Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition

Part of Orders of the Day — Hunting Bill – in the House of Commons at 4:15 pm on 17 January 2001.

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Photo of Michael Howard Michael Howard Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 4:15, 17 January 2001

My remarks this afternoon will be brief. I gave my reasons for opposing a ban on hunting in the Adjournment debate on the Burns report on 7 July 2000. As I said then, it is clear, on any reading of the report, that there is no animal welfare case for the banning of hunting. The report makes it clear that the only consequence of a ban would be an increased use of other methods of keeping the fox population under control which would, in the phrase made famous by the report, compromise the welfare of the fox to at least as great an extent as hunting. The arguments that I set out then ware not answered in that debate and have not been answered since. I do not believe that they can be answered.

Today, I want to make a different point. We meet to debate this issue the day after the Home Secretary announced the crime figures for the year to last September. They showed a sharp increase in violent crime and a 21 per cent. increase in robbery. The reasons for that extremely distressing development have been extensively canvassed by Opposition Members. There are 2,500 fewer police officers than there were at the time of the previous election. There is widespread demoralisation among the police. The Home Secretary has caused more than 26,000 prisoners to be released early so that they may be free to re-offend. [Interruption.] It is against that background—Labour Members do not seem to be aware of this—that the House must consider the Bill today. The Government are, in effect, telling the police, "We don't think you have enough to do. We think you have time on your hands, so we will give you an additional task, an extra burden. We will ask you to enforce a ban on an activity which has been lawful in Britain since time immemorial."