Clause 27 - Automatic conditions of individual registration
Hunting Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire, Labour)
My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Diana Organ) is unavoidably absent. As her amendment No. 222 and my amendment No. 224 are virtually identical—although not entirely so—I shall speak to them both at once.
I was going to refer to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal again. However, he must have anticipated me and disappeared just in time. If he participates in the debate on these amendments, he will no doubt want to bring up again his apparent surprise that compromise is difficult to reach on these matters. My right hon. Friend the Minister is very serious in his search for accommodation where accommodation can be found. He has been consistent about that and is seeking to apply strong underlying principles to everything that the Bill does. I wish to ensure that those underlying principles are as rigorously and as toughly applied as possible. That is the purpose of the amendments.
The two amendments, which refer to the clauses concerned with automatic conditions of individual and group registration, strengthen and tighten the intentions of clause 27(2)(a) and (b) and clause 28(2)(a) and (b). The phrase ''as soon as possible'' tightens in clause 27 the word ''quickly'', indicating the time scale for dispatching the animal concerned. The amendments also tidy the clauses by specifying shooting as a method of dispatch, as opposed to the word ''killed'' in subsection (2)(a) and the word ''shot'' in subsection (2)(b), which seem a little clumsy. The wording of the amendment is more elegant and certain in that regard. The amendment seeks to ensure that
''reasonable steps are taken for the purpose of ensuring that as soon as possible after being found, flushed out or captured, any wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person (and in particular that each dog used in the hunting is kept under close control)''.
The aim of the amendments is to avoid cruelty and the contravention of the test of utility, because they dramatically restrict the element of chase involved in
hunting, which I believe—there are large differences on this—is in itself cruel, whether or not it ends in a kill. My right hon. Friend the Minister said a few minutes ago that cruelty is something that should not be allowed. The amendment takes another step in that direction.