Schedule 1 - Exempt Hunting
Hunting Bill
3:51 pm
Mr Paul Holmes (Chesterfield, Liberal Democrat)
I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's figure of 1 per cent. At the start of the breeding season, it is estimated that there are about 200,000 foxes in Britain. During the breeding season that number rises to about 600,000. The figures are not precise. About 400,000 die during the course of the year, many of which are young cubs. Of those animals, 25,000 are killed by hunts and 150,000 are shot. Some 9,000 were caught by humane traps in London alone. I am not sure how the figure of 1 per cent. matches up to those figures. The hon. Gentleman will have to go back to his source.
I do not intend to defend the Minister's legislation, but to tighten what I perceive to be two serious loopholes in the wording. Those loopholes would lead to a whole series of legal contests relating to whether a hunt thought an animal was diseased, and if so, on what evidence it had for believing that. It may hunt the animal on just suspicion: ''It might be diseased, so we'd better hunt it.'' How does one prove afterwards whether the intent was there? It is easy enough to suspect that an animal is injured, but one could not prove it afterwards. To suspect it is seriously injured is a different matter.
Some more seriously injured animals, which cannot hunt or get food in the normal way, would be even more susceptible to going into a humane trap than, for example, perfectly healthy foxes in London have been over the past year. One could then carry out an assessment, if that was the purpose, and could decide to dispatch the fox humanely or to treat it. If one had caught a perfectly healthy animal, one could release it. Under the provisions, catching a diseased or injured animal is the only purpose one would have for carrying out that aspect of hunting.