Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition

Part of Hunting Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 6:00 pm on 8 February 2001.

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Photo of Jane Kennedy Jane Kennedy Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department 6:00, 8 February 2001

First, I shall deal with amendments Nos. 60, 78, 80 and 83 and those that are consequential on them—Nos. 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84 and 85.

The effect of the amendments is simple to describe. The overriding purpose of the schedule is to ban hunting with dogs. However, it contains a number of exceptions covering circumstances where it would still be appropriate to permit hunting with dogs. Each of those exceptions comes with a number of conditions that have to be met in order for the hunting to be lawful. Those conditions are necessarily tightly drawn, as otherwise the exceptions would turn into large loopholes.

In the stalking and flushing out exception in paragraph 7, the rodent control exception in paragraph 8, the recapturing animals exception in paragraph 10 and the rescuing animals exception in paragraph 11, one key condition is that dogs are not used below ground. The amendments would remove that condition in each case.

The purpose of the condition is to outlaw terrier work that involves sending a terrier into a fox earth or underground tunnel in order to locate or flush out a fox. I invite the Committee to consider that some of the greatest cruelty takes place when terriers are sent below ground in that way. It is a practice that members of the Committee may feel should be banned.

As my hon. Friend the Minister explained at a previous sitting, hon. Members may be concerned about what happens both to the quarry being pursued underground and to the dog. Members of the Committee will want to take into account what the Burns committee said on the issue. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), who has left the Room again temporarily, has already quoted from the Burns report, as have other hon. Members. For emphasis, I shall quote more of it.

In paragraph 6.84, the report states that the committee received

``evidence of injuries to terriers during terrierwork.''

There is no disputing that, and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire has described it. The effect on those hunted by terriers is dealt with in paragraphs 9.17 to 9.20 of the report, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said. It is clear that the committee had serious concerns about terrier work.

I turn to amendments Nos. 61, 86, 96 and 100. They would provide that the condition was met and hunting would be lawful if there was no deliberate use of dogs below ground. The amendments are unnecessary. In some ways, our earlier discussions about whether hunting can be unintentional are echoed. I remind the Committee that hunting cannot. In the same way, the person in charge of the dog must intend the dog to go below ground in order to fall foul of the condition. If a dog took it on itself to go below ground without intent on the part of its handler, that would not constitute use of a dog below ground. I remind the Committee that that condition applied only to those who are hunting and wish to rely on the exception. Individuals who are not hunting are not committing an offence and therefore have no need to rely on the exception. A person who is taking his dog for a walk in the park need not worry if the dog decides to go down a rabbit hole. That person may worry about how to get the dog out again, but not about whether they were committing an offence under the Bill.