am loth to interrupt my hon. Friend, but I want to draw attention to the report supported by 400 members of the Royal Veterinary College, which was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). The reports states:

''The animal is not hunted to the point of exhaustion rather to the point when still running hard it is overhauled by the fitter and more durable hounds''.

Importantly, the fact that the fox has been running means that the

''powerful exercise-induced analgesic actions of centrally released endorphins and enkephalins, generated during the hunt, will mitigate or eliminate any pain.''

That may be technical and perhaps some hon. Members do not understand it, but the fact is that running will result an anaesthetic effect, whereas if a fox were shot in cold blood and maimed—[Interruption.] Would hon. Members prefer foxes to be shot in cold blood and maimed?

The report makes another critical point:

''Neither wild or domestic animals appear to have any premonition of death.''

Labour Members are simply offering anthropomorphic—

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

Is this an intervention or a speech?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) for his observations. I do not want to get into a debate about individual methods; I want to return to the amendments. However, I have a lot of sympathy with what he said and the important point is that his comments were drawn from a document written by vets. Members of Parliament are ridiculing those comments, which brings me back to my central point; I prefer the opinion of vets. Vets presumably have taken into account the length of the chase in reaching their sincerely held views. Anthropomorphism and technical judgments about the biology of animals are beyond my philosophical and biological abilities.

Hon. Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex, Conservative)

As usual my hon. Friend makes light of his expertise; we know perfectly well that he does understand such concepts. He has always taken a distinguished position on the issue. Does he agree that no one who hunts is in favour of gratuitous cruelty and that no gratuitous cruelty is involved in foxhunting? Death is instantaneous and there are no wounded survivors. If the legislation were passed, there would be many thousands of wounded survivors. That is the awfulness of the situation.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend makes a point that I want to make at greater length later. I have been talking for about 15 minutes and I have yet to finish my introduction because I have been giving way. I had intended to reach this point much sooner. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; indeed, I would go one stage further. I have three hunts in my constituency and I suspect that if the people involved were satisfied about the cruelty of hunting, the majority of them would abandon it; that is probably true of all of them, but I will not over-claim. What Labour Members do not understand is that people who hunt are genuine animal lovers. If they thought hunting cruel, they would abandon it voluntarily and there would be no need for legislation. They hunt because of their conviction, which I share, that hunting is not cruel if practised properly within the codes of conduct.

The hunting lobby made the crucial error of positioning themselves as pest control people. I suppose it depends how one defines control, but I regard foxhunting not as pest control, but as wildlife management. In my constituency, a balance has been achieved as a result of hunting. My hon. Friends may take issue with what I am about to say, but if I am honest I think that, although farmers do suffer modest predation of their lands and many want foxes to be controlled to minimise that, some farmers simply take pleasure in seeing foxes. They think that they are noble and fine animals that should not be eradicated, so they are prepared to tolerate them.

Much more importantly, gamekeepers and shoots in Worcestershire are prepared to tolerate foxes only because they are hunted. It is my genuine conviction that if hunting were banned, as it would be under the clause, we would see the eradication of the fox in large parts of Worcestershire. I see the Government Whip shaking his head in disbelief. I invite him to believe that; it is true. I will relate an anecdote related to shooting explaining why I believe it to be true.

Mr Mike Hall (Weaver Vale, Labour)

If the hon. Gentleman believes that the fox will disappear in large parts of his constituency if foxhunting disappears, can he explain why there are three foxes living near where I live in Kennington, despite the fact that there is no Kennington hunt?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Yes, happily, because as it happens, the hon. Member for Worcester and myself share an urban fox. It is in an orchard halfway between our two houses. We think that it is the same fox that we hear. The extraordinary availability of food in urban areas and the absence of any realistic control methods explain the presence of urban foxes. The idea of a Kennington hunt might be attractive to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), and it might be to me, too, because I live in Kennington. On balance, I do not think that it is a practical solution, and utility and suffering would be balanced in a rather different way in Kennington.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I will give way. I am trying to make progress, but I think that it important that we have a proper debate in Committee. I am sorry that I am taking so long, Mrs. Roe.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman makes a particularly important point by saying that if foxhunting were banned, there will be a wholesale eradication of the fox from wide parts of the countryside. I want him to clarify why he thinks that that would be the case. Is it because many landowners and farmers in parts of the countryside will kill foxes out of a sense of bloody-mindedness or as a protest against the ban? Is he saying that there is no other method of managing the fox population other than its wholesale eradication? If so, I think that he is wrong.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

We are going to disagree. It is a matter of fact.

I will share what is not exactly a confidence with the Committee. The Minister came to my constituency on a private visit to a particular wood. The wood is owned by two brothers. One of them shoots, the other

hunts. The gamekeeper, who looks after the pheasants, is most anxious to kill all of the foxes because they kill too many pheasants. The brother who hunts will not let him do that because he wants to keep the foxes there for his friends in the Croome and West Warwickshire foxhounds and the Worcestershire hunt. The tension is there, and the gamekeeper would kill every fox because they take too many pheasants. He is a friend of mine, and I hope I am not traducing him.

I go rough shooting myself. If I have an interest to declare it is that I do a small amount of shooting in my constituency. The person that I go shooting with says, ''If you see a fox, shoot it.'' I will not do that because I have the wrong calibre shot in my gun, and I would wound it. He carries some of the right calibre shot, as it happens. If a fox walks past me and I have my shotgun in my hand, the safety catch will be mysteriously on. I will not shoot that fox because I regard it as cruel. He has the right calibre ammunition and he can do so.

I saw my friend kill a fox about three or four days ago. It was extremely unpleasant. It took three cartridges to dispatch that fox. We were out shooting with a couple of springer spaniels, and they had to slow the fox down to enable him to shoot the additional two cartridges. He called the dogs back, and shot the fox twice more. It was a long and protracted death for that fox, which I regard as unacceptable. It was shot entirely within the Government guidelines for the shooting of foxes. There is not a law in such cases, but there is a guideline in a written answer of 10 May. Lord Whitty said:

''a) A shotgun of minimum 20 bore and minimum shot size BB (4.09mm diameter) is considered suitable for shooting a fox only at close range (under 25 metres).

b) and d) A shotgun of minimum 20 bore and shot size of at least number 5 (2.79mm diameter) is recommended for use in shooting hare or mink only at close range.

At longer range the use of a rifle is recommended for fox, hare and mink.

c) A shotgun is not recommended for culling deer and would not normally be normally be legal under section 4(2)(a) of the Deer Act 1991.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 2001; Vol. 625, c. WA205.]

That fox was shot within those guidelines, but it suffered a great deal.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he has been most courteous. Did his friend give any reason why that particular fox had been shot? Had it been identified as a particular pest or as causing damage to livestock to livestock or the environment, or was it a fox that they happened to see?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

It was a vegetarian fox; I know that. It never ate pheasant, or any ground-nesting bird in its life. I feel guilty that we shot it. Of course it ate pheasants; that is what foxes live on. That is why pheasant shooting depends on a low level of fox activity. Pheasants are not particularly clever birds. Pheasant lovers may disagree with me on that point. They are quite easily caught and they do not fly long distances. That is why gamekeepers kill foxes.

Mr Mark Tami (Alyn & Deeside, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if farmers go out and shoot every fox that they can find,

we will see again what we saw many years ago, when birds of prey were virtually eradicated and the balance switched? There were rabbits all over the place and there was no balance. Does he not see that as a problem?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I am grateful for that comment, which is absolutely right. I have often said that, if we were to pass a Bill such as this that bans hunting, there would be a strong case for giving the fox species protection in statute law. I genuinely fear—this is not point-scoring—the extinction of the fox from lowland England, if hunting is banned, as it will be.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

What worries me is that the debate is going a little wide of cruelty. I am being seduced away from the amendment. I shall happily take any interventions on cruelty and suffering. Otherwise, I should return to the amendment.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

Given the scenario that the hon. Gentleman is putting forward, how does he explain that in a constituency such as mine, a large rural area, where there are no foxhunts and no hunts on the perimeter, we have a decent fox population that causes no problems? There has never been a hunt in the area.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I think that it is in order to ask the hon. Gentleman a question. How much shooting is there in his constituency, because, in Worcestershire, there is a large amount?

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

There is some.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

That is the answer. In East Anglia, different arguments apply. I am talking from my experience as a Member of Parliament for Worcestershire. I know what would happen in Worcestershire and I think there is little dispute about it. The Game Conservancy Trust agrees with me. Where shooting is not practised to the same extent, it is different, and in East Anglia there are very few foxes, because shooting is so popular. This is an important and serious argument.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

I am saying that there is no hunt in my area, but the fox population has not been wiped out. Why?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

We could perhaps continue this discussion outside the Committee, because again it goes wide of the cruelty argument. I suspect that there is much less shooting activity. Virtually every hedgerow, field and wood in Worcestershire is shot. That is why the fox would be at such risk. But I am going wide of suffering.

Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)

In Devon, my part of the world, where pheasant shooting is probably worth £7 million or £8 million to the economy, the only reason why there are any foxes anywhere is because of the proliferation of hunts. If we did away with the hunts, we shall seriously compromise the welfare of the fox.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I agree with my hon. Friend. I go back to cruelty.

The Middle Way Group wants to regulate hunting. That is what has made us unpopular with many of

those who support hunting and who feel that our approach is intrusive. We accept that there has been cruelty in hunting in the past. We believe that the new codes of conduct embraced by the hunting fraternity address that issue and need statutory force to survive. However, we never—I take the gravest exception to the Minister's comments—wanted to license cruelty. When the Minister says that, he gives the game away about his attitude to hunting. Hunting is not inherently cruel. Some practices associated with hunting can be cruel, and they need to be controlled. I was genuinely offended by the Minister's remark.

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

I have no wish to offend the hon. Gentleman, nor do I suggest that he intended to legislate to allow cruelty. However, I find it impossible not to argue that that would be the effect of the amendment. As with other issues to do with cruelty, intention comes into it. I clear the hon. Gentleman of an intention to legislate for cruelty, but I suggest that his drafting would have led to that result.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

This is probably not the moment to discuss the matter because a subsequent debate may be more relevant, but I profoundly disagree with the Minister and I am sorry that he has not yet been persuaded after his fine work going around the country listening to hunting people and trying to understand their point.

A proper test for utility and cruelty would mean the banning of bear baiting and cock fighting. It would do that because there is little utility in those activities and clearly there would be suffering. I believe that that is a red herring. It is no secret that I have serious reservations about hare coursing because the balance between suffering and utility is inappropriate, leading to a judgment that it is cruel.

If the tests are right—the purpose of the amendment is to improve the suffering test—the Bill would become a good Bill that should command a great deal of support in the countryside and among all those who genuinely care for the welfare of the animals covered by the Bill. However, there is a genuine worry about the utility and cruelty test. I genuinely believe that we must develop tests that are capable of being applied to all animals involved in sport or used by humans in any way. Unless we get the tests right, particularly on suffering but also on utility, some people outside this place will take the tests as enshrined in statute and seek to apply them to other animals and activities. The beloved sport of the hon. Member for Worcester will be one of the first in the frame.

Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)

Cricket?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

There was some cruelty in cricket until the splendid last test match, but the suffering of English spectators diminished considerably during the fifth test. I was referring to angling, greyhound racing and so on. The suffering test must be right or we shall set a dangerous precedent, and I ask the Minister to reflect on that. To his great credit, he has tried to be intellectually consistent in his approach. When he first outlined what he was doing, I thought that he had succeeded in that objective. However, sadly, he

restricted his intellectual consistency to hunting mammals with dogs and, within that framework, there is some consistency. He has made errors of judgment, but there is consistency. The trouble is that if he had sought to apply the tests to all animals—the welfare of all animals should be the concern of this House, not just the tiny number that are killed by hounds—and to reduce the number of animals killed, cars would have to be banned.

We really must get the tests right. Otherwise, we shall have done something dangerous and the utility and suffering tests will be applied in circumstances that the Minister never intended. The grand national will go, greyhound racing will go, angling will go and so on. The matter is tremendously important.

In that context, it is important to understand what has happened in Scotland. I share my hon. Friend's concern about the hon. Member for Dumfries being a member of this Committee, but I am prepared to be more generous than my hon. Friend. I am prepared to hear the hon. Gentleman's voice; it is his vote I resent. I believe his voice could be useful. If what I am about to say about Scotland and Wales—the Committee includes a number of Welsh Members—does not ring true, I shall happily give way. However, I resent the hon. Gentleman's vote because I have no right to vote on hunting in Scotland.

The Middle Way Group tried to assess the suffering issue by visiting hunts in Scotland and Wales to examine the relative issues of killing animals with dogs and shooting them. We all know what has happened in Scotland. James Barrington and Miles Cooper, advisers to the Middle Way Group, witnessed hunting in Scotland and Wales. They visited the Duke of Buccleuch's hunt on 30 December 2002 and the Afonwy hunt on 4 January 2003. Mr. Jock Whealans, a gamekeeper with 35 years' experience on the Spylaw estate stated that

''hunting foxes with hounds and then shooting them causes more suffering than traditional hunting as it was because previously we hardly killed any and now we are wounding foxes.''

Hon. Members know what is happening. Foxhunts are going out. I have a photograph that I would like to show to the Committee, but that is not in order. It was taken in Scotland at the Duke of Buccleuch's hunt on 30 December and is of an ordinary foxhunt entirely within the terms of the law in Scotland.

Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Hon. Members:

Don't.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I will give way in a moment, because I do not mind the hon. Gentleman's voice; it is his vote that I resent.

The photograph shows horses and hounds. The only change is that one of the riders is on a quad bike and has a shotgun, because the intention is not to kill the fox with the hounds but to shoot it. If one crops out the quad bike from the photograph, the picture looks just like any other hunt, anywhere in England or Wales. One master has said that all that the change has done is to take away the fox's sporting chance. It has made it much more likely that when hunts go out, they will kill foxes. That is why I think that the hunting lobby is wrong to say that this is about pest control; it

is about wildlife management. More foxes are being killed in Scotland by mounted packs as a result of the Scottish legislation, causing more suffering.

Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries, Labour)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for the courtesy that he offers me. I want to refer to the Buccleuch hunt, which is in my constituency and neighbouring border constituencies and has hunted legitimately in my constituency in the past. The Duke of Buccleuch resides in the neighbouring constituency, Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, where he invited me to visit him three or four years ago. There are no hunts in that constituency. There are a significant number of tenant farms there, and when I asked two employees how they controlled foxes where they were a pest—taking chickens or young lambs—they told me that they brought in experienced guns. That returns me the point that I would have made to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. We do not use inexperienced people to do a professional job in any walk of life. I believe that we should use only qualified, experienced guns to do the job of shooting.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point and, as that hunt is in his constituency, I am glad that I gave way to him. However, I think that he misses the point. We are discussing relative cruelty and suffering, and I want to return to the suffering involved in shooting foxes, even by experienced guns. I agree that on most occasions of lamping foxes, a large proportion will be killed by an experienced gun, but not all. That should hang heavily on the hon. Gentleman's conscience. Many of those foxes will still limp away to die miserable deaths over a long time. That is why amendment No. 174 is so tremendously important. Judging suffering has not yet been done properly. I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire, although I can anticipate what his remark will be.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is absolutely nothing in the Bill to regulate the killing of foxes in the way that the hon. Member for Dumfries has suggested he would like to see? If he is right in his concern, he should be extremely worried that any changes that this Bill makes could make matters worse, for the reasons that he outlined.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly what I thought that he was going to say, and that is the flaw in the Bill. It is an attempt to ban a visible form of fox control that I genuinely believe is one of the least cruel methods available. It will then be replaced by other, less visible methods that I believe to be more cruel. That is why amendment No. 174 is so important.

If the Government had any real intellectual integrity, perhaps they would introduce a Bill to deal with animal welfare as a whole, rather than isolating one method that they have singled out, sometimes through ignorance and sometimes through prejudice. That is the central problem here. If the Bill made provision for how foxes should be shot, I should be happier with it and my arguments would be less strong. It is the absence of such provisions that gives strength to my argument that the Bill, as drafted, should be resisted.

I shall not labour the point much further because I am talking for much too long on it, but I have here the report of the visit that I mentioned. I will happily share it with Committee members who wish to read it, and I hope that they will do so with open minds. Jock Whealans, the gamekeeper on the Spylaw estate said:

'' 'A good many foxes are being injured and will take days to die.' When asked whether shooting foxes or gunpacking was perfect, Jock simply stated, 'That's not right. Everybody was happy before the Act. Nine times out of ten the fox got away and was not wounded. The hunt either killed it or they didn't.' ''

That is a tremendously important point.

Those views on wounding are echoed by Mr. Jeremy Whaley, the joint master and huntsman of the Berwickshire hunt, who has been collecting data on foxes flushed to guns by his own pack of hounds. That reveals that 36 per cent. of foxes are being killed outright by properly organised gun packs. Some 40 per cent. are being missed, and they are all right; that is the equivalent of escaping from the hounds.

The data then shows that 10 per cent. are escaping wounded. Of those,

''of particular concern are foxes which go to ground in badger setts—under the Scottish Act hunts cannot block badger setts and cannot flush foxes out from them either. This same measure is being proposed for England and Wales''.

The Bill would enshrine cruelty because under it, a fox could be wounded, but any method of dispatching that fox would be prevented. Such a method is genuinely more cruel, hence the importance of amendment No. 174. The data then shows that 13 per cent. of foxes are being wounded and subsequently dispatched by hounds.

Those figures are, I accept, based on a fairly small sample of foxes, but we are still curiously short of data on this aspect of the debate. The Minister has said throughout that he wants to base the measures on evidence, and I agree. We made much progress on that during the three days of hearings, where some evidence was agreed on. Some of my hon. Friends might want to emphasise some of the points of agreement reached. However, there was a complete absence of agreement on the cruelty of shooting foxes.

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

I am very interested in this because, obviously, my constituency is on the borders. I do not know whether my foxes escape into Scotland. The hon. Gentleman said that people who hunt are not cruel, but what he says is happening in Scotland is cruel. How can that be justified? People do not have to chase a fox with hounds, but he says that that happens to some injured foxes. They then die in a very painful way. What is the justification for that?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

That is the law of the land. The people who do that are law-abiding. I am afraid that many of those foxes would be shot anyway and suffer the same fate. Those people are balancing suffering and utility, which we are invited to do here, and reaching a conclusion that I happen to agree with. They are not comfortable with what they are doing and would rather have different legislation, but I refuse to condemn them because they are doing what they

believe, in unwelcome circumstances, to be the best option.

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that hunting with hounds is not really a matter of pest control?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Yes, I have said that. I was hoping that Members would come with open ears to this debate, and many Government Members, to be fair, are making helpful and intelligent suggestions and listening to the debate. I am grateful for that. However, I said earlier that one of the central flaws in the hunting lobby's case has been its argument that people who hunt are engaged in pest control. In my judgment, they are engaged in wildlife management, and enjoying it. I think that they should be more honest about that. Hunting is an enjoyable experience and people should not be ashamed of that, because it is less cruel than what would otherwise happen to the foxes involved. That should not be hidden under a bushel. Of course people enjoy hunting. I do not have a problem with being honest about the debate. I agree with the hon. Gentleman's intervention; fox hunting is not about pest control.

Mr. Martlew rose—

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I am being lured off cruelty again.

Mrs Marion Roe (Broxbourne, Conservative)

Please speak to the amendment, Mr. Martlew.

Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman says that people in Scotland are going out and, although they are using hounds, they are shooting the foxes, which means that they die a lingering death. Surely that is cruel. There is no need for those people to go out and ride. It may be legal, but there is no moral justification for chasing the foxes with hounds and then shooting them. If foxes must be controlled, it would be much better to do so by lamping.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

They are doing what the Labour party and the League Against Cruel Sports invited them to do. That is the difficulty. The Minister, to give him credit again—as I do on many matters—recognises that the Scottish law is far from perfect. It has had unintended consequences and is in fact more than far from perfect; it is a disgrace. It never had suffering and cruelty at its heart, which is what we are seeking to put in this law through amendment No. 174. It had prejudice, class envy and hatred at its heart. That is why the two tests of cruelty and utility are so important. That is the problem.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Only on utility and cruelty.

Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)

My point is on unintended consequences. Perhaps the problem is the way in which I am reading amendment No. 174, but it suggests to me that if there were 10 methods of pest control—or whatever word we used—of which one was more cruel than hunting and eight less cruel, hunting could go ahead. Is that the intention?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

Yes, it is the intention, as I understand it, because we are concerned that, in practice, banning hunting will displace the death of foxes to crueller systems. That is what the Bill permits.

Let us assume that some things are crueller than fox hunting and some less cruel. I happen to believe that fox hunting is about the least cruel way of killing a fox, strictly on animal welfare grounds, but let us say that it is in the middle tier. The Bill bans the middle tier. It does not ban the top tier or the bottom tier, and it is up to those who want to kill a fox to decide whether to go to the top tier or the lower tier of suffering. That is what the Bill does.

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 beginning to explain the thinking that underlies the amendment, because I was puzzled when I saw it. To the extent that one can put the matter on scales of one to 10 and one to 100—that can sometimes be a little misleading, and I do not wish to trap him in numbers—the amendment would mean that there could be two forms of pest control that involve a considerable amount of suffering, and other means that involve very little suffering. Surely the implication of the amendment is that one of those would cease to be available. The second one, which also involved a great deal of suffering, would then continue to be available, instead of only those that involve minimal suffering. Is that not the implication of the amendment?

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I shall need to think about that important detail and read what the Minister said. However, I believe that we are identifying a flaw in the Bill, which is allowed to deal only with hunting with hounds. I would like to control the other methods of dealing with foxes as well—an all-embracing welfare approach—because that would address the suffering and cruelty argument.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

I hope to catch your eye later in the debate to cover this issue, Mrs. Roe, but the Minister's point has worried me too. The principles that my hon. Friend is outlining are important. The consequences could be along the lines suggested by the Minister. Until I catch your eye later, Mrs. Roe, I would like to cover the point about comparative versus standardised measures.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Does the Minister still wish to intervene?

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

I am grateful, because we are coming to a matter that we need to tease out on the amendment. I wanted to respond to the hon. Gentleman's argument that other ways of dealing with animals or pests are not in the Bill. That is true. The Bill deals with hunting with dogs. It deals with putting one animal—a dog or group of dogs—on another animal. Any other issues of cruelty or control would have to be dealt with in other legislation. The point here is whether hunting is necessary and the least cruel form of killing. The comparisons with other forms must be dealt with elsewhere, not in the Bill.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

This issue is the core of the Bill. I repeat that I accepted the Minister's approach about utility and cruelty when I heard it outlined the first time, although I imagined that they would be balanced. When I saw the tests for utility and cruelty, I realised that they were wrong. I think the Minister said, ''If it is necessary''. What makes any animal death necessary?

That is why it is so important to amend the utility test, which is covered by some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire. Under the current definition of utility, it is clear that foxhunting is not necessary in most of the country. That is because the test is wrong, not because the sport is not necessary. That is why it is important to have a debate in detail on utility as well.

There is common ground between us here, but I suspect that it is my prejudice that fox hunting is all right and good for animal welfare and the Minister's prejudice that it is not. Ultimately, beneath a veneer of intellectual consistency, we may be debating our prejudices. I am genuinely convinced from talking to people for many years that fox hunting is not cruel, if practised properly under the codes of conduct. I believe that Labour Members take a different view.

To answer the Minister's point, under his principles—this golden thread that may be severed when we reach clause stand part—I would not ban anything. Despite my reservations about hare coursing, which are on the record, I would apply properly defined tests to everything. That is why getting the definition right is so important. I listen to the debate because one should listen to such a debate, but I will probably vote against banning hare coursing and deer hunting in the clause stand part debate, despite my reservations. I would like to see the tests applied to those sports as well.

My judgment is that the cruelty test, even as amended by amendment No. 174 would still catch hare coursing, which would probably end up being banned. However, if we seek intellectual consistency, let us do so properly. The amendment would certainly catch bear baiting, cock fighting, dog fighting and other such activities. They would remain banned because they have no utility and obviously cause a great deal of suffering. That is where I part company with those who spoke earlier. The tests should be amended and applied to everything.

I have one final thing to say. I apologise for my lengthy speech, which was not intended. We do not know whether shooting is more humane than hunting. The data are remarkably sparse. That is one of the issues that came out of the Portcullis house hearings. Some so-called experts on the countdown-to-a-ban side were asserting opinion rather than offering fact in the debate and I found that distressing. It is difficult to assert fact on the other side as well. We all have hunches and prejudices. The Middle Way Group is carrying out a proper study on the impact of shooting to ascertain whether it is cruel. It is a shame that the results of its work are not available to inform the Committee.

Miss Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley, Labour)

I seek absolute clarification on the matter. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to compare the relative cruelties of shooting and hunting. Would he clarify that amendment No. 174 is not just about comparing shooting and hunting? It says that as long as hunting is not the cruellest method, it is all right. He is not making a comparison between two methods of killing, but saying specifically that so long as one has any method that is crueller than hunting, hunting is okay.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

The hon. Lady is right. The amendment is not perfect, but we do not have the resources of the Government or the Countryside Alliance behind us. We are pretty stretched and we may have got the drafting of the amendment wrong. We would need to amend other elements of the clause.

The intention was to ensure that the current effect of the Bill—the evil that it would currently do—would not be perpetuated. It would displace killing from what I regard as being a less cruel method to more cruel methods. I am not absolutely convinced that the amendment I am proposing would remedy that. The hon. Lady may be right. Amendment No. 175, to which I have also put my name, would help enormously in that regard. I suspect that I will not be seeking the Chair's permission to put amendment No. 174 to a vote. We may want to return to the matter on Report if clause 8 is still in the Bill—I doubt it will be—with an improved version of the amendment. Our intention is to ensure that killing becomes less cruel.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman has said at least twice that hunting is a less cruel method of killing foxes than shooting. However, a moment ago, he said that we do not know whether shooting is more, or less, cruel. That seems to be a contradiction.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman is right. I am grateful to him for engaging in the debate. I am prepared to be honest when I have problems in understanding, or if I have incomplete knowledge. I strongly suspect that the work we are doing will prove my hunch. If it does not, I will be in some difficulty. I fully accept that. It is regrettable that it is left to the Middle Way Group with its limited resources to do such work. It has not been done before by anyone. It is really important to inform the debate on this group of amendments.

We aim to assess the amount of wounding that occurs when foxes are shot. That is our purpose. Everything is done on the basis of assertion at present. Foxes shot in the normal course of pest control—no additional animals are dying—will have their bodies subjected to a proper post mortem by pathologists. Scottish and Welsh hunts are involved in the process. We will happily share further details with any member of the Committee who wants them. I do not wish to give a long exegesis of exactly what we are doing.

The targets will be shot at by a variety of weapons, all legal and within the Government's guidelines as indicated in a parliamentary answer recently. Sadly, there is no legal framework for this. Different distances, ammunition, choke on the shotguns and so on will be tested, and the shot pattern will be examined to yield data about killing and wounding rates. We hope that the whole gamut of data will be made available.

As an additional control, we are filming the exercise. Those who saw the BBC Wales programme a while ago that showed a fox being shot will recall just how ghastly some of those who shoot foxes can be in their treatment of animals. By the way, if members of the Committee think that people who hunt enjoy killing animals—

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

No.

Mr Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

They may not enjoy killing animals, but they enjoy the chase. People who go out shooting foxes do not so as though they work for Rentokil poisoning rats. They derive enjoyment from using the skills involved in doing it.

I have spoken at great length, but I repeat my central concern that the clause and the cruelty test will have perverse results. I accept that our amendment may have other perverse results, but it is tremendously important that the perverse results proposed by the Government should not occur.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I shall make a few brief comments. Considering the declared interests of others, perhaps I should declare an interest, too. For the first time, my family and I will be taking ownership of a dog, which we have obtained from an RSPCA kennel. In fact, I have just had a phone call from my wife, who told me that the RSPCA, following a home visit earlier this week, have decided that we should be permitted to own the dog. [Hon. Members: ''What's its name?''] My son wants to call it Sampson, but that is yet to be decided. However, I shall not detain the Committee any longer on that subject.

As far as I am aware, the vets that I know have a variety of views on the RSPCA, as on many other issues. Farmers and countrymen and women also have a variety of views on foxhunting and many other issues—there are differences of opinion. One cannot group people of any particular profession together and say that they all take a view that is pro or anti this or that.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire said that he represents a constituency that includes a large number of farmers. I am concerned that he and the hon. Members for Mid-Sussex and for Mid-Worcestershire may have given the impression that a ban would result in the wholesale eradication of the fox from large parts of the countryside. They justified why they thought that might be the case. I come from a farming background and I am deeply concerned that their argument gives the impression that the farming community and landowners generally will take the view that they must go out and show the Government what they think of the legislation by slaughtering as many foxes as they can find in the sights of their guns. Such an impression of farmers would be wrong. It certainly does not represent the view of most farmers in my constituency and I would be surprised if it represented the views of farmers and landowners in many other parts of the country.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

If the hon. Member for North Wiltshire wishes to intervene, I shall gladly accept his intervention. However, I hope that he will accept that it is a misimpression, which I am trying to correct, that farmers will respond to the legislation in a bloody-minded, reactionary way to show the Government what they think.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)

I am happy to use this intervention to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman asked me to do,

which is to clarify my position. In discussing the matter, my hon. Friends and I have never suggested that farmers would go out and kill all the foxes out of bloody-mindedness to show the Government what they think of their legislation. We have not suggested that at any stage.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the useful Game Conservancy Trust study of Norfolk, Leicestershire and the uplands of Wales, which demonstrates what happens when there is no hunting, a limited amount of hunting or a large amount of hunting. Respectively, those circumstances produce a small population, a medium-sized population or a large population of foxes. If foxes cannot be controlled by hunting with hounds, farmers and others necessarily use guns. We saw that during last year's foot and mouth disease crisis, but it was not due to bloody-mindedness, as the hon. Gentleman so ignorantly puts it.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman will also accept that other studies published in, for example, Nature, demonstrate that there was no perceptible change in the fox population when hunting stopped due to foot and mouth. Given that no hunting took place during that period, I was not aware that there was a wholesale slaughter of foxes.

Gregory Barker rose—

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

If the hon. Gentleman would not mind, I shall make a point that relates to an earlier intervention by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire in which he grouped together snaring and trapping. There are methods of controlling the fox population of which he may not be aware. I attempted to describe a humane trap in my earlier intervention, and I shall take this opportunity to do so again.

My cousin is a poultry farmer at Bro-Anneth, Leedstown, which is near Hayle in west Cornwall. Foxes have caused him continual problems by coming to his poultry units—he also has a lot of free-range poultry. He will not have a hunt on his land, although I have not asked him why he takes that view because the issue has not arisen in conversation.

My cousin has shown me the trap that he uses. In typical Cornish style, he has lashed together some old hen units with pallet wood and breeze blocks. As is essential in any Celtic area, he has lashed some corrugated iron on top. [Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire describes it as a Liberal botch, but I would not comment on my cousin's politics. My cousin has cleverly arranged a pulley and rope system and there is a chicken inside the trap to tempt the fox into it. The trap is set very close to his home, and when the trap door goes down he allows the fox to finish its meal before he or his farm hand dispatches it.

Where there is a genuine need for pest control on a farm, there are acceptable, humane methods and solutions that do not involve hunting—oddly enough, the trap I described would be outlawed by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire's amendment No. 175—and I am sure that that applies across wide tracts of the countryside.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on too far, I draw his attention to the submission to the Burns inquiry from the Country Land and Business Association. It states:

''The purpose of hunting is to control not exterminate a species. In the absence of hunting, tolerance of farmers and landowners to a residual fox population and populations of other hunted animals, is likely to decrease sharply.''

It is in the interests of foxhunts to preserve healthy, balanced fox populations. With the best will in the world, that cannot be said of farmers, who simply have to cull foxes as pests.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman helps to make my point. His comments confirmed what I thought might be true, namely that a number of landowners will tolerate foxes if they are hunted. If the landowners cannot hunt, they will not tolerate foxes. Yet we are told that hunting is not carried out for the purposes of pest control. If that is so, what is the purpose of a wholesale extermination of foxes? Having heard the responses of the hon. Members for Bexhill and Battle and for North Wiltshire, I believe that their view is bloody minded.

Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill & Battle, Conservative)

I do not follow the logic. Pest management forms part of an overall wildlife management policy with hunts. Hunting, by definition, is a far more precise way of managing fox numbers than indiscriminately shooting foxes across a large tract of countryside. Foxhunts will typically take much more notice of how many foxes are killed and how many get away and will monitor the fox population. With the best will in the world, farmers will not extrapolate the wider implications of indiscriminately shooting large numbers of foxes. They will not be as worried about that.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not follow the logic, because it is there. If the alternative to hunting were indiscriminate shooting, I would share his concerns, but why should it be? He says that there is logic in his argument, yet he jumps from a hunting ban to inevitable indiscriminate shooting. That would not necessarily be the situation.

Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. As I pointed out to the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire, there must be many rural constituencies like mine where there is no hunt. Nobody comes into my constituency to hunt foxes and yet there is no wholesale slaughter of foxes. The fox population is perfectly balanced and farmers do not go out and bump all the foxes off: they kill the rogues that cause a nuisance. The point about the implied bloody-mindedness of some of what has been said is absolutely right.

Mr Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I am interested in his comments. In half of my constituency, the Isles of Scilly, there are no foxes and there is no hunting. The pro-hunting lobby argue that hunting is necessary for social cohesion in the countryside; presumably there is no social cohesion on the Isles of Scilly. However, issues of consistency and inconsistency range wide of the debate and I will not go down that route, since it is not part of the amendments. I have made the two straightforward

points that I wanted to make, so I will allow someone else to make a contribution.

Mr Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)

I do not have much time available, but there are two core issues that I hope to cover when we return. The first is the need for objective measures

of suffering. Hon. Members will have to wait for the second.

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.