Disposal of Fallen Stock

Part of New Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 6:15 pm on 27 February 2001.

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Photo of Edward Leigh Edward Leigh Conservative, Gainsborough 6:15, 27 February 2001

That is a fair point. I must accept that, if hunting is abolished and the fallen stock service vanishes, the type of area that I represent, a very arable area, could probably take the measure on board, leaving aside for the moment the other problems that agriculture is facing. We are not a livestock area. I accept the point that, for hon. Members representing livestock areas, the impact of the end of the fallen stock service may be much more severe. I am sure that the hon. Member for Newbury, who is a fair man, would accept that point and that, in certain parts of the country, the measure could have a serious effect on farmers who rely on that service.

I hope that the Minister will be able to share with the House exactly how the service can be replaced. The argument has been made several times, but it must be emphasised: surely, at this time of all times, whatever our views on hunting, we do not want to impose a further cost on farmers. When the farming community is going through a particularly sensitive and traumatic time, it would be unfair for the House of Commons and for Ministers to send out the message that they are ignoring the problem; that it is just a minor one that could be swept under the carpet. The Minister must come back with a sensible response. He must not simply dismiss our arguments, but accept that the collection of fallen stock is a valuable service and that, should it disappear, something must be done to replace it.

There has been a lot of argument about the number of jobs that will be affected. Those who support the Bill argue that the number of jobs that will be lost as a result of it is much less than the number alleged by the Countryside Alliance, but Burns accepts that between 6,000 and 8,000 full-time equivalent jobs depend on hunting. Obviously, an additional number of part-time employees may lose their jobs. That brings the full-time equivalent jobs lost to anything up to 13,600. That is a very large number.

I accept that, when Ministers are dealing with such a debate, they must tread carefully because the one thing that worries them more than anything else is arguments about compensation. The figures are potentially enormous and the Government do not want to be stuck on that particular needle. I understand where the Government are coming from, but they must understand that the people involved often earn very small salaries—that point has been made many times. A lot of them may earn about £10,000 a year. They may have jobs that are difficult to relate to any other activity. For them, the loss of hunting will be a devastating blow.

The proposed ban on hunting is different from many other bans. Certainly, it is unfair to equate it with the abolition in the 19th century of cock fighting or bear baiting. Those were minor activities carried out by groups of people who were simply interested in viewing animals being torn apart. Those activities did not offer full-time equivalent jobs to up to 16,000 people. They were not traditional activities. Foxhunting is quite a different matter. The Government must seriously address the issue of what will happen to those people. How they will find other jobs? How will they be retrained, and at what total cost to them?

The Burns report, which is very fair, honestly attempted to try to examine both sides of the issue. It stated: In the event of a ban on hunting, consideration would need to be given to possible action in respect of the fallen stock service provided by many hunts and to whether there would be a case for compensation if hounds had to be destroyed and hunts had no further use for their kennels. I appreciate that Ministers do not want to set a precedent and that they have to he responsible for the public purse, and all those other arguments, but I hope that they will give some hope to those people. As hon. Members have said, there are precedents for compensation. Section 5(1) of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000, for example, which is the Government's own legislation, states:

The appropriate authority may (and, in the case of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, shall) by order make a scheme for the making of payments by that authority to persons in respect of income and non-income losses incurred by them as a result of ceasing, by reason of the enactment or coming into force of section 1, to carry on their businesses". There is no doubt that the Hunting Bill, if enacted, will be on all fours with section 5(1) of the 2000 Act. For better or for worse, although I would regret it, Parliament may in its wisdom decide that those 8,000 full-time jobs have to go. Parliament took a similar decision on fur farming, which accounted for far fewer jobs. Perhaps the Government found it easy to be generous in that case because fewer jobs were involved. Nevertheless, Parliament and the Government took the decision to stop fur farming, and quite rightly said that they had to compensate people.

The fur farming compensation scheme is also very different from other previous proposed compensation schemes, such as those for BSE and natural disasters, and perhaps including the foot and mouth disaster that we have been talking about this week. Those are natural disasters. The Government do not will BSE or foot and mouth on the nation; they have to try to cope with those difficult problems.

Ministers can create strictly constrained compensation schemes, and they are very anxious not to open the floodgates to wider compensation schemes. However, in all fairness, when Parliament deliberately takes a decision to abolish, for example, fur farming, hunting or—as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said—self-loading rifles, is there not an obligation on Parliament to pay compensation?