Schedule 2 - The Hunting Tribunal
Hunting Bill
8:55 am
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As the amendments are drafted the legislation will be prejudiced in favour of the so-called animal welfare groups. He calls for a balance to be achieved by ensuring that all the information is also given to those on the other side of the argument. By raising that matter, however, he strikes at the heart of a fundamental misdrafting in the Bill: it is drafted in such a way that there is a presumption that the applicant is on one side and the so-called animal welfare group on the other. The presumption is that those in favour of hunting are the applicants, while the animal welfare groups will be asked to give evidence to the tribunal and the registrar and to argue why the application should not be granted. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the words ''animal welfare''. That is why I asked the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton) which groups she believed the animal welfare organisations to be.
The groups that are in favour of hunting and that gave evidence to the Burns committee and also to the hearings in Portcullis house included the Association of British Dogs and Cats Homes, the Association of British Riding Schools, the British Deer Society, the British Equine Veterinary Association, the Exmoor and District Deer Management Society, the Kennel Club, the National Canine Defence League, the Racehorse Owners Association and a host of others. In other words, a wide variety of organisations that can legitimately be described as animal welfare groups are outspokenly and straightforwardly in favour of hunting. It is inconceivable that they would speak against an application, but they might want to speak to the registrar or the tribunal in support of an application.
As the Bill is drafted, there is a presumption that the animal welfare groups will give evidence only against an application. If that is not the case, it is important that the Bill should be amended, as we shall try to do later this morning. As the Bill stands, it is severely prejudicial to the interests of those applying for registration and the hon. Lady's amendments would strengthen that bias.
A farmer might make an application. He wishes to hunt on his land and to use dogs—he might want to take them out alone to go coursing. He will have no information or support. He knows about his dogs and what he wants to do—he knows about his application. He has no financial support—we will discuss that later—and no backing of any sort. He has no way of knowing what people elsewhere in the country are doing. He has no means of seeing anyone else's
application, or seeing the papers and hearing the arguments put forward by the so-called animal welfare groups. There he is, before the registrar, trying to gain registration absolutely naked as it were. However, under the amendment, every piece of information or paper that that applicant puts forward and every argument that he advances in favour of his application will be passed to the other side—to the people that the hon. Lady and the Bill incorrectly call the ''animal welfare'' groups. How unbalanced would that be?