Clause 8
Hunting Bill
11:15 am
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.