Results 1-20 of 53 for hunting speaker:Alan Beith

Hunting Bill: New Clause 1 — Compensation (9 Jul 2003)

Mr Alan Beith: I am worried that the Minister has moved from arguing that the clause is too wide and that too much compensation would have to be paid to contending that the activities can largely continue without hunting and that there is therefore no problem. I do not understand that. However, I want him to clarify his argument of principle. He said that there can be no rights to compensation that depend...

Hunting With Dogs (18 Mar 2002)

Mr Alan Beith: ...from the effects of the Bill. These are not simple black and white issues. We are discussing how species are controlled, and what methods can be used to control them. Some people feel strongly that hunting is a particularly cruel method. As I shall explain, I do not agree. At the end of the day there are compromises. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) and...

Hunting With Dogs (18 Mar 2002)

Mr Alan Beith: I think that the hon. Gentleman is on the same tack. He is looking for ways of ensuring that hunting is carried out properly. That can be done by the supervisory system in the first option. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) and others suggest a method that may give more public confidence but that is not the same thing as saying that the proper and...

Hunting With Dogs (18 Mar 2002)

Mr Alan Beith: ...try to ensure that I have deployed all my arguments before I give way again. My fear, and it has been expressed by others, is that the only consequence of a ban would be that, in those areas where hunting takes place, much more use would be made of other methods. The Burns report points out that, in some of those areas, it is difficult to do that. In particular, the report refers to upland...

Hunting With Dogs (18 Mar 2002)

Mr Alan Beith: Any serious look at the evidence fails to provide that broad distinction, which could properly be the basis of saying that hunting should be illegal, whereas the other methods of controlling foxes can remain legal. Hardly anyone is trying to say that we should not kill foxes. It is generally recognised that there is a need to kill at least some foxes and to control the population. People are...

Human Reproductive Cloning Bill [Lords] (Allocation of Time): Miscellaneous (29 Nov 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ...procedure and must get the Bill through as we have embarked on this course." I should like again to adduce evidence on how easily Governments can get these matters wrong. I was in Committee on the Hunting Bill in the last Session. It became clear to me on reading that Bill that it would also ban deerstalking. Ministers insisted that that was neither the intention nor the effect of the...

Written Answers — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Fox Hunting (24 Oct 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will publish the independent veterinary risk assessment commissioned by her Department into the resumption of fox hunting following the foot and mouth outbreaks.

Schedule: Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (27 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ...amendment, the other two being Hexham and Penrith and The Border. Those constituencies are in England, are therefore affected by the Bill and border Scotland. In each case, there are substantial hunting activities on both sides of the border. Appreciation of where the border lies is not widespread. This evening, talking to one of my hon. Friends, I was shocked to discover that he used the...

Schedule: Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (27 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: .... Although that is not the biggest issue raised for those categories of people by the legislation, it is a real practical issue. If I were a member of the North Northumberland and College Valley hunt, I would want to retain if I possibly could the hunt's rights in its own country, on the Scottish side of the border, to continue hunting. However, the kennels are in England. As there is now...

New Clause 1: Disposal of Fallen Stock (27 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind two points, the first of which is the Bill's significance to those whose paid employment depends on the continuation of hunting. If hunting ends, they will simply lose their jobs, because it will not be legal to employ them to do what they are trained to do. Secondly, given that this proposal extends beyond the principle of hunting and could therefore be...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (13 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ...apparently slight items of drafting have a profound effect, and can extend the Bill's scope far beyond the matters on which hon. Members thought they were voting. They can extend the Bill beyond hunting to the normal professional activities of gamekeepers and countryside and wildlife wardens, and to sports other than those that the Bill set out to ban. In the light of this experience, I...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (8 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire made a very thoughtful speech about terrier work, which is an emotive issue. Terrier work makes some want to ban foxhunting, perhaps because they do not understand why it is used or because some of their knowledge of it is based on what happened before hunts regulated it more carefully. That in itself is cause for thought for those of us who do...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (8 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ...with the amendment what my hon. Friend suggests may be its effect. I want to ensure that the places where animals might take refuge in circumstances under which one is, for good reason, allowed to hunt them, are included in the provisions that are designed to allow people to carry on their normal work. Such small matters of definition, which appear minor, could create significant problems,...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (8 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ...Parliamentary Secretary. Having taken advice, she gave the Committee a clear response—of the kind that I have sought on a number of issues—that, in her view, when the House voted to ban hunting with dogs, it did not intend to ban deer stalking as traditionally practised. Her view up to now has been that the Bill does not have that effect, but she has said that she is prepared...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (8 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: As the Parliamentary Secretary said in her letter, hunting does not have to include killing. I am talking about wild goats. The person who tends them does not see them outside his window every morning and go out to distribute food to them, but goes to seek them on the hillside; in other words, to hunt them. I am worried that his occupation will become illegal, because he has to hunt the goats...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (8 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: Will deer stalking—not deer hunting by stag or deer hounds—normally practised by a forest ranger with a dog which assists in locating the deer be prohibited following the enactment of the Bill?

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (8 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ...members of the Committee at the start of the sitting. She has confirmed the interpretation of the Bill that I had formed and put to her. The letter says: ``I think the Bill makes it clear that hunting does not necessarily involve killing.'' Indeed, she deploys the same argument that I deployed to her. She goes on: ``Two of the exceptions from the primary offence of hunting are for the...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (6 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: The Parliamentary Secretary's comments are timely. She said earlier that hunting involves killing. I would need to be directed to the clause that states that. The schedule excepts a number of activities that involve killing, such as flushing and shooting instantly, along with others that do not, such as seeking out a wounded animal. The Bill clearly regards both types of activity as hunting,...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (6 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ..., and I accept that she might need to write to me on this matter, although we may have finished considering the matter by the time she is able to do so. Unless the hon. Lady's definition of hunting is imported into the Bill, any deliberate tracking of a mammal with a dog, unless provided for in the listed exceptions, is hunting and is banned. Therefore, all sorts of tracking of animals by...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition (6 Feb 2001)

Mr Alan Beith: ..., but several of them would help to reassure those people. Unless the Parliamentary Secretary can give some other form of reassurance or put some substance to the distinction between tracking and hunting to which I referred, we shall have to accept some of them.