Hunting Bill

Public Bill Committee, 30 January 2003.

Standing Committee F

Clause 17 - Determination by Registrar

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

I beg to move amendment No. 324, in

clause 17, page 7, line 12, at end insert—

'( ) conviction for an offence under the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act 1912 (c.14),

( ) conviction for an offence under section 2 of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 (c.51),'.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 325 to 331.

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

The Committee will recall that at our last sitting we considered a group of amendments that included a series—amendments Nos. 250 to 259—tabled by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George). They sought to enlarge the number of animal welfare offences that would lead to an applicant seeking registration being considered not to be a fit and proper person to be registered and to a registered hunter being deregistered. I told the Committee that I was sympathetic to the underlying intention of the amendments and would table Government amendments to address the issue as quickly as possible. The hon. Gentleman had put his finger on a point where there was a need for amendment.

The Bill provides that a conviction for offences under three pieces of legislation will be a bar to registration or to hunting under supervision. They are the Hunting Bill, the Protection of Animals Act 1911 and the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996. I told the Committee on Tuesday that I accepted that the Bill does not include other cruelty offences that could be said to be relevant to the fitness or lack of fitness of a person wishing to hunt.

Three Acts include specific cruelty offences that are relevant to the Bill. The first is the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act 1912. I said on Tuesday that its provisions were similar to the 1911 Act, which informs so much of our legislation. The other two are the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002. I shall deal with them briefly in turn.

The first is the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act 1912 is identical to the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which is mentioned in the Bill. A conviction under the 1912 Act is clearly relevant to whether a person should be permitted to register to hunt.

The second is the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which creates in section 2 a specific offence of causing cruelty to a badger. It is clearly right that a conviction for such an offence should lead to an applicant being considered not a fit and proper person to be registered.

Amendment No. 253, which we considered on Tuesday afternoon, would have added all offences under the 1992 Act, but that was too widely drafted, as that Act creates other offences, such as interfering with badger setts, which do not necessarily involve causing cruelty. Reference to the section 2 offences, as set out in amendments Nos. 324, 327, 328 and 330, is sufficient to achieve the desired aim.

The third is the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which bans hunting with dogs in Scotland. It is right that an offence under that Act should be included in the consideration of whether a person is fit and proper to be registered to hunt with dogs in England and Wales.

Amendments Nos. 324 and 325 would give the registrar the power to refuse registration to anyone with a conviction under the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act 1912, section 2 of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 or the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 by adding those Acts to clause 17(4).

Amendments Nos. 326 and 327 would broaden the registrar's powers to refuse group registration if reasonable steps were not taken to exclude from participation in hunting carried out in reliance on group registration any individual whom any of the registered individuals knows or suspects to have been convicted under the three enactments to which I have referred.

Amendments Nos. 328 and 329 have the same effect as amendments Nos. 324, 325, 326 and 327, except that they relate to an applicant who applies to be added to an existing group registration under clause 32.

Amendments Nos. 330 and 331 relate to clause 33 and are similar to the earlier amendments just described. They require the registrar to deregister any person convicted of an offence under the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act 1912, the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 or the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002.

The amendments hang together and deal consistently with the list of offences that should have the consequences already provided for in the Bill. They correct the anomaly or omission highlighted by the hon. Member for St. Ives tidily and in good order.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

I am sorry that I missed the first couple of sentences of the Minister's explanation of the Government amendments. Clearly they are the result of our debate at the end of Tuesday afternoon's sitting. I congratulate the Minister and his Department on tabling the amendments, which he promised he would do to reflect the points that I had made on the amendments to which I spoke on Tuesday afternoon. I am sure that he and his officials, having trawled through the legislation, have ensured that the Bill covers all other appropriate Acts.

I simply ask whether there is a need for a further amendment that takes into account the possibility of further Acts of Parliament which at this stage are difficult to predict, but which may be a material consideration for the registrar in the future. If clause 17 is to work appropriately and is not to contain a

catch-all provision—my original amendment, amendment No. 252, was perhaps too broad—perhaps the Minister will consider at a future date an amendment that takes into account the prospect of other legislative change that is relevant to disqualification.

I believe that we have made significant progress and I am grateful to the Minister.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

It will not be often during the Committee stage that I shall say what I am about to say, although what I am about to say may worry the Minister. The Opposition are content with the amendments that he has proposed.

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

I am now suitably worried, as the hon. Gentleman intended. I thank him for those generous words.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for St. Ives for his comments. He asked one significant question, which I should deal with. It is right for specific enactments to be mentioned in the Bill, as there is then no doubt what is being referred to. For instance, with regard to the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, it is sensible for the relevant part of the Act rather than the Act in general to be referred to. Should further enactments come into being which refer to acts of cruelty against mammals, they could add to the provisions in the Bill as they are introduced. It would not be sensible to have a wide catch-all.

I referred on Tuesday to the difficulties that are likely to arise if, for instance, we refer to convictions abroad. Obviously, relevant information could be introduced during the process as more general evidence relating to whether an application should be approved. Such information would not be totally excluded from consideration by the registrar or the tribunal, but it would be inappropriate to require the consequences in the clause to flow. The provisions should be kept narrowly to specific offences relating to cruelty against animals. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that explanation and I hope that we have successfully dealt with the issues, as I promised on Tuesday.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I do not want to criticise the Minister for tabling the amendments, because clearly the Bill would be marginally improved by the inclusion of the proposed words. However, he demonstrates the difficulties in which Parliament is placed as a result of the truncated deliberation process. Although that may be a tedious point, it is a real one. Will the Minister consider whether the Government are likely to introduce any further tidying-up amendments—

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that we are not debating the programme motion. I am not sure whether it is useful to ask the Minister to speculate about what may happen in the future.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am not discussing the programme motion; I am discussing the contents of the Bill and the Minister's amendments. They are not objectionable,

but they illustrate the difficulty in which parliamentarians find themselves. Nowadays, most amendments to most legislation come from the Government. If the process is to be replicated, it would be as well for us to have as much notice as possible. Many more amendments may be introduced on the Floor of the House and in the other place. However, I want to flag up the issue so that the Minister can give us his views.

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

I cannot anticipate whether something will be discovered. If we were to discover that something was missing, it would be our responsibility to put that right. However, I am pretty sure that that will not happen and I refute the hon. and learned Gentleman's suggestion that the process is truncated. We have given all the time that is necessary in order to consider the legislation fully.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. I am sure that we do not want to have a debate on the programme motion.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

I want to put it on record that I am grateful for the Minister's explanation and content that those concerns about future enactments can be swept up in the Acts and the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 325, in

clause 17, page 7, line 14, at end insert—

'( ) conviction for an offence under the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 6),'.—[Alun Michael.]

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

We now move to amendment No. 240.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I cannot spot amendment No. 240.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

I have it in my amendment paper in the middle of page 350. Has the hon. Gentleman identified the amendment?

Amendment proposed: No. 240, in

clause 17, page 7, line 23, leave out from 'may' to end of line 24.—[Rob Marris.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 14, Noes 7.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 34, in

clause 17, page 7, line 27, leave out from 'registrar' to 'refuse' in line 28 and insert

'can show that the applicant or applicants fail to satisfy the tests specified in section 8 he may.'.

The amendment may seem somewhat technical and legalistic, but it is actually extraordinarily important. It seeks to shift the burden of proof from the applicant to the registrar. At present, it is necessary for the applicant to demonstrate that he should be registered. If the amendment were passed, the registrar would need to prove that there was some reason why the applicant should not be registered.

The reason for the amendment is that the legislation implies that hunting is not necessarily cruel. The mere fact that it can be registered demonstrates that there is at least a theoretical possibility that it is not cruel. If that is the case, it seems perfectly obvious that it should not be a criminal offence. If the Minister has admitted in the Bill that hunting may, under some circumstances, have some utility and therefore is not cruel, it should not be a criminal offence.

The Minister is right to say that cruelty cannot be licensed. It would be illogical to do so, particularly as existing animal welfare legislation defines cruelty as the intentional infliction of unnecessary suffering. Plainly, that cannot be licensed. However, given that hunting is implicitly legalised by the Bill—the Government say that under certain circumstances and if the registrar is satisfied, hunting with dogs will be legal—the burden of proof should be reversed.

The legislation is not criminalising hunting but merely setting the criteria by which it can be conducted. I hope that the Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), will accept that that is the case. As such, the registrar should permit hunting, except where a convincing case can be made against such permission. In other words, logically, there should be a presumption in favour of registration rather than against it.

The burden of proof in the Bill is yet another indicator that the real intention is not to regulate hunting but to ban it. In other words, it has more to do with human activities than animal welfare principles. The Minister has often said that the Bill is concerned with animal welfare rather than human activity. It is therefore only reasonable to presume that a hunt will be registered unless the registrar and the tribunal can demonstrate that there is a good reason why it should not be allowed, which is a sound principle of all English law.

The applicant for registration must prove that what they want to do is necessary—thereby avoiding the traditional definition of cruelty—in that it is likely to make a significant contribution to the prevention or reduction of certain types of damage. That is the opposite of what may be expected in a tolerant and liberal society in which conduct should be lawful unless there is a very good reason to make it unlawful. That is the basis of our society; most things that one does are lawful, unless there are good reasons for them to be unlawful.

Nowhere in the Bill, the explanatory notes or anything that the Minister has said has it been made clear what would be a good reason for criminalising

unregistered hunting with dogs. A better approach would be a presumption in favour of registration unless there is a good reason why someone should not be registered to hunt. The reversal of the burden of proof is contrary to the principle of good law because of the nature of evidential material and the imbalance of means between, for example, the individual applicant—this takes us back to Tuesday's discussion—and a large, prescribed animal welfare body, which will be in receipt of large sums of money from Her Majesty's Government.

The reversal of the burden of proof in the Bill will make registration even harder for poor applicants. One of our Welsh colleagues said that such applicants will seek to become registered and fail to do so because they have low resources, little time and little understanding of the law, and they may be up against large, powerful and well-funded animal welfare organisations, which are paid a grant by Her Majesty's Government.

The fact that the balance of proof is the wrong way round will make it doubly difficult for an individual to make their case. It would be a great deal more just if the burden of proof were on the registrar to demonstrate that there was good reason why an applicant should not receive their registration. The registrar would still decide whether cruelty was greater than utility or vice versa, so the Bill's outcome would be precisely the same. The amendment would uphold natural justice by reversing the balance of proof to make it necessary for the registrar to demonstrate why the applicant should not be granted registration rather than the other way round. That is self-evident and, because of the way in which the Bill is drafted, it would be the most logical approach to the registration procedure.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I urge my hon. Friends to vote against the amendment. It does not incorporate what I would regard under the jurisprudence of England and Wales as ''a sound principle of English law'', as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) put it. An applicant who applies to an employment tribunal has to make their case on the balance of probabilities, and the same is true of applications to social security appeal tribunals and to traffic commissioners for licences to operate vehicles.

Winding back to an earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's speech, the amendment is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of clause 8. He said that one has to show that hunting has some utility and is therefore not cruel, which is not how clause 8 will operate.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The points made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) are worth considering, but I shall not detain the Committee by swapping stories about employment tribunals and social security tribunals because I am not sure that they are relevant to our discussions.

We are dealing with the consideration by the registrar of written material from both the applicant and the Government-paid respondents to the application. Given that we are dealing with such an

imbalance, and a paper exercise, it seems fair and just that, irrespective of the activities in other tribunals, the burden of proof, in so far as it is relevant to the whole exercise, should be placed on those who seek to disturb the status quo.

The respondent to the licence application—albeit that the respondent is the second person in the chain and that the applicant is doing the positive thing by asking for a licence—is clearly the prosecutor, who seeks to deny the liberty of an individual or a group to exercise what is currently a lawful activity and a right. The respondent should be put to the test of persuading the registrar that the licence should not be granted.

One only has to look at the current law on fishing licences and game licences, which are handed out almost as a matter of course. There is no requirement for an applicant for a fishing licence or a game licence to satisfy the person behind the post office counter that a burden of proof has been discharged. For those simple reasons, the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire is worth not only considering but passing into law.

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

I am surprised that, on hearing the brief, clear contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, the Opposition did not seek to withdraw the amendment. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire continually makes arbitrary and perverse statements about what he thinks the Government are doing; we could spend a long time in Committee seeking to untangle his thoughts. The Bill's target is clearly cruelty, which is an outcome of human activity. I am surprised by his talk of criminalising activities, because Parliament decides on the requirements of the law, by which law-abiding people abide.

The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) talked about an application as though it were a prosecution or a denial of a liberty or a right. If Parliament agrees to the propositions in the Bill, people will be required to come forward and show that what they propose to do is not cruel. They need to show that such activities satisfy the test of utility, are necessary and do not involve unnecessary suffering.

Clause 17(6), which amendment No. 34 seeks to amend, could not be more clear and straightforward. Where the registrar is not satisfied that the hunting proposed in an application would pass the tests of cruelty and least suffering set out in clause 8, they must refuse the application. The amendment would turn around that presumption of proof and place it on the registrar, which would fundamentally undermine the Bill's purpose: to prohibit hunting with dogs unless there is no more humane method of dealing with particular wild animals. That is set out in clause 1, which creates the offence of hunting a wild mammal with a dog unless such hunting is registered or exempt. If a person wants to register to hunt, the onus must be on them to prove to the registrar that the proposed activity should be registered.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Does the Minister accept that there has been a change in the Government's position?

Previously, in this very Room, he spoke against hunting under all conditions and at all times, but by printing the Bill the Government have accepted that under some conditions hunting with dogs may be a legitimate pest control activity.

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

The crucial word in the hon. Gentleman's sentence is ''may''. An applicant has the opportunity to show the necessity of an activity, and to remove that opportunity would totally undermine the Bill's purpose. The burden must remain on the applicant to satisfy the registrar that the activity passes both the test of utility and the test of suffering. Perversely, the amendment would not oblige the registrar to refuse an application even when they can show that an activity fails the tests, which would not make any sense. I therefore oppose the amendment.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough said it all: it is impossible to imagine an applicant for a shotgun licence having to prove to the lady behind the counter in the post office that he wished to have a licence for a shotgun so that he could go shooting.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

A game licence.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

My hon. Friend says from a sedentary position ''a game licence''. Precisely the same applies for a shotgun licence.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

I agree with my hon. Friend's amendment, in which he makes a strong point. I simply wish to help him factually. He is on solid ground with game and fishing licences, but a shotgun licence must be obtained through the police.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

When people apply to the police for a shotgun licence, as my hon. Friend correctly says, they do not have to prove that they will use the gun in such a way that utility is greater than cruelty. A shotgun that the police have licensed can be used to shoot anything one likes in any way one likes. My point is that a shotgun licence is an exact precedent for the amendment. The clause makes it necessary for the applicant to demonstrate that the cruelty inherent in his activity is less than the utility.

For the benefit of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, I shall paraphrase clause 8. I understand it but do not wish to go into the details of it. It is necessary for the applicant to demonstrate that the cruelty involved in using dogs is less than the utility that would result. However, the shotgun applicant does not have to demonstrate anything of the sort. I use that example again, but the same is true of the applicant for a game or fishing licence.

The presumption is that the shotgun, fishing or game licence will be granted unless it can be demonstrated that the applicant is not a proper person to hold one. The onus of proof is on the authorities to demonstrate that the person should not have a shotgun because he will misuse it in some way. He may have a criminal history, he may be mad—there are many reasons. However, the onus is on the authorities to prove that he should not have it. The onus of proof in the Bill is the other way around.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) is factually correct. I mentioned game licences as opposed to shotgun licences. However, the points that my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire makes are equally good. My only fear is that he is putting ideas into the Minister's head and, before long, we shall see further legislation.

May I make a suggestion on amendment No. 288, which may appeal to the Government?

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that we are discussing amendment No. 34. His points must relate to it.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Quite right. May I make a suggestion on amendment No. 34? Instead of placing the burden of proof on the registrar, would not it be helpful to the Government and, therefore, more acceptable to the Committee, if we placed it on the respondent—the person who wants to the licence to be refused—rather than on ''the court''?

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

That is not contained in the amendment, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his suggestion. No doubt the Minister will consider the matter in the quiet of his room. The aim of the Bill would not be changed by such an amendment; no more dogs would be used, and it would not necessarily become easier for the applicant to achieve registration. The rules of utility and cruelty as plainly laid out in clause 8 would remain precisely the same. The same registrar would take the same decisions, the same tribunal would listen to the same cases and the same High Court would listen to the same points of law about the Bill. There would be no change whatsoever to the outcome.

There would be no change at all to the principles behind the Bill but there would be a change in equity. At the moment, this is one of the rare activities for which it is necessary for the citizen to prove that he ought to be allowed to do something, rather than for the authorities to prove that he should not to be allowed to do it. Simply for reasons of equity, justice and English law, the amendment should be allowed.

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

I rise briefly to point out that the hon. Gentleman suggested that nothing would change but, in fact, there would be a fundamental change in the role of the registrar. The amendment would place an onus on the registrar who, according to the Bill, is to consider whether the applicant has demonstrated what is necessary for him to be allowed to undertake the activity. In addition, the words ''he may'', which relate to refusing the application, give the registrar the discretion to allow the applicant to be registered even if he fails the two tests or is not a fit and proper person to be registered. That would be perverse. No, I am sorry but I cannot accept the amendment.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

I am genuinely trying to listen to the argument, which is fascinating. I am making the mistake of doing that too often in the Committee.

I should be grateful for the Minister's advice on how he expects clause 8 to apply. This is a factual question. Clearly the applicant must prove that his activity has utility, and that is easily done for most hunting activity, even as redefined. However, on the second test of least suffering—the cruelty test—surely it would be unreasonable for the registrar to have to go through the alternative pest control methods and say, ''That's worse, that's better. That's worse, that's better.'' Presumably a prescribed animal welfare body will do that. Surely if the registrar does not have proof, the applicant passes the least suffering test. Would the amendment not help to achieve natural justice in that case? I am genuinely looking to the Minister for guidance on the way in which the utility test operates.

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

I do not believe that it would, because the applicant has to show, in the circumstances of the application and the nature of what he proposes to undertake, that he satisfies the tests in clause 8. It is not a generalised debate of the sort that we have had looking across different alternatives nationally, if that is what the hon. Gentleman suggests. It will not be a re-run of Burns on every application.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I shall not delay the Committee unduly, but the Minister made a couple of interesting points that we may be ready to consider. He said that there were two things that he did not like about our amendment. One was that it places an undue burden on the registrar to prove that the application should not be allowed. That might be a reasonable point. It should not be up to the registrar to prove it but perhaps it should be up to the animal welfare groups to prove to the registrar that it should not be allowed. Therefore, if the amendment said, ''where the animal welfare groups can show that the applicant or applicants fail to satisfy the tests'', that might be an improvement.

The Minister makes a reasonable point about ''he may'', and we may wish to consider inserting the words ''he shall'' at a later stage. I simply ask him to consider the spirit behind the amendment, and we could perhaps on Report consider improving it in the way that he has suggested. The outcome in terms of banning or not banning would be identical, but it might appear to applicants and those in the countryside to be a fairer way of considering an application.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. I shall not allow a debate on words that are not in the amendment; otherwise we shall hypothecate ourselves till midnight tonight. Nevertheless, a direct question has been asked.

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

Any amendment tabled to the Bill is considered by my advisers and me, because we are open-minded, objective people. Even if the source of an amendment appears unlikely to make a positive contribution to the Bill, we are that generous. Nevertheless, I would not wish to give the hon. Member for North Wiltshire any encouragement, because an amendment along the lines of the one that we are discussing, even if changed in a minor way, would go to the heart of the Bill and would therefore not be acceptable.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I shall not talk about the amendments that we would like to see. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire says, it is rare to have parliamentary debates that actually go somewhere. I was not sure what to do about the amendment, but, having discussed an amendment that is not here, I now see a slight deficiency in the amendment that is here. I do not believe that the registrar should be required to do the job of the prescribed animal welfare body. Maybe we can rectify the matter on Report, but I hope that the Minister takes on board the consideration here, because we should like to end up where natural justice lies. I hope that the Minister will think about that point, which could improve the Bill on Report.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

In view of the Minister's limited and hesitant assurance that he will consider the sense of our discussion of the amendment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 288, in

clause 17, page 7, line 32, at end insert—

'(8) If the registrar thinks that a party to proceedings before it has acted unreasonably it may order the party to pay all or part of the costs incurred by another party to the proceedings; and ''acted unreasonably'' includes prolonging the hearing by unsubstantiated submissions or being unprepared or failing to comply with procedure or directions in a material way.'.

If members of the Committee will glance at paragraph 13 of schedule 2, they will discover that, when the application gets as far as the tribunal,

''If the Tribunal thinks that a party to proceedings before it has acted unreasonably it may order the party to pay all or part of the costs incurred by another party to the proceedings.''

Therefore, if someone goes before the tribunal and acts unreasonably by delaying it or behaving in an unreasonable way, the tribunal may decide that they should pay the costs incurred. However, that does not apply to the registrar. The purpose of the amendment is to insert a provision that says that if the registrar believes that one party is prolonging the hearing or behaving unreasonably, he can find costs against that party. In other words, it brings the proceedings before the registrar in line with those laid down for the tribunal in schedule 2. That seems to us to be eminently reasonable and sensible. It would apply to both sides in the hearing before the registrar and brings it in line with the tribunal. I hope that the Committee will accept the amendment.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Perhaps the hon. Member for North Wiltshire will explain it to me, but, yet again, I believe that his amendment is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. I do not believe that there is a hearing before the registrar; clause 17(2) does not provide for that. Therefore, there will be no prolongation of the hearing and so on, because the registrar is carrying out a paper exercise. It is the tribunal that is hearing.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Gentleman is right that there will not be a hearing—this is a point that I have made several times—because it will be an entirely written exercise. However, that exercise can be prolonged unreasonably by the submission by a respondent, or indeed an applicant, of unnecessary and irrelevant

material. If that delays the decision-making process, it should perhaps be reflected in an order for costs.

I appreciate that it will not be an oral hearing and that it is not the same exercise as the tribunal will go through. None the less, I believe that the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire bear consideration.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I cannot speak for the Minister, but it would surprise me if he did not consider an amendment along those lines on Report. I say ''consider'', because I hope that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire will withdraw the amendment, because it is based on a fundamental misconception.

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

To consider the amendment before us—

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Please.

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

The amendment seeks to replicate for the registrar the provision in paragraph 13 of schedule 2, which enables the tribunal to order a party to pay all or part of the costs incurred by another party when it considers that the first party has acted unreasonably. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is right. The procedures before the registrar are different, and the provision would not be justified.

On receipt of an application for registration, the registrar is required to invite the prescribed animal welfare body to make written representations. Under clause 17(2)(a), the prescribed body would have to make its representations within a specified period. The time limit for the submission of material would be set out in regulations under clause 15(2)(b), which is subject to the negative resolution procedure.

It is a matter for the parties—the applicant and the prescribed body—to submit evidence or make representations as they think fit. The amendment refers to hearings being prolonged by unsubstantiated submissions and appellants who are unprepared. If the amendment is intended to ensure that that could not happen, I am able to satisfy the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. The registrar will determine the case on the basis of written evidence; the parties do not make oral representations. The registrar should be able quickly to determine cases in which a party seeks to frustrate the process.

The procedure relating to the tribunal will generally involve hearings and, inevitably, will be more complex. There is likely to be more of an opportunity for a party to waste time or act unreasonably. Paragraph 13 of schedule 2 therefore gives the tribunal the power to award costs when it considers that a party has acted unreasonably. There is no need to replicate that in relation to the registrar. If the hon. Member for North Wiltshire seeks to ensure that the process cannot be delayed or frustrated by a designated animal welfare organisation, I can satisfy him entirely. I hope that I have persuaded him that it is not necessary to press the amendment to a vote.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

There is a distinguished and well-known group of solicitors in Edinburgh called Maclay, Murray and Spens. They are always known in Edinburgh circles as Delay, Worry and Expense.

Even in paper exercises, such as the one proposed in the Bill, it is perfectly possible for there to be delay, worry and expense written into the process. For example, it would be possible for animal welfare groups to pick up all kinds of minor infringements and inaccuracies in the applications and, bearing in mind that there will be tens of thousands of applications, that could well become a huge administrative problem. The registrar may decide as a general principle that a certain kind of hunting is acceptable and may therefore be inclined to allow it in particular circumstances, but animal welfare groups could still object to every single application, no matter how small, for ever, with the aim of obfuscating and delaying the process. It is important that there is a mechanism to prevent them from doing so.

The Conservatives do not see why a provision about expenses should not be included and apply in precisely the same way as the provision relating to the tribunal. We are slightly puzzled by the fact that the Minister does not want to do that. The Committee stage is the time at which he ought to listen to quiet, cool sense and reason that does not change the principle of the Bill and just might improve it. We are puzzled by the fact that he opposes just about everything that we suggest, no matter how well thought through. I am somewhat encouraged by his slight inclination to say that he will listen to reason.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

It is worth noting that the condition would apply to both sides. It might make it more difficult for both bodies—those who are for and against hunting—to use the process to frustrate the desired outcome.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman is right. When I first saw the amendment, I was concerned about it for that reason. I thought that it might well act against my friends who will be applying and that was worrying. None the less, in the interests of reason, good sense and ensuring that the registrar system works properly, even if the provision does work against my friends in the hunting community, it seems sensible that it should appear in the Bill. However, I do not want to delay the Committee unduly with unnecessary votes. I take some comfort from what the Minister said and perhaps he will consider the matter before Report. If he decides to raise the matter again, no doubt he will give credit where it is due. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I shall be brief. I want to inquire about the cost of administering and setting up the office of the registrar in order to enable him to carry out his functions under the clause. The Minister was previously unable to tell me how much the registrar exercise would cost, but, before the Bill becomes law, the public should be told how much of their money will be spent on it.

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

I cannot answer that question. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) says from a sedentary position that that

is consistent. Yes, it is, and the explanation is the same as on the last occasion.

We shall make arrangements for the tribunal and registrar in the most efficient way possible and involving the minimum public expenditure consistent with doing the job properly. There is a great deal of experience in Government of ensuring that that is the case. As on previous occasions, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough asked for specific figures. I am unable to provide them, particularly because the cost will depend on the amount of work that is generated.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

With the greatest respect to the Minister, that is a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer. The taxpayer will fund the administration of this piece of public legislation, which is sponsored by the Government. I am not asking for a figure to the last pound, shilling and pence, but surely the right hon. Gentleman has some vague idea whether it will cost hundreds of thousands, millions or a few hundred pounds. There will be a full-time salaried civil servant, an administration and all the functions required for the determination process. If the Government have not applied their mind to what that is likely to cost in round figures or broad terms, I am hugely disappointed, if not surprised.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 17, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 18 - Appeal to tribunal

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

I beg to move amendment No. 332, in

clause 18, page 7, line 34, after '14', insert

', or grants it in reliance on section 17(5),'.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 319, in

clause 18, page 7, line 36, leave out subsection (2) and insert—

'(2) Appeals shall be by way of rehearing.'.

Amendment No. 35, in

clause 18, page 7, line 37, at end insert—

'( ) Where the registrar has granted an application subject to conditions under section 17(5)(b), the applicant or applicants may appeal to the Tribunal to alter these conditions'.

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

Amendment No. 332 is, to a large extent, consequential to the Committee agreeing to earlier amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. Under clause 17, the registrar and tribunal have the power to impose additional conditions on an application if they consider them necessary to allow the proposed activity to satisfy the tests of utility and least suffering. The registrar and tribunal are required to seek the consent of applicants to the additional conditions. The Committee agreed to amendments Nos. 237 and 238, which allow the registrar to impose conditions as he sees fit on the granting of individual or group applications. Therefore, it is only right that the

applicant should be able to appeal to the tribunal regarding the imposition of conditions, and the amendment achieves that.

It would be appropriate for me to respond on amendments Nos. 319 and 35 after they have been spoken to by those who tabled them.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

As the Minister said, the effect of amendment No. 332 is that applicants will be able to appeal to the tribunal when an application has been granted under clause 17(5) and is subject to conditions. The amendment is non-contentious—in fact, it mirrors amendment No. 35, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire, so we shall not contest it.

The purpose of the statement in amendment No. 319 that

''Appeals shall be by way of re-hearing''

is to ensure that the appeals process is not abused by those who are opposed to hunting. A re-hearing means that both parties would have the right to present material to the registrar and that the same material would be used by the tribunal, which would judge whether the registrar had reached the right decision based on the evidence before him. Without the amendment, every tribunal could become a fully fledged mini-Burns inquiry. Given the huge number of applications that is anticipated, there is a likelihood that the whole process could grind to a halt.

As the Bill is drafted, the burden of proof rests with the applicant to convince the registrar that the consecutive tests of utility and least suffering have been met. Within that process the animal welfare bodies are entitled to make representations either in favour of the granting of registration—that is a theoretical possibility—or, as seems implicit in the Bill, against it. If the burden is on the applicant and the registrar is satisfied that the application passes the registration tests, why should those opposed to hunting be able to appeal the decision? The only basis on which it would be appropriate for them to do so is if the burden of registration were reversed—if there was a presumption that registration should be granted and those who were opposed should show why it should not be granted, which is something that the Minister has steadfastly refused to acknowledge.

Yet again, every possible barrier is being put in the way of the applicant receiving a free and fair hearing. The running theme of the Bill is clearly the belief that the force of evidence alone will not be sufficient to deny licences to those who wish to hunt and that, therefore, other procedural and bureaucratic burdens must be put in their way if hunting is to be squeezed out of existence.

Amendment No. 35 would allow the successful applicant to appeal to the tribunal to alter unsatisfactory conditions imposed by the registrar under clause 17(5)(b). That is extremely important, because that paragraph allows the registrar

''to add or vary the conditions specified in the application'',

but at present there is no tribunal process through which the applicant can appeal. The Minister will argue that subsection (5)(b) requires the applicant's consent. However, the applicant is bound to agree to conditions if he thinks that that will guarantee a successful application. In practice, it might appear that conditions are too strict to enable the individual or the group to carry out their activities to their satisfaction: for example, the registrar may impose conditions such as restricting the number of hunt followers, which could render the proposed hunting uneconomic. The applicant should therefore have a right to appeal, especially as the tribunal is already in existence.

The Bill is riddled with such inequalities that fly in the face of fair play and natural justice. The details of the Bill risk losing the benefit of doubt that country people might be willing to invest in a licensing regime that is increasingly seen and exposed as being unbalanced and inherently prejudiced. If the Government lose the confidence of country people in that regime, we could see chaos and civil disobedience in the countryside.

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

The hon. Gentleman is right that the hearings should not be a re-run of the Burns inquiry. Amendment No. 319 removes the right of a prescribed animal welfare body to appeal to the tribunal where the registrar has granted an application and provides for appeals to be by way of re-hearing. The provision allowing for a prescribed animal welfare body to appeal to the tribunal is fundamental to the appeal process. To remove it would unbalance the Bill by allowing an applicant to appeal against refusal by the registrar, but preventing a prescribed body appealing against the approval of an application. As set out in clause 19, the Bill is constructed to enable the tribunal to grant or refuse the application for registration by re-hearing the case from whichever party brings the appeal. I believe that that balance is right and I therefore resist amendment No. 319.

I think that the hon. Gentleman accepted that amendment No. 35 goes to the same point as the Government amendment, allowing the appeal against conditions by the applicant. As he accepted that it was not necessary to pursue his amendment, I shall not comment on it further.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The Minister might be able to help me fairly quickly. To go behind the detail of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Barker), will the Minister confirm that the tribunal has total discretion to reach its own findings of fact and conclusions and is not restricted to any findings that the registrar may present to it in his response? I presume that the registrar will give a reasoned or written response.

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

I am genuinely not sure what point the hon. and learned Gentleman is making. Could he indulge me by repeating it? Then I might get the point.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Yes, I will. Let me try to help the Minister with an example.

In certain judicial activities, appeals are often allowed on certain points. For example, if one appeals from the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords, either the Court of Appeal or the House of

Lords will narrow the issues under appeal so that one cannot revisit the whole question. When one appeals from, say, the Queen's Bench Master to the High Court judge, the High Court judge has complete discretion to revisit the whole issue. I wanted to be sure that the tribunals have that discretion.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his amplification. I understand his point. Yes, the tribunal will be able to revisit the whole application. What the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks is what is required.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I have listened carefully to the Minister and it has been useful to have my hon. and learned Friend's comments. Nevertheless, I still have strong reservations about the clause.

Amendment agreed to.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Again I ask for clarification. We know—I think we know—that there will be only one registrar, who will be very busy receiving applications and responses to them from those who oppose them and reaching his considered judgment having heard both sides' arguments. However, we do not know how the tribunal will be established. I might be told that that matter is dealt with in other clauses or schedules, but I am not sure that it is.

What provision have the Government made for the cost of that operation? What discussions has the Minister's Department had with the Lord Chancellor's Department about the number of people who will be required to sit on the tribunals? What discussions has the Minister had with either the Lord Chancellor's Department or the Court Service—whichever administrative body is to look after the tribunal members—to see whether they will be composed of full-time appointments, or chaired by full-time chairmen, with, if I may rudely describe them as such, amateur wingers? I think that the Minister knows what I mean. Will there be provision for part-time chairmen and so on? A mass of administration must go into the construction of the tribunal system. We know nothing about the costs, the location of the tribunals and the full implications for the tax-paying public of this exercise.

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

The hon. and learned Gentleman is right that, at any point in legislation involving a new tribunal or new sorts of court hearings, certain implications must be considered as part of the administration of the system.

The Bill provides for the establishment of the registrar and the tribunal. The establishment of the tribunal will come under the Lord Chancellor's Department, which deals with a wide range of tribunals for a variety of purposes, including employment and housing, and in many ways it will replicate the current arrangements. The standards for tribunals are now clearly and coherently established, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows. The Bill's provisions allow for the establishment of the tribunal within that tried and tested system. Questions of numbers and costs are always difficult to anticipate

because the answers depend on the number, variety and complexity of applications. Those matters are under discussion, and establishing the tribunal will be a significant project for my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor, with whom I have discussed the arrangements.

As far as the question of appointments is concerned, the hon. and learned Gentleman is right to indicate that, as is the case with other tribunals, the wing members will be part-time. We have referred to the establishment of a panel from which wing members would be drawn and the balance in the tribunal hearing for any particular application.

Finally, the hon. and learned Gentleman asked whether appointments would be part-time or full-time. The intention is to appoint a full-time president with other members being appointed on a part-time basis to allow for the necessary flexibility to deal with applications, the number of which cannot be determined at this stage, as efficiently and expeditiously as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 18, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 19 - Determination by Tribunal

Clause 22 - Content of the register

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I beg to move amendment No. 232, in

clause 22, page 8, line 40, leave out 'and' and insert—

'(dd) in the case of a group registration, the name and address of every person for the time being registered, and'.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 270, in

clause 23, page 9, line 14, at end insert—

'(2A) Regulations shall provide that the identity of individuals who participate in a hunt under section 28(5)(a) shall not be made available under subsection (1)(b).'.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

This is my first contribution to this Standing Committee. It has been a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Stevenson, and that of Mrs. Roe.

I must declare that I am a member of the RSPCA and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, I contribute to it, rather than the other way around. In passing, this is my first opportunity to put my dog's name on the record. My dog Jess is an RSPCA rescue dog. I have had her for 10 years and was proud to be able to take such a

wonderful dog home as a family pet. I also contribute to Slutchers lane kennels, which is run by the RSPCA, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Helen Southworth).

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I add my congratulations and thanks to the RSPCA on the wonderful work that it does in its dog rescue kennels and on general animal welfare, and add my disapprobation on its campaigning work.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I am sure that the RSPCA and the wider world will have listened to that contribution in the same way in which they listened to the contribution from the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire, who decided not to take a rescue dog from the RSPCA because he thought that it did not have the interests of animal welfare at heart.

The amendment concerns the information that will be placed on the register. If the Bill is going to be enforced properly after it is enacted, the names of registered people should be on the register. Where there are group registrations, the amendment would require the names of all members of a group applying for registration to be placed on the register. I shall address the availability of the register in the next set of amendments.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Amendment No. 232, which was moved by the hon. Gentleman, and amendment No. 270, which was tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends, are direct opposites, and I shall therefore speak to them together.

It is entirely unnecessary to record the applicants' names—particularly the group applicants—in any form that might become public. There is no suggestion that that such a record would assist in promoting animal welfare or that the registrar would be more inclined to be in favour of applicants or against them. There is also no suggestion that there would be any change to clause 8, which is the central clause of the Bill. It is pointless, from either an animal welfare standpoint or a hunting standpoint, publicly to record peoples' names. I am therefore not certain why the hon. Gentleman has tabled the amendment.

If one seeks to restrict hunting, as the hon. Gentleman does, why should it be necessary for the registrar, who will have carefully considered the relative cruelty and utility of the matter before deciding to register a particular individual, to publish those names? The police do not publish the names and addresses of those people to whom they have granted shotgun licences.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I agree on that point, for giving way. I am asking for the names to be placed on the register, and the Secretary of State will be able to restrict the information that is made public, in which case I would urge them to restrict the publication of names and addresses.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am somewhat relieved by the hon. Gentleman's point. The names of the people who have applied and have been registered will be listed in the register; otherwise it would not be a register. I have

every confidence that, as the Bill is drafted, the names and addresses would be on the register. There would be little point in applicants being granted a licence if the registrar did not keep a careful note of their names and addresses. I hope that that point is self-explanatory.

My understanding of the way in which the amendment is drafted is that the hon. Gentleman intended that names and addresses should become public either by their being published or even by their being available by application from certain groups, which we would resist.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that I would look to the Secretary of State to restrict the publication of that information.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Given that, I can see little objection to the hon. Gentleman's amendment, but there is also little point to it. It is surely self-explanatory that people will be registered.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Does my hon. Friend agree that, where information of that sort is held centrally in a database, it is accessible by people who may not be entitled to access it? Recent events in Stormont, where records were tapped into, provide an extreme example of that. The gathering and making of such data has severe implications, and any guarantee from any Minister would not be enough to assuage my feeling that it is dangerous centrally to hold such information.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

What my hon. Friend has described is regrettably correct. Nowadays, people can people tap into computers in the most extraordinary way. None the less, a large number of private matters affecting our everyday lives, such as criminal records, tax returns and medical records, are kept on computers, and there are suitable safeguards in place to ensure that such information does not become public.

I look forward to hearing the Minister respond to the amendment. He will reassure us that there is no way in which the information about the names and addresses of those who have applied and have been registered will, by any stretch of the imagination, become public either now or in the future. If he can reassure us on that point, we would have no particular objection to the hon. Gentleman's amendment and would not want to press our amendment because we would be content that there would no abuse or vileness from the opposition to those of us who hunt. I look forward to the Minister's response and hope that he can reassure us.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. This is a tedious point, and I know what you will tell me—it will not be helpful—but I will give it a try. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall), who moved the amendment, did not do much to explain its purpose and hinted that further amendments would qualify it. Could he explain how the future amendments will work while staying in order because it is impossible for me to reach a judgment on the amendment's merits without knowing what the other amendments would do?

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Whether hon. Members are able to reach a judgment after listening to the debate is, of course, a matter for them. It is also the responsibility of anyone who speaks to an amendment or part of the Bill to make his case. It is not up to the Chair to determine how long or short their contribution should be, and it is certainly not up to the Chair to anticipate what might happen later. I believe that the hon. Gentleman knew when he stood up that that was not a point of order.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

To complete my remarks, I am concerned by clause 23(1):

''The registrar—

(a) shall make the register available for inspection by the public at all reasonable times, and

(b) shall provide a copy of an entry in the register to any person who requests it.''

It would be entirely unacceptable if that were to be the case and if names and addresses were to be recorded on that part of the register. We seek from the Minister an assurance that despite the provisions of clause 23(1), by no stretch of the imagination will private names and addresses be revealed to the public. I suppose that what is in mind is that the names of the hunts will be listed.

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

This has been an interesting short debate, because it has teased out two almost equal but opposite fears about the way in which the register will operate. I hope that I can satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and, in doing so, make explicit the way in which the register will be maintained. Both amendments could lead to unintended consequences. I hope that my hon. Friend will not press his amendment if I can persuade him that the arrangements will provide the clarity that he seeks.

Clause 22 sets out the information that the registrar is required to maintain in the register, and clause 23 provides for inspection of the register by members of the public. Amendment No. 232 would require the registrar to record the names and addresses of every person registered under a group registration. I am very sympathetic to what my hon. Friend said in support of his amendment. There are grounds for maintaining a list of the names of all the individuals who are registered under a group registration for the purpose of enforcement, but I am not convinced that an individual's address is also required. Clause 32 gives the Secretary of State powers to specify in regulations the information that shall not be included in the publicly available register. Such powers could be used to protect private addresses. My hon. Friend indicated that he expected that that would be the case.

Amendment No. 270 seeks to ensure that the record of each individual who participates in a hunt under a group registration is excluded from the register that is made available for public inspection and copy. An automatic condition of group registration under clause 28(5) is the maintenance of a record of each individual who participates in the hunt on each occasion on which the activity is carried out. However, no provision requires that information to be included in

the register or made public. Therefore, amendment No. 270 is unnecessary.

The names and addresses of the people who are registered to hunt would be on the register, under the Bill as drafted. I give my hon. Friend that clear assurance.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that information. Is he saying that if I do not press the amendment, the information that I am asking for will be on the register? Does that mean that every member of the group will be listed?

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

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that I can satisfy him by making explicit today the way in which the system will operate. It is necessary for the names to be made public so that members of the public can tell whether someone that they see hunting is permitted to do so, but there is no equivalent enforcement need for addresses to be made public. The Bill provides the clarity that my hon. Friend seeks and also the protection that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire seeks.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Will the Minister briefly address the definition of those who hunt? There is an important distinction, in the context of the amendment of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale. Are we requiring the names and addresses of the people who control the dogs to be registered? Or will the register list every person who attends a hunt, of which there may be many hundreds?

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

We are talking about those who are registered to hunt. If they hunt but are not registered, they commit an offence. The hon. Gentleman is returning to the discussion that he tried to raise yesterday.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

No, I am seeking clarification on extremely important points. What is the definition of the word ''hunt''? Who needs to be registered? Is it simply the people who are in control of the dogs? Or is it the field? That is to say, the people who are many fields away and have no connection with the dogs, but merely observe the hunt from the road, the wayside or on a horse in a field. Are we talking about the people who control the dogs, or the followers as well?

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

May I help the Minister? As I understand it, the group registration refers to those in control of the dogs, specifying the numbers of people involved. Those people do not have to be listed in the register. I hope that that is the correct interpretation.

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

The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire is pointing in the right direction. It is clear that unregistered people can hunt if somebody who is registered supervises them. On the question of whether hunting is defined in the Bill, the matter got slightly complicated the other day because the hon. Member for North Wiltshire sought to use a form of words that is not in the Bill in order to define hunting. I was at pains to resist that—I think that he thought that I was trying not to answer his question, but I was simply trying to ensure that I did not mislead the Committee by using definitions of hunting that differ

from the definition in the Bill. I hope that that clarifies the matter.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

I am grateful for that satisfactory clarification.

The Minister has assured us that the register will have to include names and has said that it will not have to include addresses, but I do not think that he has given the Committee a cast-iron guarantee that addresses will not be made public. If I misheard or misinterpreted him, I am sorry. I am genuinely trying to tease out the matter, because there is a real worry. Some people can be very violent and unpleasant, so addresses are a big issue. Has the Minister said that the public register will not include addresses? Has he ruled that out?

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

The part of the Bill that deals with the way in which the register will be composed is relevant. Clause 23(2) provides that the Secretary of State may by regulation make clear what information has to be on the register and what information has to be made public. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale sought to make it clear that names and addresses would be on the register, not to ensure that they would be made public, and that is what the provisions are intended to do. I have given the Committee the assurance that we intend to have a register that is available for public inspection and that it will contain names, but not addresses. However, even though that information will not be in the publicly available record, it will still be on the register, which is what my hon. Friend's amendment was intended to achieve. I am sorry if my replies to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have not taken us straight to that point, which is at the heart of the issue, but that is what I have been trying to say.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

In view of my right hon. Friend's comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23 - Inspection of the register

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I beg to move amendment No. 233, in

clause 23, page 9, line 11, after 'inspection', insert

'(otherwise than by a person mentioned in subsection (2A))'.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 234, in

clause 23, page 9, line 12, after 'provided', insert

'(otherwise than to a person mentioned in subsection (2A))'.

Amendment No. 235, in

clause 23, page 9, line 13, after 'fee', insert

'(but not by a person mentioned in subsection (2A))'.

Amendment No. 236, in

clause 23, page 9, line 14, at end insert—

'(2A) The persons are—

(a) a prescribed animal welfare body;

(b) a person seeking to inspect the register, or to obtain copies, for the purpose of enforcement of any enactment relating to animal welfare, who—

(i) is a constable, or

(ii) acts as, or on behalf of, a person wholly or mainly concerned with enforcement of such enactments.'.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

Amendments Nos. 233 to 236 deal with who will not have access to the register and whether individuals or organisations should have to pay for access. The amendments are intended to ensure that the organisations prescribed under clause 11 have full access to the register and do not have to pay for that. The reasoning behind that is straightforward. Those organisations will have a duty to advise the tribunal on the fairness or unfairness of any application to be registered under the Bill. If they do not have access to the register, they will not be able to carry out that duty properly. If an organised hunt applies to renew its registration, the prescribed organisations will be able to see what has happened on the ground and compare that with the information in the register to see whether the hunt has been compliant. That is pretty straightforward. The information that should be in the register and published is which species are allowed to be hunted, in which areas, and by whom. The prescribed organisation should have access to that information.

The second group or individual that I mention in amendment No. 236 is the police. As the constabulary will be responsible for enforcing the Bill, any police officer involved must have full and free access to the register. That, too, is straightforward.

The third category comprises any individual or body already involved in animal welfare legislation enforcement. I give as an example the RSPCA. It may not ask to become a prescribed organisation, but it will still have a proper function to carry out in enforcing animal welfare legislation. It should therefore have full access to the register.

Some people will be worried that access to the register by a prescribed organisation or, in my example, an individual working for the RSPCA creates a risk that the information on the register will be misused, but that concern does not stand detailed examination. I expect the Secretary of State in prescribing organisations to state that they are bona fide, recognised organisations that will follow the requirements of the Bill to the letter and not misuse the information. If they are found guilty of misusing it, they should be taken off the list of prescribed animal welfare organisations.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The hon. Gentleman has partly answered the question that I was about to ask. Is that the only measure that should be taken against someone who leaks such confidential information?

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

Absolutely not. I would expect the full panoply of the law to be used against anybody who misuses that information and I would expect criminal prosecutions to follow.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Having been mildly reassured by the Minister's answer in respect of the last group of amendments, that confidential information such as the

addresses of those who are registered and the names of supervised followers would not made be made public, I have now become extremely concerned about this group of amendments, for two reasons.

First, as we discovered during our discussions last week, the Minister has gone to great lengths to avoid giving any assurances about who the recognised animal welfare groups will be. I pressed him hard on the matter. I pressed him to rule out certain campaigning organisations such as the League Against Cruel Sports, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Hunt Saboteurs Association and the Countryside Alliance, but he went to great lengths to say that he would not rule anybody in or anybody out.

It is therefore perfectly possible that, for example, the Hunt Saboteurs Association, which I believe to be close to being an illegal organisation if not actually proscribed, could by some quirk—under a future Secretary of State—become a recognised animal welfare organisation. If the amendments were allowed, it could by that means gain access to the private addresses of people whose activities it hates. We must remember that by that time those activities will have been registered and will be allowed under the Bill. Nevertheless, certain organisations could take it into their heads to believe that the activities were in some way disgraceful and hateful.

We know of some of the activities that the Hunt Saboteurs Association has carried out. Huntingdon Life Sciences, for example, has suffered from its activities, as have a number of hunts, which have been attacked by such organisations quite disgracefully. I shall not bore the Committee with examples, but there are plenty around. The activities of those people are unspeakable—and illegal.

Our concern is that if the amendments, which may be intended sensibly, are accepted, sensitive and delicate information might be given—unintentionally—not to legitimate animal welfare organisations that might wish to write to the applicant, which would be a sensible and legitimate thing to do, but, either by such organisations or at second hand, to organisations whose intention was not to do anything worthwhile, sensible and legal under the Bill, but was to carry out illegal acts against those who have been registered.

The Minister should therefore tell us who he believes the prescribed animal welfare groups should be. If he can reassure us by saying that they are to be the Oxford university zoologists, or veterinary surgeons, or other legitimate organisations, we might be content for some addresses in certain circumstances to be released to them. However, given that, after debating the subject at length last week, we still have no idea at all who the recognised animal welfare bodies will be, it strikes us as entirely perverse to wish to release such sensitive and delicate information to them.

The Minister might be able to reassure me on that point when he responds, and I look forward to his answer. However, given the comments of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale in moving the amendments,

we face an extremely worrying development, because a perfectly legitimate activity under the Bill might be disrupted by the hooligans who work for some of the organisations that have been mentioned. Unless the Minister can reassure us, I hope that many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will resist the amendments.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I see that the amendment is supported, at least on paper, by nine Labour Members. That makes the arithmetic of this morning's exercise interesting. I am sure that the hon. Member for West Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire (Mr. Ainger) is keeping a close eye on developments.

The simple point that I want to make about the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale—[Interruption.] Yes, I know exactly who he is. I have seen him before.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

And I know where he lives. The simple point that I want to make about the group of amendments is that it provides double access to financial assistance to the groups by whom he is supported and whom he supports.

First, under earlier parts of the Bill, the animal welfare groups, as yet unspecified, are to be provided with Government money to perform their activities in response to an application for a licence. Secondly, under the amendments, the groups are to be relieved of the burden of paying the usual inspection fee. That seems to be wholly uncalled for. If the groups have lawful business in finding out names and addresses, or whatever it may be, they should pay for it like everyone else.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman suggesting that the police, who are mentioned in the amendment, should have to pay for that information?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

That may be part of the amendment, but it is not all of the amendment. The hon. Gentleman has not dealt with the point that as a result of earlier clauses the groups highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire will not only have access to Government money as well as to taxpayers' and my constituents' money, but they will be denied the opportunity of repaying the inspection fee to the taxpayers of my constituency.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

Under an earlier part of the Bill the Committee considered whether the prescribed animal welfare bodies should have a bona fide grant paid to them for conducting their duties. If they then had to pay to obtain the necessary information, they would simply make the claim against the Secretary of State under the first part of the Bill. Therefore, the point that the hon. and learned Gentleman is making is, to say the least, a little misleading.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The point that I am making is in no way misleading. I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman even thought to use such an adjective. If he thinks that the point that he has made is a good one, that simply demonstrates the Committee's lack of wisdom in permitting taxpayers' money to be used to fund the activities of these so-called animal welfare

organisations in the first place. It would be far more just to my constituents and a better use of taxpayers' money if all those who wished to resist applications for licences and all those who wished to inspect the register were treated equally—but they are not. This is a bad Bill and that is an example of its badness, and the amendment makes it worse.

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

In moving the amendment, my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale said that the public record should show who is registered and for which areas and which species of quarry. It is entirely consistent with our aims that that information should be available to the public.

Before discussing the amendment, it is important that I deal with some of the comments made by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire about designated animal welfare organisations. He was right to say that I refuse to speculate on which organisations might be considered and appointed, but his understanding of that is inappropriate.

A designated animal welfare organisation would have to be one that had the capacity to undertake the role in a professional manner. The hon. Gentleman suggested that extreme campaigning groups and people who are willing to use violence and break the law in pursuit of a particular belief would be appointed. I cannot believe that any Secretary of State of any party would contemplate anything of the sort, and I certainly cannot believe that any officials would give advice that would open the door to such organisations. That has not been my experience of the system of appointments or the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that public appointments, whether of an individual or a body, are appropriate.

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that his expressions of concern make me wonder what was going on in the then Department of the Environment when, as he reminded us yesterday, he was a special adviser. I would have thought that his experience would confirm mine, which is, first, that ministerial office holders of any party jealously protect the propriety of appointments of organisations and individuals and, secondly, that they make appointments with advice from officials, which is always aimed at protecting not only the office holder but the integrity of the system.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Of course, I am happy to accept exactly what the Minister says about the propriety of people who are appointed, and I am happy to accept that the Hunt Saboteurs Association, which I named in my speech, will not be appointed for that reason. Will the Minister tell us whether other organisations whose sole function is to campaign will be appointed? I think in particular of the League Against Cruel Sports. If his answer is possibly, would he not accept that information that is passed to LACS, for example, might intentionally or unintentionally be passed on to organisations such as the Hunt Saboteurs Association?

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

I am grateful for the first part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, because it means that we

are on common ground about the way in which the Secretary of State would observe the proprieties.

In the second part of his remarks, however, he sought again to draw me into speculation on organisations that might be considered and appointed. To some degree, he begins to answer his own questions about particular types of organisations. I ask him to extrapolate from that and consider what the Bill requires. If the Secretary of State were to attempt to appoint an extremist group as a prescribed animal welfare body, Parliament could block any regulations that he made under clause 11(2).

Having cleared that out of the way, let us deal with the amendment. Clause 23 requires the registrar to make the register available for inspection by the public and to provide any person, for a fee, with a copy of the register. It is to that public register that my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale addressed his remarks. The Bill provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations that would allow specified information to be omitted from the register that is made available to the public. I believe that in earlier discussions everyone agreed on what should be excluded and what should be included.

The amendments would ensure that the persons or organisations specified in amendment No. 236 would be exempt from any restrictions that are placed on information on the register that will be made publicly available, and also exempt from paying a fee for a copy of the information. They propose that a prescribed animal welfare body should have access to all the information.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the information should be available to such a body so that it may properly discharge its functions under the Bill. In practice, the prescribed body will already be in possession of such information by virtue of being invited under clause 17(2)(a) to make representations on applications for registration and by being notified of the outcome of all such applications.

My hon. Friend will recall that concerns were expressed earlier by other hon. Members that the information might not be complete, and I gave assurances on that at the time. I confirm that the prescribed body will be exempt from the requirement to pay a fee for a copy of an entry in the register. The amendments also propose that the police should have access at no cost to all the information on the register. I confirm that provision will be made for that.

Finally, the amendments propose that information should be made available to any person who

''acts as, or on behalf of, a person wholly or mainly concerned with enforcement''

of any animal welfare legislation. I am not convinced that it is necessary to go that far for the purposes of enforcing animal welfare legislation. It is possible for any individual to bring a prosecution, but the norm is that recognised animal welfare organisations do that.

My hon. Friend alluded to arrangements that are already in place in respect of existing legislation. Any person who has a concern can bring it to the notice of a welfare body. Access to the information that is

provided to the public is available to an organisation that is not a prescribed organisation.

Of course, we must consider the maintenance of the register and the use of information in the context of wider data protection legislation and ensure that we do not contravene it or introduce a conflict in the law. The Data Protection Act 1998 will apply to any information that is given to prescribed animal welfare bodies. They will be permitted to use it only for the purposes for which it has been supplied.

Propriety must be observed in making an appointment and, additionally, if an organisation were to think of going beyond what it is allowed to do, it would commit an offence under the 1998 Act. For example, the body could not pass the information to other anti-hunt organisations or use it for its own political or campaigning activities. The purpose for which information is provided to the designated animal welfare organisation is absolutely clear. [Interruption.] I see that one or two Members wish to intervene. I am coming to the end of my comments.

I hope I have assured my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale that the arrangements will meet his requirements, and that I have been able to give the hon. Member for North Wiltshire the reassurance that he required.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Does the Minister accept that the protection offered by the Data Protection Act 1998, while welcome in this context, is slender, and that there is a severe risk that information could leak from some of the animal welfare organisations?

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

We could get involved in a fairly complex argument, but I expect that, to be designated, an organisation would have to show what arrangements it had made for holding information and ensuring that it was not used inappropriately. That is a standard requirement not only for voluntary organisations, as these might be, but for companies that undertake work for the Government.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the highest standards will be expected and that the process of designation will include appropriate assurances to officials and to the Government that such matters will be dealt with appropriately according to the Data Protection Act. Therefore, the requirements of the appointment as well as the Act will assist in obtaining the necessary protection.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I rose earlier because I wanted to ask about data protection provisions, but the Minister has dealt with that point. We are dealing with an aspect of public policy that leads to those on both sides of the argument greatly distrusting each other. Animal welfare organisations distrust those who support hunting and those who hunt or support hunting are, as a result of unfortunate experiences, at the very least wary of so-called animal welfare organisations and, in some cases, terrified of them. The Government should be fully aware of the fact that those organisations will be in possession of information that could be used to people's disadvantage. I accept that there is data protection legislation, but it is complicated and abstruse. It is essential that the Government—

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman is straying into a speech. I think the Minister has got the point.

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

I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman's point. He commits an error by referring to animal rights organisations and the sorts of organisations alluded to earlier, which might act illegally. I would expect arrangements to be made to ensure that designated organisations act within the law and in accordance with the intentions of the Bill. The debate can become confused if we are not clear about the distinction between animal rights organisations and organisations that are legitimately concerned with animal welfare.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

A lot of that confusion could be cleared up if the Minister were to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire. If the Minister names the prescribed organisations, we will no longer be confused between a rights organisation and a welfare organisation.

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

I assume that that is the sort of question that the hon. Gentleman gets paid a lot of money for asking in court.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am doing this on behalf of my constituents. [Interruption.]

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. I am looking very carefully at the amendments because we have had this debate before. Amendment No. 236 refers to a ''prescribed animal welfare body'' and therefore the question is in order.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I do not usually lose my temper because it wastes time and energy. However, I find it extremely offensive that a member of the Privy Council and one of Her Majesty's Ministers should accuse me of asking questions on the basis of money. That is a disgusting allegation and the Minister should withdraw it.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

I do not know whether the Minister wishes to refer to his comments. I urge all hon. Members to keep within the established parliamentary protocol, which is known by every experienced hon. Member in the Room.

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

I was referring to the hon. and learned Gentleman's professional expertise, rather than to the receipt of finances. If he understood my remarks differently, I certainly did not intend that. He should not be quite so sensitive, but I hope that that helps. If the hon. and learned Gentleman looks at clause 11, he will see that it states:

''The Secretary of State shall by regulations prescribe one or more bodies as prescribed animal welfare bodies for the purposes of this Part.''

That is quite clear. Clause 11(2) states:

''The Secretary of State may prescribe a body only if he thinks that it is wholly or partly concerned with the protection or welfare of animals.''

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Who are they?

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

The hon. Gentleman repeats his unhelpful mantra: ''Who are they?'' They are organisations that fit the definition within that clause. The hon. Gentleman wants me to undertake an appointment procedure on my feet, in the

Committee. He knows quite well that that would be entirely inappropriate. It would be wrong of me to prejudice the Secretary of State's decision. The hon. Gentleman is also aware of the protections that exist to ensure that the prescribed bodies are appropriate animal welfare bodies that meet the requirements of propriety in relation to their appointment to undertake the activities. Companies are appointed to a number of sensitive areas, such as security, information technology and science. Some of those organisations are professional, some are voluntary and some are private companies. There is nothing strange or bizarre about that process. The hon. Gentleman has carried his argument well beyond the point of reason and it is time for us to move on. I will, however, give way to him—as I always do.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

We can move on. All the Minister has to do is answer one question; what is an animal welfare body?

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

It is a body that is wholly or partly concerned with the protection or welfare of animals, as it says in the Bill.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. I tried to help the Committee earlier by referring to the contents of amendment No. 236, which specifically refers to prescribed animal welfare bodies. It was perfectly in order for questions to be raised, but we are now going around the issue. The Minister has made his position clear, and I should hope that hon. Members understand it.

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

In that light, Mr. Stevenson, I shall draw my remarks to a close. Although some hon. Members have gone outside my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale's amendment, I hope that I have answered the points he intended it to raise in a positive way, as well as answering Opposition Members' fears. I hope that he will be able to accept my assurances.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I am delighted with the reply from my right hon. Friend the Minister because I have got two of the three things that I was seeking. I will think further about the role of individuals acting on behalf of organisations such as the RSPCA, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 24 - Standard duration of registration

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 271, in

clause 24, page 9, line 18, leave out from 'effect' to 'as' in line 20 and insert—

'(a) unless and until such time as the licensee may be shown to the satisfaction of the registrar to have breached its terms, or

(b) for such period'.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 177, in

clause 24, page 9, line 19, leave out 'three years' and insert 'six months'.

No. 321, in

clause 24, page 9, line 19, leave out 'years' and insert 'months'.

Government amendment No. 333.

No. 230, in

clause 24, page 9, line 21, at end add

'or

(c) such shorter period starting with that date as the registrar or Tribunal think fit'.

No. 322, in

clause 25, page 9, line 25, leave out 'years' and insert 'months'.

Government amendment No. 334.

No. 231, in

clause 25, page 9, line 28, at end add

'or

(c) such shorter period starting with that date as the registrar or Tribunal think fit'.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The purpose of amendment No. 271 is to allow applicants to continue to be registered until either the registrar is satisfied that the terms of registration have been breached or the point at which the applicant specifies that they no longer require registration, which is a perfectly sensible provision. If an applicant applies under the legislation and persuades the registrar that what they propose to do meets the utility and least-suffering tests, the registrar will register them. It is perfectly sensible, and a good thing in administrative terms, to allow an applicant to continue an activity until either they no longer wish to do it or the prescribed animal welfare bodies, which will be monitoring events, make representations to the registrar that the activity should be stopped. That would have the benefits of allowing people to make reasonable plans for an activity that they are going to carry out and reducing the administrative burden on the registrar.

If the registrar has to reconsider each application on a three-monthly basis, which one amendment in the group proposes, the registrar would be buried under applications. There are likely to be tens of thousands of applications on the day on which the Bill becomes law. If that figure were multiplied by four, as the amendment would do, the registrar would be buried under a gigantic mountain of administration. All the registrar would do is reconsider matters that had been considered to be perfectly satisfactory only three months previously.

There is no presumption that the circumstances in which an applicant hunts would change within three months. If there were such a change, it would be open to animal welfare organisations to make representations to the registrar that the applicant had breached the terms of the Bill by not performing in the way in which the registrar expected.

In other words, it is entirely unnecessary to require the applicant to come back every three months or every six months. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) proposes allowing the registrar to decide how long the application should last, which is also unnecessary. Even if one starts from the presumption that hunting should be restricted or banned, there are perfectly

good provisions in the Bill that would allow animal welfare organisations to stop hunts at short notice by going back to the registrar. Merely putting in place a bureaucratic solution such as that proposed by Government Members would make it extremely difficult for the registrar to carry out their proper functions. The registrar would be buried under paper and applications, most of which would be identical to ones submitted three or six months previously.

The same point applies to all kinds of applications; driving licences spring to mind. When one applies for a driving licence, one keeps it until such time as a court discovers that one has breached its terms, in which case it is withdrawn for a period or for life. That parallel is sensible and I can see no advantage, even from the point of view of those who speak for anti-hunting organisations, in seeking to restrict the length of the registration to three months or six months. Our amendment, which proposes that a registration should remain in place until such time as the animal welfare organisations are able to demonstrate that there has been a material breach of the registration, is much more logical.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

Amendment No. 177 would change the standard duration of registration from three years to six months. It would create a probationary period that an applicant would have to serve once a registration had been granted. I chose a six-month period because it would clearly show whether a registered activity had the utility that the applicant had claimed for it.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

The amendment would undermine everything that the Bill is about. It is surely up to the registrar to determine whether the criteria have been fulfilled, which is what the Government are suggesting. If it were proven that the licensee had violated the licence, six months later they would be subject to a challenge by one of the Minister's friendly animal welfare bodies. The matter should not be sorted out by a probationary period.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

The amendment's purpose is to create a six-month probationary period, which would be justifiable if the legislation is to operate on the basis of evidence, during which evidence could be presented.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Even if that were the hon. Gentleman's purpose, which Opposition Members would not accept, it would not be the amendment's effect. His amendment would mean an applicant having to come back every six months for the rest of his life until such time as they failed to achieve registration. It is not a probationary period; it is every six months for ever.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

If my amendment were carried, the first registration would last for six months, but renewals could last for three years. I do not intend registration to take place every six months. On clause 25(1)(a), my purpose is to create a six-month probationary period with renewals taking place for three years. I did not intend to overwhelm the registrar or the tribunal with unnecessary registrations, and I hope that that has clarified the hon. Gentleman's point.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Other amendments—the hon. Gentleman has not signed them—in his hon. Friends' names would reduce the provisions in clause 25 from three years to six months. If both his

and his hon. Friends' amendments were passed, registration would occur every six months.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out that I have not signed the amendments in the names of my hon. Friends. I believe that registration should be for six months with renewal on a three-year basis, purely to avoid unnecessary applications.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

In that case, will the hon. Gentleman speak and vote against his hon. Friends' amendments?

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

I should like to get to my amendment first. Clearly Opposition Members have not even read the Bill in the first place.

It is not a particularly draconian amendment and I look forward to hearing what impact my right hon. Friend the Minister believes it would have on the scheme that he envisages for the Bill. I also believe that the six-month period suggested in the amendment fits in with paragraph (b), which allows for a shorter period of registration, if the registrar deems that to be appropriate.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect. Clause 25(1)(b) specifies a shorter period if the applicant applies for a shorter period. It has nothing to do with the registrar.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

I am referring to clause 24(b), which says that registration could be for a shorter period. If I change the words from three years to six months, registration could be for a shorter period than six months.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Precisely the same applies to clause 24(b), under which the applicant may apply for a shorter period. There is no provision in the Bill for the registrar to allow a shorter period.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

I envisage that a registration does not have to be for three years but could be for six months or a shorter period, because the activity of pest control could be dealt with in a short time. I look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend the Minister says.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I wonder whether it is possible to see the amendment in such a sanguine light. We are not suggesting that people who have never hunted before will get together and decide to have a hunt for the purpose of pest control and are therefore unknown, unconnected and unable when they apply for the ability to hunt. If the Bill becomes law, those with a long history of hunting properly within the existing strict and proper rules will apply to the registrar, who will make certain that the people to whom he or she gives permission will be suitable persons. There is no need for a probationary period.

To take the example of the driving licence, if one has never driven before and one goes through a probationary period while learning to drive, that is one thing. We are not talking about people who have never hunted before. We are talking about people who have hunted, happily and properly, and in my view should be allowed to go on hunting. However, that is not what is happening here. I believe that the registrar would look with some curiosity on people who had previously gone in for motocross or speedway racing and wanted to move into hunting. I consider both of

those activities to be more damaging to society than hunting. The registrar would find it surprising if such a group suddenly said, ''We think that pest control is our real purpose in life'' and would probably decide that they were not suitable people for pest control. The people who will apply will be those for whom the registrar will be able to see a long track record.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

On the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, only those who currently hunt would not necessarily be new to an activity. Therefore, he is suggesting that anybody who would like to take up an activity would not be granted registration. As they were not doing it beforehand, they do not demonstrate expertise.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

The hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill. It is not individuals who are given the licence but the group. I am talking about the hunt, and the hunt has been doing the activity, very often for generations. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we are producing a Bill in the present circumstances, and those circumstances are that the people who will apply are hunts. Hunts are organisations, usually rather tough organisations, which make sure that those who hunt with them behave properly. That is one of their strengths. That is why the Middle Way Group—not a group that I support—has properly said that present ways of controlling hunting can be extended into a system that ensures that best practice is continued. As I understand it, that is its position.

All I am saying is that one could propose the amendment only if one did not want anybody to hunt. We know that the hon. Member for Worcester does not want anybody to hunt, but he must understand one important thing. It is difficult enough to believe the Government's bona fides in the way in which the Bill has been presented, because on two issues they have not given us a straight answer. They have not told us why they are proposing things that were never thought to be sensible during the three-day hearing—during which all these issues were supposed to be listened to—and they will not even give an indication of the sort of bodies that they believe might be involved in—

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman came into the Room I made some observations about that matter. I think that the point about the prescribed organisations has been well made and the Minister has made his position clear.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I assure you, Mr. Stevenson, that I was in the Room when you made that statement and I want to make clear what I am saying.

The fundamental difficulty in the Committee runs through these amendments as through others. It is a question of bona fides. We thought that we were coming to this debate to argue for the best way to bring together differing views on this issue. That was what we thought was the purpose of much of what had gone on before. The Minister assures us of his bona fides, and we still have problems about some of those

issues, to which, in passing, I referred. One was that we have not been given an indication of what the prescribed bodies would be; another was that things have been brought into the Bill that were not included in the discussions in Portcullis house.

The Minister labours under that difficulty, but the hon. Member for Worcester has no such difficulty, because we know his position. The Minister's position has changed. He was opposed to hunting entirely. He now tells us that he is not opposed to hunting entirely; he has a new system. We accept that but, as I understand it, the hon. Member for Worcester has not changed his position, so he must forgive Opposition Members if we believe that he is proposing the amendment not as a probationary measure, but because he wants to make it as difficult as possible for people to qualify even for the Minister's draconian proposals. The hon. Gentleman is saying, ''Can I take the Bill and make it inoperable?''

Out of courtesy, no doubt, the hon. Gentleman has not signed later amendments, but as some of the amendments are to be discussed, they, too, are as near to being wrecking amendments as they can be without being ruled out of order. It would be wrong for anybody outside the Committee to believe that the hon. Gentleman was proposing a gentle, measured, helpful contribution to the Bill. He is saying, first, ''We will make it very difficult for you to hunt, but if, by some chance, you squeak through, we will not trust the registrar to consider the information. We will not even trust the animal welfare bodies.'' The animal welfare bodies can go back to the registrar at any time—even 10 minutes after the start, if there has been a hunt in the meantime—and say, ''You let the hunt do the job, but it hasn't done it properly. It has been cruel and not exterminated enough animals,'' or something of that sort. However, it seems that that is not good enough. Obviously the registrar is not capable of understanding when people have broken his rules. It is not good enough just to have the registrar and the prescribed animal welfare bodies, whoever they may be; apparently, we have to have a six-month probationary period. That is piffle.

We all know what this is about. It is about adding objection, complication and expense—for expense it will be. Such things are not going to be paid for out of the public purse; the people in question will have to mount this themselves. The hon. Member for Worcester would be much better to say to the Committee honestly, ''I am trying to find as many ways as I can of making the Bill difficult. We ought to have a Bill that bans hunting and because we have not, I am going to try to earn money.'' He may smile and put his glasses on in order to introduce this in the most delicate and elegant way, but we know what he is up to. If anyone takes the proposal seriously, they should read his speeches and realise where he is coming from.

People should not treat the Bill in that way. It will be difficult for any of us to support a compromise. The fact that the Bill is not a compromise and has betrayed so much of what was promised means that there will be some difficulty wanting a compromise at all. If the people who do not want hunting to go on show that they do not want any kind of rapprochement and are

not interested in compromise or in the fact that the majority of people in Britain, now that they have got to know about it, do not want hunting banned, they will show that they are not interested in the parliamentary process, which is supposed to find a means of ensuring that the laws of the country have broad agreement and support. In those circumstances, those of us who have sought to move from our original position, which was not the Middle Way position and could be described as one of the extremist positions, will decide that that is not worthwhile because we are not dealing with rational, moderate people, but with people who have decided that their view is right, nobody else should be listened to and the countryside can go to hell. They think that all that matters is their view.

The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends would do better to withdraw the amendments so that we can begin to think that we live in a rational and tolerant society in which people try to find a way of coming together. The fact that the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to do that shows what I had always feared was true: namely, if one tries to compromise, in the end one is swept away by the sentimental, emotional side, which cannot listen to reason and wants only to get its own way.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I really enjoyed the rant from the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who was obviously playing to an audience. I will speak to the amendments that restrict the registration period for hunting to three months. This is the seventh full day of sittings on the Bill and, if I have understood the debate correctly, there are three reasons why people want to hunt: pleasure, the belief that they need to control the fox population and the serious problems that rogue foxes cause farmers.

Clause 8 sets out the utility test. It is necessary to prove that the hunting of the species concerned—in this case, foxes—will prevent or reduce serious damage to the items listed in the clause. Therefore, we are not talking of utility in terms of the fact that people enjoy hunting. That has now been put on one side, so we have the two other arguments that remain; how to control the fox population and how to deal with rogue foxes.

Let us think about how we deal with rogue foxes. Say we had a rogue fox causing a serious problem for a farmer. The hunt applies to register under the Bill, and then says, ''We shall take three years to hunt this fox.''

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

Am I right in inferring from what the hon. Gentleman says that he really thinks that every time he wants to kill a fox he has to register for that particular activity?

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

The hon. Gentleman answers his own question. If the application is to deal with a rogue fox, once that fox is dealt with there is no utility left. The hunt will then be allowed to continue hunting for three years without any utility.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Let me try to raise the stakes a little in terms of this part of the Bill. If there is a rogue fox, it is quite likely that there will be others. Is it not therefore quite permissible for the hunt to be allowed to come back, should the farmer ring up the next day and say,

''I've discovered another fox'', or would it have to re-register?

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I have to tell my right hon. Friend the Minister that my amendment is a probing amendment. To answer the hon. Gentleman's question, if there are rogue foxes, I am sure that, within a three-month period, with the efficiency of the hunt it will be able to sort them out.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the whole notion of rogue foxes is utterly fatuous? Every single fox born under the sun, given half a chance, would be rogue. To try to pretend that some foxes—[Interruption.]

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. I am having great difficulty in hearing the hon. Gentleman make his point. Perhaps the Committee will come to some sort of reasonable order.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am trying to understand whether there is some school of good foxes, with one or two bad foxes that just need to be dealt with, which is nonsense.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

I am grateful for that intervention. I recall the hon. Gentleman's earlier contribution when he said that foxes do not feel pain when they are hunted, because the adrenaline causes endorphins and the endorphins cause the foxes to become self-anaesthetised, and then they do not feel pain when they are killed. I have pondered that question. When the fox looks over the horizon and sees coming in his direction a number of people on horseback with black hats and red coats and with a load of dogs in front of them, why does it run in the opposite direction? I have often wondered about that. Is it because it enjoys the chase or because it is scared stiff that it is going to get its throat ripped out? I think it is probably the latter.

I return to the amendment. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Barker) has tried to resile from the position of his hon. Friends the Members for North Wiltshire, for Mid Worcestershire and for East Devon (Mr. Swire), who he will find—if he checks the record—have all referred to this particular beast, ''the rogue fox''. It exists in their minds even if it may not exist in the hon. Gentleman's.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

All politicians are a waste of space, but some are a bigger waste of space than others. All foxes are potentially rogue, but some are a bigger problem than others. I think that my hon. Friend is wrong. There are foxes that are particularly a problem.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

We now come to the issue of managing the fox population. We are told that fox populations need to be managed so that they are a healthy species and do not cause damage to farmers or the environment. My view—

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

On a point of order, Mr. Stevenson. I am reluctant to intervene on the hon. Gentleman's most amusing speech, but we are dealing with how long the registration should last. We are not revisiting the question of what is cruelty and what is utility.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

I am grateful for that point of order. It does help me. The hon. Member for Worcester has talked about a probationary period, and I think that

that has stimulated a useful debate. But we need to return to the duration of the registrations.

Mike Hall (Labour, Weaver Vale)

This is the argument. If we are to control the fox population by hunting, the most effective time to do that is from the time when the foxes are dispersed to the time when they start to breed. That is the two-month period of January and February. Therefore, the three-month registration period for fox hunting would clear that part of the utility test, too.

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that, if a utility test is met and the foxes are being dealt with, indiscriminate hunting does not continue.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

It is worth coming to these sittings. No one knows quite what the justification for an amendment will be. When I first saw amendment No. 322, which reduces the length of time that a licence can last from three years to three months, I could think only of ridiculous reasons why somebody might want to do that. I was right, because the amendment completely fails to understand the nature of fox control.

In Montgomeryshire, the area that I know best, people will be rolling in the aisles at the thought that a person must, effectively, re-register for every rogue fox that they go to catch. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale must think about the issues more rationally. The whole point about places like Montgomeryshire is that they have a fox problem; the fox is regarded as a pest. To suggest that people must seek a written application for every specific fox that they go out to kill is preposterous. It is like suggesting that people should register for every fish they intend to catch or every pheasant they intend to shoot. It is simply not the real world.

Eric Martlew (Labour, Carlisle)

I do not know the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but in Cumbria there are a number of artificial earths where foxes are bred; that includes even the fell packs. What is the logic of that?

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

The only way that those foxes would be able to get to Montgomeryshire is by bus, and I do not think that they catch buses.

Eric Martlew (Labour, Carlisle)

Answer the question.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I shall answer the hon. Gentleman's question, but I am fairly qualified to talk about the experience in Montgomeryshire. Perhaps he would claim that he is entitled to speak about experiences in his area. As we can derive a universal from a specific on occasion, I can safely tell the hon. Gentleman that if he went to David Jones and said, ''What do you think about the idea of having to fill in a form each time you go to kill a fox?'', he would laugh his head off. Then he would start to get concerned, because it would mean that his entire operation would become a paperwork exercise in which he would be expected to account for each individual fox. He would get a licence to kill for each individual fox, instead of having permission to perform the utility operation that we discussed in clause 8.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

May I express my own view from the perspective of Cornwall? Similarly, it would be inappropriate and absurd to make an application to deal with one fox, whether it had a personality disorder and could be described as rogue or not. When predations reach a point where commercial viability is threatened or a farm holding is affected, clearly it is appropriate to undertake some form of pest control, however that is carried out. However, I agree that it is inappropriate to take out one fox.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I am glad that there is agreement between myself and my hon. Friend, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats on this matter. It is a pleasant change.

I have probably emphasised the problem with the amendment of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale enough. David Jones goes back to the registrar and says, ''Thanks for the previous three months, but there is another fox. It turns out not to be a vegetarian or a fruitarian. It seems to have a personality disorder and it is going to kill some of my sheep. Can I go and kill it?'' I think that we have made the point clear. It might be possible to introduce that approach if we could also introduce psychometric testing for foxes. Then we could perhaps find the potential offenders.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

I ask this question in a spirit of genuine inquiry. Having read schedule 1 for myself, it appears that there are circumstances under which the control of foxes is exempt. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's point—that every time it is considered necessary to kill a rogue fox, an application has to be made under the particular conditions in the amendments of my hon. Friends—is not true. Is not the hon. Gentleman sketching a false position?

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I am responding to the principle described very clearly by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale, who implied that applications should be made for licences to deal with specific foxes. If I misheard him, he may intervene, but I believe that I am being faithful to what he said, although I disagree with his logic. I emphasised that because I hope that we never have the conversation again in following stages of the Bill.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Surely, the only way in which the system could work was if there were a named and precise fox. If someone were given a licence to kill a particular fox but killed the wrong one, they would, obviously, be in breach of the rules and, no doubt, a prescribed animal welfare body could come along and say so. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire should have suggested that we name the foxes. There could be an equivalent of the kennel club to ensure that no two foxes had been given the same name, to avoid confusing the animal welfare bodies.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I almost shudder to suggest it, but perhaps we should have a register of foxes, which can be shown only to prescribed animal welfare bodies and some other individuals.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

The intervention of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test was a serious point, but it was based on a misunderstanding. The hon. Gentleman may have been unintentionally misled by the hon.

Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who seemed to suggest that someone who hunted with a couple of dogs would be exempt as defined in schedule 1. In fact, he had received a long letter from the master of the Ynys Môn hunt, explaining how the hon. Gentleman had completely misunderstood the nature of the process. The exemption to which the hon. Gentleman referred does not apply and, as such, the amendment is dangerous.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

We will probably return to that at a later stage in our deliberations. I hope that on reflection the hon. Member for Weaver Vale will perhaps go and see what actually happens in places such as Montgomeryshire—or Cumbria, if he would prefer to go there—and that he will seek leave to withdraw the amendment.

The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal made a good point about the amendment of the hon. Member for Worcester, which seeks to reduce the original registration period to six months. What is the point of having a registrar and tribunal if we make it almost impossible, logistically, for the system to work? There is little doubt that six months after the beginning of the process, the registrar will still be considering the original applications.

If I were determined to wreck the Bill, I would support the amendments of the hon. Members for Weaver Vale and for Worcester because, logistically,

they are unmanageable. They would cause the whole system to break down. Furthermore, there are so many ways in which unscrupulous hunting can be prevented by prescribed animal welfare bodies and others that it would be otiose also to reduce the period to six months.

Generally, most people in the United Kingdom act in good faith and are, thankfully, good-hearted. I extend that not just to prescribed animal welfare body members, but to people who hunt. I appeal to the hon. Member for Worcester to be less cynical about the motives of people who hunt and to show a little more good faith, because there will come a point when people will start feeling that amendments such as his are simply unfair. Ordinary people who do not care about hunting are reasonable-minded enough to notice if something seems to be either mean-spirited or prejudicial. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that the Minister probably has the term right at three years.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

In his speech a few moments ago, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal chided my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester—

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 half-past Two o'clock.

Standing Committee F

Clause 24 - Standard duration of registration

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:

Amendment No. 177, in

clause 24, page 9, line 19, leave out 'three years' and insert 'six months'.

Amendment No. 321, in

clause 24, page 9, line 19, leave out 'years' and insert 'months'.

Government amendment No. 333.

Amendment No. 230, in

clause 24, page 9, line 21, at end add

'or

(c) such shorter period starting with that date as the registrar or Tribunal think fit'.

Amendment No. 322, in

clause 25, page 9, line 25, leave out 'years' and insert 'months'.

Government amendment No. 334.

Amendment No. 231, in

clause 25, page 9, line 28, at end add

'or

(c) such shorter period starting with that date as the registrar or Tribunal think fit'.

Before I call Mr. Pickthall to resume his speech, I should tell the Committee that I am not minded to allow a separate debate on clause stand part.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

In the one sentence that I managed to get in before half-time, I referred to the speech made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who has been good enough to let me know that he cannot be here for the early part of this sitting.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman calls attention to the absence of my right hon. Friend. We are thin on the ground on this side of the Committee as my colleagues have decided that the debate in the House on humanitarian aid to Iraq is more important than a debate on hunting with hounds, but they will join us as soon as they can.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I fully understand that the right hon. Gentleman has good and genuine reasons for not being here. In any case, I shall not say anything unpleasant about him. In trying to counter the arguments of my hon. Friends the Members for Worcester (Mr. Foster) and for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall), he said more than once that they did not trust the registrar. However, I hope that he and other Committee members support the thrust of amendments Nos. 230 and 231, which would give the registrar and tribunal greater control over the duration of a registration and thus enable us to express our confidence in them. I am speaking to the amendments on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber), who has been unavoidably detained in her constituency by the boundary commission.

Clause 24 gives the registrar no powers to specify duration of less than three years, as laid out in paragraph (a). The matter would be entirely in the hands of the applicant, but it is hard to imagine that many applicants for registration would apply for a period of less than the maximum. In effect, three years will become the norm if the clause is not amended. The amendments would give the registrar and the tribunal discretion to grant registration for a shorter period.

I was vastly entertained by this morning's contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale. Like him and many other Members, I do not have a dog, and I am determined never to have one following my alarming experiences of his dogs in the past, which I shall not go into. I suggest to my hon. Friend that amendments Nos. 230 and 231 would make a rational apportionment of time possible without bogging down the registrar or tribunal with repeat applications.

My hon. Friend rightly applied the test of utility to clause 24. If an applicant was seeking registration to clear up a particular infestation, for example, he might reasonably need a season or two, or perhaps a few months. We cannot say, without knowing the particular circumstances. If, however, the applicant was seeking registration, taking into account clause 8, to protect, say, growing timber or to ensure an area's biological diversity, three years might well be reasonable. The amendments would place trust in the registrar to negotiate with applicants and judge the appropriate necessary duration for each registration.

Amendment No. 271, which leads this group and stands in the name of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), would, in effect, extend the time scale indefinitely and keep it entirely in the discretion of the successful applicant until he

''may be shown . . . to have breached its terms''.

I am reminded of the skills deployed by experienced practitioners of the filibuster, who can keep that activity going indefinitely while staying just in order. We on this side have long been admirers of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) in that regard. Should amendment No. 271 be agreed, he might well be able to set up as a consultant to the hunting industry on how to keep registration going indefinitely.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

That is a good point. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that my right hon. Friend is very good at filibustering, but we are talking about a hunt carrying out the terms and details of the registration to the letter and complying with the terms of the Bill to the letter. Even if it got very close to the edge, if it stayed within the law, its activities would be lawful.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

Indeed, and amendment No. 271 would enable such activities to continue indefinitely, provided that the hunt kept within the terms of the law.

Having made those points, I recognise that Government amendments Nos. 333 and 334 will effectively achieve the same end. Obviously, we do not want two sets of amendments doing the same thing, as that would be silly. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will make that clear, so I do not want to push amendments Nos. 230 and 231 any further.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale, who spoke this morning, thought to disarm us by saying that amendment No. 321 is probing. It may well be that all he meant was that he would not push it to a vote, unless someone else forced that on him. That amendment is not probing in the proper sense of the word, however. It is a shot across the Government's bows to make them realise that the vast majority of Labour Members in the House of Commons disapprove of the Bill and the mechanics, of which the clause is but one example, that it provides.

Looking at amendment No. 177, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Worcester, and amendment No. 321, we see that nine Labour Members of Parliament consider the Government's proposals in clause 24 unsatisfactory. That is because those Members are total banners who do not think that one can compromise in any way with those of us on the other side of the argument or that the status quo should be allowed to continue.

This bodged Bill is an attempt to achieve a compromise between the two extreme positions, but that attempt is clearly not satisfactory to the proposers of amendments Nos. 177 and 321. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal said this morning, we fool ourselves if we think that the motive behind those amendments is anything other than a desire to let the Government know that they are in trouble.

When we consider the Bill on Report on the Floor of the House, a proposal along the lines of a total ban will be moved. It is but the vanguard of that argument that we are now seeing. We know that, below the horizon, the massed ranks of the parliamentary Labour party are girding themselves for the tabling of an amendment far more explicit than the so-called probing amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale.

The hon. Gentleman at least had the decency to blush during my right hon. Friend's remarks, because he knew that he and his motives had been exposed.

Unfortunately, the Minister could not see him, because he was facing the other way.

This is an absurd attempt to destroy the Bill. The views of the nine Members of Parliament who have put their names to amendments Nos. 177 and 321 are well known, but what causes me even more concern is the cavalier attitude that lies behind the amendments and those that are similar to them. Earlier, we discussed the administrative logjam that would be bound to occur if either amendment were agreed. If one considers how many hunting organisations there are and how many licence applications there are bound to be when the Bill becomes law, and adds on to that the problem of the registrar having to review applications every three or six months, one sees that the realistic prospect is that he would not reach a conclusion on many of the applications. Of course, that is entirely in line with the intentions of the total ban brigade. They do not want the registrar to complete his work satisfactorily; they want him to be held up with continual applications and a continual paper chase.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

There is a contradiction in the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. Is he aware of clause 51(3)(b), which will allow hunting to continue while an application is being processed? His argument about clogging up the system is entirely wrong.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am sorry if I did not make myself clear. I am talking about not the process of hunting, but the process whereby the registrar would deal with the applications in front of him. If the licensing system becomes permanently engaged and the registrar has to consider new applications every three months, which will mean that he must consider the next decision before finalising the preceding one to achieve a consecutive period of licensed hunting, he will be fully engaged in opening letters and replying to them. He will not be reaching conclusions.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) is right and that what he says is greatly to our advantage? The registrar will be deluged with tens of thousands of applications on the first day, and it will take many years for them to go through the courts and the European Courts. We will be hunting for years and years after the Bill becomes law. That is the absurdity of its drafting.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

It may well be that there is plenty about the Bill that is absurd, but I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West made an amusing but erroneous point. If amendment No. 321 or amendment No. 177 came into force, the registrar would not be able to go home in the evenings because he would be constantly dealing with applications.

More importantly, the amendments tabled by Labour Members are cruel and hard hearted, as the proposals would effectively destroy the hunting organisations that would be the main applicants for licences to hunt. If a hunt is entitled to carry out the activity for only three or six months, it will be impossible to maintain a continuous employment set-

up for hunt staff or an efficient and well-run organisation of the sort that the registrar will want to see when considering a group application.

Of course, the hon. Member for Worcester and the Members who support amendment No. 321 do not care about that. They have come on to this earth to ensure that hunting is banned, and they will do anything to ensure that it is. Amendment No. 177, which is a Trojan horse of an amendment, and its junior cousin, amendment No. 321, are nothing but a brazen attempt—a dressing-up of a proposal—to destroy the registrar's ability to carry out his work. They involve futile and silly obfuscation, which I trust the Government will be able to push well to one side.

The Government should be in no doubt: a similar proposal will be introduced on Report, and I dare say that there will be similar moves when the Bill comes back from the Lords. For Labour Members, the general thrust is that hunting should be banned. In their view, there can be no compromise on anything resembling a licence to hunt.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I hope that you will give me some latitude, Mrs. Roe, because, in discussing the amendments, I wish to refer to clause 51, which I mentioned when I intervened on the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier).

After a registration application has been lodged and until final determination by the registrar—whether it has been lodged for renewal after three years, as the Bill is drafted, or after three months, as sought by the amendment—hunting can continue under clause 51(3)(b). Therefore, the arguments advanced by Opposition Members—particularly the eloquent arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Harborough—are nonsense.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I was slightly thrown by the brevity of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, not least because I was looking for amendment No. 45 to clause 51, which I fear may change the interim arrangements. However, I was unable to find it in the short time that the hon. Gentleman was on his feet.

In every Committee stage of every Bill, there is one moment that one can look back on as a highlight, and I think that this morning's debate on this group of amendments constituted the highlight for a variety of reasons. I thought that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal was a highlight for its wit and the clever way in which it exposed the reality behind the amendments. The speech of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale was equally a highlight because of the wild impracticality of much of what he said; the notion of rogue foxes, and of going out to catch one fox, reapplying on each occasion and making sure that it was the right fox. No doubt we would have to know what the fox's address was, although whether that information would be revealed to the animal welfare groups is another matter. We will have to examine that. Clearly it was not a practical speech.

If the purpose of the Bill is animal welfare and to stop practices that Labour Members believe should be

stopped, that has been achieved by passing clause 8. The cruelty versus utility test in clause 8 will, as hon. Members have seemed to agree, be sufficient to stop most practices of which they disapprove. In that case, why should registration for those who achieve it—I imagine that remarkably few will do so—not be allowed to stand for as long as its terms are not breached? It is extraordinarily bureaucratic and small-minded to say, ''The Government will put you through a narrow hoop and make you jump over a series of high barriers to become licensed. Not only that, but they will ask you to do it every three months or every six months.'' The amendments achieve nothing from the standpoint of those who are opposed to hunting, and they certainly achieve nothing from the point of view of, say, the gamekeeper who, under one of the amendments, would be required to apply four times a year for a licence to use his dogs in the legitimate pursuit of his occupation.

I very much hope that the hon. Gentlemen who tabled the amendments will see the wisdom of their ways and will not press them to a vote. If they do, Opposition Members will certainly oppose them.

I have not dealt carefully enough with the Government's two amendments, amendments Nos. 333 and 334, which would insert into the Bill the registrar's ability to limit the amount of time for which he will register the hunt.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am in the middle of a particularly good argument. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to add to it.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman considers that he is in the middle of a really good argument. That is progress. My concern, which I mentioned in an earlier intervention, is that as far as I understand it—again, I mention this in a spirit of inquiry—schedule 1 would cover a gamekeeper with a dog pursuing the sort of activities suggested by the hon. Gentleman. What he is talking about is already in the Bill. Therefore, his argument is not quite as good as he thought it was.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman clearly has not read schedule 1, which exempts a person who is flushing out of cover with one or more dogs, for the purpose of eating the animal; or that may be one of the purposes. That would not cover the gamekeeper who is out with four or five dogs. One can also think of occasions when a shoot would be out using dogs for a rough shoot, putting game up. If a person let four or five dogs on to a fox that happened to get shot by the hunt, he or she would be breaking the law. Therefore, a number of purposes for which a gamekeeper might use several dogs would not come under the exemptions in schedule 1. I hope that that clarifies the point for the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. If the hon. Gentleman believes that all the activities that the gamekeeper can do using dogs are exempt, Opposition Members will be delighted.

Dr. Whitehead rose—

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman must listen to me before he jumps up again. We will point out when we discuss exempt hunting under schedule 1 why we do not believe that all those activities are exempt and why unfair restrictions would be placed on the legitimate activities of, say, the gamekeeper. If the hon. Gentleman believes that that should be the case and we can demonstrate to him that it is not, we will look forward to him speaking and voting with us on schedule 1 and to him seeking to persuade his right hon. Friend the Minister to listen to what he says. However, that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about how often people should reapply for registration.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman must not try to tempt me into a discussion about whether the Bill would allow gamekeepers to carry out their legitimate occupation. That is not what we are discussing here. We are discussing how often a gamekeeper needs to come back and re-register, assuming—I hope that I am wrong—that he needs to register. Perhaps that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. Under at least one of the amendments proposed by Labour Members, that would be every three months, so the gamekeeper would apply four times a year, which would be absurd.

More important than any of that little diversion is the point that it would not save one fox or one animal. It would not add in any shape, size or form to animal welfare, and nobody could argue that it would. If someone can achieve registration, why should it not be for three years? Why should it be for less than that?

Before I was interrupted, I was about to say that I was more satisfied with Government amendments Nos. 333 and 334, which propose that, on some occasions, the registrar should be able to decide how long registration should be for. I imagine that normally it would be for three years. However, if the circumstances in a certain area were changing or if the hunt were prepared to register for a shorter time, it could be for less. If the registrar wanted to give an individual or a hunt the benefit of doubt, he might say ''We'll let you try it for a year, fellows, and see how you get on, and after that we may renew it.'' Assuming that that is the intention behind the Government amendments and that registration will normally be for three years—although on some occasions, and for good reason, the registrar might vary that—I would not necessarily oppose them.

My instinct is to press our amendment to a vote, to oppose Labour Members' amendments that are taken to a vote—they would make a mockery of the Bill—but not necessarily to oppose the Government's amendments, which are not unreasonable.

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

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that it has been an interesting and entertaining debate. We heard assumptions about the level of fox predation and references to rogue foxes. We heard about the value of drawing a general conclusion from a specific. We also heard about the problems of the foxes of Montgomeryshire, which might be well advised to catch a bus to Cumbria, where my hon. Friend the

Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) says there are hunters who would welcome them; I suspect that my hon. Friend would not take the same view.

The starting point for me is that three years seemed a generous but not unreasonable period in the context of an ongoing need to control the population; in other words, where there was a general problem. That is why we framed the Bill in those terms. However, I have thought about the lack of flexibility and the variety of circumstances that might need to be addressed, issues that were raised not least by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall).

There is serious discussion in the Burns report of the need to be clear about the circumstances that may need to be controlled. Paragraph 5.12 refers to predation on lambs and states:

''It is not easy, however, to establish with any certainty how serious a problem fox predation represents. Predation is not usually witnessed; it is not always possible to distinguish between the killing of healthy lambs and scavenging dead or dying ones; and other predators, including domestic dogs, also kill lambs.''

Paragraph 5.14 states:

''The best estimate seems to be that a low percentage (less than 2 per cent.) of otherwise viable lambs are killed by foxes in England and Wales. However, levels of predation (or perceived predation) can be highly variable between farms and between different areas.''

I do not recall—and I certainly could not put my hands on—references in Burns to rogue foxes. They made a guest appearance this morning, when Opposition Members mentioned them to illustrate the need to protect livestock. It is therefore slightly ironic that Opposition Members then sought to cast doubt on their existence. However, the Committee's proceedings are sometimes full of puzzles.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I apologise because I suspect that I will be going in and out a bit this afternoon to deal with some Welsh matters, but I mean no disrespect to the Minister. There are probably differences among Opposition Members, but the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) and I are quite convinced from what we have seen that some foxes have more of a predilection for mindless killing. I, at least, believe that there is probably such a thing as a rogue fox or a fox that is more likely to kill gratuitously and to take only one chick.

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

I am happy to accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Looking at what Burns said about the level of the problem—that is, that it may often be fairly small, or smaller than it is perceived to be—and what he said about problems existing in specific times and specific areas, convinces me that there needs to be more flexibility in the system. That may not be possible with a presumption of three years or, indeed, with too short a period, which would require far too frequent reapplications and lead to a bureaucratic burden. We must achieve an outcome—I will come to it in a moment—that allows the necessary degree of flexibility, and a period that makes sense in terms of evidence of the need for the activity. In that way, we will get close to a sensible conclusion, which both sides could see as reasonable.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Before the Minister moves on to that, I do not want to lose the point about the rogue fox, and the intervention by the hon. Member for

Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) may have cemented it. The purpose of foxhunting is not to deal with rogue foxes. Pest control using dogs will not control rogue foxes. There may be such things as rogue foxes, but I am not that convinced. However, the purpose of pest control using dogs is to deal with the generality of foxes, which may occasionally include rogue foxes. However, it is not done specifically to deal with the one-off rogue fox.

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

The hon. Gentleman describes his reasons and those of his friends for being involved in hunting. The reasons for making an application under the Bill might equally relate to general population control, if evidence demonstrated the need for it. There might also be specific circumstance or short-term circumstances of the sort referred to by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire. I am persuaded that there should be the possibility of addressing those circumstances because, in either case, one would address the evidence.

The applicant would say, ''This is why I am applying. This is why I believe that the activity needs to be undertaken for this period.'' It would clearly be perverse to require a three-year registration for a short-term requirement. On the other hand, it would be perverse in the other direction—if there were adequate evidence of the need for population control over a period of time—to ask for a continual reapplication. That is why I seek to persuade the Committee that it is right to have an evidence-based approach—saying, ''If you want to apply for a particular period, show why it is appropriate''—and that the capacity of the registrar or the tribunal to vary the period applied for is consistent with the amendments that we adopted on Tuesday in respect of their ability to add or require conditions, rather than their having to be in the original application.

Amendment No. 271 would enable registration to be valid until the registrar was satisfied that the terms of registration had been breached. The effect is that they could remain valid indefinitely.

Mr. Gray indicated assent.

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

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman confirms that that is what he is seeking to achieve. I do not think that it is acceptable, because it is only fair that—given that circumstances change over time—the individual who is registered should at some point be required to make the case again for registration, and the prescribed body should have the opportunity to make representations on the application for renewal. I think that it is a question of getting the balance right between making that period too short and allowing it to be too long. I do not find an open-ended situation to be acceptable.

Amendments Nos. 230 and 231 are straightforward in intent; namely, to provide the registrar and the tribunal with the power to determine the duration of a registration, which can be no more than three years. That seems to me a sensible approach. The registrar and the tribunal, in seeing the evidence from the applicant, would be well placed to make a judgement on the appropriate length of time that a registration

should remain valid. I am persuaded by the arguments advanced from both sides of the Committee that it is a matter best determined on a case-by-case basis.

I recommend to the Committee that the principle of those amendments be accepted. Government amendments Nos. 333 and 334 are intended to achieve that result. They would allow the registrar or the tribunal to specify a shorter time limit than that requested by the applicant for registration. Again, that is consistent with the changes agreed to allow the registrar or the tribunal to impose additional conditions on why registered hunting should be allowed.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

In dealing with the registrar, we are dealing with a paper exercise and, therefore, the to and fro of argument that goes on in a courtroom cannot take place. If, having read the evidence, the registrar thinks that a one-month, six-month or 18-month licence should be applicable when the application is for three years, will he be required to give the applicant notice and write asking, ''Do you have anything to say before I pass judgment?''

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.