Hunting Bill

Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2001.

Standing Committee B

Schedule 3 - Hunting with dogs: prohibition

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert `other than a rodent'.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert `other than a rabbit'.

No. 3, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert `other than a mink'.

No. 41, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert

`other than one of a species designated in paragraph 2'.

No. 42, in page 19, line 28, at end insert—

`2.—(1) The Secretary of State may be order designate species of wild animal to which paragraph 1 does not apply.

(2) An order under this paragraph

(a) shall be made by statutory instrument, and

(b) shall not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by each House of Parliament.'.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

The purpose of each amendment is to provide a general exception to the offence of hunting a wild mammal with a dog, as defined in paragraph 1. Amendment No. 1 would make an exception for hunting rodents with dogs, amendment No. 2 for hunting rabbits and amendment No. 3 for hunting mink. Amendments Nos. 41 and 42 are slightly different, although they address the same issue. They would provide for the Secretary of State to designate a particular species as an exception to the general ban on hunting with dogs and for those exceptions to be approved by statutory instrument after debate in both Houses of Parliament.

I shall deal fairly briefly with the species that are mentioned in the amendments. The amendments raise questions that not only Committee members but many people outside the House have about the Government's intentions in the schedule and its practical impact on farmers and gamekeepers. I shall deal first with amendment No. 1, which would provide an exception in the case of rodents.

Everybody accepts that rodents—rats, mice, grey squirrels, for example—are pests. Even the average householder or gardener would accept that; certainly any farmer or gamekeeper will know that they are species that have to be controlled. I do not think that there is any difference between the Minister and myself on a point that successive Governments have regarded as important. Indeed, Government correspondence with the Countryside Alliance and others makes it clear that the Government accept that there is, and will remain, a need to control rodents. Even as ardent a defender of animal welfare as the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) has said in previous debates that he accepts fully the need to control an animal such as the brown rat.

People on the other side of the debate might ask why the exception in paragraph 8 is insufficient to protect people who need to control rodent populations by using dogs. I believe that paragraph 8 is inadequate for that purpose, which is why I propose a more general exception in amendment No. 1. The exception provided for in paragraph 8 applies only if hunting takes place without the dog going underground, and if the land on which the hunting takes place belongs to the defendant or to a person who has given the defendant permission to use it. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) mentioned on Tuesday, that creates ambiguities in the law about the interplay between the exception in paragraph 8 and the general offence in paragraph 1 and about how that would affect the work of farmers and gamekeepers who must control rodents as part of their business.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed asked what would happen if a dog were to pursue and kill a rat in a cellar, which is underground in the terms of paragraph 8 and would appear to be outside the exception. What would happen if a farmer or gamekeeper had a dog that pursued a rat into a culvert or burrow, perhaps excavated by a larger mammal, and killed it? Would that dog owner be liable, at least in theory, to criminal prosecution because the dog had gone underground?

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Obviously, one must indulge in these wild flights of fancy regarding what might happen, assuming that everyone outside the House is totally unreasonable in their approach to the law. However, in the event that a terrier went for a rat, who would prosecute?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

The prosecution would be handled by the prosecuting authorities in the normal way.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I would like to answer the hon. Gentleman's first intervention before taking the next one.

The prosecuting authorities would handle the matter in the usual way. One problem is that the schedule assumes that the police and, by extension, the Crown Prosecution Service, will act, not simply in response to offences observed by a constable, but in response to a complaint about an alleged offence put before the police. One reason why the Bill includes a power of arrest is so that the police can follow up an allegation of an offence.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I have sought to deal with that point and others in later amendments. The issue is not about the certainty that the police will prosecute, but about the possibility that they might. To give an analogy, the gentleman in Sunderland who is being prosecuted for giving his customers what they want in terms of weights and measures has chosen the uncomfortable role of martyr. Many others would not want to go to court and risk prosecution if the law said that they could not control pests in this way. Their activities would be circumscribed by the fear of prosecution.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point very well.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

The hon. Gentleman knows very well that the CPS always estimates how likely it is to succeed in having a charge upheld. I might add that, in many cases where we have complained, the CPS has decided that insufficient evidence is available to make a successful case. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that everyone has gone completely mad. That may apply to his arguments, but it cannot apply to the CPS. He must know that a police officer has to intervene and that the CPS must be involved. Does he seriously suggest that they will all go down the lunatic road that he is describing?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

The hon. Gentleman is mistaken if he believes that the Bill requires a police officer to be on the scene of the alleged crime and to be involved in the prosecution. When dealing with criminal justice Bills, Labour Members are often chary of leaving the safety of the citizen from prosecution to the goodwill and discretion of the police officers and crown prosecutors.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is full of anomalies, of which he has identified one and will shortly identify others? It is not good enough for the Government and their supporters to say that people will not do this or that; we are here to enact criminal law. Malicious neighbours could allege an offence. The hon. Member for West Ham has a touching faith in the prosecuting authorities if he thinks that they do not bring ridiculous cases. The current case in Sunderland, and the prosecution of some people who have sought to defend themselves against burglars, fully justify our wariness of anomalies.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

My hon. Friend puts the point forcefully.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

As I understand the hon. Member for West Ham, he is saying that the Bill would make such action a criminal offence; individuals would be breaking the law if they were to handle rats, but it was unlikely that anyone would prosecute. It is dangerous to say that a certain activity constitutes an offence, but that we hope that nobody will take an individual who commits it to court. We cannot run the country like that.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

The hon. Gentleman is right. In moving these amendments, I am asking the Government why they have chosen to approach the need for rodent control—which they acknowledge exists—through the convoluted and ambiguous means of paragraph 8 of the schedule, rather than simply by including an overall exception for hunting rodents with dogs. That would make things much clearer and easier to understand, both for those affected and for the police and prosecuting authorities.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

My hon. Friend has a good point, and he should pursue it. However, there is a problem in his use of the word rodent, because he lumbered squirrels in with the rest. Of course, the grey squirrel is a terrible animal, which should be hunted down and rooted out wherever it exists, but the red squirrel is altogether different; a noble and splendid animal that is not persecuted by gamekeepers. We need clarification of the squirrel policy as well as of everything else.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I bow to my hon. Friend's expert knowledge of rodents. Ministers may wish to let us into the secrets of Government squirrel policy in due course. It is partly for reasons such as those to which my hon. Friend has alluded that I have offered the Government the alternative mechanism provided in amendments Nos. 41 and 42, so that they could make a distinction between the two species of squirrel found in these islands in terms of any exception to the general offence in paragraph 1.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

The red squirrel and the grey squirrel are rodents. The red squirrel is already protected. It is a different—

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

Yes, it is a different species. As I have explained to the Committee—I shall repeat the argument so that the hon. Member for Pendle understands—this group of amendments offers the Government alternative ways out of the hole into which they have dug themselves. They could either accept the blanket exemptions in amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3 or the mechanism provided for in amendments Nos. 41 and 42, which would allow the Secretary of State to say that a particular species should be exempt from the ban on hunting with dogs. They could then bring forward a statutory instrument for the approval of Parliament to give effect to that designation.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Most terriers are, of course, colour blind. That being so, there is a great likelihood that a terrier would confuse a red squirrel with a grey squirrel, and kill a protected species. What answer does he have to that particular scenario?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

My answer is that the Government have created this mess by proposing this daft Bill. We in the Committee are trying to minimise the damage that the Bill will undoubtedly cause if it passes into law in its present form, plagued as it is with ambiguities and uncertainties.

My final point on rodents refers to the other limb of paragraph 8, which we will be able to discuss in greater detail later. That provides that the exception shall apply only if the person who is hunting owns the land on which the rodent hunting takes places or has the permission of the person who owns that land. That raises further ambiguities. What happens on a field margin if a dog crosses into another property owner's domain, possibly a property owner whose views oppose hunting with dogs? What happens if a dog roams on to public open space? The Bill must be amended to deal with those inherent ambiguities.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. The Conservative party has traditionally supported private ownership of property. Is he suggesting that people who do not want hunting on their property should none the less be obliged to allow it to take place? I want to be sure of his argument.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

No, I am certainly not making that argument. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for giving me an opportunity to clarify that. The civil law of trespass already provides remedies in such cases. I would not condone the action of someone who deliberately sets out to hunt across the property of another without permission. I am talking about the practical dilemmas faced by people such as farmers and gamekeepers who have to control rodents. Under the legislation, they would be faced with considerable uncertainty as to when they would be at risk of criminal prosecution for allowing their dogs to chase and kill rats.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Paragraph 8(3)(b) states:

which he had been permitted to use for that purpose by someone to whom the land belonged.

I cannot get my head around the phrase ``to whom the land belonged''. I have rats in my garden. If my dog went through my gate and out on to the road, which belongs to the county council, would I apply to the county council for permission? Can I assume the road belongs to me because I pay my rates? Do I have to apply to the council for access to a field it owns, or do I assume that I am a part-owner because I have paid my rates?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

The hon. Lady makes a telling point. I cannot give her an answer. We must both look to the Government for an adequate explanation of paragraph 22, in which the answer lies. That is yet another paragraph that contains considerable uncertainty and ambiguity.

I turn briefly from rodents to rabbits. Surely, much the same argument applies to rabbits as to rodents. Members of the Committee would generally accept that rabbits cause enormous damage to crops and to the bark of young trees. Why have the Government decided not to include an exception for rabbits? I cannot understand why the damage done by rabbits is considered to be more acceptable than that done by rodents. Why is there a provision in paragraph 8 for rodent control yet no provision in the schedule for rabbit control?

Amendment No. 3 deals with mink. I know that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) has strong views on the matter, and she may wish to speak later. All the evidence that I have seen indicates that, in this country, mink are vermin. Speaking personally—I am not stating my party's policy—I think that there is a strong case for treating mink as successive Governments treated coypu. That would involve a well-planned programme, including a bounty to try to eradicate the species, which is not native to these islands.

The report by Lord Burns records the damage that is done by mink. They kill domestic poultry, ducks and geese; the rise in the mink population has been linked to a decline in the population of moorhens, coots and grebes; mink have come close to eradicating colonies of some ground-nesting seabirds; and, although they are not completely responsible for the precipitate fall in the country's water vole population, the report concluded that there is no doubt that the rise in mink population has aggravated that problem.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point. It is a telling fact that mink were introduced into this country to provide the rich bourgeoisie—such as the family of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames)—with mink coats. That shows the folly of such an introduction. Will the hon. Gentleman congratulate the Government on legislating to ban fur farming?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I would be more inclined to take the hon. Gentleman's point seriously if he had been prepared to condemn the irresponsible animal rights activists who released mink from mink farms. That allowed the mink to exterminate native birds and wild mammals, which had a very damaging effect on the local fauna.

Ian Gibson (Labour, Norwich North)

At what point would the hon. Gentleman say that mink could become naturalised and able to get a passport?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

Today, of all days, is an unwise time for the hon. Gentleman to touch upon that subject.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Does my hon. Friend think that the hon. Gentleman would be able to train the mink to make a phone call to the Under-Secretary?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I would be interested to see the transcript of such a call.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Following yesterday's events, when Downing street shot the fox so quickly and ruthlessly, I now know why the Government are against the hunting of vermin; they think that it is much easier to shoot them.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I think that it would be better if I concentrated on mink.

The study that was submitted to the Burns inquiry by Professor Macdonald and other scientists showed that, in the Thames catchment area in 1990, mink were uncommon and water voles were found on about three quarters of the sites that they had previously occupied. However, by 1995, only five years later, there had been a rapid increase in mink numbers, along with a catastrophic decline in the water vole population. The scientists pointed out that there were no sites in that catchment area where the two species co-existed.

I accept the Burns report's conclusion that far fewer mink are killed by hunting than by shooting or trapping, but the report also found that hunting mink with hounds could have a significant impact on local mink populations. Before we outlaw mink hunting, we should reflect—as Burns advised us to do with regard to all species—on the cruelty of hunting compared with other methods of control.

In his research report that is published on the CD-Rom accompanying the Burns report, Professor Macdonald commented that:

Trapping is the main method of mink control in Britain, and is widely recommended.

He added that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food recommended trapping, and stated:

Traps must be checked daily, ideally first thing in the morning. Live-caught mink must be killed, as it is illegal to release them back into the wild.

For humane killing, the relevant authorities recommend using a rifle, shot-pistol, or shotgun. However, Professor Macdonald also noted that,

in practice it is not always easy to shoot a small, moving, target within a cage, and some practitioners simply drown the animals; this is particularly cruel.

Even if live traps were inspected every day, a wild animal could be caged for up to 24 hours. Therefore, in considering the relative cruelty of different methods of control, it is necessary to weigh carefully whether hunting mink with hounds is less humane than a greater use of traps—or, possibly, snares—which involve, at best, the incarceration of wild mammals in small boxes where they become very distressed over many hours before finally being dispatched by an uncertain method. Between 400 and 1,400 mink are killed each year by hunting with hounds. On its own, that is not sufficient as a means of control, but it does contribute significantly to controlling this pest species.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

The hon. Gentleman has said that hunting with hounds contributes to controlling mink, but paragraph 5.121 of the Burns report states that:

hunting does not have any significant effect on the mink population at a national or regional level.

Burns is clear on that point. Does the hon. Gentleman disagree with it?

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I accept the Burns report's conclusion. The Under-Secretary should read the sentence after the one that he has quoted, which states that:

It can, however, lead to temporary reductions in the mink population in specific localities.

I think that that conclusion was largely based on the report by Professor Macdonald and his colleagues, which says that hunting with mink hounds has enabled the mink population to be brought under a measure of control in areas where they are particularly damaging pests.

If the objective is to exterminate mink, following a reduction in the population by hunting, other methods of control such as trapping will also come into play. However, the scientists and Burns himself say that it would be very difficult to entirely eradicate mink.

I have tabled amendments Nos. 41 and 42 to offer the Government an alternative to the three earlier amendments, which seek to introduce exceptions for single species. However, having tabled those two amendments, I and other colleagues received a letter from the National Gamekeepers Organisation that drew my attention to something of which I was unaware: gamekeepers' use of dogs to control other species.

The writer of the letter, Mr. Nodder, refers in particular to stoats. He says that, in upland areas of Britain, up to a quarter of the stoats that gamekeepers kill are hunted with, and caught by, dogs. He describes stoat control using dogs as an essential measure for the conservation of wild birds. Paragraph 1 of schedule 3 would ban it. Stoats are Mustelids, and so are not subject to the rodent exception in paragraph 8. Mr. Nodder points out that, in some areas, grouse management—essential to upland conservation, yet already subject to severe pressures—would cease to be economically viable if stoat control became more difficult than at present.

I hope that the Government, having heard what hon. Members say, will reflect on the all-embracing nature of the offence described in paragraph 1. There is a strong case for them to consider either amendments Nos.1 to 3, which offer exemptions for certain categories of species, or amendments Nos. 41 and 42, which propose a scheme for the designation of excepted species. If the Government are unwilling to reconsider their current approach, I fear that those rural people for whose work in pest control is essential will be exposed to ambiguity and uncertainty over their risk of criminal prosecution. They might also be deprived of the means of carrying out pest control, which is essential for the successful continuation of rural enterprises such as those mentioned in the letter from the National Gamekeepers Organisation.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

I shall first deal with the question of rabbits. A friend of mine, and a member of the Labour party executive, frequently goes rabbiting and uses the rabbits to feed his dogs. When I explained to him that he would no longer be able to go rabbiting unless he took a gun, he said that, although he did shoot, he would not like to do that. He asked why he would need to take a gun. I explained that he could use the dog to flush out the rabbit, but would then have to get both dog and rabbit to sit down so that he could shoot the rabbit—or the dog, if it moved. He said, ``But that's crazy. How can I stop the dog chasing the rabbit?'' As the expression goes, ``Let the dog see the rabbit.'' My friend cannot understand why the Labour party, which he supports so strongly, wants to stop him rabbiting.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Will the hon. Lady clarify which member of the Labour party National Executive she is referring to? Was it the Prime Minister?

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

I am afraid that I do not have much contact with the Labour party National Executive. I was referring to a member of my constituency executive.

The next campaign of the League Against Cruel Sports is to ban guns.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

And fishing?

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Well, fishing as well, but guns first. I told my friend that if that organisation should get its way, he would not even be able to take his gun when he went rabbiting. I understand that, on Tuesday, there was some debate about whether the LACS did have such an intention, but I have here a national petition that it has organised, asking for all guns to be banned.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

My hon. Friend repeats comments that Opposition Members have made but which are not true—although one could be excused for thinking that they are, if one believes everything in the newspapers. As I understand it, the LACS does not have such a policy. It would be difficult for the league to argue for that policy, given that it recommends that foxes should be shot. How on earth can it say that foxes should be shot as a means of control yet wish to ban people from carrying guns?

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

If one casts a fly on the water one will often get a fish to rise.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

My hon. Friend sounds like a follow-up to Eric Cantona.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Who is Eric Cantona?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

I am still replying to my hon. Friend. He is assuming that the League Against Cruel Sports is logical. It is not. It is working down the line, and I am convinced that it will go for shooting next, then fishing.

I have here the petition from LACS, which asks people to return it to them at an address that is difficult to read—I think that it is in Union street, somewhere in London.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

West Ham.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Yes, somewhere or other. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham is welcome to have a copy of the petition.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

What does it say about banning guns?

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

It says:

How many more people have to die before all guns are banned?

How much more wildlife will be lost before all guns are banned?

How many more tons of toxic lead shot will be spread over our countryside before all guns are banned?

So where is its logic in saying that foxes should be shot?

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

The hon. Lady has made some good points. Many of her colleagues refuse to accept that LACS has such an agenda. It argues that lead shot is poisoning the countryside, and people who want to abolish fishing complain that the lead weights on fishing lines get into swans, ducks and other fish. So if lead poisoning is an argument for banning guns, it is also an argument for banning fishing. The hon. Lady is therefore right to suggest that those will be the next steps.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Lead is banned for fishermen; they no longer use it.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

It would have been a good argument.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

It would have been.

I return to my favourite subject: mink. The Burns report says that mink hunting does not have a sufficient effect—

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Significant.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Significant effect, thank you. The report says that hunting does not have a significant effect on the population of mink in the countryside. No, it does not. However, at least those who hunt are trying to do something about it. If they are banned from doing so, many more mink will be running around and breeding. Mink have no natural predators other than man, and unless man does something about them, they will continue to breed and to destroy much of our indigenous wildlife. That raises the question of who is responsible for ensuring that mink are eradicated.

I received a letter from the NRA—the National Rivers Authority—stating that

The control of mink has in fact always been a responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, not of NRA

—nothing to do with us, guv. In response, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food told me:

It is entirely at the discretion of individual landowners/occupiers to decide whether they wish to control mink on their land.

The letter goes on to say that the Ministry will ``provide advice''. In other words, it will not do anything about the problem, but it will give people leaflets about it. So who is doing something about it? The answer is nobody other than the mink packs.

East Dorset district council sent a letter to its local mink pack, stating:

Thank you for . . . helping us to control the population of mink on the Moors Valley River. It was good to see the hounds working and the excellent way you kept them under control. We will contact you again if we have further reports of mink in the future.

It appreciates the damage that is done to rivers and the effect of mink hounds.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

As the hon. Lady knows, I support and endorse everything that she has said about mink. However, on waters that are keepered because they are run by, for example, fishing clubs, or on private waters where a riparian owner may fish and employ a keeper, mink will be controlled properly. On other waters, which provide the public with much pleasure, there is no keepering or control, so mink have a baleful effect on fish stocks and the river bank. Does she agree that that is a further reason why the Bill is an enemy of conservation?

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

I agree with many of the hon. Gentleman's comments. The banning of mink hunts is unconnected to conservation. In fact, it encourages mink to reproduce and destroy many indigenous species.

On the fishing question, there is no way in which to trap mink in an estuary because its tidal waters will drown them. We have had many floods this year, so if traps had been set, they would have drowned mink caught in them. Furthermore, traps have to be checked once every 24 hours to ensure that they are freshly baited. In flood conditions, mink will not go near traps, which are impossible to examine when they are underwater. Those problems affect estuaries all year round, and rivers when they flood.

Traps are expensive to manage and control because they must be supplied with live bait. A person—I almost said a man—must inspect them every 24 hours and, the last time that I asked, they cost about £25, although they are probably more expensive now. That is what must be done to control mink, but few riparian owners are prepared to do it.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

On the question of mink trapping, is my hon. Friend not contradicted by page 105 of the Burns report? The document states:

Mink do not appear to be particularly trap-shy and trapping can therefore be a relatively efficient means of control provided that the trap is well placed.

It also states:

There are no firm data on the numbers of mink killed by trapping but research shows that intensive trapping in an area can remove most of the local population.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

My hon. Friend underlines my remarks: it is expensive—

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

But it works.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

It can work, if someone is prepared to do it, if someone is prepared to pay for it, if someone is prepared to employ a temporary keeper to manage the traps and if there is no flooding. All those factors have to be combined, so in an ideal world it could be effective. In the real world, however, it cannot be effective.

Eliminating mink hounds will cause a problem in the countryside that no one is prepared to deal with rationally. One can deal with isolated instances of mink, but there must be people who are prepared to pay for traps.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

This group of amendments seeks in a general way to address the problems of gamekeepers, farmers, farm workers and pest-control contractors. I see great merit in that approach, because it will address the fear of prosecution, which the hon. Member for West Ham seems not to appreciate. If the exemption is of a general character, and qualified, if it has to be, to avoid attempts to get round the Bill's basic purpose, people can carry on their jobs. If we must rely on later amendments tabled by various members of the Committee to deal with specific anomalies, others will still not be covered and those carrying on legitimate and necessary activities will be in constant fear of prosecution, relying on the belief, ``The authorities wouldn't prosecute, would they?'' That is no basis on which somebody running a small pest control business can invest in a van or equipment to do his job. It is no basis on which a gamekeeper can hope to keep his job. A gamekeeper who finds himself in court does not stay in his job very long.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

The right hon. Gentleman is labouring the point. No one in the Committee will object to sensible amendments that address serious issues, but he should not try to make a serious point by using ludicrous examples. First, as I said in an earlier intervention, and as the right hon. Gentleman must know, the Crown Prosecution Service will consider any possible prosecution carefully and always needs to believe that it can succeed. Secondly, the prosecution must have a public-interest element to it.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Like me, the hon. Gentleman is fortunate in receiving his salary from the Fees Office at the end of every month and in knowing perfectly well that he can carry on doing his job. If he were a small pest control contractor, he would not be able to afford the luxury of assuming that the CPS, which is always sensible about such matters, never takes unwise prosecutions or uses maliciously provided and false evidence to generate a prosecution that may ultimately fail and land the individual in court.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I want to answer the hon. Member for West Ham before I give way.

It will not do for the hon. Gentleman to say to people who are often much less well paid than us or whose job has the insecurity of a small rural business, ``I can assure you it's all right. Don't worry. Nobody will take a risky prosecution.'' Life is not like that, and some people know it. I come back to the point about the employed gamekeeper. If he lands in court too often, his employer will not want to keep him on the books. So, every day that the gamekeeper goes about his work, in fair weather or foul, he must watch for the whole time that he not only does not engage in animal cruelty, which is rightly punishable by law, but does not stray over the extraordinary boundaries of law that will be created by many provisions in the Bill.

Mr. Garnier rose—

Mr. Soames rose—

Mr. Maples rose—

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I am spoilt for choice; too many hon. Members want me to give way. I shall give way to the first applicant.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

One problem with the intervention of the hon. Member for West Ham is that he is relying on the prosecutor's restraint. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that that is particularly inappropriate in the case of hunting, because cases will be investigated and prosecuted by organisations and individuals other than the police and the CPS. Nothing in the Bill prohibits the laying of an information in the local court; nothing in the Bill prevents private prosecutions. I am sure that it is those that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Yes, and those who want to ensure that the Bill is enforced. I do not complain about them doing so. Indeed, over the years, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has done valuable work in rightly bringing matters to court and drawing attention to cruelty when it occurs. However, if we create a law that criminalises the genuine activity of people working in the countryside to control pests and vermin or simply to keep animal numbers at a sustainable level, we will allow prosecutions to be prompted by organisations seeking to enforce such general legislation, which adds further to the risk.

No assurance can be given in Committee on which anyone in any of the jobs to which I have referred can safely or confidently rely. Even a ministerial assurance, which would be helpful, is not good enough if the genuine fear of prosecution exists.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Surely another problem for gamekeepers or farmers is that, under the exemptions in paragraph 7, they must prove their innocence. The Bill reverses the burden of proof: the person charged must prove that their activity falls under one of the exemptions. That is an unreasonable way of loading the question. The amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), which I understand the right hon. Gentleman supports, would remove that problem and make it clear that, in some instances, such activity was not an offence under the Bill.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Absolutely; that saves me having to make that point. The general character of the exemptions and the tabling of other amendments to shift the burden of proof are all reasonable attempts to enable people to go about their work without fear of prosecution. I underline the fact that the work of such people is already covered by a great deal of law and there are many restrictions by which they have to abide—some thoroughly justified—in order to protect the public or animal welfare.

Within the last month, a gamekeeper who used poison, which is rightly illegal, was prosecuted and convicted in my constituency. That process must take place. Gamekeepers must ensure that they abide by the law all the time, but we are imposing on them what they will regard unreasonable burdens that are not consistent with doing the job properly.

We shall attempt later to deal with the anomalies that we have so far discovered. More are referred to in the letter to hon. Members from the National Gamekeepers Organisation, and more will come to light on the basis of experience when the Bill has completed its stages in the Commons. That is why it is valuable to try to achieve a more general change in the character of the Bill—so that those engaged in legitimate pursuits are fully protected.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I warmly support the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether he was present during our sitting on Tuesday afternoon when I raised with the Minister the question of a lady from Essex, who had written to me. With farmers, she uses her lurchers to control rabbits in Maldon, and earns her living doing so. Her position would be unclear and she would be wrongly liable to criminal prosecution.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I heard that example raised and, when I got back to my office, I found a copy of the same letter waiting on my desk. The hon. Gentleman was quicker then me to read his mail that day.

Certainly in my constituency, many small businesses are involved in activities such as pest control. It is a long-established practice; the mole catcher is a well known feature of the countryside. In other areas of pest control, small businesses employ people to control pests. They do not deserve to have to live under the constant fear of prosecution from badly drafted law or legislation which, if unamended, will impinge on their legitimate activities, to which dogs are central. We must remember that such people work with animals all the time and that their best friend and constant working companion is one or more dogs, whose breed and characteristics are crucial to the work.

Many of those activities have been supported and encouraged by Governments over the years. I remember when the Government supported rabbit clearance societies in order to deal with the constant problem of rabbits in the countryside. That assistance is no longer available. Nobody will ever exterminate rabbits from the countryside or would want to do so, but the countryside cannot sustain the rabbit population that arises if there is no control. The rabbit population must be controlled, and dogs are one means of achieving that.

Squirrels have been introduced into the proceedings slightly irrelevantly. I do not know of anybody who would attempt to hunt squirrels with dogs. Not many dogs have the squirrel's tree-climbing capacity. My constituency, alas, has become one of the battlegrounds between the red and the grey squirrels. In my early days as a Member of Parliament, I never saw a grey squirrel in my constituency—only red ones. I now see both, but I point out to the hon. Member for West Ham that I have never seen the two species in the same tree at the same time. We are seeking to address the problem by selective feeding devices, using feeders that the red squirrel can use but the grey squirrel cannot. That is one delicate issue of countryside management. The Bill probably has relatively little bearing on it, as dogs are not used, but it illustrates the difficulty and delicacy of such work, and to that extent it is relevant to consideration of the use of dogs.

I welcome the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Aylesbury because they would provide a broader exemption. Without them, the Bill—I do not believe that it will be enacted—would cast a shadow and pose a threat to many people engaged in legitimate work in the countryside.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed rightly referred to the need to tackle badly drafted legislation, as he called it, and the anomalies and weaknesses that he detects in the Bill. However, in supporting the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Aylesbury, he is in effect seeking to introduce other weaknesses.

I agree with much of what has been said about the need to tackle the rabbit problem. My garden has been completely wiped out twice by rabbits, so I have no reason to be particularly fond of them, even if they do keep the lawn cut. Nor do I have a quarrel with what was said about rodents or mink. However, the amendments would enable those who wish to hunt animals that are set apart from hunting to find a cover. Amendments to paragraph 1 would allow people to argue that, in hunting rabbits to control them, the dogs mistakenly pursued a hare or fox while temporarily out of sight. The countryside in which such activities take place is not like a bowling green, where one can see everything that is going on. It is complex territory, full of holes, rocks and so on.

The amendments would provide a built-in excuse for hunters who wish to hunt in a way that is proscribed. They would be able to pretend that, in catching something else, they were in fact hunting rats. In a subsequent court case, their position would be relatively simple to defend. In the case of mink, they could say, ``Sorry, your honour, we set out to hunt mink but in fact we caught an otter. It was one of those things—we couldn't prevent the dogs from turning at the last moment.''

I do not underestimate the seriousness of what right hon. and hon. Members are saying about the problems caused by rodents and rabbits, but excepting such animals from the Bill would only weaken it. I know that some oppose the Bill lock, stock and barrel, but it is the will of the House to legislate for a ban, and it is our duty to make that ban operable. The amendments would prevent that.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

The hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding the effect of the amendments. If amendment No. 2, for example, were accepted, paragraph 1 would state:

A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal other than a rabbit with a dog.

Someone who in practice hunted an animal that was not covered by the exception would be committing an offence, so the amendment would not cause the doubt to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I agree that that is what the amendment is trying to achieve, but in practice it would enable someone who does not agree with the law to make the plausible excuse in court that they were hunting rabbit and did not intend to catch hare. In my district, hares and rabbits live side by side in large numbers. Someone might say that at the last moment their dog caught a hare: it went down a hole chasing mammal A, and unfortunately caught mammal B.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am trying to understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. He seems to be suggesting that people will use the amendment's proposal as a loophole and say that they were actually chasing rabbits. In the unlikely event that that is what they wanted, they could simply say, equipped with the Bill's part II exceptions and paragraph 8, which states:

It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under paragraph 1 to prove that—the conduct to which the charge relates consisted of hunting rodents

``I was hunting rodents.'' I do not see the difference.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

The hon. Gentleman is quite right and we must look at that because it presents precisely the same sort of anomaly.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the exception to which I referred on page 21—the hunting of rodents—is a weakness of the Bill and that he may want to return to the matter and take that exception out?

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I confess that I shall again be looking carefully at that paragraph, but I am not suggesting that it should be taken out, because rodent control is important. However, it must not be used as a plausible excuse in the way that I described.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury is entirely consistent with paragraph 8(1)(a)?

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

Amendment No. 1 covers the entire Bill, not simply paragraph 8. It covers every type of hunting. This debate so far has concentrated on gamekeeping and low or modest pest control.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

My hon. Friend has just said that he considers rodent control to be important. Is he saying that control of rabbits and mink is not important?

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I do not think that I said that. I opened my remarks by saying that the control of rabbits in particular is desperately important. I have no direct experience of mink in my area, so I fight shy of saying anything definitive about that. I have read the literature, seen video footage and so on, but I have not experienced the matter for myself. I do not underestimate the problem of mink in some areas—particularly in connection with fisheries.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

May I read to the hon. Gentleman paragraph 1? It states:

A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog.

Paragraph 8(1) says:

It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under paragraph 1 to prove that . . . the conduct to which the charge relates consisted of hunting rodents

and so on. I may be being obtuse, but is not amendment No. 1 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury entirely consistent with that?

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

Paragraph 1 covers the entire Bill and creates an offence. Paragraph 8 says that proving that one is dealing with rodents is a defence, as are other activities under the exceptions in paragraph 7. The amendment would create an offence, then make a blanket exception to it. That is different from starting with the creation of the offence and subsequently allowing defences, as paragraph 8 reasonably does.

On mink, the hon. Member for Aylesbury quoted the comment in the Burns report that hunting mink is a temporary control in specific localities. That creates a mechanism for the renewal of the mink population to provide constant prey for hunting—a situation that might develop anyway, given the descriptions of fisheries by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and by Opposition Members. That is different from a hunt being used, in effect, to create a constant supply of mammals to destroy, as the amendments would allow.

I shall briefly comment on the point adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. She resurrected the argument that when this is all over, the League Against Cruel Sports, or another of the organisations that she mentioned, will start to campaign for the abolition of guns, fishing and so on. Of course, some people in those organisations will say that they want to do that. However, they would require a public and political consensus, which does not exist on this side of the Committee or in anything other than a tiny minority of Members of Parliament.

The speciousness of the argument rests on the fact that we would never legislate for anything on that basis. Whatever law is proposed, its opponents step forward and say, ``If you do that, you'll want to do this next week. You want to ban tobacco advertising—next year it'll be advertising booze, then make-up or chocolate, which is worse for you than cigarettes.'' I know that Oppositions use that argument, because I often did so when we were in opposition. It is irrational to attack a piece of legislation by saying that further, tougher legislation on other matters will be introduced subsequently. Such a piece of legislation exists in its own right to deal with a specific problem.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

The Government introduced legislation to control the use of guns, yet the Bill encourages the use of guns in the countryside. If one goes rabbiting, one has to take a gun.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

The legislation concerned handguns.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

One is just as dead if one is shot by a handgun as by any other kind of gun. It is strange to control something with one piece of legislation, then introduce another piece of legislation that encourages it.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

The legislation was intended to stop the use of handguns. During the passage of that Bill, it was said time and again, ``This is only the start. Next week it will be another type of gun.''

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

My hon. Friend may recall that, at that time, the Government took great care clearly to state that they had no intention whatever of interfering with the necessary use of guns in relation to countryside activities. Their purpose was to remove handguns from people who had no excuse for possessing them.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

My right hon. Friend and I served on the Committee that considered that Bill, and I remember it well.

Throughout the debate, the argument has centred on alternatives to hunting with dogs. That is what we have been talking about, Opposition Members included. The basis of the argument is the efficacy of the type of hunting concerned. The opponents of the Bill say, ``Farmers can't shoot straight. They only half kill the fox''—or whatever animal it may be. The farmers in my area seem to be perfectly good shots.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to listen to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson)—

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at Two o'clock.

Standing Committee B

Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following amendments: No. 2, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert `other than a rabbit'.

No. 3, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert `other than a mink'.

No. 41, in page 19, line 28, after `mammal', insert

`other than one of a species designated in paragraph 2'.

No. 42, in page 19, line 28, at end insert—

`2.—(1) The Secretary of State may by order designate species of wild animal to which paragraph 1 does not apply.

(2) An order under this paragraph

(a) shall be made by statutory instrument, and

(b) shall not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by each House of Parliament.'.

As it is quite warm in the Room, gentlemen may remove their jackets if they so wish. For the comfort of the Committee, I am proposing to suspend the sitting for approximately 15 minutes at 4 o'clock or thereabouts because it appears that we have a long afternoon and early evening ahead of us.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I believe that I was being intervened on.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I would like to continue with the point that I had begun to put to him before we adjourned. As I understand it, he was saying that there were alternative methods for culling vermin and foxes. I was drawing his attention to some remarks made last Wednesday by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) last Wednesday. My hon. Friend said:

Last weekend, I visited the members of one of the gun packs in the area above Oswestry. They kill 250 foxes a season and they are skilled people. They use shotguns with BB shot, but only 20 per cent. of the foxes that they kill are killed outright with the first shot; the rest have to pursued by hounds. Therefore, the evidence that I have given shows that lamping and shooting are certainly not less cruel than hunting.

I accept as bona fide the desire of the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) to dispose of foxes in the least cruel way. However, from the evidence of my hon. Friend, shooting is not necessarily less cruel than hunting with hounds.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I took the opportunity to read the speech of the hon. Member for North Shropshire. It completely ruined my lunch. On the Burns report recommendation that lamping could be the most effective method for disposing of foxes, he said:

Obviously, a marksman—I have yet to meet a marksman in the country, although I have lived there all my life—in broad daylight, with a rifle, in good weather conditions, would probably kill a fox outright.—[Official Report, 17 January 2001; Vol. 631, c. 429.]

He qualifies his statement, saying that weather conditions have to be good for shooting to be an effective method.

I do not just dismiss what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) is saying about the alternative methods. Clearly, shooting, poisoning and trapping are all fallible methods in particular circumstances. They are bound to be, and I will come to that directly.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

I assume that my hon. Friend is arguing that there is a difference between lamping going wrong accidentally and inflicting pain, and the intentional and cruel infliction of pain for the purposes of entertainment.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I am coming to that. It is important, and I am glad that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary thinks in that way. Of course, the intention of any of the relevant activities is important and that is enshrined in the Bill.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

A Labour party member told me at lunch time that he goes lamping and uses a .243 rifle, which is the sort that killed Kennedy. He questioned whether we really wanted people with such high-powered rifles going about the countryside so that foxes can be killed cleanly.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

Apparently, my hon. Friend's acquaintance is already doing that, which somewhat dilutes her argument.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) led us into a discussion of alternative methods that I understood him to argue were unsatisfactory in various ways. It is true that alternatives to hunting with dogs are explicitly and implicitly allowed for by the Bill. The arguments against those methods centre on their efficiency. There are many different views on the topic. In my part of the world, a large rural area, there is no hunt, but there are foxes. They do not pose a serious problem and are kept under control by farmers. By and large, they are shot. I hear occasional complaints; not long ago, my secretary's cat was eaten, she maintains, by a fox. However, by and large, there is not a problem and shooting is obviously reasonably effective in the area.

Whatever the argument about the merits and demerits of different methods, alternatives exist. They do not involve the killing of animals for sport or pleasure. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has pointed out that they are methods of pest control. My previous argument was that the exceptions that would be inserted into the first line of a fundamental provision of the Bill, if the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) were accepted, would create a loophole. They would give many people who wanted to continue hunting with dogs for sport a plausible way of converting a pest control episode into a sporting event that could well end in the killing of a mammal that was not exempted by the amendments.

I respect the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and his defence and detailed knowledge of the gamekeepers and pest controllers in his constituency. However, the ban on hunting with dogs has been clearly on the cards since the Labour manifesto of 1997. I do not underestimate the ingenuity of farmers, gamekeepers and others in adapting their methods to take account of a ban. Because of the unsatisfactory way in which the Government have pursued their manifesto commitment, those people have had considerably more time to think about how to adapt than some of us might have wished.

The timing of what we are doing now, and may still have to do, may provide them with more time. Who knows what ingenious methods they will come up with—acceptable and, no doubt, unacceptable—for pursuing their chosen activities? Perhaps it is too fanciful to imagine that, in 50 years, we will be passing a Bill to prevent hunting with packs of cats, but they will find other methods, and I hope that those will be acceptable.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I acknowledge that we are here to discuss a banning option; that was accepted earlier. However, why is it acceptable under the Bill to kill a rodent, but not a mink or rabbit, with dogs?

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I do not think that killing a fox, hare, rabbit or mink with dogs is an efficient or effective method of keeping down those populations. I pray in aid the intervention by the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) on the hon. Member for North Shropshire, who agreed with him. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said:

Is not my hon. Friend's reference to healthy mature foxes terribly important? Is it not the truth that foxhunters, on the whole, kill elderly and infirm foxes? If those animals were shot, there would be indiscriminate culling, including that of healthy and young beasts. —[Official Report, 17 January 2001; Vol. 361, c. 429.]

I understand what he is saying; in a sense, it supports Opposition Members' comments on the weaknesses of some alternative methods of keeping. He is saying that foxhunting, which is the most important matter for some, although not for me, is not effective in controlling robust populations of foxes, and that in fact, it is not even intended to do so. All that it does is pick up a few elderly and infirm animals, allowing the rest of the population—if it is a nuisance—to grow. We cannot have it both ways; hunting is either effective in keeping down a pest—I do not believe a fox to be a pest all the time, although it is in some circumstances—or it is totally ineffective, because it catches only the ones with three legs.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Gentleman may be under the misapprehension that the sole purpose of foxhunting is to kill foxes. Foxhunting is carried out not just to kill foxes where necessary, but to disperse the fox population. A dispersed fox population is less damaging to farming than a concentrated one. Of course part of the purpose of foxhunting is to kill foxes, but it is not the sole purpose.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

That is not how I understand the fox population to operate. The fox is a territorial animal and expands its activities to suit the territory available. If the territory becomes empty of foxes, others move in from elsewhere. Indeed, part of the argument made by pro-hunters has been that foxes are almost a self-balancing population and that foxhunting is marginal to that. With urban foxes, of course, it is a different matter.

I very much respect my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) for her consistency, particularly on the issue of mink. Time and again in Parliament, she has pointed out the dangers of over-large mink populations, yet she desires, by supporting the amendments, to make mink hunting an exception to the overall ban. I remember her saying in a previous debate that mink could run like a fox, swim like a fish and climb like a squirrel—

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

A monkey.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I am sorry; climb like a monkey. That is rather less elegant. She presents, therefore, a picture of a mammal, with which, as I said, I am not personally familiar in my part of the world, that is very difficult to hunt with dogs. If pursued by dogs, they are pursued along waterways. They are mainly hunted in spring and summer, when other creatures inhabiting the same territory are busy breeding and flourishing and will be disturbed by the hunt.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

They are disturbed by the mink.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

They are disturbed by the mink, too. The mink is a solitary animal and has a territory of about a mile or so.

The report ``Managing British Mammals'', which was produced at the behest of Burns, points out that the different countryside interests want mink control for different reasons. The farmers believe that it is a predator of poultry and the fisheries believe that is a predator of fish; no doubt it is. Those with forestry interests, however, believe that no controls are needed.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

My hon. Friend referred to contract 5, produced by the university of York at Heslington, on the management of the mink population. That tells us that there has been only one study on the effectiveness of hunting with dogs as a means of controlling mink. However, the study ran for five years. It revealed that two-thirds of the mink located by the hounds managed to escape, because they hid away in secure refuges—in rocks or under trees—where the dogs could not get at them. That demonstrates again that hunting mink with dogs is an ineffective method of control.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I had not seen that before. I know that when mink hide in banks, the banks are dug out and stripped and tremendous damage is done to the riverside. It is not an effective method, and alternatives must be looked at.

Ian Cawsey (Labour, Brigg and Goole)

Is my hon. Friend aware that research now shows that where otter numbers have recovered because of a ban on hunting with dogs, they have re-claimed their natural aquatic territory and have moved the mink out, and that therefore mink numbers have fallen? That ban has been much more effective than hunting with dogs.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

We used to hunt otters.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham that it was otter hunting that first interested me in this issue. As a boy in the Lake district, I was horrified by the activity and participated in non-violent protests against it. At the time, it was argued that if otters were protected from the hunt, the next step would be—and so on and so on. That was in 1968; a long time ago.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Mink tend to disappear when otters are present, but they do not disappear into thin air. They go on to fresh territories and do even more damage. Mink hunts report sightings of otters, in order that the otters can be protected. Hunts protect the environment as well as get rid of the mink.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I am in danger of getting into a circular argument. We are likely to have more otters if the hunt does not keep charging up and down their territory ostensibly looking for something else. Otters might be a more effective alternative control than anything else we have had so far.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

I want to underline my hon. Friend's point, which was missed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. The academic study that I referred to earlier referred to the concern that hunting with dogs in areas where otters and mink co-exist will disturb the otters and prevent them from re-colonising areas where they are scarce. We have not hunted otters since 1975, and it is presence of the dogs that will cause the otters to flee from their natural habitat.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for correcting me about the date. I thought we had succeeded in ending the practice earlier than that.

David Lepper (Labour/Co-operative, Brighton, Pavilion)

Does my hon. Friend agree that our hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Lyme is right to say that mink do not disappear into thin air? Nevertheless, paragraph 5.97 on page 102 of the Burns report states:

Following an initial rapid increase in the population, there is now evidence that mink numbers have reduced substantially in the last ten years. This seems to have coincided with a resurgence in the otter population.

That seems to underline the point made by my hon. Friend.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I agree. That saves me quoting paragraph 5.97, as I intended to.

Ian Cawsey (Labour, Brigg and Goole)

Displaced mink will move away, but the countryside is not full of homeless mink selling copies of The Big Issue. Research shows that their breeding regime has changed because they have moved out of their natural habitat. As a consequence, their numbers have fallen. I am sure that if my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme went to the Library, the staff would be able to give her information on that.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I thank my hon. Friend for his information.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Two thousand mink were released from a fur farm in Onneley, and they tramped all over my constituency, damaging wildlife, cats, ducks and everything else around. The endangered species charity Tusk Force warned that 94 per cent. of water vole nesting sites would have disappeared by 2000 due to habitat degeneration and predators. There can be academic theories, but people who study endangered species day after day have entirely different findings. The water vole is certainly an endangered species.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

The water vole may be an endangered species, and I have no doubt that the average mink would relish as many water voles as it could get hold of. I have no time for the people who let the mink loose from that farm and on to the countryside, as I imagine that no Labour Member does. It was an appalling and stupid act, from all points of view. Of course, one reason for it was the existence of the mink farm; the animals had to be there to be let out in the first place. That is another reason why we should ban mink farming.

I have been led astray—it is not unusual—but I shall return to the report by Dr. Macdonald's group from Oxford university, which was used, if not commissioned, by Burns. I tried to paraphrase from memory what it said about mink and could not, so I shall clarify the matter. The report gives reasons from the various interest groups for the control of mink by one means or another. Farmers say that they predate poultry and game managers say that they predate game. Foresters say that there is no reason to control mink, but fisheries managers say that they predate fish. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said, conservationists say that they predate the water vole and wild birds. Either the groups concerned cannot make up their minds why the animal is a pest, or together they present a picture of an omnivorous animal that is infinitely adaptable, which suggests the difficulty of hunting it with dogs.

The amendments would render much of paragraph 8 redundant, which may be a good thing. It may be what the hon. Member for Aylesbury wants to do. Paragraph 8 contains nothing that would prevent an offence of ostensibly pursuing a rodent, rabbit or mink as a cover for killing another animal that is included in the Bill. Paragraph 1 seems to go much further towards doing so. Admittedly, it would be hard to imagine deer being included in that argument, but smaller mammals certainly are. The hon. Gentleman seeks to drive a coach and horses through the Bill with this and later amendments. For instance, amendment No. 49 converts a defence against such an offence into a permission. The amendments would result in a substantial recreation of the Bill.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I cannot speculate about the motives of the hon. Member for Aylesbury, although I agree that some later amendments would contradict what the House has agreed. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and others of us genuinely feel—even in the spirit of a ban on hunting with dogs—that some of the mammals listed in the amendments could justifiably be hunted with dogs if, for the reasons already stated, we allowed rodents to be hunted with dogs?

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I can see that there might be justifiable reasons for hunting them, pursuing them or putting them down, but I do not agree that it would be justifiable to hunt them with dogs for pleasure or sport and not simply for the control of pests.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that regardless of whether it is immoral, it is all right to control such pests as long as the people doing it do not enjoy themselves? That is what many of us suspect. It seems that opposition to hunting is not about animal welfare but about the motives of those doing it.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

They may well enjoy the pest control aspect—who knows?—but that is not their primary purpose. Their purpose is to get rid of a pest. It is human nature to enjoy being a good shot, or to practise it and get better; the primary purpose of pursuing a mammal for the pleasure of killing it leads us to legislate. The purpose of the Bill is to prevent the unnecessary cruelty that takes place when destroying animals. If it is necessary to destroy pests, we do it. I hope that it is done in the most efficient and least cruel manner. The amendments would create anomalies that might render the Bill impossible to implement. I hope that my hon. Friends will resist them.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I ask the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) whether she can help us. Yesterday, in exchanges with the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks), there seemed to be some confusion about the status of Mr. Sirl of the League Against of Cruel Sports, who was described in the Western Daily Press as the west country operations executive. The hon. Member for West Ham suggested that simply because that league official was quoted in the newspaper and was described by the office that he holds did not necessarily represent the policy or views of the league itself. From 1983 to 1995, the hon. Member for Basildon was employed by the League Against Cruel Sports as its political and public relations officer.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

She was a very good one.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am sure that she was extremely good at it. She may want to speak later—she may want to intervene now—to explain whether Mr. Sirl's remarks as west country officer for the League Against Cruel Sports are his views only or the views also of the league? Is he acting off his own bat, or is he demonstrating his employer's policy to the newspaper's readers?

My second point, which concerns prosecutions, again relates to an intervention involving the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and the hon. Member for West Ham. The hon. Gentleman said—I might be paraphrasing—that the Crown Prosecution Service and the police will not mount silly, frivolous or strange prosecutions. However, as I pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman, cases will be investigated and prosecuted by individuals and organisations other than the police and the CPS. As I understand it, nothing in the Bill will prevent private prosecution—although the Minister might tell me otherwise.

Moreover, in pursuing their campaigns and political agendas, individuals—legitimately and entirely within the law—might want to test and extend the legislation's boundaries as far as they can. The Bill will allow the courts to restrict the scope of the offence, but that should be the function of Parliament. In any event, case law could develop in the higher courts only on appeal from magistrates. That often happens after a conviction, when the dissatisfied but convicted defendant wishes to take the matter to appeal. For someone who has paid a hefty fine and had his dog taken away and possibly destroyed, it will be little consolation to learn months or even years later—perhaps from the divisional court, the House of Lords or even the European Court of Human Rights—that no offence was committed after all.

It might be instructive to remind the Committee of the words of the now unfortunately deceased Lord Reid in the case of Warner v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner. They are reported in the second volume of the all-England report for 1968, which the Under-Secretary doubtless keeps by this bedside. Lord Reid states:

I dissent emphatically from the view that Parliament can be supposed to have been of the opinion that it could be left to the discretion of the police not to prosecute, or that if there was a prosecution justice would only be served by a nominal penalty being imposed.

There is an identifiable problem. Despite the caution of the hon. Member for West Ham, individuals or organisations will want to push ahead with cases that are, as it were, on the margin, with a view to pursuing their campaigns and political agendas. There is very little that we can do to stop that.

A further point relates to paragraph 1 and the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, which I support. Under paragraphs 7 to 12, the Bill provides for exceptions; my hon. Friend's amendments merely add to them. I hope that all members of the Committee will understand that, as a lawyer, I find it difficult to cope with a Bill that accurately and precisely defines the offence in a negative sense only. One has committed an offence unless one proves otherwise, according to the terms of the schedule. That is the wrong way to draft a criminal law that could lead to a heavy fine of up to £5,000, confiscation of one's vehicle and confiscation—and possibly destruction—of one's dog. I want to draw the Committee's attention to the problems caused by the reversal of the burden of proof.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

I am following the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument with care, but his suggestion that such an approach to the criminal law needs some expansion. Every criminal law that immediately comes to mind, from that on murder downwards, starts with a basic prohibition and a number of defences. Why does he think that the approach that we use throughout the rest of our criminal law should suddenly not be appropriate in this Bill?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The Minister, no doubt unwittingly, is over-simplifying his point. For example, the Theft Act 1968 makes it an offence dishonestly to deprive permanently another of his property, but it is for the prosecution to prove each of the elements of that. It is an offence to assault another or to cause them grievous bodily harm, but it is for the prosecution to prove each of the elements of that offence.

There are occasions when the defendant is entitled to raise an issue that the prosecution then has to disprove. I am thinking, for example, of self-defence. If I assault the Minister, the CPS or those representing it will have to prove all of the elements of the assault. I, as the defendant, may wish to raise a defence—that is to say, self-defence—but I do not have to prove anything. I have merely to raise the issue and the evidential burden is that of the prosecution to disprove that what I did was not an over-reaction, but something beyond the realms of self-defence.

Under this Bill, the defence is woefully vaguely described. The offence can be understood only when one looks at the exemptions. Although I am prepared to support wholeheartedly the corrective measures that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury has introduced in this group of amendments, it none the less leaves us with a difficult problem, and one of which the courts are not fond: the reversal of the burden of proof.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

I hesitate to cross swords with the hon. and learned Gentleman on his memory of the law, which I suspect, at least on the Theft Act 1968, may not be as good as it ought to be. As I remember it, section 1 states that it is theft dishonestly to appropriate property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other. It then sets out definitions, making it clear that there are certain circumstances in which a defence may be made where the definition is not proved. In other words, it sets out the basic offence, followed by a number of possible defences. That is the correct and common form that parliamentary draftsmen have followed up to now. The hon. and learned Gentleman has not made his case that the wrong approach to the criminal law has been taken in this Bill with the clarity that I would expect.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

We could have a long discussion about the Theft Act. The Minister will no doubt correct me if I am wrong, but as I recall it—and I confess that I have not looked at it since the autumn, when I last tried a case of dishonesty—the offence and its ingredients are fully and adequately set out and it is the job of the prosecution to prove each of the required elements. The defendant can say nothing, but if the prosecution has not made out its case either at half time or later, the judge can discharge the case—or the jury can do so at full time. That is not an exact analogy with schedule 3, which contains the simple statement

A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog,

and the exceptions, under which the burden is placed fully on the defendant to prove certain things. That is quite different from the position under the Theft Act or under normal criminal law.

In a spirit of friendliness, as members of the Committee are members of the profession, I shall make a point against myself. Some statutes place a burden on the defendant to prove something. I am thinking particularly of the law relating to terrorism, under which, if a suspect is caught with an explosive device or bomb machinery on his person, in his car or in his possession, he must provide an instant explanation of what it is for to avoid the doors of the jail closing on him. However, that is a wholly exceptional set of circumstances and way up the scale of criminal activity.

We are dealing under this Bill with a summary offence court. With all the expertise at his disposal, the Under-Secretary may be able to find other Bills drafted in exactly the same way which will attest to the point that I am making. Such information may be arriving over his left shoulder even as I speak. We shall hear what he says in his winding-up speech. The offensive nature of the problem is, unfortunately, not met by the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, but clearly to be found in the Bill. I want to persuade the Committee that the Bill is flawed in that regard.

As I said a moment ago, the Bill provides for a range of exceptions to the general offence, which is set out in paragraph 1, but those exceptions are restrictive. As we have already discussed, they reverse the burden of proof, putting the onus on the defendant to show that his actions were consistent with the defences provided in paragraphs 7 to 11, rather than on the prosecution to show that they were not. It is a general principle of English law that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, and that it is for the prosecution to provide proof of guilt so that the court is sure of it. The effect of the reversal of the burden of proof is that a person could be convicted of an offence even if there were reasonable doubt that his actions fell within one of the exceptions.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I am interested in the hon. and learned Gentleman's point and I am beginning to see what he is getting at. Paragraph 8 on page 21 says:

It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under paragraph 1...to prove that—

the conduct

and so on. I am a little worried about the words ``to prove'' in all the provisions.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am more than just a little worried; I find the words offensive and unjust.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

Is that the point?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

It is the point. The words ``to prove'' occur right through paragraphs 7 to 11 and will completely change the balance of power during a criminal prosecution.

The burden of proof is not generally so reversed under the criminal law unless there is a good reason to do so. There is no reason for it to be amended in this way. It is particularly unfair given that the definition of the primary offence is so uncertain and vague. The European Court of Justice states:

The reverse of the burden of proof is simply not lawful, unless there is a necessity that drives the imposition of it.

I do not believe that any such necessity has been demonstrated. The reversal of the burden of proof and the consequent requirement for the defendant to prove that his actions fell within the exceptions will act as a disincentive for proper pest control, which would not be so if specific categories of animal were wholly excluded from the offence in paragraph 1. That brings us back to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

Order. I draw the hon. and learned Member's attention to the fact that later amendments may cover the ground that he is now covering. I advise him that he is bordering on pre-empting later debates.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am aware of that, Mrs. Roe. However, the points that I was making were entirely relevant to the arguments that were advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, because amendment No. 1 affects not only paragraph 1, but subsequent paragraphs of the schedule.

The amendment would import an exception into paragraph 1, which states:

A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal.

The exception is ``other than a rodent''. Exceptions in other amendments in the group include ``other than a rabbit'' and ``other than a mink''.

Although paragraph 1 would have to be proved by the prosecutor, the exceptions of ``other than a rodent'' and those in the other amendments would have to be proved by the prosecution, too. That is in complete contradistinction to the position under paragraphs 7 to 11. We cannot shut our eyes to later paragraphs when they are so closely linked—as they must be—to paragraph 1. I do not wish to try your patience, Mrs. Roe, but I hope that you will let me develop my argument a little further. If you wish to be less lenient than you have been so far, I shall of course respect your decision.

Amendment No. 1 would ensure that people are not deterred from proper action to control rodents. The Home Office itself recognised the need to control rodents in a letter to the Countryside Alliance dated 30 November 2000, which says that rats are a health hazard and a pest and that dogs are an effective means of keeping numbers down. It points out that the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 places an obligation on local authorities and occupiers of land to take steps to secure, as far as is practicable, that land is kept free from rats and mice, and that, as those obligations are absolute, the Home Office does not believe that there should be any limitation in respect of rodent hunting. That argument was advanced by the hon. Member for West Lancashire. Paragraph 1 does not currently mention the exception of rodents, but paragraph 8(1)(a) does. I repeat the point that I made to the hon. Gentleman: given that paragraph 8(1)(a) is as it is, surely no harm and much good will be gained by adding ``other than a rodent'' to paragraph 1.

Amendment No. 2 would allow rabbits to be excluded from the offence of hunting a wild mammal with a dog. The Bill provides for several exemptions and exceptions in relation to the flushing out of rabbits and the retrieval of those that have been shot. I suggest that those provisions are ill drafted. For example, paragraph 9 states:

It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under paragraph 1 to prove that the conduct to which the charge relates consisted of retrieving a rabbit or hare which had been shot.

Paragraph 9 is headed ``Retrieval of game'', yet, under the Game Act 1831, rabbits are not game. The paragraph thus contains an inconsistency of definition in relation to paragraph 1. That may be nit-picking, but we may as well get it right.

If a rabbit is shot and injured and crawls away into thick cover or underground, the exception would allow the use of a terrier to retrieve it or a hound to pursue it. Although that is acceptable in terms of animal welfare, because it would relieve the creature's suffering, it is inconsistent with the rest of the Bill. The amendment would remove that inconsistency by excluding rabbits from the scope of the general offence under paragraph 1.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme has spoken knowledgably about mink hunting. Therefore, it seems incumbent on those of us who know less about mink hunting to listen to her carefully. The Bill should not act as a disincentive for the control of mink, which, in its current form, it would be. Reference has been made to the Burns inquiry, and may I refer the Committee to paragraph 43 on page 13 of its report? It states:

Mink can cause localised damage to poultry, gamebirds, fishing and wildlife interests.

Paragraph 5.105 of the report states:

Mink can be very troublesome in the case of ground-nesting seabirds, especially in Scotland and on small islands. Their activities, including surplus killing, have been linked to almost complete breeding failure amongst some colonies of terns and gulls, including some rare species.

Paragraph 5.106 of the report states:

Mink have been held to be responsible for a major decline in water vole numbers.

The hon. Lady brought those points out effectively.

Given the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, I return to my concerns about the reversal of the burden of proof, which is an unjust and unnecessary way of creating criminal law. Although the Government support the Bill, I invite them to provide the Committee with good reasons for such a reversal. I have already suggested that placing the onus of proof on the defendant could lead to his conviction despite there being reasonable doubt about his guilt. He would have to prove his innocence to the civil standard, which is uncontroversial, but if the tribunal thought that he was exactly as likely to be innocent as guilty, he would be convicted, which would be wholly unfair and unjust. It could be argued, of course, that that works the other way round: if he were acquitted, there might be reasonable doubt about his innocence. However, I submit that that is entirely as it should be.

It is germane to argue that the exceptions to paragraph 1, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury seeks to amend, are, in reality, an attempt to define what the actual offence constitutes. The conduct that constitutes the offence, which part II inadequately attempts to define, is not only of a wholly different character in each paragraph, but differs from the conduct about which supporters of schedule 3 have complained. Significantly, clause 3 states:

Schedule 3 (which makes it an offence to hunt with dogs in certain circumstances).

Clause 3 does not state, ``Schedule 3 (which makes it an offence to hunt with dogs with certain exceptions).'' To my mind, there is a real difference between ``certain circumstances'' and ``certain exceptions''. Clause 3 effectively states that schedule 3 exhaustively defines the scope of the offence—the ``certain circumstances.'' However, those certain circumstances, which partially define the core of the offence, must be the exceptions specified in part II.

Specific consideration should be given, in establishing the burden of proof, to the structure of the offence and whether the defendant was required either to negative an ingredient of the offence or to establish a special defence or exception. As drafted, the Bill requires the defendant to negative an ingredient of the offence. As I said to the Under-Secretary, that is usually for the prosecution to prove.

Defences under paragraphs 7 to 11, which bind on paragraph 1, go to the ingredients of the core elements of the primary offence, such as self-defence, honesty, mistake, accident, lack of intent, lack of specific intent due to drink, automatism and consent of the alleged victim—all of which must usually be disproved by the prosecution. It is exceptionally draconian to put the burden of proof on the defence when paragraphs 1, 20 and 21 are not exhaustive and provide for no mental element. There are sound reasons of liberty and animal welfare for not reversing the burden of proof. I have mentioned the disincentive with respect to animal welfare in relation to paragraphs 7 to 11, which are inextricably linked to paragraph 1—and would be even as amended by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that if, despite the obviously unjust and perverse character of the Bill, it is nevertheless compatible with the European convention on human rights, that does not say much for the latter?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

No, it does not. That is a point that I would have made later. I note that the Home Secretary has issued a section 91 statement for the Bill. Interestingly, at the relevant time, there were three options. Nevertheless, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice and of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as our Court of Criminal Appeal in the case of Regina v. Lambert or Regina v. Ali, show a scrupulous attitude towards ensuring that justice is done in cases where the prosecution duty is to prove—

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Let me finish this sentence.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I did not realise that it was one.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Then there is nothing to intervene on.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. I spoke as I did to the hon. and learned Gentleman because I thought that he had finished. It is difficult to hear him. I know that he has many good points for us to hear, but if he addresses the court as he does the Committee, I hope that I am never one of his clients.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will want to respond.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am told by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) that the hon. Gentleman could not afford me, and I never disagree with the Whip. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman finds it difficult to hear. I always thought that it was the duty of anyone speaking in the Chamber or in Committee to address the Chair. It is a very big Room; perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to move further along. [Interruption.] I am being diverted on to matters beyond the scope of the Bill, namely the quality of Labour Members' hearing. I am sorry for them, but no doubt if they are interested in the arguments they will listen more carefully. I have almost reached the end of my remarks, so perhaps there will be no need for the hon. Gentleman to listen further.

There are sound reasons of liberty and animal welfare for not reversing the burden of proof in the context that we have been discussing. All the activities that are named as exceptions are either acceptable or desirable. They include protecting livestock and crops, the production of food, falconry, rodent control, retrieving wounded game, recapturing escaped animals and rescuing wounded animals to relieve suffering. Those are to be encouraged, rather than discouraged by reversing the burden of proof, leading people to fear that they might be convicted of a crime even though innocent.

I urge the Committee to treat the amendments as exceptions with a difference. At least they are exceptions that the prosecution would need to establish to get the case off the ground, in contrast to the exceptions to be found in later paragraphs, in which the burden of proof is placed firmly and unfairly on the accused.

The hon. Member for West Ham might like to know that I have finished speaking.

3 pm

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The arguments about reversing the burden of proof are interesting, Mrs. Roe, but I will take your strictures to heart, because I understand that there will be further opportunities to discuss those matters. I want to make just one point.

I understand that those who are promoting the Bill are primarily concerned about the hunting of foxes and hares for sport. They recognise the need for pest control, but their argument is that hunting foxes and hares with dogs is an ineffective and inefficient method of pest control. They argue that those who hunt are not primarily concerned with pest control, but with the enjoyment of a sport. The hon. Member for West Ham agrees. They also argue that because those people engage in a sport that causes unnecessary—or any—suffering, that sport should be banned.

To be fair to Labour Members, they recognise the need for pest control. The arguments to which we have been listening today are germane to that issue. Those who wish to ban hunting are still happy to recognise that in certain circumstances where people are engaged not in a sport but in genuine game control, the use of dogs—or hounds—may be necessary. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) has just walked into the Room, so I must be careful to use the correct language. Apparently, there is complete unanimity that it is acceptable to use dogs in the control and pursuit of rats. Nobody pursues rats for sport. Dogs are considered necessary to deal with them.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Some people actually go ratting, and consider that to be a sport. I do not wish to get involved in an argument across the Room, or anywhere else, about what constitutes a pest, or whether a certain animal needs controlling, but people oppose the argument that hunting is justified on the ground that the fox is a pest because, logically, it will not bear examination. If those who hunt foxes genuinely consider them a pest, why are they introduced into some areas? Why is there is a close season on an animal that is considered a pest? It is nonsense to say that a creature is a pest if there is a close season on it. One does not have a close season on the laying down of mousetraps; one pursues mice in all seasons. That being so, it is logically inconsistent to argue that by hunting, one is eradicating a pest.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

We do not have close seasons for the protection of the fox as a species, but for the protection of crops. In the countryside—especially in the area that I represent in Lincolnshire—farmers do not want people to move across their land beyond the late spring. I suspect that that is why the season closes in March. The hon. Member for West Ham must accept from a representative of a rural area that the close seasons in hunting were not devised by people who said to themselves, ``This is great sport, but we don't want to kill too many foxes. We'll stop hunting in March and give them a chance to regroup, so that we can hunt them again in November.''

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

That is an interesting point, which certainly has not been voiced in the House before. The last time that I asked a Conservative Member why there was a close season for foxhunting, the reason given was that it coincided with the fox's breeding cycle. Frankly, the last thing that the hunts want is the complete elimination of the fox.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, he is confusing the reason why we have a close season for, for instance, pheasants, partridges, grouse—

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I am talking about the fox.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

We have a close season because it coincides with the breeding season. The reason for a close season with hunting is that farmers—huntsmen rely entirely on the good will of farmers, particularly in arable areas—do not want hunt horses trampling over their crops in early summer. I could continue this argument but it is not germane to the amendments. We can return to that point later.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

The hon. Gentleman must recognise the force of the argument at least to this extent: for some of us, hunting is not about total extermination, but control.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I do not want to go too far down this line but one of the arguments in favour of hunting is that once it is abolished, any disincentive that farmers may have to exterminate the fox population on their land is removed. In that sense, the hon. Member for West Ham may have a point; I have to accept that. I have not been afraid to make the point that one reason why we have such a healthy fox population is that farmers recognise the value of the hunt. It may be a social value, but the hunt is of value to local society in other ways. When it is known that the hunt is coming, farmers deliberately leave some foxes on the land. I fully accept that. It is almost in the interest of the fox that the hunt is around. However, these are rather circular arguments.

Alan Simpson (Labour, Nottingham South)

If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that foxhunting is a form of pest control rather than a sport, will he explain why foxes had to be imported into the Isle of Wight by the hunt for them to be hunted?

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am not familiar with the Isle of Wight and do not represent it. No doubt it was possible in the past, and against all the rules of the huntmasters, that there were some wrong practices. Even now, foxes may be deliberately moved around for sport. That may happen, but it is against the rules. When I was last shooting in my own constituency, the local farmer said that he had seen four foxes the previous Saturday, but that since the hunt would be coming on 23 February he would leave them there.

The hon. Member for West Ham probably thinks that that is a shocking remark and that the farmer should have gone out straight away and shot them because they were causing depredations to his gamebirds. The farmer, however, left them on the land. I am afraid that those who oppose hunting must accept that, in the real world, farmers, for whatever reason, try to keep a genuine balance in the countryside. One incentive for them to do so is the existence of sport.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I apologise for missing what I am sure was a splendid beginning to my hon. Friend's speech. Does he accept that it has always been true that, wherever there are hunts, foxes are to be found? The conservation side of hunting is, for those who hunt, important. I do not think that the hon. Member for West Ham finds that shocking. As long as there are hunts and hunting, where hunts put in hounds to find a fox they will generally find one.

My hon. Friend made an important point about the conservation element as a part of the whole countryside. When otter hunting stopped, there was an immediate decline in the number of otters. I am pleased to say that their number has now built up once more. While I am not suggesting that otter hunting should start again, it is a fact that when it went on there were always otters. They play an important role in the countryside. Anyone who thinks that the countryside will be the same as it is now after foxhunting is finished is gravely deluding himself.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am grateful for that intervention. One reason why I support the continued existence of foxhunting is that I believe that in a hard, and perhaps bad, world, it provides an incentive for farmers, landowners and others to preserve a healthy and balanced fox population. Our countryside has been shaped and is so beautiful for the same reason. The copses and woodlands that we see are not planted by landowners and farmers because they care about the environment, although they do. Their primary impulse is to preserve cover for game. Although many people oppose shooting and hunting for perfectly good reasons, they must accept that the abolition of such traditional practices may upset the balance of the countryside and remove the incentives for farmers, gamekeepers and others to preserve wildlife.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people probably have different reasons for going foxhunting, but that there are unquestionably examples where the primary purpose is pest control, such as in uplands Wales and mid-Wales, as Lord Burns said in his inquiry? People accept that fox numbers need to be controlled, so the question is not whether we kill foxes, but how. We should tackle the same question with reference to other mammals covered by the amendment.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

Order. I remind the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) that he is speaking to amendments relating to rodents, rabbits and mink, but we seem to be straying back into the foxhunting argument.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I agree and apologise, Mrs. Roe. I was led astray on a false scent laid by the hon. Member for West Ham. I shall now return to the point. I was trying to say earlier that everyone accepts that some sort of pest control is necessary—especially for rats—using perhaps dogs or hounds. Why is that not accepted for rabbits?

Debra Shipley (Labour, Stourbridge)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I hope that the hon. Lady will not lead me astray.

Debra Shipley (Labour, Stourbridge)

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how his argument applies to hare coursing?

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am talking about rats and rabbits at the moment, not hare coursing.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I am longing to be led astray by the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley), so perhaps I can help my hon. Friend reply to her. Altcar is in the constituency of the hon. Member for West Lancashire, who will know, whether he approves or not, that there will always be a vigorous and healthy population of hares where coursing takes place. That is the case all over the country. Where there is official participatory sport in any quarry species, there will always be a healthy supply of the quarry. If there were not, the Waterloo cup could not take place at Altcar. There are keepers there whose job it is to maintain a healthy hare population. At Altcar, I imagine that they also keep down the fox population.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

Order. I remind hon. Members to return to the amendment.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I hope that that was helpful. [Laughter.]

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I have served for a long time with the hon. Member for Stourbridge on the Select Committee on Social Security, and it is a great pleasure to be led astray by her. It has not happened before, but it is very pleasurable. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) has replied to her.

I will try for the third time to get back to the central argument. We all accept that we need to use dogs for the control of rats, so why not use them for rabbits? The argument against it seems to be that adduced by the hon. Member for West Lancashire—that we seek to create a loophole in the law. If we allow people to flush out rabbits with their dogs, and then for the dogs to give chase and dispatch the rabbits, that will provide a loophole in the Bill. It will enable people to have an excuse. They can be out walking and if the local police see them out with their dog, they can always say that they are looking for rabbits.

I believe that that argument is overstated. I do not believe for a moment that those who are promoting the Bill are concerned with a single farmer or gamekeeper out with a single dog on his land on a rainy winter afternoon, trying to control local pests. They are concerned with organised hunts, in which people are partaking for sport. I do not believe that the provision would be a tremendous loophole and that hundreds or thousands of people around the country would deliberately try to frustrate the Bill, by setting out on a Saturday afternoon and saying ``I want to use my dog to engage in a sport now. I know that in the Bill there is a little loophole about rabbits. I can always claim that as an excuse.'' The members of the Cottesmore will not go out undercover and, when they are caught on a Saturday afternoon with 20 people on horses, say ``We were chasing after a rabbit, Mr. Policeman''.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

As I subscribe to the Cottesmore hunt, I would be the first to defend it. If the Bill is passed into law, it is highly unlikely that any responsible members of the Cottesmore hunt will carry on doing what they have been doing perfectly lawfully up to now.

Jackie Lawrence (Labour, Preseli Pembrokeshire)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. I have been sitting here quietly doing my best to listen to the debate. I do not want to mention what was said before, but the hon. and learned Gentleman is extremely difficult to hear. The point has been made by hon. Members behind me and I am sure that members of the public are also finding it difficult.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

The hon. and learned Gentleman has heard what has been said and will do his best to raise his voice, so that not only members of the Committee but others will be able to hear him.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I would not want to be accused of shouting at you, Mrs. Roe. It would be too impolite.

The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) thought that he had bowled my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough middle stump by asking why the Isle of Wight hunt had imported foxes on to the island. The Isle of Wight hunt was founded in 1845, which is quite a long time ago. Whatever the standards may have been in 1845, they do not concern modern, organised hunts.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I explained that what the hon. Gentleman said was currently against the rules.

As I have said, I do not understand the point that Labour Members are making. They seem to accept that rabbits are a pest. They are; everybody knows that. The hon. Member for West Lancashire even claimed that they ruined his garden, and he is clearly worried about it. The measure will not be a massive loophole.

Again we are indebted to Mrs. Wood, who has been referred to on a couple of occasions by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex. I am not sure that the Committee has adequately discussed the point that she makes in the middle of her letter. In the Wild Mammals (Hunting With Dogs) Bill, a private Member's Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), now Mayor of London, the rabbit—a pest species, albeit a mammal—was aligned with rodents. The Bill, which was introduced in Parliament last year, stated:

A person does not commit an offence under section 1(1) if he hunts rabbits or rodents.

That exception was made by the hon. Member for Brent, East when he introduced his Bill last year. Why did he frame his Bill in that way last year? I am sure that he received drafting help, presumably from a reputable and serious organisation that intended his Bill to become law, or hoped that it would. Why did he specifically exempt rabbits? The Under-Secretary has, in a generally impartial way, sought to give advice to his draftsmen. Why has he gone down a different route from his hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East? Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury can help me on this point.

David Lidington (Conservative, Aylesbury)

I am afraid that I can give my hon. Friend no explanation for the difference between the two Bills, but what makes the contrast even more curious is the fact that the hon. Member for Brent, East was undoubtedly assisted in preparing his Bill by some of the organisations that have been campaigning for the abolition of hunting with hounds. It is a matter of public record that the particular option that we are now discussing in schedule 3 to this Bill was drafted by the Government together with the umbrella group Deadline 2000, which I presume includes within its ranks the same organisations—and probably some of the same individuals—who were assisting the hon. Member for Brent, East. I, like my hon. Friend, find this difference between the two Bills difficult to explain and even perplexing.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

This is a serious matter and I urge the Under-Secretary to look into it. Nobody is accusing the hon. Member for Brent, East of being soft on this issue. He is not an undercover agent for the Countryside Alliance. I will not say that he is fully lined up with the extreme faction, because it would be discourteous of me to describe him in those terms, but he is not a softy on such matters. It is a pity that he is not serving on this Committee. I hope that an hon. Member who supports the Bill will intervene, because there must be an answer on this point.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Send a letter by pigeon post.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Exactly. Hitherto, hon. Members have been keen to make interventions. It would be very useful if the hon. Member for West Ham could help me now.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Why should I help you?

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

He is not leaping to his feet because he does not know the answer. We know that he will not help the Mayor of London because they are involved in a bitter dispute over pigeons. We have seen a recent photograph of a pigeon standing on his head, which improved his looks no end.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

It makes a change from politicians standing on their heads.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

No one is yet prepared to give me an answer. This important matter goes to the heart of the Bill. It drives home the message with which I was trying to deal on Tuesday; that the problem with the Bill, if it ever becomes law, will not be with the large, organised hunts, which will end. That is sad for all sorts of reasons that we do not need to go into now. The problem with implementing the Bill will come when gamekeepers, individuals and working farmers genuinely engaged in controlling rats, rabbits and other species harmful to their game or farms become involved.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Does my hon. Friend think that the hon. Member for Brent, East, now Mayor of London, took more seriously the needs of these groups within the population? In those circumstances, would it not be appropriate for the Government to think again? It would be a pity if it looked as though the hon. Member for Brent, East was more concerned about such people than the Government. This might be an opportunity for them to say that that is not so.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Many of us are warming to the Mayor because in the past couple of years he has been trying to turn over a new leaf, become more moderate and listen to his natural opponents. He is more moderate, mainstream and middle-way than the Under-Secretary. The Under-Secretary needs to justify himself. Why has he drafted a Bill that is more extreme than that of his colleague, the hon. Member for Brent, East, who apparently was so extreme that he had to be excluded from becoming a Labour candidate last year? These are interesting points that need further discussion.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I remind my hon. Friend that the hon. Member for West Ham now has other interests. He is not interested in foxhunting or hunting with dogs; he is about to become the president of the society for the protection of the jellied eel. His entire line of interest has moved in a different direction.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The hon. Member for West Ham is a versatile politician and I wish him well in his efforts to protect jellied eels.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

It is too late for them!

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Yes, but it is not too late for the rabbits, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will respond to my point.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

My hon. Friend has made an extremely good point. What have rabbits done for the Under-Secretary or the Government in the past three years to achieve this privileged status? It seems extraordinary that they were exempted in the Bill of the hon. Member for Brent, East. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think that the hon. Member for West Ham, who is now taking a rather different view, was a sponsor of that Bill. That helps to illustrate the many anomalies in this Bill.

There are two issues that proponents of the Bill seem not to be dealing with, but they must deal with them. First, if one wants to improve animal welfare by stopping people exercising a freedom that they have enjoyed for a very long time, one must show that the gains will be substantial, significant and clear. If those in favour of a ban can demonstrate a serious benefit to animal welfare, there is a case for discarding personal liberties. Otherwise, there is no case.

Secondly, the Bill is full of anomalies that, I suspect, have nothing to do with animal welfare. They are included to dress it up in the light of the tremendous campaign to abolish foxhunting, hare coursing and hare hunting. In taking apart that dressing, we find serious problems relating to rabbits, rodents and mink. I do not know why the hon. Member for West Ham has become the friend of mink, or whether his Bill dealt with them. He said that mink are good only for coats for the bourgeoisie, and pointed to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex. My hon. Friend would be insulted to learn that an expert on the English class system such as the hon. Member for West Ham thinks that he is a member of the bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie is not only a foreign word but a French word, and we must be careful about using it over here. By freeing mink from the threat of the control to which rats will be subject, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman was trying to increase their numbers, lower their value and therefore make mink coats available at a more reasonable price to a wider section of the population.

If we consider the provisions in the context of rats, the anomaly becomes clear. Rats are of course a pest; under statute law, farmers and others are obliged to control them. If they appear on a property, the local authority can be asked to help control them. Given that, under the Bill, a dog will be permitted to catch and kill a rat on one's own property, why will a criminal offence have been committed if it chases it into a neighbour's field or garden and kills it there? The Bill is obsessed, moreover, with dogs underground and singles them out. It is clear that, just as rabbits have done something nice for the Government, dogs underground have done something nasty. Why is it immoral, cruel or contrary to the interests of animal welfare to kill a rat underground if it is perfectly all right to kill it above ground? That is an extraordinary anomaly.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Has my hon. Friend noted that here there is a further inherent class problem? Those with very little land will be able to chase the rat much less far than those with a lot of land. It is unacceptable for the party of equality to put forward this manifestly unfair proposal. It will give the Duke of Buccleuch a great deal more space than me, and I object to that.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

That might be another basis on which we can invoke the European convention on human rights, but it occurs me that if one found a rat on one's balcony in Belgravia, one could not chase it far. Perhaps the duke will have to choose in which of his properties he is able to exercise that freedom.

The most common way of killing rats is to poison them. I am not an expert on the subject, but surely a rat dies more quickly if it is chomped by a dog than it does if it eats poison. Although setting traps is perceived to be less cruel, it is perfectly obvious that it is more cruel. Yet completely artificial restrictions—from which other animals that are pests, such as rabbits and mink, are excluded—are placed on using a dog to kill rats. The extent of that anomaly was highlighted by the well-educated discussion that took place this morning.

The amendments are designed to deal with further, and worse, anomalies in the exceptions. For example, under paragraph 7, it is acceptable for someone to use their dog to flush out a fox, hare or rabbit—although not a mink or a rat—if they are going to shoot it, but if the dog gets there first and kills it, that is a criminal offence. I cannot see the morality of that.

It is likely that the Bill will lead more people to want guns. A rabbit or a hare can be shot with a shotgun, but surely a rifle is necessary to shoot a fox cleanly. When a rifle is fired, the ammunition carries for a mile or two, which could be extremely dangerous near a residential area. The Bill will encourage a more dangerous practice that adds nothing to animal welfare.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the Bill is that it allows a person to shoot an animal for food as long as they do not sell it. Why is it moral to shoot a rabbit, having used a dog to find it, if one is going to eat it oneself, but immoral if one is going to sell it to a neighbour so that he can eat it? That demonstrates the muddle-headedness at the heart of the Bill.

Perhaps the most extraordinary paragraph is the one that says that it is permissible to use a dog to flush out a fox, hare or rabbit for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt it. A bird of prey would have to be pretty big to pick up a fox, but not so big to pick up a rabbit or a hare—as they frequently do. I cannot imagine a more nasty death, if I were a rabbit or a hare, than being picked up by a great big raptor, hauled up for 200 ft, then dropped on a rock. Yet apparently that is not only all right, but merits a specific exemption in the Bill. The raptor lobby clearly has some weight.

The anomaly is staring us in the face. The exemption is intended to protect game birds, but the creatures that do the most damage to game in Scotland are raptors such as hawks and buzzards. The Bill will lead to gamebirds being damaged in an extremely cruel way, yet it is supposed to protect them and to improve the welfare of animals.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

My hon. Friend has not yet explained how the raptors, rabbits and rats will know about all this. The rat needs to know that it cannot be chased if it can get off the land quickly enough, and the raptor needs to know that it is not breaking the law by catching rabbits. To propose that we put into law what wild animals can legally do to one another is ridiculous and interferes in the natural and normal process of life; unless, that is, we know how to communicate with them.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Not only rats, rabbits and foxes, but everyone who walks in the countryside with a dog or whose dog has a propensity for chasing rats or rabbits in the garden will need a copy of the Bill. Perhaps the Government plan to have it translated into the kind of language that foxes and rabbits can understand. The whole thing is an extraordinary anomaly.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

The hon. Gentleman said that it would be an offence to sell an animal on for food. At present, a farmer can slaughter a farm animal for his or her own consumption, but if that animal is destined for other people, it must be slaughtered in an abattoir. Is that an anomaly or not?

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.