Clause 6 - Deer
Hunting Bill
10:00 am
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman says that he is vice-president. I am so sorry. He might know a little more about deer if he were president; however, he is only vice-president, and that explains his ignorance of the subject. The fact is that a deer eats three times as much as a sheep. [Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for West Ham wants to intervene.
Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
Order. I have tried to guide the Committee away from interventions—particularly sedentary ones—in which words such as the one that
I think I just heard are used. We should refrain from that.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. Am I right in thinking that the words ''Piss off cretin'', which the hon. Member for West Ham used, are unparliamentary?
Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
I am sure that those words, if used, would be unparliamentary. I did not hear them, personally, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that if I did, I would take firm action.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I take great personal offence at being described, while making a serious speech on deer hunting, as a cretin by the hon. Member for West Ham. I heard him and it would be reasonable of him to apologise.
Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
I try my best to listen carefully to every contribution. I honestly did not hear those words. If I had heard them, I would have taken the necessary firm action. Can we please have less pickiness from Members when other hon. Members are making contributions?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
I am most grateful to you, Mr. Stevenson. We are talking about something very serious: the pest element of red deer on Exmoor. The truth is that deer eat three times as much grass as sheep—a deer eats the equivalent of three sheep—and that is a huge problem. On Exmoor, we are talking largely about livestock farming; there is relatively little arable farming. The fact that a deer eats three times as much as a sheep is of great significance. One can often see as many as 100 deer in a field at any one moment, which is equivalent to 300 sheep. There is great depredation of the forage for cows and sheep.
Farmers are legally entitled to kill deer with a shotgun or rifle, both in and out of season, if they are doing damage. However, the collective interest in the deer herd, which hunting fosters, means that farmers tend to refrain from shooting large stags in particular, which would otherwise have the most value for venison and trophies. They leave the large stags alone because the farmers support the hunt and want it to hunt them later in the season.
To keep numbers stable, approximately 20 per cent. of the population must be culled each year. That figure is far in excess of natural mortality. Hunting with hounds also distributes the deer and moves local deer populations away from the areas where they are causing unacceptable damage. There is no question but that that happens—a utility acknowledged by the Minister. The forced movement of deer discourages inbreeding and the spread of disease among the herd. The hunt carries out those extremely important utilities.
In addition, the hunt provides an efficient service by locating and culling deer that have been wounded in road accidents. That happens all the time. The hunt operates a 24-hour call-out service and if there is a road accident, it goes out and dispatches the injured deer. Deer sometimes get entangled in wire or fencing
and often are injured as a result of inaccurate shooting. The three packs deal with some 80 deer casualties each year. In some years, that is almost as many deer as they hunt.
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
As a result of his dialogue with the Minister, does my hon. Friend have any idea who would perform those important animal welfare functions in the event of a ban?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
To do the Minister justice, he has talked about whether there should be a deer management society of one sort or another and about alternative means of pest management and dealing with injured deer. If hunting with dogs is banned, he and the Under-Secretary will doubtless try to tackle that very problem. So far, however, the right hon. Gentleman has not done so. It is at least theoretically possible that the Bill could become law by this summer and that there would be no more stag hunting, although I hope that that will not be the case, yet no alternative deer-management or casualty-management procedure has been put in place.
Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)
Does my hon. Friend share my belief that if the driving force behind the Bill were the welfare of animals, the Minister, his officials and all those who have been lobbying him for a complete ban on stag hunting, would by now have enacted legislation that would mean that deer herds were looked after in the event of a ban on stag hunting?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is right, but I am keen to be as generous as I can to the Minister and I hope that he will take action and that his officials are, at this very moment, considering alternatives. My experience of the civil service machine is that such problems tend to be considered. I hope that officials are working on precisely the problem that my hon. Friend describes. When the Minister replies, perhaps he will let us know how he intends to replace the casualty-management service that is carried out by the hunts on Exmoor and the Quantocks. I have my doubts, as we say in Scotland, but let us hope that the Minister is ready to spell out precisely what will be done.
That is not a major part of our attack on the Government's proposals. If we said that this Government are awful and that they are going to allow deer to suffer in the way that my hon. Friend describes, it would be easy for them to demonstrate that that is not the case. That should not be our main attack on them; the main attack is on the fundamental illogicality of removing deer hunting and hare coursing from clause 8.
We are easily able to prove the utility of hunting deer on Exmoor with dogs. They are pests and I have demonstrated a number of different ways in which there is utility in using dogs to hunt them, even under the narrow definitions of utility as it now appears in the Bill.
I can do no better than quote the Minister. On Second Reading on 16 December, he said:
''It is necessary to control deer numbers and to disperse the herds to protect crops and growing trees. Although the test of utility may be passed, the test of cruelty—to inflict the least suffering—is not''.
This is an interesting admission from the Minister. He went on:
''I spent some time in Exmoor because it is clear that there is an unusual culture in respect of the deer herd. Even some of those who strongly oppose deer hunting acknowledge that powerful cultural attachment''.—[Official Report, 16 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 574.]
In the other place, his colleague Lord Whitty said:
''Certainly, deer hunting can meet a utility in some circumstances, but the evidence indicates that other forms of controlling deer herds are less cruel . . . My Lords, not only the Porchester report, but also the Burns report recognised the special situation on Exmoor, and parts of Somerset and Devon, where hunting helped control the deer. However, it still remains the case that there are less cruel methods of managing deer herds, on Exmoor as elsewhere''.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 January 2003; Vol. 643, c. 352.]
Both the Minister and his noble Friend in the other place said that it is possible that there is utility in the use of dogs in controlling deer on Exmoor and in Devon and Somerset, but there are less cruel ways of doing this. Both these statements imply an acceptance that there may be utility, but that the incontrovertible evidence that he describes relates to cruelty. He and his noble Friend both admit that there is definitely utility in the use of dogs for the control of deer on Exmoor, even under the narrow definition as amended in the Bill.
To return to our registrar, who is considering the reply of the Devon and Somerset stag hounds. The Minister said that there is incontrovertible evidence why they should be banned, and the registrar wants to know what it is. It is clear that there is utility and that the Devon and Somerset stag hounds would pass the utility test even as he has redefined it in the Bill. If we take his letter of April 10 at its face value, using hounds would certainly pass the wider definition of utility.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test, Labour)
I understand that the total number of deer that are culled by the hunt on the utility argument is some 15 per cent of the total required. I also understand that the Burns report observes that the pattern of deer herds suggests that when they are hunted the dispersal of herds is slight and temporary. Can the hon. Gentleman explain how those two points fit in with the notion of utility that he is pursuing?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman asked two extremely good questions. On his first question, hunting is a selective cull. The harbourer selects the stag or the hind that is to be killed on the principle that its death will improve the herd. He selects the older and weaker deer, the ones with less good antlers, and so forth. Stalking is by definition far less selective, although the stalkers try to make it selective. I have experience of stalking in the highlands of Scotland. It is extremely unlikely that one will be all that selective, as the likelihood of getting a good clean shot at a stag is reasonably remote, especially if one is not a particularly good stalker. I was always getting into trouble for banging things against stones and scaring the deer. One does not get that many clean shots and the likelihood of being extremely selective by choosing a stag from the herd the day before and deciding to take it out is frankly remote.
The hon. Gentleman made a second point about dispersal. As I said, Lord Burns talks in favour of
dispersal, but was concerned about the notion of fathers breeding with their daughters. An important aspect of dispersal is spreading the deer population across the moor, and seeking by that means—
Dr. Whitehead rose—
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman may like to sit down. I am trying to answer his points. We are not involved in backwards and forwards, tit-for-tat dialogue. He asked a couple of interesting questions, which I am trying to answer.
Lord Burns made an important point about the dispersal of deer and interbreeding. I do not intend to become involved in a detailed debate about Lord Burns. As the Minister said, that would be fruitless. Dispersal performs an important function, especially in preventing inbreeding, but also in moving on deer where they are a particular pest. There are many examples of farmers suddenly discovering 100 or 200 deer on their farms. Hunts move them on in a way that would otherwise be impossible. If it were not for hunts going on to those farms, there would be a strong likelihood of the farmer choosing to shoot them. Thankfully, he does not do so because of hunting.
Mr Adrian Flook (Taunton, Conservative)
On Thursday, Labour Members, especially the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, asked why 15 per cent. of all those deer that are culled are hunted. I said that I would answer that question, and shall do so in the clause stand part debate. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) also mentioned that 15 per cent. figure, but said that it was not important and that hunting was a peripheral element. However, hunting pays for the deer management. That is the basis for the utility, the lack of which so worries people on Exmoor. If hunting goes, so will deer management.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, although I query the detail. I made the point that if deer management were to be one of the utility tests, deer hunting would pass it without question. Apart from anything else, the increase in the size of the herd is clear evidence of utility under the terms of species management. Unfortunately, species management has been deleted from the Bill, despite the Minister's assurance in a letter of 10 April that it would be one of the utility tests. We know that we cannot take anything that he says at face value.
I seek to show that, even though we dislike the illiberal terms of utility in the Bill, it is likely that deer hunting would pass the utility test, as the Bill clearly covers the damage that deer do to crops, grass and trees, and that damage is easy to prove.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
I should like to make progress.
At the very least, even if there are detailed discussions to be had about whether deer hunting passes the utility test, there is no such thing as irrefutable evidence. It is not possible for any member of the Committee to claim to have irrefutable evidence that deer hunting on Exmoor does not pass the utility tests. Some people may say
that the number of deer killed compared with the total number of those culled or the amount of damage that they cause is small. We could argue backwards and forwards about whether there is utility in the detail. My point is not whether we should justify deer hunting in detail, but whether we should give the registrar the opportunity to consider those matters. That is what happens with hunting fox, hare or mink—but not deer.
The Minister said that there was irrefutable evidence that deer hunting must be banned. I seek to discover what that overwhelming evidence is. I do not believe that that irrefutable evidence has anything to do with the utility test, which is why I shall talk about the cruelty test in a moment.
Mr. Foster rose—
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
If the hon. Gentleman is about to tell us about the overwhelming, gigantically overpowering arguments that demonstrate that deer hunting would not pass the utility test, I shall happily give way.
Mr Michael Foster (Worcester, Labour)
I am most grateful, and shall put the question that I want to put, rather than the question that the hon. Gentleman wants me to put. He said that there were many examples of the dispersal effect of the hunt with regard to deer hunting—I am pretty sure that I heard him correctly. How is it that Lord Burns never found any of those many examples? Paragraph 5.63 on page 96 of the report says:
''However, census work and observation of deer suggest that any dispersal effect is only very temporary''.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He makes my point for me. Those are the delicate considerations that it is reasonable for the registrar to weigh up. It is reasonable that the registrar should read Burns and say what the evidence on which he based that decision was. That is precisely why the Minister set up the complex system. There must be somebody out there who will consider the issue carefully. The matters are difficult; they are not clear. Is dispersal happening? We do not necessarily know: Burns says that it is not, but I say that it is. There are different opinions. There is no overwhelming evidence that stag hunting has no utility.
The Minister constantly talks about irrefutable evidence. He has chosen to deny the law courts, the registrar and the tribunal the opportunity of judging those delicate matters. He says that they cannot decide the question, because there is irrefutable, overwhelming evidence that the tests are not passed. I think that we have demonstrated clearly—the intervention by the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) adds to the strength of my argument—that there is no evidence at all that the utility tests are not passed. That is a matter of judgment that we should leave to the registrar.
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
Surely the registrar must be invited to consider how efficacious the dispersal of a herd of deer is. One often gets the impression from listening to Government Members that they think that pest control means eradication, and that dispersal means removing deer from Devon and pushing them off to
Cornwall, Somerset or Wiltshire. The constant movement of a herd prevents it from grazing down any one farmer's land. That is the point to draw to the attention of the hon. Member for Worcester.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
My hon. and learned Friend makes a good point, but once again I tell him and the Committee that it is not our job to discuss the finer points of the utility of deer hunting. I hope that I have demonstrated that there is significant utility—the Minister admitted that there was on Second Reading. However, the utility, how important the dispersal might be, how important the selective cull might be, and how much damage might be done to crops and to trees are detailed matters that should not be decided unilaterally by the Minister in the privacy of his office. It would be reasonable to allow the registrar to consider them. I do not have the monopoly of correctness on those matters and merely point out that they are matters for debate. It would be reasonable under the terms of the Bill to allow the registrar and the tribunal to hear evidence on those matters and to consider them sensibly.
I hope that I have demonstrated to the Committee that there is no overwhelming evidence against the utility of deer hunting. Some people may argue that there are detailed reasons why the utility is not as strong as I would like to believe, but there is still no overwhelming, irrefutable evidence of a lack of utility in deer hunting. The registrar should be allowed to consider that. That is precisely what the Minister and his colleague Lord Whitty said on Second Reading. They said that they accepted that there was utility, but that the cruelty aspect none the less dictated an outright ban on the activity.
If the Minister is right in saying that the evidence for cruelty is overwhelming, he might persuade me of that in the debate. Again, we must presume that his irrefutable evidence refers to the cruelty aspect of the killing of deer, but that it does not apply to the method of dispatch. It is amazing how many people in England hate deer hunting because they have swallowed the notion of a pack of hounds jumping on the deer, wrestling it to the ground and ripping its bowels and throat out. That is the awful thing—that really would be ghastly, would it not?
However, all on the Committee know perfectly well that that is not what happens. At the end of a deer hunt, a trained marksman shoots the deer at close quarters. There is no suggestion that the hounds leap on the stag, pull it to the ground and do any of the other gory things that Government Members describe. The animal is shot. It receives one clean shot to the head, sometimes two, at close quarters. Anybody who has considered the method of dispatch would say that killing the stag in that way is a great deal more humane than the alternative, which is stalking. By definition, stalking may result in a wounded deer. There is no such thing as a wounded deer at the end of a stag hunt.
We are talking more about emotion than about the reality. I suspect that the Minister's irrefutable evidence cannot refer to the actual method of dispatch of the deer, so I presume that it must refer to the pursuit, which I shall discuss in one moment.
If the Minister believed that the wicked acts that he disliked, and that should be banned, occurred in the deer's final moments, or even when the fox is killed after a foxhunt, the Bill presumably would ban them. Curiously, the Bill will not ban killing foxes using dogs—that will still be allowed. The pursuit of the fox will be banned. If I were anti-hunting on the other side of the Committee I may have sought to ban the killing of those animals. [Interruption.] I am disappointed with the hon. Member for West Ham. He looks in briefly on the Committee, launches an unparliamentary attack and then leaves again. He does not have a great deal of interest in these matters. He is off—perhaps he will be back some other time.
Mr Eric Martlew (Carlisle, Labour)
On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. Is it not out of order for the hon. Gentleman not to speak through the Chair?
Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
Indeed. I am trying to think of another word, but pickiness is the one that comes to mind. I really do not think that that helps our debate on these serious issues.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
I agree, Mr. Stevenson. I apologise to the hon. Member for West Ham for calling attention to his absence from the Committee. It was quite uncalled for—
Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
Order. You have repeated the remark, and I do not think that that helps.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
You are quite right, Mr. Stevenson. I accept that I should not have done that. I accept your injunctions completely.
The point that I was making was that the killing of the deer cannot be what the Minister seeks to ban, and not only because most observers would accept that the moment when the deer is shot is less cruel than any other method of dispatch. It may well be less humane to shoot the deer with a rifle from some distance.
If there was a presumption that there was something inherently cruel about the method of killing deer or other mammals in the final few minutes of a hunt, the Bill would have sought to ban such methods of dispatch. However, it seeks only to ban the pursuit of the animal, not its killing.
It is not utility that is the irrefutable evidence, and—unless he wishes to correct me in his winding-up speech—it is not how the animal is killed that causes the Minister to ban stag hunting. I presume therefore that it is the question of the pursuit.
Before I deal with the pursuit, I shall quote a couple of authorities who accept the point about the method of dispatch being one of the most humane ways to kill deer. Vets for Hunting states that
''No one should be under the illusion that stalking, compared with hunting . . . is the humane option''.
Animals that are shot in the neck are usually paralysed but can remain conscious for some time. A lethal shot to the chest may result in the deer running several hundred yards before it drops.
Professor Bateson, to whom I shall return in a moment, estimates that 10 per cent. of stalked deer require two or more shots to be killed, and 5 per cent. escape wounded. The truth is that, in the wild, wooded
and populous west country, with numerous tourists often present, up to half of all potential shots by stalkers are aborted on safety grounds. Under those conditions, selectivity becomes extremely difficult for a stalker aiming to kill a given quota of animals.
Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)
Could the hon. Gentleman repeat the figures? I think that he said that 10 per cent. required two or more shots and 5 per cent. escape. If I have understood his figures correctly, that suggests that 85 per cent. are dispatched with one shot. Am I understanding the figures correctly?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
That is right; 15 from 100 gives 85, and five from 100 gives 95. That is certainly correct. If 15 per cent. of deer die in agony as a result of being wounded by the marksman, that is something that we should worry about, when 100 per cent. of all deer that are hunted are dispatched by the trained shots. It is nearly always one shot; occasionally it takes two shots, but 100 per cent. are dispatched. The figure that Professor Bateson gave, of 15 per cent. escaping injured, is a significant percentage.
The problem in the west country is that there are a lot of tourists and many shots are aborted. Selectivity is extremely difficult, because the stalker shoots the first available stag in order to reach his quota. The Exmoor and District Deer Management Society has said:
''A ban therefore would be bad for the welfare of the deer herd and increase the numbers of animals killed/wounded, at least in the first five years.''
Again I can do no better than quote from Mr. Charles Harding, the stalker for the National Trust. In the aftermath of the Bateson report, the National Trust chose to ban hunting with deer across its estate on Exmoor, but its stalker says:
''All types of animal management involve compromises. There is no doubt that a total ban on staghunting has increased the number of sick and injured deer on the Holnicote Estate, it has gone on long enough. It is now time for the National Trust to accept these consequences and be prepared, for the sake of the deer, to be brave enough to step forward and allow hounds to draw some coverts.''
Therefore, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the method of dispatch of the deer is not at the heart of the Minister's concerns. If it is, we look forward to hearing what he says about it.
Theoretically, some people may argue that it takes more than one shot to kill the stag at the end of the hunt. Others may argue that using the weapon that the hunt uses is less humane than a high-powered rifle. There may be arguments of that kind, but they are not overwhelming and incontrovertible. Those arguments should be advanced to the registrar and the tribunal, who have been set up under the Bill to consider the relative weights of such technical and detailed arguments. On hearing them, they may conclude that the method of dispatch of the deer was cruel and, for that reason, the registrar may turn down the application.
What I am searching for here is what the Minister describes as the incontrovertible and overwhelming evidence that led him to the unilateral decision to ban stag hunting, without further recourse to the registrar
or the tribunal. There is no evidence that the final method of killing the deer has consequences that are incontrovertibly harmful to animals.
The last area that we must examine in considering where the Minister's incontrovertible evidence comes from must be the way in which the deer is pursued before it is killed. There is utility and the method of killing the deer is not cruel, so we must presume that, for some reason, the Minister has come to the conclusion that his incontrovertible evidence is scientific evidence with regard to the pursuit. It is important that that evidence be put on the record, whether or not the Minister chooses to quote selectively from it in his desperate attempt to find incontrovertible evidence.
The first study of the pursuit phase of the hunt was done in 1993 by a deer working party chaired by Professor Savage. He published a report commissioned by the National Trust entitled ''The Conservation and Management of Red Deer in the West Country''. The report concluded that hunts made a major contribution to deer conservation and served their interests well. The report did not consider animal welfare.
The central part of the debate is the 1997 report by Professor Bateson, the provost of King's college, Cambridge. It should be remembered that Professor Bateson's field is animal behaviour and that the National Trust commissioned him to investigate animal welfare. The report considered only the welfare of the individual deer at the time of culling. Although it acknowledged the benefits of hunting to the herd as a whole, it concluded that, on average, hunting caused more suffering to individual deer than did culling by stalking. The National Trust then banned hunting on its land.
The important point is that Bateson accepted the utility or the lack of cruelty with regard to the deer herd as a whole. He accepted that hunting with hounds had an advantage for the herd, although he argued that there was a welfare disadvantage with regard to individual deer.
Immediately after Bateson produced his report, there was widespread scientific criticism of some of his methodology and the interpretations that he drew from his data. A meeting of scientists chaired by Professor Lord Soulsby considered the matter and concluded that the scientific case against hunting had not been proven, and that further research was needed before a safe decision could be made one way or the other.
The Countryside Alliance, the Devon and Somerset stag hounds and the Quantock stag hounds then commissioned Professor Roger Harris of University College Chichester, various co-workers and the Royal Veterinary College to undertake further studies, which Professor Bateson and Lord Burns were subsequently to call for.
Mr Adrian Flook (Taunton, Conservative)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that Professor Bateson is an animal behaviourist, not a
physiologist? It is quite an important distinction, is it not?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
It is an extremely important distinction. Most of Professor Bateson's conclusions were about physiology, but as my hon. Friend says, he is an animal behaviourist, not a physiologist. If Professor Bateson were here today, he would acknowledge that that was the case. As I have said, the National Trust commissioned him to produce the report. He undertook it largely with regard to animal behaviour, bringing in some physiological evidence, but he would be the first to acknowledge that he was not a physiologist.
Professor Harris, by contrast, was selected for the second study precisely because he was an expert in the physiology of exercise. His co-workers included pathologists and veterinarians. His report, which was known as the joint universities study, was published in 1999. Its conclusion was discussed in the same year at a general meeting involving the Harris group, Professor Bateson and associates at King's college.
Professor Harris, Professor Bateson and the other scientists issued a unanimous press statement in which they acknowledged that most hunted deer experienced some suffering and a few might suffer severely. However, they further agreed that there were advantages to the continuance of hunting and that ways should be sought to modify practices to reduce any suffering. Subsequent press activity created distrust between the parties and disrupted the attempt to compromise. None the less, the press release was extremely plain. Professor Bateson, Professor Harris and the others unanimously concluded that although they did not like some parts of practices to do with stag hunting, there were overall advantages to the continuance of hunting.
The joint universities study scientists concluded that much of the blood damage found in the Bateson study could be ascribed to collection after the fact; the blood was damaged by collection methods after the death of the deer. They concluded that the physiological and biochemical changes observed in their study and the Bateson study had no sinister connotations in respect of welfare, and were similar to those typically encountered in equine and human athletes taking extended exercise. If a horse takes part in a hard day's hunting or when someone runs a marathon, the physiological effects at the end will be not dissimilar to the blood effects described by the joint universities scientists who examined Professor Bateson's deer.
In that context, I move on to an important point. The study found no evidence to suggest that deer that are hunted but escape suffer severely, although a small minority may suffer muscle stiffness for a day or two. I must admit that after a day's hunting, I suffer muscle stiffness for a day or two. My wife would like to ban it, but I am delighted to say that she still allows me to carry it out. There is no evidence of severe physiological consequences for escaped deer.
The joint universities study applied to the Home Office for a licence to carry out a scientific study on escaped deer. The only scientific way to consider the physiological effects of the hunt would be to spot the
deer that escaped and carry out tests on them the next day or the day after that. It is worrying that the Home Office turned the application down, apparently on the grounds that there was no evidence that such research was needed. I do not know how the Home Office knew that until research had been carried out; it seems to have used rather a circular argument. The Minister's colleagues in the Home Office refused permission to carry out those scientific tests on escaped deer, so we do not have the physiological evidence needed to demonstrate either that Professor Bateson was right in his animal behaviourist conclusion that deer suffer in the chase, or that Professor Harris was right in his conclusion that they do not.
One scientist seems to me—from a layman's perspective—to have come to a sensible and convincing conclusion; there is no evidence that hunted deer urinate, whereas there is evidence that many animals urinate when in a state of fear. I am not great on physiology, I am reasonably convinced by the fact that a hunted deer has not urinated by the time that it is killed that stress is not caused in the way that Professor Bateson suggested.
Mr Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)
I am trying to follow carefully what the hon. Gentleman said, and I should like to take him back a couple of paragraphs. He mentioned that the joint universities study got together for a symposium with Harris, Bateson and others, that it put out the joint statement saying, inter alia, that the hunting of deer by dogs caused some distress and that its members then fell out afterwards. Perhaps that is to put a slight gloss on the matter, because of media reports. When those scientists got together, did they discuss other methods of hunting, and whether those caused equal or less distress?
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
Yes, that was the nature of the study. The scientists said that stalking, which I mentioned a moment ago, caused significantly more distress because of higher wounding rates.
Professors Bateson and Harris were jointly commissioned by Lord Burns to write chapter 7 of his report. Although the physiological aspects of the report were written jointly, Professor Bateson alone wrote the part of the report pertaining to welfare because Professor Harris, very nobly, did not want to be associated with a field in which he claimed no expertise. As a physiologist, he chose not to become involved with discussions on animal welfare, although by contrast, Professor Bateson became involved with discussions on physiology even though he was not a physiologist.
As a result of Professor Harris not taking part in the sections on animal welfare, there were discrepancies between the conclusions and interpretations in the two parts of the report. Professor Bateson reverted to his original views for the welfare section, having apparently accepted in the earlier section that there were valid alternative views. There is a most interesting debate here between two learned and distinguished scientists. Both gave evidence to and advised Lord Burns. Both came together in the joint university study. Both sought to carry out further tests on escaped deer. Those distinguished and honourable academics apparently
cannot come to a unanimous conclusion on whether the pursuit phase is cruel, and seek further evidence on that.
Again, the Minister could perfectly reasonably advise the registrar and tribunal to get in touch with Professors Harris and Bateson and consider very carefully their complex and difficult evidence. They might then conclude that the pursuit phase is extremely cruel and sufficient to justify the banning of stag hunting; but again I say to the Committee that that should not be a matter for us to consider.
The Bill will set up the tribunal and the registrar to consider the matter, but the Minister has none the less chosen, from what he describes as ''irrefutable evidence'', to ban hunting. He has denied the registrar and the tribunal the opportunity to consider the complex scientific evidence, which I do not begin to understand. I would not claim to understand such evidence because I am not a scientist. A civil servant considering the matter with a cold towel round his head, and with the joint advice of Professors Bateson and Harris, might have a chance of understanding the evidence.
If the Minister thinks that he understood the evidence and that his overwhelming and irrefutable evidence comes from either the Bateson evidence or the Harris evidence, he must let us know.
To answer the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, who asked about alternative methods, Professor Bateson concluded that
''the average welfare costs of wounding a deer would have to be 20 times as bad as those of hunting by hounds for the absence of hunting to have no welfare benefit.''
That may be complex scientific language, but his point is that the welfare downside of stalking is five times higher than the welfare downside of hunting using hounds.
Professor Bateson suggested that the details of a compromise should be left to Professor Webster, the veterinary commissioner of the Independent Supervisory Authority on Hunting. Professor Bateson said that he would publicly endorse the arrangement if Professor Webster could reach an accord with the hunts. In other words, Professor Bateson said that the matter was complicated but that Professor Webster should discuss it with the hunts and, if an accommodation could be reached, he would endorse it. Unfortunately, Professor Bateson could not come to the Portcullis house hearings, but he wrote to the Minister. He acknowledged that there were different interpretations of the data, which could only be resolved by further research or, less satisfactorily, by arbitration by a panel of independent scientists with expertise in the relevant disciplines.
One question for the Minister to answer today is whether I am right in thinking that Professor Bateson wrote to him before the Portcullis house hearings, making it plain that he did not support an outright ban on hunting stag, that further research was necessary, that Professor Webster might be the chap to do the research, that there were different
interpretations of the data and that the matters were worthy of further consideration by an independent panel. The Minister should clear those matters up; particularly if, as I suspect he will, he chooses to quote Professor Bateson in justifying what he has done.
When the Minister announced his draft Bill after the hearings, he said that the scientific case against hunting with hounds was ''incontrovertible'', which is a word that hangs round his neck like the golden thread that hung round his neck on Second Reading. When we brought the incontrovertible evidence to Professor Bateson's attention, he suggested that such a comment could be made only by a ''scientific illiterate'' and that he would at once write to the Minister and dissociate himself from it. Professor Bateson has said that if the Minister thinks that there is incontrovertible evidence supporting the outright banning of hunting, he is a scientific illiterate.
I challenge the Minister to come up with ''incontrovertible'' evidence. He must tell us whether there is incontrovertible evidence that there is no utility to hunting; he will be hard pressed so to do. Perhaps he will seek to advance an argument that there is incontrovertible evidence about the method of dispatch of the stag; again, he will be hard pressed so to do. Without his main ally, Professor Bateson—whom he has used up to now in his aid—how can he argue that there is ''incontrovertible evidence'' of cruelty in the pursuit phase of hunting deer?
The Minister does not have a leg to stand on because clause 6 is curious and illogical and there is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence on hunting with hounds. Unless he can persuade us to the contrary, I suggest that he has chosen to ban deer hunting outright not because of incontrovertible evidence but because of discussions he has had with the parliamentary Labour party.
Such matters could be discussed sensibly by the registrar and the tribunal, but the Bill is not about animal welfare. The Minister has decided that he does not like the human behaviour of people who hunt stag on Exmoor. He does not like the fact that they gallop around and chase deer, and that is why he has chosen to ban deer hunting as part of a deal with his hon. Friends in the parliamentary Labour party.
I challenge the Minister to take this opportunity to present incontrovertible evidence that there is no utility or that the pursuit or killing phases are for some reason so overwhelmingly cruel that the matter may not be considered by the registrar unlike the killing of foxes, which may be considered by the registrar. If he has such evidence, today is the day that he must lay it plainly on the table. He must let us consider and discuss it. If he does not do so, he exposes himself to my charge that his banning of stag hunting has nothing whatever to do with animal welfare and everything to do with human activities.
Mr Paddy Tipping (Sherwood, Labour)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. It may surprise him, after his lengthy speech, to learn that I agree with some of his points. For example, he said that there should be
no outright ban under clause 6 but that deer hunting should be considered under the registration process in part 2. Although I agree with some of his opening remarks, I disagree profoundly with the process that he suggests for resolving the matter. He is right that clause 6 is a controversial and important part of the Bill. Along with clause 8, which the Committee has had a good deal of time to discuss, clause 6 is a key part of the Bill. No one should deny that the issue is fundamental to the Committee and to the Bill.
Another point of agreement is the hon. Gentleman's comment that deer are being considered in a unique way, in that they are not included in the registration process but that hunting of them is banned outright under clause 6. Again, he is right.
The hon. Gentleman argues that my right hon. Friend the Minister, in the privacy of his room—in the eyrie, as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said in such a disparaging way—should not make the decisions by himself. I would not put it that way. I believe that my right hon. Friend has operated very openly. He has made a considerable personal investment in the Bill, and I deplore the hon. Gentleman's disparaging remarks.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Minister has spent an enormous amount of time on the Bill. The three days at Portcullis house and the other evidence sessions have been very useful. I certainly did not intend to disparage the Minister's general approach to the Bill. My point was simply that we do not know why he has banned stag hunting outright. He says that it is because of incontrovertible evidence, which he will not share with us. That is the aspect that I believe to be arrogant and private.
Mr Paddy Tipping (Sherwood, Labour)
I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will respond to that, and I have in mind the kind of response that he will make.
The hon. Gentleman's conclusion that deer hunting should not be banned outright in clause 6 has some validity, but I draw a slightly different conclusion. I, too, think that it odd that deer hunting is banned outright, but I wonder why clause 6 does not also ban fox and mink hunting.
My view is a simple and constitutional one. At issue is a process. I believe that the will of the House of Commons will ultimately be the test of the legislation. Along with several members of the Committee, I am concerned about part 2 because, at its broadest, it sub-contracts to a registrar decisions that parliamentarians should be taking. It leaves the argument to another day. That is the fundamental cornerstone of the Bill.
The Minister and his colleagues should listen carefully to the view of the House of Commons. It has been expressed clearly and transparently on many occasions for years. The House of Commons wants a ban on deer hunting. Moreover, it wants an end to the argument about the issue and a ban on foxhunting. In its present state, clause 6 should not stand part of the Bill. Under the heading ''Deer'', it states:
''Registration under Part 2 shall not be effected in respect of the hunting of deer of any species.''
The clause 6 that the House of Commons wants by an overwhelming majority would be headed ''Deer and fox''.
Mr George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
Order. The hon. Gentleman will know what I am about to stay. He is entitled to make his argument about clause 6 standing part of the Bill, as it is presently drafted.
Mr Paddy Tipping (Sherwood, Labour)
The clause should not stand part of the Bill in its present form. I say strongly to Opposition Members, and even more strongly to my right hon. Friend the Minister, that there will be an occasion—not today or during other discussions in Committee—when Parliament and the House of Commons will have an opportunity to discuss clause 6 again, perhaps on Report. My right hon. Friend should listen to the voice of Parliament that has been expressed on several occasions. Clause 6 has little chance of emerging from the Commons process, because many colleagues agree that the clause should argue for a ban on foxhunting and deer hunting. I hope that we will have the opportunity to enable that to be done as the Bill proceeds through the House.
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
I shall make nine preliminary points before asking the Minister some questions. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) for being so candid with the Committee. It seems that the Government's choreography is becoming a little ragged as we move towards the end of our discussions in Committee.
Mr John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)
Did my hon. and learned Friend notice that the hon. Member for Sherwood, who has just spoken, slipped rapidly from what Parliament had said to what the House of Commons had said? During our peculiar voting experience the other day, we clearly voted in favour of the retention of a second House, so what Parliament said is not what the House of Commons says. As long as this constitution allows us to have two Houses, it behoves all of us to reach a solution that is acceptable not only to the House of Commons, but to the whole of Parliament, particularly in circumstances when the majority of people do not want hunting to be banned.
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
What my right hon. Friend said is entirely to the point. The Prime Minister put the hon. Member for Sherwood and others in this mess. They must fight hard to ban hunting following the Prime Minister's intervention on ''Question Time'', and he put them in a further mess by upsetting them about the voting last week on the House of Lords reforms. Therefore, he has much to answer for, and I have no doubt that he will pay for that in due course.
I want to return to my preliminary points, and then to ask the Minister some questions. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sherwood for echoing the comments of the hon. Member for West Ham, who is no longer present but who said, when we were debating clause 8, that the parliamentary Labour party timebomb on this issue is ticking and that clause 6 is in as much danger of being chewed up on the Floor of the House on Report as clause 8.
I shall listen with interest to what other Committee members say in this clause stand part debate; I trust that they will be as honest and candid as the hon. Member for Sherwood. I am wholly opposed to his view, although I salute his candour in expressing it, and I hope that he has respect for my view, although it is diametrically opposed to his. I, too, believe that clause 6 should not stand part of the Bill, although for different reasons. I want to explain them by making some bullet points.
First, the Bill proposes a ban on deer hunting but adduces no evidence for singling out the practice as unacceptable, either on the grounds of utility or suffering, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said, although I will not rehearse his remarks.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) said last week, the deer of Exmoor belong to the community that farms and resides there and manages and cares for the herd. Hunting with hounds is a vital part of the management process and promotes the interest in and care of the deer that have led to that herd's outstanding qualities. I will not repeat the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire on the history of that. The hunting of deer with hounds is maximally favourable to the well-being of the herd as it discriminates against the old, the infirm and the diseased. We mentioned that this morning and last week. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said that it is the only method of cull that guarantees a clean head shot, leading to instantaneous death. That must be entirely uncontroversial; I hope that nobody will suggest otherwise.
Therefore, it is at least as humane as stalking, which, although it is equally necessary for responsible management, always involves a risk of serious injury, followed by a slow and painful death. No such risk attaches to hunting with dogs. I like to think of myself as a reasonably experienced rifle shot. I have gone stalking in the highlands of Scotland almost every autumn since my late teens and early twenties. It is inevitable that over a range of 200 or 300 yards—hopefully less than that, and ideally under 100 yards—one cannot guarantee that one is going to shoot the animal dead.
The circumstances in the highlands of Scotland are entirely different from those that pertain in the west country, where using a high-powered rifle at anything more than very close range is likely to prove unsafe because one cannot tell who or what is round the other side of a bush or a corner. It is extremely dangerous to treat the use of a rifle in Somerset and Devon in the same way as in the vast expanses of the highlands of Scotland.
Although the quarry is chased, it is supremely adapted by evolution to run from predators. Hunting is a managed adaptation of a natural form of predation, and presents the quarry with a threat that it is instinctively able to cope with. Unlike trapping or shooting, hunting produces no immediate panic. Deer that escape the hounds are observed to be undamaged
and able to return to a normal life. Long chases are slow with intermittent sprints. When the quarry comes to bay, it is preparing to defend itself in another way.
Those who do not know about stag hunting should get out of their heads that it is a continuous lickety-split from one stage to the end of the day. There was a similar misunderstanding about foxhunting. I rather got the impression that those on the Government Benches, especially the Minister, thought that hunting started at 11o'clock and went hell for leather until 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, non-stop with the hounds in full pursuit, helter-skelter, after the prey. That is no more true of foxhunting than of stag hunting, which is well worth bearing in mind when one considers what are thought to be the better arguments in favour of clause 6.
Coming to bay is a natural response and can be achieved only by hunting with dogs. It is one of the responses being sought. Only when a deer can be approached can it be safely and cleanly shot. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said, the method by which deer are culled or put to death in stag hunting areas can be justified as being as humane as possible. In many respects, it is less worrisome and more humane than the disposal of livestock in an abattoir.
My next point is mischievous. If one extended the logic of the argument in the Bill and clause 6 in particular, it would not be long before the use of sheepdogs to round up sheep or cattle before they are taken off to the abattoir was outlawed on the same grounds as the use of hounds in the culling of deer.
Casualty deer—victims of road accidents or other injuries—cannot be easily found or dispatched without the use of deer hounds. Banning deer hunting will therefore lead to a serious welfare problem among deer herds. The Government may say, ''You will be allowed to use hounds to flush out injured or diseased animals'' assuming that the exemptions to hunting are not caught by clause 6. However, once deer hunting is banned, the deer hounds will go. The type of dogs required to carry out such a humane activity will not exist in a few years' time and the welfare of the herd and individual deer will be hugely compromised.
Those are the preliminary points that I wish to place on record, but I have some questions for the Minister and any Committee members interested in responding. I have not thought of the questions myself. They come from the owner of the Porlock estate on the Somerset and Devon border, whom I know. He has an obvious and immediate interest in clause 6. In a letter to the Minister dated 18 December 2002, he writes:
''I am writing to ask what essential safeguards will be included in any Act of Parliament that sets out to outlaw traditional methods of managing the wild Red Deer on Exmoor. Has thought been given to requiring a complete moratorium on any shooting of Red Deer on Exmoor for a period of 10 years from the date of any Statute''
coming into force?
Those questions flow from the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton. Although this may not be the most attractive argument against including clause 6 in the Bill, according to my hon. Friend, it is a fact of life; the deer are seen to be a communal asset, but that sense of community ownership will disappear once hunting is banned. Particular farm owners will want to ensure that the herd on their farms is moved on or destroyed to prevent it from damaging the grazing. They will also want to exploit the commercial value of the carcases. That argument may be difficult to present, but if my hon. Friend is to be believed—I think that he is—it is a fact of life and something with which we as legislators will have to deal before we allow clause 6 to stand part of the Bill.
The owner of the Porlock estate asked whether, if that were not the case, any advice had been given to the Avon and Somerset Police Authority as to how all needful garden owners on Exmoor
''will be empowered to apply for rifle licences so that they can protect and conserve''
their holdings. The letter continues:
''Will this relaxation be extended to woodland managers or graziers of heather and bilberry moorland? Will it be extended to any or all farmers? If this path were to be chosen''—
It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.