Schedule 1 - Exempt Hunting

Part of Hunting (Re-committed) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:30 pm on 3 July 2003.

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Photo of Lembit Öpik Lembit Öpik Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire 2:30, 3 July 2003

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We discussed enforcement this morning, and one can imagine a situation in which Farmer Jones goes out with two dogs and puts them in the wood but also happens to have his pet collie with him. The collie gets a bit excited, slips its leash and runs into the woods as well, at which point the police, who, no doubt, will be ever present when such activities take place, will say, ''You're nicked, Jonesie.''

The hon. Gentleman rightly points out the ludicrous challenge to enforcement that this part of the proposed legislation brings upon the unsuspecting rural world. We want workable legislation, and that is fair enough, but it should not prevent the methods that it seeks to regulate from being workable. Depending on how the restriction is interpreted, the Bill could do exactly that.

I am aware that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) wishes to speak on other amendments, so I shall speak briefly about new clause 7. In the light of the Middle Way Group's study on shooting foxes, the new clause, which is linked with amendment No. 72, is all the more important. Without dogs, wounded foxes will escape, and it is not always easy to know whether they have been hit. They can run for quite a distance, so human beings with guns will not be able to finish them off.

On the same principle that applies to retrieving hares that have been shot, the use of dogs is imperative if suffering is to be reduced. New clause 7, which has the heading ''Retrieval of foxes'', would reduce animal suffering under the new regime by enabling the use of dogs when the fox runs off. Hon. Members may say that that would loosen too greatly the incredibly tight and draconian restriction in the Bill, but they should remember what we have said all along, which is that the Bill, compared with what we had even a week ago, will increase animal suffering. I cannot emphasise that point enough. We have the evidence to support it, and we must get that message across to the wider public.

We would do something to ameliorate suffering by including new clause 7. I ask hon. Members who want a total ban on hunting with dogs what response they will give—I hope that they will respond in the debate—to the challenge of the Middle Way Group's findings about shooting; namely, that killing a fox with dogs is instantaneous—no experienced observer would say otherwise—but shooting a fox is a much less reliable way of achieving an outright kill.