Clause 8 - Tests for registration:
Hunting Bill
3:45 pm
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
My point was not so much that the Minister did not consult anyone. If I offended him by saying that, perhaps I hit a raw nerve. He is very keen to say how much he has consulted everyone.
My point is very important. The Minister has argued consistently that the tribunal and the registrar ought to consider the activity and apply to it the twin tests—the sequential tests, if the Minister prefers—of utility and cruelty. That is the central part of the Bill. It is not about banning, as were previous Bills. The Minister could have come back with a Bill to ban, had he wished, but he decided against that. He chose to say that the activities would be considered by application of the twin tests of cruelty and utility.
It is not the Government who will apply the tests. Instead, they have set up a procedure, which will be discussed later under clause 2. It is a complicated procedure using registrars, tribunals and appeals to the High Court to consider whether the tests should be applied to a variety of different activities involving mink, hare, foxes and the rest.
The Government are setting up complex machinery, as they will not make the decisions. The Minister keeps saying that he does not want a list of things to ban but a procedure under which activities can be considered by using the tests. Despite all that, and after wide consultation, no doubt, with all kinds of people from the League Against Cruel Sports, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and so on, he has decided to ban hare coursing and deer hunting.
We say that there is an intellectual illogicality at the heart of the Bill. We do not believe that the Bill is worth much, but if it is to have any worth at all, it must apply the tests of utility and cruelty to all hunted species.