Schedule 1 - Exempt Hunting
Hunting Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Paul Holmes (Chesterfield, Liberal Democrat)
One of the answers is the distinction between a perceived minor injury and a serious injury. Paragraph 7 concerns locating an animal that one thinks is injured and then either humanely dispatching it or treating it. One cannot do that with dogs, but one can do it with a humane trap, which allows one to assess an injury.
From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle was laughing at the concept of animals going round on three legs, but a few minutes ago he gave an example in which his hunt dispatched a fox that was going round on three legs because it had been hit by a car. In the case of a serious injury, one can see that an animal is seriously injured. I am trying to remove the loophole whereby hunts could claim that they thought that an animal was limping so they hunted it just in case. Without the amendment, the Minister would undoubtedly face a series of legal challenges in which hunters genuinely and not so genuinely contested cases because they thought that the animal or quarry was injured.