Results 1-19 of 19 for hunting speaker:Alan Whitehead

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 6 - Deer (11 Feb 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: Once again, I have been attempting to follow the hon. Gentleman's line of argument. My understanding of how a stag hunt works is that, prior to the hunt setting out, a stalker will select the deer to be chased and the stag hunt chases it. I presume that the stalker is not an animal welfare agent who is deliberately selecting a deer that will not run away because that would give the hunt no...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 6 - Deer (11 Feb 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ..., the stalker could say that it is not worth the chase and should be shot to put it out of its misery, which is a point mentioned in the Burns report. Secondly, by the nature of preparing for the hunt, the stalker will need to select an animal that will run away; otherwise the hunt will not take place.

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 6 - Deer (11 Feb 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: 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...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 27 - Automatic conditions of individual registration (30 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...to advocate, on casuistic grounds, that the person making such a statement claims that the Bill is something other than what it is. No one who has read the Bill could believe that it would allow hunting roughly as it is, but with a few knobs and twiddles added. Even before being amended, subsections 8(1) and (2) referred to utility, the sequential test and the central question of cruelty...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: utility and least suffering (21 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: Can the hon. Gentleman give an example of where pro-hunting farmers are taking up grants to a greater extent than anti-hunting farmers?

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: utility and least suffering (16 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: .... I am grateful for your clarification, Mr. Stevenson, that the amendment will not restrict a later debate on utility, because that is important. Species management is a subsidiary claim for hunting, not a scientific aim, as we established in our previous debate. For all those reasons, I ask the Committee to support the amendment. Question put, That the amendment be made:— The...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: utility and least suffering (16 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: I beg to move amendment No. 187, in clause 8, page 3, line 12, after second 'is', insert 'pest control'. (1A) For the purposes of subsection (1) hunting is pest control if and only if it is'. My remarks on the amendment will be brief because we have had a substantial debate on many of the issues relating to pest control and how the Bill deals with it. The amendment does what amendment...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...is at the heart of clause 8. Indeed, clause 8 is the heart of the Bill, which is why it is appropriate to discuss the Bill in this order. Therefore, we are discussing issues that are central to hunting. I expect later amendments to draw out that argument. I have made a modest attempt to elucidate the purposes of the Bill by looking at its architecture. I believe that clause 8 is...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: The hon. Gentleman has heard me acknowledge that there are different circumstances in different parts of the country where hunting is more prevalent or less prevalent. The point that I was attempting to make—Opposition Members appear not to have noticed it—relates to the contribution of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, who specifically emphasised that there were different...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...8. It is extremely unlikely that such circumstances would come to pass. I can envisage circumstances in which two dogs and two guns could be used for the purposes of pest control, and therefore hunting with dogs, if it were for the purposes of pest control, in those circumstances, would be something that the tribunal could consider. That is evident.

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: The purpose of my amendments, as I have said to the hon. and learned Gentleman, is to make it clear that after the Bill is enacted, hunting foxes—or perhaps I should say pursuing and killing foxes—with hounds will take place only for the purpose of pest control. The tribunal would not consider hunting for recreational purposes or simply for fun. That is the present position. Some...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...amendments seek to broaden the number of things that the tribunal should consider. My answer to that, as the Bill presently stands, before those amendments have been discussed, is no; the idea of hunting purely for recreational purposes is not in the Bill and the tribunal would not consider it.

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), who is not in his place—I know that he has other pressing concerns—spoke this morning about the effect of the subsection on the recreational aspect of hunting. My duty is to table amendments to the Bill, and it is up to hon. Members—I see that their amendments Nos. 110 and 113 are on the amendment paper—to table amendments...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: I was pondering the science of species management and the distribution of hunts across the nation. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman will enlighten the Committee on the scientific distribution of hunts that allows species management to take place. My recollection is that they are not distributed scientifically and his point is therefore somewhat weakened.

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: I beg to move amendment No. 131, in clause 8, page 3, line 11, leave out 'hunting' and insert 'pest control'.

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (14 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...8, it is true that they refer to the whole Bill. If hon. Members look at the Bill carefully, they will see that the amendments would not substitute ''pest control'' or similar words every time hunting is referred to. I shall attempt to elucidate that point in a moment. The word ''hunting'' is used in two different senses in the Bill. In some parts, mainly part 1, it relates to the...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 - Tests for registration: (9 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: In attempting to avoid the Scylla of cruelty in relation to shooting and hunting with dogs, perhaps the hon. Gentleman has bashed into the Charybdis of allowing the invention of a more cruel method of dealing with foxes, such as repeatedly smashing a fox's head in with a brick, which would enable foxhunting to be seen as less cruel and so able to continue. Does he accept that that could be a...

Public Bill Committee: Hunting Bill: Clause 8 (9 Jan 2003)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...for Suffolk, Coastal conceded that that changed the nature of the debate on the point. The parallel with foxhunting is that the cruelty nexus would be changed if a fox were stunned before it were hunted, but that is not possible given the very nature of foxhunting.

Hunting Bill (16 Dec 2002)

Dr Alan Whitehead: ...will abide by and in clause 48 for this House to annul those rules by resolution if it so wishes. Is it his intention thereby to enable the House to consider whether the rules genuinely allow for hunting only in very restricted and special circumstances and to reconsider and perhaps annul them if they do not?