Clause 14 - Application on behalf of group
Hunting Bill
6:30 pm
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
There is no attempt to confuse. My speech to the amendment was precisely about clarifying about whom we are talking. The debate has been useful because the Minister has now explained that the people who hunt, the majority of whom have to be notified to the registrar, are those who are controlling the dogs—the hunt staff—and those who are following the hunt. He has still not specified whether, by ''followers'', he simply means subscribers to the hunt. In the case of my local hunt, the Beaufort hunt, that means 250 to 300 people on horses on a Saturday morning. They are reasonably easy to identify; most of them pay a subscription to the hunt. In addition, there can be another 1,000 people; on some days I have seen hundreds of cars. They follow one way or another. They keep an eye on where the hounds are and try to follow the hunt down the narrow lanes of Gloucestershire. They are definitely taking part. They get out of their cars every time the hounds stop and follow what is happening through their binoculars. They are seeking to follow the hunt.
Does the Minister mean that for an applicant to achieve registration, he would need to specify the maximum number of people who would be following in that sense? Or does he mean just the number of people who follow on horses, or just those who are actually hunting with the dogs? He needs to be clear about that, because if it is the first, or even the second, it will be almost impossible for the hunt to know. There is no way for the applicant to know how many people are going to attend until the Saturday morning when he sees who turns up at the meet. I have seen some meets where I have been the only person out alone, and others where I have been one of a group of 250 people. If the Minister is saying that under subsection (6) the applicant must specify precisely how many people will be either in the mounted field or—even worse—among the foot followers, car followers and others associated with the hunt, he has set an impossible condition. No applicant could possibly state a maximum number. The Minister needs to be very precise when he defines what he means by hunting.