Results 1-20 of 31 for hunting speaker:John Maples

Hunting Bill (16 Dec 2002)

Mr John Maples: The Minister said that, at heart, this was a moral question. Will he explain why it is moral to hunt a rabbit with a dog but immoral to hunt a fox with a dog?

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: [Continuation from column 548] (15 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...countryside, and the issues that they know about and understand, one realises how misconceived are some of the subsidiary provisions of the Bill. The second is that, leaving aside the issue of fox hunting, clause 3 shows how irrational are some of the subsidiary provisions of the Bill. Hon. Members who voted for the Bill thought that they were voting to ban organised hunting, not voting...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: [Continuation from column 548] (15 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...on. However, I hope that the two Ministers who are dealing with the Bill have started to understand that there are some difficulties with it, and that it goes way beyond the abolition of organised hunting. We all know what we mean by organised hunting—it is a few dogs with several people following them. However, the Bill goes much further than that. It bans the activities of one dog,...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: [Continuation from column 548] (15 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...The Ministers should look at some of the consequences of the Bill and not simply hide behind Deadline 2000. I understand that the Government and the House want a ban on what I would call organised hunting, but I do not believe that hon. Members who voted for this Bill or those who support it outside the House realise that it creates a system in which it is legal for a dog to hunt and kill...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (15 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: I completely agree with the hon. Member, but he has referred to two categories. One includes rats, which can be hunted and killed with dogs and the other includes mink and rabbits, which cannot. However, there is another distinction between mink and rabbits. Under paragraph 7, rabbits can be flushed out by a dog and then shot or have their necks wrung, but mink are protected even from that....

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (15 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: Is the Minister saying that, in the absence of the Bill, it will be necessary to criminalise that kind of trespass? If he were not introducing a Bill to ban foxhunting, would the Government introduce a Bill to criminalise the trespass of those who hunt? He seems to be saying that there is a need for the Bill now. It is not in relation to the offences created by the Bill that there is a need...

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

Mr John Maples: ...distinction? I agree that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury appears to narrow the scope of the provision, but in fact it does not. The offence can relate only to the hunting of a wild mammal, but the exception refers to a wider category that presumably includes birds and reptiles.

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Supervision (8 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: .... Friend makes a good point. There are at least two bases on which the proposed legislation could be challenged under the European convention on human rights. One is the way in which the law bans hunting, and whether that is an intervention in people's liberty and use of property. That fundamental aspect of the Bill may be challenged. The Government appear to have come to the conclusion...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Supervision (8 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: I am grateful, Mrs. Roe. We are discussing not what we have been arguing about a great deal in Committee—whether hunting in one form or another should be illegal—but subsidiary and somewhat incidental offences that relate to a fundamental principle of criminal law. The proposal has been resisted for hundreds of years by common law, by the courts and by Parliament, except in...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Supervision (8 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...that doing so is unique, but in other such cases, it has been for something that is very serious and where it would be almost impossible to prove otherwise. The Bill is designed to ban organised hunting. That was what the House voted for, and we keep coming back to it. The ban includes beagling, hare coursing, foxhunting, harriers and so on. We all know an organised hunt when we see it,...

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

Mr John Maples: This comes down to the definition of hunting in paragraph 21, which says: ``hunting a wild mammal with a dog includes, in particular, any case where— (a) a person engages or participates in the pursuit''— it seems to me that in all cases we are talking about that— ``and (b) one or more dogs are employed in that pursuit (whether or not by him and whether or not under...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (1 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...his finger on it. I would love to see the Government or a Labour Member table an amendment that tightened the definition of the offence. Paragraph 1 states: ``A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog''. The schedule then defines hunt, wild mammal and dog. That is clear and I understand that, but other unnecessary offences are then created in paragraphs 2 and 3....

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (1 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...that a person commits an offence if he: ``permits a dog ... to be used in the course of the commission of an offence''. It is not clear what that means. Does it mean used by people who are hunting? If the schedule said that, it would be clearer, but it simply says ``used'' in the passive tense. The dog is being ``used'' if one simply lets it go. If, however, the schedule means a dog that...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (1 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ..., if this Bill is not about morality and animal welfare, it is about nothing. If there were genuine proof that the welfare of foxes—which must be killed—would be improved by abolishing hunting, I would find it difficult to continue to support hunting. I do not hunt—I oppose the Bill simply on the ground that it would remove an existing liberty that people should be free...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (1 Feb 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...The Bill is so widely drawn that it is difficult to believe that it is concerned with animal welfare. It has been introduced by those who, although they may dislike beagling, hare coursing and stag hunting, object primarily to foxhunting. It has been dressed up with a lot of other bits and pieces around the edges to make it look like a piece of animal welfare legislation, which it palpably...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (25 Jan 2001)

Mr John Maples: I want to question the Minister on a point of principle. He keeps referring to Deadline 2000, which is presumably a lobby group that supports a ban on hunting and various other activities covered by the Bill, but this is a Government Bill. It has the names of the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary himself on it. The Under-Secretary cannot say, ``I do not understand...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (25 Jan 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, and then the paragraph and this discussion would be unnecessary? If he cannot accept it, can he say in what circumstances he envisages the hunting of a rat by a dog being a criminal offence, which would not be a criminal offence if the amendment were accepted? In other words, what does the clause make a criminal offence that would not be a...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (25 Jan 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...the rat, but that somebody might enjoy being with the dog while it killed the rat. Many of us believe that that is what the Bill is about. If Labour Members were honest, the Bill would ban foxhunting, beagling and hare coursing, and nothing else. That is what it is designed to do. That would be much simpler, and would not give rise to any of the anomalies or problems of legal...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (25 Jan 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...Hinduja syndrome, which might explain the anomalies in the Bill—or even the need for it. If, instead of wanting to endow the faith zone in the dome, the Hindujas had been great fans of tiger hunting on elephants or whatever else they do in India—they might have introduced my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex to that sport—they may have endowed a hunting zone in the...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition (25 Jan 2001)

Mr John Maples: ...is no case. Secondly, the Bill is full of anomalies that, I suspect, have nothing to do with animal welfare. They are included to dress it up in the light of the tremendous campaign to abolish foxhunting, hare coursing and hare hunting. In taking apart that dressing, we find serious problems relating to rabbits, rodents and mink. I do not know why the hon. Member for West Ham has become...