Schedule 1 - Exempt hunting
Hunting Bill
3:00 pm
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
Before speaking to amendment No. 203, I want to say that I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) said in explaining so well what is wrong with amendments No. 335 and 336.
I want to pick up two points made by the hon. Member for West Lancashire. First, he said that dogs are never used for flushing hares and that that is always done by humans and should not be allowed. He is incorrect. Dogs are used extensively throughout East Anglia for flushing hares. One of the best ways of shooting hares is to use dogs to flush them. That is common practice and his statement was incorrect.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said that he was keen that dogs should not be used to flush deer because that might put the deer into a state of disarray, which might make a clean shot difficult. There is some truth in that, which is why Conservative Members have made it clear that hunting a deer until it is at bay and then shooting it is by far the most humane way of dealing with it, but no doubt the hon. Gentleman will speak against that argument later this week. Using dogs to flush deer out of dense cover and then shooting them is the only way in which to deal with what can be a real pest in many forestry areas. One can shoot them cleanly in the highlands of Scotland because there are no trees, but many parts of England are heavily wooded. Many species of deer are a real pest, and the use of dogs to flush them out of such woodland seems the only practical method. I am not sure that the fact that they will get into some disarray is a good argument for not using that method. I hope that the Minister will support those remarks.
Amendment No. 203 is an exploratory amendment because the word ''cover'' as it appears in schedule 1 has not been defined. We want to find out precisely what the Minister has in mind by the word ''cover''.
At present, someone who uses dogs to flush out mammals in order to shoot them may only benefit from the exemption under the clause if the mammal is flushed out of cover. What is cover? If one sends dogs into a hollow tree or a bush, is that cover? Does it mean a ditch, long grass, a wood, or inside any free bush or undergrowth? How dense does the wood have to be? In any case, what difference would it make in terms of animal welfare whether the wild animals were roused from a grass field or thick brambles?
We need to know what ''cover'' means, and we need to know that the definition includes different types of cover in which a mammal might be found. If, for example, dogs were to flush a hare from a field with short grass, there would be no cover at all. The hare is sitting in the middle of the field, and the dogs would flush it out of the short grass towards a waiting gun at the edge of the field. Is that flushing it out of cover?
In order to achieve a defence under the exempt hunting provision, is it necessary to demonstrate that the quarry species was in deep cover, dense cover, partial cover or no cover at all? What is the definition of the word cover? The amendment is exploratory, and we hope that the Minister will be able to answer our points.