Clause 8 - Tests for registration:
Hunting Bill
9:45 am
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
First, on behalf of my hon. Friends, I welcome you to your place, Mr. Stevenson. My experience of serving under you in Committees is that you are tough but fair. On issues of great significance, such as those that we are discussing today, it is important that you apply that tough but fair approach, which is your hallmark. I also welcome the hon. Member for West Ham, who has made such
distinguished contributions to the debates over the years. It was disappointing that he was unable to be here last week for any of the three sittings, but we look forward to his contributions. One or two other members of the Committee have not yet made their first appearance, but I hope that they will in the not-too-distant future.
In discussing the application of the principle of least suffering, I ask Government Members to concede one point. All of us in this Room, as well as those who take part in all forms of country activities, seek the least possible suffering for foxes, mink, hare, rabbits, rats or the animals on which they prey. Of course, most people in the countryside—everyone in the countryside—seek the least suffering. In my experience, hunts people are more concerned with the welfare of horses, hounds and foxes, deer and other prey than many people who would ban their activities. It is only reasonable to ask Government Members to accept that that is the case. It is therefore important to reach a correct conclusion about the Bill's definition of least suffering. We all want least suffering—that is the point from which we all start. We are debating not whether one group of people is cruel and another not, but the means by which least suffering can be achieved for quarry animals in the countryside.
Some Committee members take the view that it is an obvious and unassailable truth that hunting any mammal species with dogs is by definition the cruellest method. I need go no further than this Room, in which we debated the last hunting Bill in the House, and I quote no less a figure than the Minister. He said,
''the situation is clear; the House of Commons has decided what it believes is right for the future''
and that—I am summarising—a ''muddle'' would have arisen from the Middle Way Group, whose
''proposals did not offer clarity . . . The House of Commons decided that there should be an end to hunting with dogs''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 30 January 2001; c. 221.]
That quote from the Minister, when he was discussing hunting in this very Room before the last general election shows plainly that his aim in life is to end the hunting of animals with dogs and not, as he now claims in an even-handed way, to judge its relative cruelty and utility. Some people in this Room believe that that aim goes without saying.
Incidentally, one of the most disappointing things about the Minister's entire approach to the Bill is his notion that it is obvious that ratting and rabbiting must not be subjected to the cruelty and utility tests and that it is obvious—or unassailable, which is the word that he keeps using—that deer hunting and hare coursing are so cruel that they must be banned without any consideration. He is not ready to apply the tests of utility and cruelty to those activities or to allow the registrar, the tribunal or the High Court, on a point of law, to come to any view on them. He, in his arrogant way, says that he has decided in advance, that he will lay down in the Bill that those activities are cruel or allowable and that he will not allow the tribunal to come to a view on them.