Clause 2 - Registered hunting
Hunting Bill
11:15 am
Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)
I am trying to be helpful to the Minister. As I said earlier, one of my purposes is to make the Bill better. If the Minister is right in saying that those who rely on the registration must give their names and addresses, he must help to assuage doubts by ensuring that the Bill gives clear indication as to what happens to the names and addresses. How long will they be kept and what will be done to ensure that they are deleted from the register? I want assurance on the matter, because there are some very nasty people out there who have been known to take physical revenge against people they dislike.
On the first point, if a legal hunt has a licence, it does not matter who goes on the hunt unless they behave in a way that endangers the licence and those who are responsible for the hunt do nothing about it. They might lose the licence if they do not have good control over the hunt, but the Minister does not need to know that Mrs. Smith went on the hunt, because it does not matter. The licence will have been granted under specific terms.