Hunting Bill

Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2003.

Standing Committee F

Clause 45 - Interpretation

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 361, in

clause 45, page 18, leave out line 16.

During an exchange with the Minister before the Committee, I was trying to think of an analogy for this situation. Should I say, ''Once more into the breach, dear friends'', or comment that we are coming to the end of the hunting day but there is still plenty of life left in the hounds and we will kill a few foxes before the end of it? I cannot really think of a good analogy, however.

I am glad that I shall not have to be here on Tuesdays and Thursdays at five to nine from now on, although quite what I shall do with my time—[Hon. Members: ''Hunt.''] That is a good idea. I shall fix up as many hunting appointments as I can before this mob on the Labour Benches prevents me from doing so. I am quite looking forward to being relieved of all this, I must say.

Under clause 45(3), any person who owns an interest in, manages, controls or occupies land may be taken to be a person to whom the land belongs and thus potentially a criminal under clause 4. Frequently there are many so-called interests in land. As a technical term in law, that includes a right of way across property. It is ridiculous to criminalise parties with interests in land, such as those with a right of way, who have no control over the premises. Therefore, it is important to amend clause 45(3).

Any liability should be restricted to the occupiers, whom case law has defined as those who have sufficient control of the premises to make them liable. The definition of someone to whom land belongs is so widely drawn here as to capture those with only a nominal, indirect or transient interest and involvement in the land, which is clearly unfair. A person with a minority interest in the land in question might strongly object to its use for hunting but be unable to prevent it. The Minister has told us that that has often been the case with illegal hare coursing. People do not want land to be used for that, but have often had no option but to allow the thugs and criminals to carry on doing it. It is unfair that even though such people are, technically speaking, the landowners, they should become criminally liable for something that other people are doing.

An owner of land might be neither its occupier nor its controller in practice. He might own the freehold, but the land might be tenanted or leased to a third party. The owner might be hundreds of miles away

when the offence is committed or alleged to have been committed. To prosecute that individual would be absurd, because they might know nothing abut the activity.

The real problem stems from the criminal offences created in clause 4, which, in effect, make the landowner responsible for policing the enforcement of the legislation. When prosecuted, they will have to prove that they have not knowingly permitted land belonging to them to be used for hunting. That reverses the burden of proof. It should be for the prosecution to prove that knowing permission was given, not vice versa. In any case, it is not at all clear what one has to know, in order to commit the offences. Will a dog owner who knowingly permits his dog to be used for flushing out be caught if an offence is inadvertently committed? Will a landowner who thinks that people are using his land for lawful activities be guilty if an offence is then committed? If the landowner thinks that those people are perfectly legitimate but they inadvertently commit a crime, is he guilty? For example, a game shoot might inadvertently put up a hare, which is then shot by the guns. The landowner who allowed his land to be used would not have wanted any crime to be committed, but unless the dogs used were registered, the flushing of the game to the guns would be an inadvertent crime, committed not only by the person who shot the hare but by the landowner who allowed the shoot to occur on his land.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am loth to interrupt, but I should like to expand on the point about dogs. If several dog owners participate in a shoot, but each believes that their dog is one of two being used for flushing out, there could be three dogs being used for that purpose. The third dog would be unknown to the other two owners, but all three would be committing a criminal offence.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

That is, of course, the case. It is not directly pertinent to the amendment, but there is a link. It could be that even if the landowner on whose land such an offence occurred did not know that that was happening, he would be guilty because he allowed his land to be used for it. We come back, indirectly, to the question of intent. Did the landowner intend to allow the hunt, or the criminal, to carry out the offence on his land? Plainly, if he did, that might be an offence, but there might be many circumstances in which it could be proved that the landowner did not know that the offence was being committed and did not want it to happen.

Our amendment, which leaves out line 16, would make the matter much clearer. The Bill would read:

''For the purposes of this Act land belongs to a person''

if he

''manages or controls it''

or

''occupies it.''

That is straightforward. The amendment would delete the words

''owns an interest in it''.

The person who owns an interest in the land may well have nothing whatever to do with the crime committed

on it. We hope that the Government will see the logic in the amendment and agree to it.

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

The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the amendment would narrow the definition by removing the point about the person who ''owns an interest'' in the land. Narrowing the scope of the definition of when land belongs to a person would weaken the Bill. Let us take the example of clause 4 and the offence of knowingly permitting land to be used for hunting. If a person who owns an interest in that land commits that offence, why should they not be found guilty?

Perhaps the reason why the hon. Gentleman fears some unfairness is based on a misunderstanding. The points that he made in his introduction sounded reasonable and sensible. It is recognised that the land ownership and management and control of land are not always straightforward. For example, there is land owned by colleges or land involving shared and multiple ownership. Since I took up office, I have been dealing with a number of issues relating to common land and that has certainly brought home to me the complexities of land ownership.

The important point is that, for an offence to be committed by an individual, it is necessary for him or her knowingly to have given permission for hunting to take place. That is crucial to an offence being committed and therefore a conviction being obtained. That provides the necessary protection against any danger of unfairness, which is clearly at the heart of the comments made by the hon. Gentleman when introducing the amendment.

The trouble with deleting the mention of individuals who own ''an interest in'' the land is that that interest might well result them in acting in such a way that an offence is committed. They would be the responsible individuals. Surely it would be wrong to delete the provision relating to such people. As I indicated, for an offence to be committed, it is necessary for an individual knowingly to have given permission for hunting to take place, which provides the necessary protection.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The fact that, under clause 4, that has to be done knowingly is some safeguard. None the less, clause 4 reads:

''A person commits an offence if he knowingly permits land which belongs to him to be entered or used in the course of the commission of an offence''.

Note that it does not state, ''for the purpose of committing the offence.'' That is quite plain. In other words, the landowner may not know what people intend to do, but in the course of doing the thing that is wrong, the landowner may well be guilty.

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

I think I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. In other words, if a landowner were to allow somebody on to their land and thought that they were just going to park a car, without knowing that an offence was going to be committed, would that landowner then be caught? No, he would not. I understand the hon. Gentleman's fear now that

he has explained it. The landowner would not be guilty of an offence in that event because he must have knowingly given permission for hunting to take place in order to have committed an offence.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

I was not going to make a speech, although the matter is important. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the clause, but it might be better if the definition were wider. Taking the example of common land, does the Minister accept that there could be a problem if those who own an interest in the common land and give permission do not consult others who own an interest in the land? In such cases, all with an interest in the common land would be caught in the curtilage of committing an offence, although they did not knowingly give permission.

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

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but the reverse is true. If there are a number of owners of a piece of land, and one of them were to give permission for people to come on to the land knowingly for hunting to take place, that individual would be guilty of the offence and the others would not. The others would have to knowingly share in that giving of permission, in order to share in the commission of the offence.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

That answer is helpful but, as written in the Bill, all of those who own an interest in the land would be caught in the curtilage of the offence. There is no other provision referring only to those who own an interest in the land and give permission. It would be helpful if the Minister said whether he believes that further clarification is required in the Bill.

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

I assure the hon. Gentleman that it is not. There is no lacuna in that case. In order to commit the offence or share in the committing of the offence, the individual would have to give permission knowingly for the hunting to take place. That person would have to share knowingly in the decision that led to the offence. Someone who shares ownership of land and does not have 100 per cent. ownership—for example, someone with, a 20 per cent. share—and who knowingly gives permission for the land to be used commits an offence. That is absolutely clear. Those who own the other 80 per cent. of the land, but do not knowingly give permission are not associated with the offence. The constituent elements of the offence are clear. They have to be in place for an individual to be guilty of that offence. That is clear without needing to repeat it in the Bill.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am still rather troubled by the matter. I accept the point that the Minister makes about collective ownership. That seems a reasonably sensible point, but the way in which clause 45 relates to clause 4 seems worrying. Clause 4(1) does not say that a person commits an offence if he allows hunting to occur or allows his land to be used for hunting. Clause 4(1) merely refers to land being entered or used in the course of a commission, not for the purpose of a commission. The phrase ''course of a commission'' is very important. If people stated that they were going on to land for other purposes, the collective owners would believe that those people were doing so legitimately and would not realise that there was an

intent to commit the crime, but the crime may still be carried out. That is very worrying.

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

No, the hon. Gentleman again misunderstands. I understand why he is worrying, and I hope that I can satisfy him on the point. Let me go back to the example of individuals asking for permission to park. Let us imagine that they ask an individual, ''Can we park our vehicles here? We are going for a walk on the hills.'' There is no suggestion that there is any knowledge of an intention to commit an offence. In that event, the person who shares in the ownership of the land, or a landowner, would not be committing an offence. If the person were to ask permission to go on to land with dogs in a trailer to undertake hare coursing, and the purpose for which that request was being undertaken was clear, the person would be knowingly committing the offence indicated here.

In areas concerning legal interpretation, it is as well to take formal advice from lawyers. I am happy to write to members of the Committee to put the advice on that point on the record because I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman would like to hear a legally sound interpretation. However, I am confident that my interpretation is correct.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I understand the points that the Minister is making in response to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). Will he address corporate ownership of a piece of land by a limited company, a trust or some other form of legal, non-human instrument? Because such a body is just a set of bits of paper, it cannot think or act by itself, and can do so only through human beings. I can understand a situation in which the land agent gave permission for hunting to take place on the land, because we can clearly see from the Bill that the land agent, as a human being, will be liable. I dare say that the corporation will be liable because of the act of its servant. Where a number of servants—some of whom know about the illegal permission and some of whom do not—act for a company, however, one is left with the vicarious liability for a criminal offence committed by a company. The law on that matter has been fluid for a little while, and whereas in some respects a company can be vicariously liable for the offences of its servants and agents, in others it cannot. I wonder into which category hunting and the use of land for hunting will fall.

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

The hon. and learned Gentleman always raises interesting questions, and I hope that I can give him a sensible answer. A corporation is, of course, legally a person in terms of the responsibilities for the use of land. Clause 44 covers offences by companies in the same way as the ownership of land by a body other than a company. In order for a prosecution to succeed, it would be necessary to show that an officer of the company consented or connived in the commission of the offence. The knowledge would have to be proved in relation to a company, or a person acting on behalf of a company, in the same way as it would in relation to an individual.That is the sort of area in which it would be sensible for me to provide legal advice to members of the Committee for the sake

of clarification. The Bill will not change the situation in relation to a company. There are, of course, a variety of situations in which the liability of a company depends on demonstrating that an individual was knowingly acting on behalf of a company. The normal requirements in relation to the actions of a company or its representatives would apply here in the same way as they apply across the generality of the law.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

My ongoing concern is duress, which we have discussed at length. I hope that the Minister can assure me that there will be some guidance on how proactive somebody in that category would need to be in order to prevent their being prosecuted. I raise that point because there will be a policing issue; at the beginning, at least, there will be a lot uncertainty among people in that category.

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

The amendment relates narrowly to people who own a share in the land and does not take us into more widely into the clause. However, the points that I made about duress in a previous debate apply equally to this clause. That may be the response that the hon. Gentleman is looking for.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire has raised a number of concerns, but members of the Committee can be assured that to include people with a share in land ensures that responsibility is correctly identified. It certainly would not enable a person to be prosecuted who had not committed the offence. That is at the heart of the issue. It would be odd to exclude someone with a share in the land, as they might commit the offence. For that reason, I am not willing to accept the amendment.

An inadvertent effect of the amendment would be to remove the power of an owner of an interest in unoccupied land to give permission for registered or exempt hunting to take place. I am sure that that is not the hon. Gentleman's intention. At present, such permission can be given by the occupier, where the land is occupied, or by the owner or manager where the land is unoccupied. I refer the hon. Gentleman to clauses 27(2)(c) and 28(2)(c). The amendment could prevent hunting on some unoccupied land.

I hope that I have said enough to satisfy the hon. Gentleman, but I also undertake to write to him and to copy the letter to other members of the Committee, to make explicit the legal advice on the points that he has raised.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

I was interested in what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said, because I have sympathy for his argument. However, until I had heard the debate, I was not sure whether the amendment was the best way to deal with the point. The Minister addressed the lacuna in the picture that was drawn up. There is perhaps a logical connection between knowing permission and the person who is knowingly permitting it. However, I still have concerns. The Minister said that he would provide the Committee with a note from the Department's lawyers to clarify any residual matters on this point, and on that basis I feel reassured. Having listened to the Minister, I cannot support the amendment.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Like the Minister, I am no lawyer and would not claim to be. There is definitely a technical question here. The law with regard to the ownership of land seems to me to be complex and difficult, and the way in which clause 45(3) reads into clause 4(1) is particularly worrying. Clause 4(1) does not say:

''A person commits an offence if he knowingly permits land which belongs to him to be entered''

for the purpose of carrying out the crime. In other words, the intention is not included in clause 4(1). It is still slightly worrying that somebody who owns an interest in land may inadvertently permit a crime to be carried out on his land without knowing about it. He may allow the criminals to enter his land and to use it in the course of the commission of an offence under subsection (1), but he would not know that it would be so used. However, the subsection does not contain the word ''purpose'', so the owner does not know that people intend to commit a crime when they go on to it. The words used are ''in the course of'' rather than ''for the purpose of''.

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

Clause 4(1) is explicit. It says:

''A person commits an offence if he knowingly permits land which belongs to him to be entered or used in the course of the commission of an offence under section 1.''

Ownership therefore includes partial ownership, so the words ''knowingly permits'' are clear. The hon. Gentleman is wrong.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The Minister should not jump to his feet so quickly. I, too, read the clause out and my point has nothing to do with the words ''knowingly permits'', which mean allowing people to go on to land during the commission of the offence, not for the purpose of committing the offence. The person who allows someone to go on to the land in the course of committing the offence may not know that an offence is being committed. Clause 4(1) states:

''A person commits an offence if he knowingly permits land which belongs to him to be entered or used in the course of the commission of an offence under section 1.''

The problem is the words ''in the course'' of carrying out the offence, not the words ''for the purpose'' of carrying out the offence. The person owning the land may not know that that is the other person's purpose.

Textual analysis becomes tiresome, but I shall give way to the Minister.

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

It is clear that the person must know that he is contributing to the commission of an offence. I understand now that it is worth re-reading the clause a number of times to understand the hon. Gentleman's point. I think that his interpretation is wrong, but I shall deal with the matter authoritatively in the response that I promised.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Textual analysis is tiresome and tedious, and is a matter for lawyers. Neither the Minister nor I is a lawyer, so perhaps we have had enough of that. However, I think that the word ''purposefully'' or ''intentionally'' in clause 4 would be better. The Minister is prepared to ask his advisers and lawyers to look at the matter to ensure that no inadvertent crime could be committed, which is what we are keen to avoid. I am reassured, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 362, in

clause 45, page 18, leave out line 20.

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 363, in

clause 45, page 18, line 21, leave out 'or', and insert

'at the time of the commission of an offence, and'.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Amendment No. 362 and, to some degree, amendment No. 363, bear some resemblance to amendment No. 361. They refer to whether a person could be convicted of inadvertently committing a crime. Simple ownership of a dog that is used in the commission of an offence should not necessarily make that person liable to criminal prosecution, nor should simply having charge of that dog. The amendments would ensure that the offence of someone knowingly permitting a dog belonging to them to be used for hunting would apply to a dog that someone was in charge of and had control of at the time the offence was committed.

If someone owns a dog but is not in control of it when the crime is committed, why should they be liable? Equally, it might be possible for someone to be in control of the dog and, therefore, committing the offence without having ownership of it. The purpose of the amendments is to rectify that anomaly.

Common law currently makes adequate provision for situations in which a person aids, abets or counsels the commission of an offence or provides the means—the ownership of the land or the dogs—and we debated that on clause 4. The point is that it is wholly irrelevant who owns a dog. The concept of ownership is unhelpful. A family dog does not belong to one individual. A family of four people having four dogs would be said to own them jointly. The concept of ownership does not help in pursuit of animal welfare, which is what the Bill is supposed to be about.

The drafting seeks to prevent a person from knowingly permitting a third party to use their dog for hunting. Whether that person owns the dog is not important. If I own a dog and give it to a friend to look after and an offence is committed while that person is in charge of it, I would be liable to prosecution. That is a serious possibility because the definition of hunting is woefully imprecise and includes dog walkers whose dogs search for a scent. If I know that someone is likely to walk my dog and commit an offence, I commit an offence of knowingly permitting a dog to be used to commit an offence. That is madness. A person who uses any dog, regardless of ownership, and who is in charge and control of it at the time of the offence is the person who should be guilty. The person who actually has control of the dog should be the person who commits the offence, rather than the person who owns the dog. The ownership is incidental.

The offence created in clause 4 should relate to the person with charge and control of the dog at the time the offence of knowingly permitting that dog to be used for hunting was committed, not at the time the offence of hunting was committed. The amendment is straightforward and would prevent the inadvertent

conviction of someone whose dog was used by someone else to commit an offence. I hope that the Government will the see sense of it.

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

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. As he rightly says, the Bill defines the circumstances in which a dog belongs to a person. That includes three elements; where a person owns it, where a person is in charge of it and where a person has control of it. Amendment No. 362 would narrow the definition, removing from its scope the person who owns the dog. To narrow the definition of when a person belongs to a dog—[Hon. Members: ''What?''] Sorry, when a dog belongs to a person. I realise that there was an element of truth in my slip there. To narrow the scope of the definition of when a dog belongs to a person would weaken the Bill.

Under clause 4(2):

''A person commits an offence if he knowingly permits a dog which belongs to him to be used in the course of the commission of an offence under section 1.''

To show how the amendment would introduce a real problem, I pose a question. If a dog owner knowingly permits another person to use his dog for illegal hunting, why should he not be guilty of an offence? That is a straightforward question, which exposes the mistake that the hon. Gentleman is making in the amendment.

The hon. Gentleman used one or two illustrations. An innocent walker cannot be found guilty because if the dog hunts and the innocent walker does not, he is not committing an offence. That returns us to intention, although I hesitate to return to that. Intention is an inherent part of the concept of hunting, as we have explored several times. If an innocent walker cannot be guilty, a person who lends a dog to an innocent walker cannot be guilty except in the unlikely and slightly absurd situation of the person lending the dog intending the innocent walker to go hunting. That reductio ad absurdum demonstrates that the clause does not give rise to the problems that the hon. Gentleman fears.

Amendment No. 363, too, seeks to change the scope of the definition of when a dog belongs to a person. The present wording is clear; a dog belongs to a person if he is in charge of it. There is no need to clarify that definition with the explanation that the person had to be in charge of the dog at the time of the offence. The relevance to the offence of the fact that a person is in charge of a dog will depend on the circumstances of the individual case. Clearly, courts will have to make decisions on that by looking at the circumstances surrounding the alleged offence.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am slightly puzzled. Let us imagine that I am in control of a dog that was used by someone different in the course of an offence last month. Surely, the clause would allow the constable to arrest me because I am in control of the dog today, even though I had nothing whatever to do with the crime.

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

In that case, one could not be guilty of knowingly being involved in the commission of the offence. One would have an absolute protection. Again, I understand the protection that the hon. Gentleman seeks, but I can reassure him that it is not

needed. It would be an absurd misinterpretation of the law to say that someone was in charge of the dog and associated with the commission of an offence about which they knew nothing, in relation to which they had no intention and, at the material time, did not have control of the dog. No court would seriously entertain that. I can fairly confidently say that even were such circumstances brought to the attention of the Crown Prosecution Service, the case would be sent back immediately with a tart note on the file, since the offence could clearly not have been committed.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I want to suggest one or two examples so that the Minister can help me. I have no doubt that the purpose behind the provisions is to prevent people from hiding behind the criminal acts of others. Unfortunately, whether I approve of the definition that says that those people are committing criminal acts is neither here nor there in the context of our discussion.

I want to paint a picture for the Minister to see what his response is. Let us assume that I am the owner of one or two male dogs and own a reasonably large garden. One afternoon, I happen to be sitting in my garden with my dogs at my feet. There may come a time when they become uninterested in my company.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

Never.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I hasten to assure my hon. Friend that this is an entirely hypothetical example.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

A doggist slur.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

Exactly. My dogs set off around the garden, doing what dogs do. For all I know, they may discover that a little farther away is a bitch on heat. They set off, guided by the scent of the bitch, but during their travels they become interested in the scent of quarry—an animal for which hunting is not permitted under the legislation.

As the owner of the dogs, I may be considered to be in charge of them. Under road traffic legislation that deals with the control of a motor car while under the influence of drink, one does not physically have to be driving the car to have control of it. My dogs may perform an act of illegal hunting while I think that they have gone off to do whatever—in fact, I do not care what they have gone off to do. One might say that I was reckless.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

In the course of this extremely unsuitable story which, not only in context but in substance, is completely inexplicable to some of the younger members of the Committee, I would be grateful if my hon. and learned Friend would explain in more detail the nature of the quarry for which his dogs are searching.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am not a dog psychoanalyst, but I assume that the dogs that I own under the terms of clause 45(4)(a) have set off on a frolic of their own and have gone in search of a bitch on heat. During the search, they are distracted by the scent of a hare, a fox or some other animal that the Bill makes it unlawful to hunt. As the owner of the dogs and as someone who may, under law, have charge of them—in the event, I could not care less one way or the other what they are

doing—I may be charged with a section 1 offence because animals that are in my ownership, perhaps as a matter of law under my charge, are hunting a wild mammal.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I suspect that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not agree with me when I say that he is speaking absolute nonsense. He has not read clause 45(2). In his example, he would not be engaging or participating in a pursuit, nor would he be employing a dog in a pursuit.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

That all depends on whether I am reckless. I can read subsection (2) as well as the hon. Gentleman. Many strange examples have been produced in the Committee that will bring into the sphere of criminality many people who consider themselves to be innocent. I want to ensure that the Minister understands the potential ambit of the legislation.

I was assured by the right hon. Gentleman before the short recess that innocent dog walkers will not come under the threat of criminal proceedings. The Government have also tried to reassure us in regard to whether people will be caught in the criminal law. However, when we are expanding criminal law to cover those who own dogs or have the charge of a dog, we must ensure that the public who will be caught by the Bill know where they stand. We are not dealing only with the actions of a human being, as we would be with the human crime of a bank robbery, murder or assault. We are dealing with the thought process or state of mind of a human being and the actions of a dog or dogs. Therefore, although to some extent the example that I am producing is worthy of ridicule, it is not wholly fanciful. The Bill has thrown up examples of problems that might, at first blush, seem ridiculous and fanciful but which, when analysed, are likely to have unforeseen consequences. In so far as I have any power as an Opposition Member, I am not in the business of allowing the House to pass legislation that produces foreseen ridiculous consequences. We have to tolerate unforeseen ridiculous consequences.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

Although my hon. and learned Friend is uncharacteristically introducing a doggist attitude into the debate, he is absolutely right about unforeseen consequences. In an earlier sitting when he was not in the Committee, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) supported an amendment to ban the use of terriers working underground. As a consequence, gamekeepers will not be able to do their job properly—an unforeseen consequence of a ban on hunting.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

That was one of the unforeseen consequences that I was able to draw to the attention of about 250 supporters of the Grafton hunt at a hunt supper last night. To a man and a woman, they simply held their hands up and said, ''We do not believe this. Is this the sort of legislation that this Parliament, of which you are a member, is passing?'' I said, ''I fear so''.

To return to my example, I want to be assured that, when the Minister finally puts the Bill to the general

public as an Act, innocent people will not be caught by it. I mean not people who are innocent in the sense that they have not been found guilty, but people who have not applied their minds to every activity that a dog might get up to, although they have a general idea that dogs chase things and that, if dogs are not kept on a lead and their minds set on a number of dog-like activities, they may bring within the criminal law the individual sitting or walking in his garden who has let his dogs leave his immediate personal vicinity.

I heard what the Minister said about the unlikelihood of the Crown Prosecution Service doing this, that or the other, but we are not talking simply about the CPS. I have every faith that sensible Crown prosecutors will chuck out at first-assessment stage 99.9 per cent. of the ridiculous stories that are brought to their attention with a view to prosecution. However, that does not prevent us from having to anticipate the so-called prescribed animal welfare organisations or their supporters running around the country looking for examples to demonstrate that the law is insufficient to deal with their purposes—their desire for a total ban on any form of hunting. If they can find the most ridiculous examples, which either demonstrate the Bill's inefficacy or cause the Government, the CPS or those who support hunting the greatest amount of embarrassment, they will use those examples. They will take out private prosecutions, which, although they may not lead to a conviction, let alone to a trial, will none the less engage the public purse in huge expense and they will engage the CPS in wasted time and effort in assessing whether it is worth advising the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General to take over a prosecution and issue a nolle. They will engage the court service in a lot of wasted time.

Unless we are careful, out of my fanciful example—no doubt amusing to some—will flow a host of unforeseen, expensive, ridiculous and time-wasting consequences. The purpose of my intervention is to warn the Minister that it is one thing to pass legislation with a large majority that has the intended purpose of providing a regime of licensed hunting. It is quite another to translate that intention into practical and workable law, and a regime of law that has and deserves the respect of the public.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

The hon. and learned Gentleman's example may be worthy of a Dr. Seuss book. Nevertheless there is an underlying issue that we have discussed before, but was resolved by one of the discussions during the Portcullis house hearings last September. I had an exchange with a Professor Linzey, who was very much in favour of a ban on hunting with dogs. It transpired that he owned some cats. When I asked him how he felt about the prospect of his cats killing mammals in his garden, he said emphatically that he could not be held responsible for actions carried out by his cats of their own volition.

I assume that Professor Linzey and others would be consistent and transpose the same conditions to dogs, or it would indeed be doggist in the animal kingdom to treat cats and dogs differently. If that is the case—the Minister may be able to confirm that—the concerns of the hon. and learned Gentleman do not really arise.

Many people who own dogs, with the best will in the world, will see their dogs chasing other animals and sometimes killing them. That is what dogs do. It is important that we provide an assurance to individuals that they will not end up in prison simply because, while they were walking their dog, it ran off and killed another animal, such as a fox cub. We all know that dogs have a propensity to do such things and if a dog has done so once, it is likely to do so again. I would like the Minister to put on record an assurance to individuals who have not set out to kill animals, but are reasonably sure that their dogs will behave in such a way from time to time.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

The scenario that my hon. Friend paints is worthy of consideration. However, does he accept that a similar scenario exists as far as farmers are concerned, especially those with young lambs and sheep? In that case, the animal killed by a dog may be a farmed animal. Would he agree that the approach should remain the same for dog owners whether they be resident at home and not taking care of the dog, or taking the dog out for a walk in the countryside without a lead? Owners should take full responsibility for their dogs.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I see what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I have not thought it through in detail, but I feel that there is a qualitative difference between a dog killing livestock and a dog killing an animal that is regarded as a pest. I do not believe that anyone present in the Committee is questioning that foxes are pests. We are not ascribing some special status to the fox. However, it seems much more likely that a dog running around in a park will kill a fox, than that it will kill a lamb or another item of livestock. We went through this in the hearings last September, but I do not recall anyone making the point in Committee—perhaps I missed it.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

We did and you missed it.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

In that case, if the Minister is satisfied that it is already covered in the record, I agree that I have said all that I need to say. I am sorry that the ridiculous hours that we have passed have prevented me from being present for all the sittings. I hope that—[Interruption.] We can talk about the ridiculous hours outside the Committee. I simply hope that the Minister will give an assurance that what he said before in Committee still applies to the matter. I am sorry if I have unnecessarily detained the Committee.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

First, I want to respond to the issue raised by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George). Working from memory—I hope that he will forgive me—I think that dogs harrying livestock is an offence under the Animals Act 1971. He may well be aware of that.

I want briefly—I stress that word—to draw the Committee's attention to a circle. The amendments relate to clause 45(4), which refers to a dog belonging to somebody. That phrase appears in clause 4(2), which refers to the ''commission of an offence'' under clause 1. Clause 1 refers to the offence in relation to hunting and that takes us back to clause 45(2). We have to bear all that in mind.

The hon. and learned Member for Harborough talked about his two dogs running around in his garden, which, knowing him, is probably the size of Leicestershire, and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) talked about the same thing. In that context, we have to consider clause 45(2) and the circle I have drawn. Clause 45(2) refers to one or more dogs being ''employed''. We have had that debate and you rightly would not let me repeat it, Mr. Stevenson. Clause 45(2)(a) refers to a person who

''engages or participates in the pursuit of a wild mammal''.

Cats have already been mentioned. Everyone else on the Committee seems to have declared their pets. We have two cats called Wayne and Gretzky. Those who are interested in ice hockey, which is probably a minority, will know that Wayne Gretzky was the greatest ice hockey player ever. Sadly, our two cats sometimes hunt birds in our garden. Occasionally, they even catch and eat them or deposit them at our feet. However, I am not employing those cats in the pursuit of birds or squirrels and I am certainly not engaging or participating in that. I am not hunting, even though the animals, acting on their instincts and of their own volition, are. The fear about dog walkers and pests and so on is all nonsense. It has just been dreamed up to create fear among members of the community who may be following the Bill.

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

I have a couple of points to add to what I have already said. First, the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire seemed to be pursuing equality in the animal kingdom by comparing the behaviour of dogs and cats. I suggest that it is not helpful to pursue that line; one has to pursue logic and common sense in relation to an individual's actions and decisions about particular animals. I can assure him that the innocent walker issue has been dealt with in previous debates; in fact, it has been dealt with exhaustively during the passage of every relevant Bill that has come before the House. It is a regular visitor in Committees and the position is clear.

The hon. Member for St. Ives was right to illuminate the discussion by saying that there are comparisons with the responsibility of the innocent walker taking a dog into fields at lambing time. What matters in relation to the commission of an offence is what the owner does or does not do and their intentions. In the circumstances to which he refers, it is the responsibility of the owner to keep the dog under control. That is accepted by dog owners and felt strongly by farmers. If a dog owner knows that a dog has a proclivity to worry sheep, that knowledge means that their responsibility to take precautions becomes even greater. That is when their intentions and behaviour in relation to their knowledge of the animal are particularly relevant.

On the intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, I certainly admire his creative talent. The publishers of light fiction should know about it, because his mind has the potential to produce several novels that I would look forward to reading.

It is the intention of the owner of the dog that is relevant to hunting. We have explored that subject on

several occasions. I am not totally sure whether the sexual activity of dogs is relevant to hunting, but I am sure that it is outside the scope of the Bill. I believe that someone quoted in Horse and Hound not long ago described a day's hunting as ''better than sex'', but canine behaviour seems to be more clearly focused than human behaviour. I have considerable doubts about the illustration that the hon. and learned Gentleman offered.

I emphasise that the intentions and actions of the human being are considered when a decision is made about whether an offence has been committed. Of course, a dog must be associated with the activity—otherwise, we would not be discussing hunting with dogs—but, clearly, it is the intentions and actions of the human being that are important.

Having a general idea that a dog chases other animals does not amount to committing an offence knowingly. As the hon. and learned Gentleman said, the Crown Prosecution Service must examine the evidence of any alleged commission of an offence. That is the way the system works. That happens for any offence that Parliament has ever decided should be open to prosecution. We depend on making good law, rather than worrying about the perverse intentions of campaigners on either side of a political debate about an issue.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am prepared to accept the anticipatory reviews of my great works of fiction, which, no doubt, will entertain the Minister in due course, but I want to take him back to the question of intention. We have discussed it in previous sittings, but it is not good enough simply to say that the human being must have the requisite intention. As the Minister knows, ''intention'' does not always mean a deliberate plan to do something. It can sometimes mean a reckless disregard for the consequences of one's actions. Therefore, the reckless disregard of a dog owner, within his own property, that his dog might engage in an activity that will bring him into the ambit of the criminal law is something of which the Minister should aware and about which he should be able to assure the public.

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

Sure, but the interpretation of intention is not changed by the Bill. It is clear in the generality of the law.

I wish to strengthen my point about unnecessary prosecutions. There is nothing in the Bill, as there is nothing in any legislation that comes before Parliament, to prevent unjustified or unreasonable private prosecutions being brought by individuals or organisations. How could there be? However, the courts are well equipped, as are the CPS and the police, to respond to such prosecutions and to prevent their being used to achieve improper ends. In fact, the courts are expected to impose cost penalties on vexatious litigants.

We have taken an interesting ramble around the context of the clause and the amendment, but I return to the question that I asked earlier. If a dog owner knowingly permits another person to use his dog for

illegal hunting, should not he be guilty of an offence? The amendment should not be accepted, because it is right to ask that question.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I sometimes wish that I were a lawyer paid by the hour, as are some colleagues, but I am a layman. On reading again the Bill and our amendments to clause 45(3) and (4), I suspect that I drafted the amendments late one night with a cold towel around my head. The word ''knowingly'' in clause 4 probably allays most of my concerns about clause 45, and the amendments may have been drafted without due consideration of it. You will laugh when you hear me say this, Mr. Stevenson, but on this occasion the Minister is correct and the amendments are unnecessary, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 364, in

clause 45, page 18, line 26, after 'abandoned', insert

'after appropriate notification to the applicant by the registrar'.

This is a technical and clarifying amendment to ensure that the registrar is not entitled to decide that an application has been abandoned or finally determined unless he lets the applicant know. The role of the registrar and the tribunal is decreasing and, if Labour Members are to be believed and they intend to ban foxhunting outright on Report, the Bill will become the Bill to control the hunting of ferrets, mink and stoats, so the registrar may have little to do. That is an important point because we are discussing whether applications to the registrar will stand. If deer, hare coursing, hare hunting and foxhunting were banned outright, all that would be left for the registrar to do would be to deal with the hunting of ferrets, stoats and mink.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Wild boar.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

And wild boar. The role of the registrar will become less and less important as time goes on and the title of the Bill may have to be changed. None the less, if someone has made an application and, however unlikely, it is later thought to have been abandoned, the amendment would require the registrar to make appropriate notification to the applicant before it was allowed to be abandoned. That seems to be a reasonable safeguard for the interests of the applicant.

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

As the hon. Gentleman said, the amendment would change the time at which an application is treated as finally determined. At present, it is treated as finally determined when the registrar has made his decision or, if an appeal is made, when the tribunal has determined that appeal. Under the amendment, the time of final determination would be after appropriate notification of the decision to the applicant by the registrar.

I do not think that the change proposed in the amendment is necessary and I cannot see any benefit in it. As soon as the registrar makes a decision on the application, whether it is to grant or to refuse it, he will notify the applicant of the decision. Indeed, details of the way in which he carries out those bureaucratic functions will be set out in regulations. During the

transition period, hunting may continue until an application submitted before the Bill is fully enforced—that will be within a specified period—is fully determined. The definition in clause 45(5) makes it clear that an application will be finally determined only when the registrar has reached his decision and the tribunal has determined any appeal, or the time limit for appealing has been exhausted. It follows that the registrar's decision does not itself lead to immediate prohibition of the hunting in question if there is an appeal, so it is unnecessary to refer to notification to the hunt at that stage. I shall resist the amendment.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The Minister's oratory is overwhelming and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 46 and 47 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 3 - Consequential Amendments

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 61, in

schedule 3, page 26, leave out lines 28 to 30.

We now come to a more substantial part of this morning's business, which deals with an error in the consequential amendments to other Bills in schedule 3 on page 26. The amendment would omit the reference to the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. At present that Act allows registered hunts to stop up badger setts as an essential part of enabling hunts to continue an effective role of managing fox populations. Incidentally, it also protects the badger setts. The amendment would allow registered hunts to continue to stop up badger setts.

I may want to explain the position in greater detail in legal terms in a moment, but, in layman's terms, under the 1992 Act a hunt is allowed to go round the setts in advance and stop them up, so that the hunted fox does not go to ground in them. That enables the setts to be protected to some degree and digging out the fox, which we have discussed, to continue.

The Protection of Badgers Act is plain about the way in which stopping up can occur. For example, it does not allow certain material to be used to stop up the sett. It simply means that the incidence of foxes going down badger setts becomes less. Therefore, the sett is protected and there is a greater likelihood of catching and killing the fox.

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester)

Would the hon. Gentleman also say that a consequence of the amendment and the process of stopping up that he describes is that the chase can be prolonged because the fox cannot go into a badger sett?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

That would be a good argument in favour of ruling out stopping up altogether, but it is not what we are discussing here. We can stop up rabbit holes and all sorts of holes; there is no law against doing so. If the hon. Gentleman believes that we should give all foxes the greatest possible chance to get away, he is right to say that the way to do that is to

ban all forms of stopping up. However, we are discussing whether badger setts should continue to be allowed to be stopped up, as the 1992 Act allows, and not the purpose or intention behind doing so. We are talking specifically about badger setts and that Act.

Under section 8(7) of the 1992 Act a specific defence is created for hounds marking at a badger sett, provided that they are withdrawn as soon as reasonably practicable. Marking is the moment when hounds make a particular noise over a particular hole to indicate that there is a fox in it. That defence would be lost as a result of the Bill. However, there is no reason why that would make hounds less likely to mark at a badger sett. Indeed, they would probably be more likely to. If all the badger setts in the country were left open and unstopped, there would be an increased likelihood of a fox going into them. That would mean that the hunts would risk prosecution under parts of the 1992 Act.

The interesting legal point—I shall read it out with some care, because, as I said earlier, I am not a lawyer—is that a potential defence would remain under section 8(3) of the 1992 Act, which says:

''A person is not guilty of an offence under section 3(a), (c) or (e) above if he shows that his action was the incidental result of a lawful operation and could not reasonably have been avoided.''

If that provision was a sufficient defence for hounds marking at a badger sett, why was the 1992 Act drafted to include a specific exemption for hounds marking in section 8(7)? The obvious reason was to avoid vexatious litigation. Therefore, if section 8(7) were removed, every hunt would be open to prosecution on the facts of each case as to whether the marking at the badger sett

''could not reasonably have been avoided''.

That is an open invitation to every anti-hunting organisation to take hunts to court and risk their registration. The intervention from the hon. Member for Worcester a moment ago shows their thinking. They believe that the purpose of stopping up is to prolong the chase, whereas in our view it is to protect badgers and the badger sett.

If the Minister can assure us that a registered hunt would be protected from prosecution because section 8(3) of the 1992 Act has the same effect as section 8(7), a registered hunt could continue to hunt. None the less, one indirect consequence of the repeal proposed in the Bill would be an increased chance of hounds marking at a badger sett—foxes will more readily go to ground in them because hunts will no longer be able to stop them up.

If the Minister cannot give the assurance that the defence under section 8(3) of the 1992 Act has the same effect as that under section 8(7), it begins to look as if this is an attempt to make it impossible for hunts to operate even if they can become registered. Otherwise, if a hunt manages, against all the odds, to become registered, it will be unable to operate because of the danger of the hounds marking at a sett and the resulting expense of a prosecution being brought. That would be the consequence of deleting the exemption under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. If it became a prosecutable offence to mark at and to stop up a

badger sett, if would be very difficult to chase foxes with dogs as a pest control operative under the Bill's registration system.

It is interesting to remember that the anti-hunting organisations likely to test cases in the courts could also be the prescribed organisations under the Bill, and they will benefit from Government grants when they do so. Moreover, reducing the hunts' ability to perform a fox-control role will make them less able to pass the utility test. As drafted, the consequential repeal threatens hunts' ability to dispatch humanely foxes that may well be sick or injured above ground. The injured or sick that take refuge in a badger sett will have to be abandoned to die a lingering and painful death. Legislation that will create such unnecessary suffering seems ill thought through.

The stopping up of setts conducted according to Masters of Foxhounds Association rules and under the 1992 Act prevents avoidable disturbance of those setts and causes no harm to the badgers. I have a copy of the MFHA's yellow card with me, which lays down the way in which badger setts must be stopped. That is carried by masters at all times and by other people involved in the stopping such as terrier men. It plainly lays down that such things as bundles of sticks, faggots, paper sacks or empty or filled materials may be used but not until after the midnight before hunting and that they must be removed after hunting before midnight. The MFHA lays down such details carefully to ensure that the only purpose in stopping up a badger sett is to stop a fox going down it on that day's hunting. The stopping must then be removed to allow the badger proper access. The MFHA regulations also state that hunts cannot use hard materials such as tin and cans. They are precise regulations on how stopping up should occur.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Can the hon. Gentleman remind the Committee what the Burns inquiry found when presented with evidence that some of the stopping up was carried out illegally, and did not correspond to the handy-dandy card from which he has just read?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman makes a useful point. He justifies what the Bill will do not because it is a good thing in itself but because some extremists might not be carrying out practices according to the rules, so he thinks that that is good reason to stop everyone else from carrying them out. However, I remind him what Lord Burns said on that. It is useful to have a healthy discussion on the Burns approach to stopping up. Paragraph 9.21 of his report said:

''Another practice which gives rise to particular concern is that of stopping up foxes' earths, badger setts and other possible refuges before a foxhunt begins. As we noted in Chapter 7, we received a good deal of evidence about this activity, especially from badger watch groups. They argue that there are still far too many instances in which hunts and others are illegally stopping-up badger setts by using hard material or soil cut back from the sett itself.''

Against that:

''The Countryside Alliance argued that there was no evidence of any malpractice''

by sensible, organised hunts at all. It accepted that there was a lack of—

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

In a second. Lord Burns reacted to that alliance—[Interruption.] If the Minister will contain himself for one second and allow me to finish the quotation from Lord Burns he can then come back with his counter-quote. I should like to continue with what I believe to be a quotation from Lord Burns.

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

On that very point.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

If the Minister will contain himself, I am quoting from what I believe to be the Burns report.

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

No.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The Minister says ''No'' from a sedentary position. If he will allow me to continue with the quote, I am happy for him to come back in after that. Unless I am mistaken—I shall be happy to be corrected in a moment—the Burns report, in paragraph 9.22, says:

''The Countryside Alliance argued that there was no evidence of any malpractice. Whilst we accept that there is a lack of firm evidence linking malpractice to the hunts, we do not think we can disregard entirely the written and oral evidence we received from badger protection groups and their supporters on this issue.''

In paragraph 9.23 of the Burns report—I am happy to be corrected—he says:

''We recognise that badgers are now more numerous than at the time when they were first given legal protection. We also recognise that, if hunts were not permitted to stop up badger setts, foxes would be more likely to go to ground there and would have to be left. Similarly we recognise that if the same prohibition applied to foxes' earths many more would escape unscathed. However, consideration should be given to both of these issues in the absence of a ban.''

In paragraph 9.24, he continues

''One option, in the absence of a ban on hunting, would be to remove the present exemption for hunts.''

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think that it will be helpful to Hansard if I make the following point. In paragraph 9.22, the sentence reads, as the hon. Gentleman rightly quoted it after I sought to intervene:

''The Countryside Alliance argued that there was no evidence of any malpractice.''

The hon. Gentleman quoted that sentence and added the words ''by sensible and well-organised hunts.'' The Countryside Alliance in the Burns report seems to deny any evidence of malpractice whatever. It was not conditioned in the way that the hon. Gentleman sought to suggest. As long as he confirms that the words were added by him, I accept his right to interpret the Burns report, but the report did not include those added words.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I do not intend to get into a biblical, textual analysis of the Burns report, which the Minister seems to love doing so much. It is astonishing that he relies so much on a document that has otherwise been entirely ignored on questions such as the banning of hare hunting or terrier work. He has ignored Burns, the Portcullis house hearings and the consultation.

None the less, the Minister is right. The words I inserted referred to the second sentence in paragraph 9.22 rather than the first. The Minister was right to pick me up on that, but I do not believe it is a very important point. I said

''The Countryside Alliance argued that there was no evidence of any malpractice''—

insert by J. Gray, Member of Parliament for North Wiltshire, ''of organised hunts''—

''Whilst we accept that there is a lack of firm evidence lacking malpractice to the hunts''.

In other words, my insertion was paraphrasing precisely what Lord Burns' second sentence said. When discussing whether to allow the stopping up of badger setts, I do not think that a textual analysis of the precise wording of the Burns report achieves anything at all. I hope that the Minister will try to avoid doing so.

I would much prefer to refer to the speech by Lord Burns in the House of Lords debate on 12 March 2001. I will try and quote without parentheses. If I parenthesise, I shall make it plain that I am doing so. Burns stated:

''Secondly, we were concerned about the impact on animal welfare of a number of practices, including autumn or cub hunting, digging out, stopping up of earths and interfering with the flight of the quarry. We suggested ways in which action could be taken in the mean time to ban or curtail some of those activities even if Parliament decided against an overall ban on hunting with dogs.

The problem is that in each case it is difficult to impose rules that should apply in all circumstances and in all regions. There are clearly some cases that one would wish to deal with differently from others. A licensing authority could have an important role in judging the circumstances in which to grant licences and when to reject an application. That might include taking account of successful prosecutions brought against some of the activities.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 March 2001; Vol. 623, c. 535.]

The important point is that Burns says that there are some cases where stopping up makes sense, but others where it does not. Textual analysis does not achieve much, but the combination of the report and his speech suggests to me that a blanket banning of stopping up of badger setts would not achieve anything. The responses from the Independent Supervisory Authority for Hunting were forwarded to the Minister on 5 July 2002. The MFHA's response to the Minister's questions was as follows:

''Stopping up is essential to enable fox control to be effective so it is widely practised. If stopping is prohibited foxes may not be found and so could not be hunted effectively. Stopping of badger setts prevents foxes running to ground in them and consequently the hounds from marking to ground at set entrances.''

The fox population could not be managed if stopping up were prevented.

Although Burns had concerns about the stopping of badger setts, he recognised that banning the practice outright will impact upon the ability of hunts to control foxes, saying:

''it is difficult to impose rules that should apply in all circumstances and in all regions''.

There is a role for the licensing authority in setting the limitations on that activity. It would make sense in the context of the structure of the Bill as originally printed—the changes in Committee probably have made it less sensible—for the registrar to consider the activity.

It is important to understand why the stopping of badger setts is currently allowed and that, properly conducted, poses no threat to the welfare of badgers. Stopping is an aid to effective fox management. The

MFHA lays down strict rules on how earth stopping is carried out. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) suggested that there is malpractice in earth stopping, but evidence is hard to find and largely anecdotal. During the Burns inquiry oral sessions, Deadline 2000 was asked about the extent of hard stopping. The only evidence it offered came from Kevin Hill, an International Fund for Animal Welfare monitor, who described his

''feeling that it is widespread''.

That was the only evidence for the occurrence of hard stopping.

The National Federation of Badger Groups submission to the Burns inquiry argued that hunting had a detrimental effect on badger welfare, but it did not provide any evidence to support that claim. In 1996, aware of the many unfounded allegations made about the stopping of badger setts by anti-hunting associations, the then British Field Sports Society—we liked that name—which is now the Countryside Alliance commissioned the University of Sussex to undertake research on the effect of stopping up the entrances to badger setts on the respiratory environment within the sett. The report by Mr. Roper and Mr. Kemenes entitled, ''Effect of Blocking of Entrances on the Internal Environment of Badger (Meles Meles) Set'' appeared in the Journal of Applied Ecology in 1997. They found that the blocking of sett entrances does not disturb the within-sett environment of badgers. The scientific evidence in that report makes it the ultimate learned treatise on the blocking of entrances of badger setts.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Will the hon. Gentleman remind the Committee of that report's terms of reference? Did the report not concern the respiratory environment?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

That is indeed the case. The investigation was into whether stopping up had an effect on the respiratory environment within the sett. The conclusion was that it did not affect the respiratory environment. It was alleged that badgers suffocate because of stopping up, but the study makes it plain that that was not the case. Of course, that is different from the question whether it is sensible to allow stopping up from the point of view of foxhunting. There are those who argue that all stopping up of badger setts must be awful because the badgers must suffocate; the scientific evidence makes it plain that that is not the case.

The research shows that there is no evidence that the dispensation for hunts to stop up badger setts presently allowed in the Badger Act 1992 should be withdrawn. There is no evidence of a detrimental effect on the badgers, but there is plenty of evidence that there would be a benefit from the point of view of killing the maximum number of foxes. Nobody has said in Committee that killing a fox is necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, most people on both sides of the argument have acknowledged that killing badgers is good and necessary. [Hon. Members: ''Badgers?''] If I said ''badgers'', it was, of course, a slip of the tongue. What I meant to say was ''foxes''. I am a great badger lover, but under no circumstances would I advocate their death. I leave aside the whole question of bovine

TB and Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, who has made it plain that she believes there is a direct link between bovine TB and badgers. There may be arguments in favour of the culling of badgers by the Government under scientific conditions.

I meant that the stopping up of badger setts had great utility with regard to the killing of foxes. The reality is that the fox population is too large. If any pest control is to be left in place after the passage of the Bill, we must allow badger setts to be stopped up, so that the proper control of foxes can continue.

The inadvertent ending of the defence of the stopping up of badger setts is a mistake. Will the defence under section 8(3) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 continue, even if the Bill would delete the defence under section 8(7)? I may have got those numbers the wrong way round. In other words, will that defence continue, despite the passing of the consequential amendment? That is the central point. Are there circumstances under which hunts can continue to stop up badger setts? If not, will the Minister accept that that will make registered hunts extremely difficult to operate, with the unintended consequence that more foxes will continue to live?

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

The hon. Gentleman quoted Lord Burns in full and, after my intervention, did so accurately. He also made the absurd allegation that I have ignored the Burns report. That is totally untrue. It is an allegation that is not worthy of him. At the beginning of our proceedings both sides of the debate asked me to take the Burns findings seriously and not to reopen them. I have done so. I have also sought to look at precisely what Lord Burns says and at what he says in full. One problem that has been acknowledged on a variety of occasions—although that has not stopped it being repeated—is that people tend to take part of a sentence or comment by Lord Burns, add their own thought and present that as the findings of the Burns report. I am glad to have been able to help the hon. Gentleman not to commit that offence this morning, although the intention may have been there.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Will the Minister kindly remind us where Lord Burns recommends the outright banning of terrier work and hare hunting?

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

If the hon. Gentleman will read the Burns report, he will see that it reflects the concerns about terrier work in the evidence provided to Lord Burns. The report did not provide conclusions or a blueprint for legislation. It was my responsibility to take it as my starting point, as I have done, and not to abandon or reopen it—I have done neither of those things—but to use it as the platform on which to hold extensive consultation in order to draft legislation. That is what I have done.

The hon. Gentleman went on to make the wild allegation that I have ignored the Portcullis house hearings. I have done no such thing; far from it. I have taken those hearings and all the evidence provided to me seriously. One of our difficulties—the hon. Gentleman may have been drawn into this by the briefings that he seems to take exclusively from one

side of the argument—is the message from the Countryside Alliance, which has said two contradictory things. One is that if it is cruel, we should not be doing it, implying discrimination in order to remove cruelty associated with hunting with dogs. The other is that an attack on one is an attack on all, as if the Bill were about an attack rather than about preventing cruelty. Prevention of cruelty is the serious intention of the Bill and the reason why scrutiny by members of the Committee has been so important.

Paragraph 9.24, printed in bold type, sets out the conclusions of Lord Burns and makes it clear that there is a problem with the stopping-up of badger setts. As the hon. Gentleman indicated when he read out extracts from paragraphs 9.21 to 9.24, the report explores the options for dealing with badger setts in different circumstances.

Section 8(4) to (9) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 allows badger setts to be stopped up for certain purposes of foxhunting, providing certain conditions are met. The hon. Gentleman discussed the intentions of Ministers at the time of the passage of the 1992 Act, but I cannot comment on that. Section 3(d) of the 1992 Act makes an offence of

''causing a dog to enter a badger sett''.

The wording of the section explicitly states that an offence is committed by being reckless as to whether one's actions would lead to a dog entering a badger sett.

The Bill would remove the present exemption to the section 3(d) offence for hunting hounds that mark at a badger sett. When the Bill becomes law, it will be necessary for hunters to keep their hounds under sufficiently close control to prevent their entering badger setts. Hunters will need to take reasonable steps to prevent that. If they do not keep their dogs under control and the dogs enter a badger sett, the hunters will be acting recklessly and will be guilty of a section 3(d) offence.

As the Bill makes hunting illegal unless it is registered or exempted, a consequential amendment is needed in respect of the 1992 Act. The key question that must be considered is whether the blocking-up of badger setts is necessary for achieving the objective for which registration has been granted to the extent that there should be a general exception to the law that forbids such activity. Essentially, it is a matter of judgment and balance as to whether registered hunting should override what is banned in other legislation.

My conclusion is that the balance lies in registered hunting not being exempt. I recognise that registration to hunt with dogs can only be for pest control purposes and that without being able to block up badger setts, more pests will go to ground and have to be left. However, that outcome must be balanced against the fact that earth-stopping has long been a controversial practice. In fact, the Burns inquiry received several representations about hunts and others contravening the law on the stopping-up of badger setts. The hon. Gentleman referred to the yellow card, which sets out the expectations of the Masters of Foxhounds Association. However, it is

clear that Lord Burns and his colleagues took the representations on the issue very seriously indeed.

I conclude that the mischief must be addressed. The occasion when a pest cannot be dealt with immediately is preferable to a blanket exception from the relevant badger legislation for all registered hunting, and I therefore resist the amendment.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I hope that I am not paraphrasing the Minister's words too much when I say that he believes that preventing the controversial practice, as he put it, of stopping up badger setts is more important than the benefit that might be gained by doing so for the purpose of pest control. He balanced the fact that stopping-up would lead to more foxes being killed not with whether there were disadvantages for badgers but with whether it was a controversial issue. He seemed to be saying that it is more important to prevent the stopping-up of badger setts because many people believe that is a bad thing than to allow it for the possible benefit of pest control.

That is a remarkable thing to say. If the purpose behind the Bill is animal welfare and if the purpose behind registration is to allow properly qualified people to carry out the task of pest control and the killing of foxes, surely what should be in the Minister's mind is not whether a matter is controversial, but whether it will allow the better achievement of what the Bill intends, namely the killing of foxes. He is, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West did previously, relying on extreme and extraordinary circumstances such as badger baiting. He is confusing such illegal and disgraceful activities with the perfectly sensible, workmanlike and utilitarian conduct of those whom his registrar will allow to continue to hunt with dogs. That is a bizarre approach. If there is any purpose behind the Bill, which we are coming rapidly to doubt, it must be for gamekeepers, hunts and others to achieve registration.

That will not be easy. They will seek registration and the registrar will say, ''Fine, you are now allowed under the law, for the purposes of pest control, to use dogs to kill foxes and other vermin.'' That is the purpose of the Bill and one has to assume that those people will legitimately go about their business and will do what they have to do. Pest control companies, including those who undertake pest control for farmers, have been in touch with me to say that their task will be much harder. They are astonished—they do not hunt, they control pests, but they will not be able to continue their activities and will go out of business. If there is any purpose behind the Bill, and if such people are to be allowed to continue their activities, surely it is only reasonable for the Government to allow them to continue to take normal and sensible precautions, such as the closing-up of badger setts.

Imagine that the pest control operative in an area is called in to deal with a rogue fox, or a number of them—my view is that all foxes are rogues. The local council might deal with foxes in that area, using dogs. He sees that the entire farm is covered with badger setts and says he cannot deal with the fox because it

will go into one of them. At present, he can stop up the badger setts the night before under carefully controlled conditions. He then hunts the fox and kills it and reopens the badger sett. The procedure is plainly laid down by the Masters of Fox Hounds Association and others.

If the consequential amendment is accepted, that will not be the case. The operative will turn up at the farm and say, ''I am sorry that you are losing all your lambs, but I can do nothing about it, because you have 10 badger setts on your farm. Any fox that I chase will go straight into one and I am not allowed, under the law, to block it off to prevent that from happening.'' That blows a hole in the pest control aspect of the Bill. It will not be possible for pest control people to operate in an area—such as large parts of the west country—where there are extensive badger setts. If the stopping-up of badger setts becomes illegal, which it will under the Bill, people will not be able to use dogs for pest control.

The Minister is saying that the practice of stopping-up is so controversial and so obnoxious to him, his supporters, the League Against Cruel Sports and other organisations, that he will ban it even if in doing so he prevents the very people whom he seeks to register—pest controllers—from doing their jobs.

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

The hon. Gentleman suggests that I take the approach that I do simply because something is controversial. In view of his earlier suggestion, which I described as absurd, to ignore the Burns report, I must point out that Lord Burns clearly looked at the evidence, saw a problem and felt that there was a need for action. I came to my conclusion in that light, not for some cavalier reason, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Lord Burns came to no such clear conclusion. I quoted extensively a few moments ago from his report and his speech. He did not conclude that outlawing the stopping-up of badger setts was a good thing. He said that there was evidence of some extremists doing it wrongly, but went on to say that organised hunts do not do so. I challenge the Minister to point to any text in the Burns report or in his speech in which he says, ''I would like them to ban the stopping-up of badger setts.'' He does not say so and there is no evidence at all.

Constantly saying, ''I am quoting Lord Burns'' has no point. Lord Burns does not recommend banning the stopping-up of badger setts; he says that some aspects of the practice should be looked into. I readily accept that. I understand that to this day there are illegal badger baiters in some parts of England. I accept that there are problems with badgers and badger setts and that must be sorted out. I question whether the Bill has any purpose and whether pest control is to be allowed using dogs, as preventing the stopping-up of badger setts would make that task impossible.

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

The hon. Gentleman appeared to paraphrase Lord Burns by suggesting that there was no problem with organised hunts stopping-up badger setts. Lord Burns says no such thing. The sentence that

the hon. Gentleman quoted from paragraph 9.22 of the report states:

''Whilst we accept that there is a lack of firm evidence linking malpractice to the hunts, we do not think we can disregard entirely the written and oral evidence we received from badger protection groups and their supporters on this issue.''

Paragraph 9.37 of the report states:

''We have indicated that, in the absence of a ban, consideration could be given to amending the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.''

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Is the Minister a fundamentalist Methodist or is he related to people who are? They are given to quoting at length from the Bible, saying, ''St. John chapter something or other proves my point beyond doubt.'' Someone else will say, ''Yes, but St. Luke chapter something or other proves that that is not the case.'' Precisely the same textual analysis could be applied to the Burns report and the Minister does that constantly. He quotes one little sentence as if it were conclusive. I will do the same. Paragraph 9.22 of the report says:

''Whilst we accept that there is a lack of firm evidence linking malpractice to the hunts . . . ''—

perhaps we are to understand from that that it should be looked into. However, paragraph 9.23 states:

''We recognise that, if hunts were not permitted to stop up badger setts, foxes would be more likely to go to ground there and would have to be left.

Paragraph 9.24 states:

''One option . . . would be to remove the present exemption for hunts.''

Lord Burns said in the House of Lords debate on the Hunting Bill on 12 March 2001:

''it is difficult to impose rules that should apply in all circumstances and in all regions. There are clearly some cases that one would wish to deal with differently from others. A licensing authority could have an important role in judging the circumstances''.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 March 2001; Vol. 623, c. 535.]

Quoting and counter-quoting from Lord Burns report or from his speech serves no useful function.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Not when it does not back up your argument.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

That is not the point. Burns examined the facts. We are discussing not so much the facts, but their consequences. If it were made illegal for registered pest controllers who have been recognised under the Bill to stop up badger setts it would become impossible for them to do their job. If there is no exemption for organised pest controllers—and let us call them pest controllers—there would be no point in having them.

In the west country, where I live, there would be no way that the recognised pest controllers would be able to do their jobs. Banning what the Minister describes as a controversial practice, although Lord Burns does not recommend banning it, would make it impossible for registered recognised pest controllers to do their job. It is another way in which the logic of the Bill has been utterly blown apart. Hardly any organisation will be able to register to carry out pest control with dogs if the Bill is passed. It is a nonsensical charade. It would

be much easier simply to ban hunting, which I know many Labour Members want to do.

If we accept that the purpose of the Bill is to set up a system under which certain people will be allowed to hunt foxes using dogs for the purposes of pest control, preventing them from stopping up badger setts the night before makes a nonsense of it, and we shall certainly try to persuade the Committee of that in a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 20.

Clause 50 - Commencement

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I beg to move amendment No. 356, in

clause 50, page 19, line 23, leave out 'section 6' and insert 'sections 6 and 7'.

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 358, in

clause 50, page 19, line 24, leave out 'and' and insert 'to'.

Amendment No. 357, in

clause 50, page 19, line 24, after 'under', insert 'section 7 or'.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

These are probing amendments, although I confess I did not intend them in that way when I tabled them. They have flaws and they have to an extent been overtaken by events in Committee, but the substance of what I want to say should be considered. I am sure that the Minister will consider it.

Amendment No. 356 is intended to examine why section 6, but not section 7, should come into force one month after the Act is passed. Both cover activities that part 1 of the Bill would ban and there seems to be no more need to delay section 7 than section 6. Logically, clause 50(1)(b) should include both. Since I tabled the amendment, new clause 10 on hare coursing and new clause 11 on the use of dogs below ground have been added to part 1, so if my remarks about

section 7 are valid, the Minister might want to think about tidying up those provisions too.

Almost in parenthesis, I would add that there is more reason to include section 7, with the provisions affected by the one-month limit, if we take into account the report published by Queen's university, Belfast, about hare coursing in Northern Ireland. Hare coursers have traditionally used one argument, which has been used in this Committee, which is that their activities encourage larger hare populations. The university report contradicts that. Studying the hare population in Northern Ireland on behalf of the environment and heritage service of the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland, the university found that the number of hares is extremely low.

The independent report, which has only just been published, recommends that the hare should be completely removed from the quarry list in Northern Ireland and should no longer be hunted. That study is relevant because if it is shown that the hare population is damaged by coursing, the commencement date of the coursing ban should be as soon as possible after the enactment of the Bill.

Amendment No. 358 is a probing amendment. The one-month time limit applies only to clauses 39 and 44. Is there a reason why only those two clauses from part 3, which is about enforcement, should apply and not all the clauses between?

Amendment No. 357 would change subsection (1)(c), which refers to clauses 39 and 44 insofar as they relate to an offence under part 2, so that it would repeat the provisions of paragraph (a) for part 3. I suggest that clause 7 should also be included within the ambit of that subsection. I do not know why I did not include clause 6, and new clauses 10 and 11 are also relevant.

I freely accept that amendment No. 357 is defective, but I would still press on my right hon. Friend the principle behind the three amendments. I hope that he can assure me either that I have misinterpreted the Bill, which is possible, or that there is a means of tidying it up and making the one-month limit consistent across all relevant clauses and new clauses in part 1.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) said that his amendments are probing amendments, so I need not spend too long trying to persuade the Committee that they are not worthy of support. I hope that, in due course, he will do as he implied and seek leave to withdraw them.

Amendment No. 357 is consequential upon amendments Nos. 356 and 358, so I shall not spend time on that. However, I shall highlight one or two of the problems that the hon. Gentleman faces by deploying an argument in support of a probing amendment. Until clause 1 takes effect, clause 6 and new clause 10 will have no legal effect. They depend upon clause 1 coming into force. Amendments Nos. 356 and 358 are not helpful to our deliberations; nor do they assist in a better drafting of the Bill.

I can understand that the hon. Gentleman wants to bring clauses 6 and 7 into effect one month after the

Act is passed, which would ban competitive coursing. However, it is unclear where the ban on hare hunting described in new clause 10 will be incorporated into the Bill, and whether it will come under an amended clause 7. He has got ahead of himself. We need to see the Bill in its final Committee stage draft before we worry about the commencement provisions, which should properly be dealt with either on Report or when the Bill has been to the other place and come back to the Commons.

The most sensible time to consider commencement timings is when the Bill is sent to receive Royal Assent. There is an illogicality in bringing matters to an earlier commencement when they depend upon something that does not take effect for three months. That is one of the main problems that the hon. Member for West Lancashire faces in relation to amendments Nos. 356 and 358.

I do not need to elaborate the general principle of my concern that the amendment—I do not mean to be impolite—is useless. As the clause is drafted, there is no need for clauses 40, 41, 42 and 43 to come into force before three months. Only clauses 39 and 44 relate to part 2 provisions and are not exclusively related to the enforcement of the overarching offence of hunting. The hon. Gentleman was candid enough to say that he had changed his mind and that had he argued the case two or three weeks ago, he might have been more enthusiastic about his arguments. It was wonderful to listen to him, but perhaps that is all that we need to hear from him.

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

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire for the way in which he moved his amendment, and for his suggestion that he was open to persuasion about timing. The practical effect of amendment No. 356, as he indicated, is to make the ban on hare coursing events in clause 7 effective one month after the Bill comes into force. I am sympathetic to the underlying objective of the amendment, which is to see an end to hare coursing events at the earliest opportunity. When one supports a piece of legislation and believes it to be right, one wants to see it bite as quickly and effectively as possible. I will not respond, if he will forgive me, to the substantive points that he made and to question of the Northern Ireland evidence. Although they are important matters that need to be considered, this debate concerns only the date on which the provisions come into force. The point is to put the provisions in place with a degree of consistency and in good order.

The different sections of the Bill come into force at different times for good reasons. Part 2, which concerns registration, and the other sections of the Bill that relate to it, such as clause 6 in part 1, come into force one month after Royal Assent. That is in order to allow for applications for registration to be made so as to benefit from the transitional arrangements set out in clause 51. They can be made within the three-month time limit. The other substantive provisions in the Bill, including those creating criminal offences, come into effect three months after the granting of Royal Assent. That gives those affected by the legislation a fair time to take whatever steps are necessary to comply with the

new law. It would be invidious to single out one offence to be effective from a different date, although I understand the temptation from the point of view of my hon. Friend. I urge him not to press the amendment.

Amendment No. 358 would bring into force one month after the enactment of the Bill clauses 40, 41, 42 and 43. Those clauses relate to police powers of arrest, search and seizure and the powers of the court in regard to forfeiture and disqualification for registration. The powers are only needed by the police when the relevant substantial provisions concerning the criminal offences created by the Bill in part 1 come into effect. That will be three months after enactment. The change proposed by the amendment would provide no practical benefit because the powers could not be used until three months after the event. Amendment No. 357 follows the same line of argument and is consequential on amendment No. 356. I entirely understand my hon. Friend's wish to see the Bill's provisions biting as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, for the orderly introduction of registration and other provisions, I urge him to accept the suggested time scales.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

I am happy with that explanation of amendment No. 358, which makes sense. I still have one important question relating primarily to amendment No. 356. I still do not understand why section 6 is specifically included, whereas section 7 is not. I understood my right hon. Friend the Minister to say that it would be odd to single out one measure—I presume that he was referring to hare coursing—but clause 50 does exactly that because it singles out deer. I am happy for the Bill to do that, but I do not understand the difference between the two.

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

The point is that part 2 deals with the commencement of registration and related provisions, such as those in clause 6, which prohibit the registration of deer hunting, and those in new clause 10, which prohibit the registration of hare hunting. Those clauses will come into force at the same time as part 2. That is logical because one cannot apply for registration for those activities when registration opens one month after Royal Assent. All the offences in the Bill will come into force at the same time—three months after the Bill is passed—so coursing will be banned at the same time as deer hunting and hare hunting, when the prohibition of other hunting that is neither registered nor exempt will also come into force.

I understand why my hon. Friend thought that there was an inconsistency. We must distinguish between one month after Royal Assent, when everything relating to registering or not being able to register will be dealt with, and three months after, when all the offences will come into force. I assure my hon. Friend that those provisions are consistent and I apologise if I did not make that clear in my first response.

Colin Pickthall (Labour, West Lancashire)

It is probably my fault because it has taken some time for that to trickle through to my brain. I understand my right hon. Friend's explanation

and bearing that in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 51 - Transitional arrangements

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I beg to move amendment No. 45, in

clause 51, page 19, line 33, leave out 'three' and insert 'twelve'.

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 355, in

clause 51, page 19, line 39, at end insert

', or on the expiry of a period of 12 months starting on the date the application was received by the registrar, whichever is the sooner.'.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I rise to speak to amendment No. 45 and to speak strongly against amendment No. 355, tabled by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West.

Clause 51 would extend the period for making initial applications from three to 12 months. As the clause is drafted, individuals or groups who apply within the three months before part 1 comes into force may continue their activities until their applications are determined. By extending that three months to 12 months, we shall increase the time available to people to prepare their applications properly, thus increasing their chance of registering and safeguarding their right to continue hunting until their applications have been properly and fairly determined, either favourably or unfavourably.

As the clause is drafted, no criminal offence of hunting will come into effect until three months after the Act is passed, but part 2, which establishes the registrar and tribunal, will come into effect after one month. By the time the offences come into effect, the process of applying for registration should have begun. However, that may not be the case, depending on the speed with which the registrar and tribunal are established and Parliament agrees the necessary secondary legislation. As it stands, hunts and individuals who apply for registration in those three months are allowed to continue as if the application had been granted until the application is approved or denied. The amendment is simply a question of natural justice, and I hope that it is non-controversial.

As with any evidence-based legal judgment, the quality of the evidence will be crucial. Under the Bill, anyone who seeks registration must show that he wants to hunt for one of the reasons set out in clause 8 and that the activity constitutes pest control and will contribute significantly to preventing the serious damage that the wild mammals in question would cause.

The applicant must also satisfy the least-suffering test. As the Bill was drafted, the applicant had to show that the utility of hunting

''could not reasonably be expected to be made . . . in a manner likely to cause . . . less pain, suffering or distress to the wild mammals to be hunted.''

That standard of proof was toughened to an extraordinary degree in the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, which had the Minister's support. Under the Bill as amended, the applicant must now show that hunting would cause significantly less suffering than any other method. Under the original least-suffering test, the applicant had to prove his case on the balance of probabilities, but the test has now been amended and he must prove it beyond reasonable doubt. That is the highest standard in criminal law and it applies to offences such as rape and murder.

There are two hurdles facing individuals and organisations that seek registration.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

The hon. Gentleman outlines the changes, but would he care to remind the Committee that there was no Division on the amendment that I tabled to clause 8(2)? Opposition Members, including the hon. Gentleman, did not oppose that amendment to the cruelty test.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I will have to look back at the record, but I take the hon. Gentleman's point. If that was the case, it should not be taken as any sort of approval on the part of Opposition Members, given the overwhelming numbers of Labour Members.

As I said, there are two hurdles facing those who seek registration. The first is to prove that something will happen rather than might happen. That is unknowable. The onus is therefore on the applicant to foresee not only what damage certain wild animals will cause but the seriousness of that unknowable future damage.

The second hurdle is to prove that hunting would cause significantly less suffering than any alternative. That automatically assumes that hunting is cruel and, ipso facto, the worst method. The Bill therefore requires the applicant to prove that other methods are not only worse but significantly so. How can someone do that when the research has not been done? Throughout this long Committee, hon. Members on both sides have selectively quoted the Burns report, which lends itself to that. Although Burns expresses several views there is a consistent caveat before many of his key recommendations. It is:

''There is a lack of firm scientific evidence about the effect on the welfare of a fox of being closely pursued, caught and killed above ground by hounds.''

The words

''lack of firm scientific evidence''

appear in points 56 and 57 of the summary, and they recur consistently throughout the report. In chapter 9, the report makes a clear recommendation of further research. He states:

''We have noted, in earlier chapters, a number of issues on which there appears to be a lack of firm information. A good many of these would probably lend themselves to further work, and could be considered as possible research studies, if a ban on hunting was not introduced. A number of them would be of considerable relevance even if there was not a ban.''

A list is cited in relation to foxes, deer and hares. The comparative welfare implications of different methods of killing foxes in particular are singled out as an area that requires further research.

Before the tribunal, we will be looking not for views but for firm evidence. That is surely the only thing that will be acceptable. It is indisputable that according to Burns that firm evidence is not there. All the way through the Committee, the Minister has consistently failed to bring forward any categorical, clinical, veterinary or scientific evidence to support his assertions.

How can applicants going before the tribunal disprove an assumption of hunting being cruel when it has never been proven? One cannot disprove something that has never been proven and one certainly cannot do it in the matter of weeks set out by the new licensing regime. The purpose of setting out in some detail the standard of proof and evidence required of an applicant under clause 8 is to show that, to have any chance of being registered, any individual or group will need sufficient time to prepare and research that application while being allowed to continue their lawful activities until the application is finally determined.

It must not be forgotten that the law-abiding citizens who are making applications will be up against the wealth of resources of potentially hostile prescribed animal welfare organisations that are benefiting from Government grants. The whole process is weighted against the applicant and predicated on the falsehood that hunting has been proven on the basis of fact and science to be cruel. That is clearly not the case.

The Minister was ready to accept an increase in the time period that must elapse between the failure of one application and a new application from six to 12 months, despite the terrible effect that that will have on gamekeepers, farmers and land managers. I ask the Minister if, as a way of retrieving a little of his tattered reputation in the matter, he will accept the amendment as a gesture that shows—I am addressing my points through the Chair directly to the Minister and I would be grateful if he would listen to my point—

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is a little childish for Opposition Members to feel that they have to seek attention in this way. We could all hop up and down and point out when Opposition Members are not paying attention to comments, whether they are made by Ministers or others. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall take his remarks seriously when I respond to them.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am sorry that the Minister felt the need to hop up like that. I am coming to my final remarks on the amendment and was addressing those remarks specifically to him. He is obviously not listening again. [Interruption.] Would the Minister stop rambling on and allow me to finish?

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

No.

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

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe, is the hon. Gentleman allowed simply to be rude about

Government Members instead of dealing with the issues, addressing them through you?

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

Let us get on with the debate.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I was asking the Minister if he will make a final gesture that will demonstrate to the people in the countryside, however stacked against them the Bill is, that he will at least give them a fair and proper chance of passing an impassable test.

I firmly oppose amendment No. 355, which would mean that a person who put in an application within three months of the passing of the Bill would be allowed to continue hunting only until the application was determined or after 12 months from the date on which the registrar received the application. The amendment is breathtaking and extraordinary. It shows clearly that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has no faith in the system that the Minister proposes or the Minister's ability to run and direct the system.

The amendment is also an extraordinary departure. Imagine if the same principle was applied to asylum seekers. They come to this country and make an application. The onus is on them to prove that they have a fair and valid reason to seek asylum. We know that the asylum system is riddled with delays. It has been inundated with applications and has not coped. Imagine if each asylum seeker was told after 12 months, ''Sorry, your time is up. We haven't been able to deal with your application. Go back to whence you came.'' That would be extraordinary, but the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West proposes that the same principle of justice should be imposed on people in the countryside who carry out activities that have been legal and that they believe remain fair and normal. They would be penalised in a totally unacceptable way and imposing such justice on any other member of the community would be unacceptable.

The Bill accepts that hunting is a legal activity that has been carried out through the mists of time. It will ban certain forms of hunting but sets tests that other forms must pass to remain lawful. The fact that the Bill is a ban in all but form is irrelevant to the amendment. The Bill accepts that a currently legal activity may still be legal after it has been subjected to two tests and as such, if individuals or groups apply for registration in an allotted time, they should be presumed innocent until their case for registration has been determined. People should not be criminalised at a stroke only to be decriminalised if their application for registration is successful.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Does my hon. Friend agree that a cynic might be forgiven for thinking that the impetus for the registrar to deal with an application would not be great if it would elapse after 12 months anyway?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Absolutely. The hearings in Portcullis house were totally manipulated and they have been exposed in this Committee as a total and utter sham and a massive deceit. On the basis of what we have seen from the Government so far, no one can

have any faith that the tribunal system will be fair if there is a cut-off after 12 months.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

With regard to the effectiveness of the three-day hearings, does the hon. Gentleman accept that having participated in them, I believe that the outcomes were entirely healthy, impressive and useful for debate? The tragedy is that many of the facts have been ignored by those who did not bother reading the reports or who retained their prejudices after reading them.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I wholeheartedly agree. I was not denigrating those who participated in the proceedings in Portcullis house or in the Burns report. I was simply pointing out that the Government organised the proceedings as a ruse—the purpose was a sham.

The Government have tried to limit trial by jury and want to abolish the right to silence in certain cases. However, surely even this illiberal Government, which has moved against so many civil rights that have been cherished for centuries, would not question the basic principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. The Bill starts from an assumption of guilt. It is structured on the basis that hunting is proven to be cruel, although we know that it is not. The Bill reverses the burden of proof. The applicant is deemed guilty and must prove that he is not to be allowed to continue hunting.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Does my hon. Friend know of any other legislation under which an applicant would lose the right to be granted a licence after a statutory period of 12 months if, for whatever reason, his application had not been processed? Also, the law is so weighted against the applicant that a preferred organisation, yet to be determined in legislation, is effectively to be bankrolled by the state to lodge an objection should that applicant ever have been granted his registration in the first place.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The answer to my hon. Friend's question is absolutely not. He makes an extremely clear and powerful point. This is the most horrendous amendment. I have no idea whether all the money that is to go to the prescribed animal welfare groups would have to be returned if the licence were denied after 12 months because the application had not been heard. So many questions remain unanswered in relation to this nasty little amendment that I hope it will not be pressed to a division.

While applications are sub judice, the correct presumption, which the Bill reflects, is that what has always been lawful should remain lawful unless it fails the new statutory tests for lawfulness. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West fears that the bureaucratic system that the Bill establishes and that the Minister will erect will be inadequately managed, supervised and directed by the Minister, and will not be able to cope with the thousands of applications and appeals that will result.

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has little faith in his colleagues or the system. He seems to be saying that it would be better to judge everybody guilty at some arbitrary date and then some years later say to them,

''Sorry, we were absolutely wrong. What you were doing was legal all along. Our mistake.'' That is playing with people's lives and may cost them their livelihoods, turn families out of their homes, and have a profound impact on the ecology and wildlife of the English countryside. There will be hugely damaging consequences across whole communities, all because the Government could not act quickly enough to deal with a bureaucratic, intolerant, illiberal licensing regime that they have imposed arbitrarily. That is grossly unfair and flies in the face of natural justice.

I profoundly disagree with many of the arguments that the hon. Gentleman forward during this long Committee stage, but I give him credit for the intellectual rigour that he always tried to bring to his arguments. He has always been attentive to the Opposition, although we often do not agree with him. He has tried in certain cases to understand the arguments about which we feel so strongly. I appeal without rancour to his better nature and ask him to consider the reality of what the amendment would impose and the precedent that it would set. I appeal to him not to press the amendment to a Division.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Given the comprehensive remarks of the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), who opposed my amendment, hon. Members will be fairly clear about the import of the amendment. It would, as he suggested, introduce a long stop to cap the transitional period and I stress that. It is not that I have no faith in my right hon. Friend the Minister, but I am concerned about huge numbers of applications clogging up the system. Group registrations involve 50 people. I cannot do the maths, but some hon. Members may be able to—if they perm any 49 from those 50, some 2,500 applications could be made. That could represent a concerted campaign by those who wish to carry on with their activities.

We should also bear in mind something that, with the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman overlooked in his remarks. We are dealing with a transitional period. If an applicant or group of applicants fell foul of the transitional 12-month long stop that I want to insert in the Bill, but it was subsequently determined that their application was in order and they passed the sequential test in clause 8, they could resume their activity.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that there is a cost to keeping hounds, to keeping horses stabled and to maintaining the fabric of the hunting community? It would be no good for a hunting community or a hunt to be told 24 months or 3 years after their activities had been stopped by the force of criminal law, ''You can carry on now'', when people have lost their jobs or been turned out of their homes and the hounds have been lost or put to sleep. It is facile to suggest such a thing.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

That is an interesting intervention because it implies that there will be a campaign to clog up the system. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting—[Interruption.] I will finish my point and then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. He is suggesting that applications could take up to three years to determine, which suggests a concerted campaign to clog up the system.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am not suggesting that there will be a concerted campaign. I am simply saying that the hon. Gentleman tabled the amendment because he clearly has no faith in the Minister's ability to deliver a verdict within 12 months. If activities are stopped, irrevocable harm and damage will be done to any ability to resume hunting later.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

One must bear in mind that this example is not unique. In the licensing of on and off-sales in public houses, someone who is outwith the rules for a short period still has to pay the overhead on the public house.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

Regardless of how many applications are received, it goes against natural justice arbitrarily to prevent well-meaning individuals who are acting in good faith in the spirit of the legislation from continuing their activity after 12 months, simply because the system cannot cope. The hon. Gentleman is trying to close what he regards to be a loophole created by the inadequacies of the legislation. The punishment—which is effectively what it would be—is inappropriate. The correct response is to ensure that the legislation works. I understand what he is trying to do, but he is hitting the wrong target.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I am not trying to close a loophole. As I have said, I am trying to exert pressure to ensure that we have a proper registrar and tribunal system that deals with such matters promptly. [Interruption.] Hon. Members should allow me to develop my argument. We have an adequate system of registrars and tribunals that deals with the applications timeously. It is in the interests of the applicants as well as society to decide whether to regulate an activity.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

The hon. Gentleman alluded to the licensing of public houses and how a publican has to continue paying rates while his application is processed. That is a wrong allusion because it ignores animal welfare. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle said earlier, if a hunt has been refused a licence—

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 51 - Transitional arrangements

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing amendment No. 355, in

clause 51, page 19, line 39, at end insert

', or on the expiry of a period of 12 months starting on the date the application was received by the registrar, whichever is the sooner.'.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I was about to speak about animal welfare, but will give way.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so unexpectedly.

The purpose of the hon. Gentleman's amendment is to limit the period during which an applicant may continue to hunt, and he alluded earlier to the example of a publican being liable for rates pending an application's being granted. This morning, I suggested that that was a bad example, because it does not involve the animal welfare aspect, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) referred earlier. It is not just a question of closing down a pub and continuing to pay the rates. It is a question of closing down a hunt, laying off staff and, unfortunately, destroying hounds. Hunt supporters may have to deal similarly with some of their horses. The hon. Gentleman has overlooked animal welfare.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I do not accept that. My example referred not to rates but to overheads. The overheads of a public house include staff costs, and a publican might have to decide whether to lay off staff. The hon. Gentleman referred to a similar point concerning the staff employed by a hunt, whether it was the late great Captain Ronnie—whoever he was—or anyone else. A hunt would have to make a commercial decision if the long-stop 12-month period that I want to introduce were to run out. The animal welfare aspect is that those who own the hounds would have to decide whether they thought that they would receive registration 12 months hence—that is, 14 months on—in which case they would carry on feeding the hounds.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

There is no similarity between pub staff and hunt staff. Hunt staff must be qualified and highly trained in what they do. They are employed largely in rural areas where there are no replacement jobs. If hunt staff lose their jobs, hunts cannot go down to the

local job centre to replace them if the hunts are granted a licence at some future date. They will cease to exist.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I am sorry to hear that the death penalty exists in rural areas. Those staff will not cease to exist, but they may cease to make themselves available for that line of work. That is something that any employer faces if there is a shutdown or redundancies. When the market changes, the staff may not be around. The hon. Gentleman undercut his argument by talking about skilled staff. Some pub staff are skilled and may get another job in another pub, but the expectation is that there may not be many hunts around with which hunt staff might find another job.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Can the hon. Gentleman explain the circumstances in which a pub or any other legal activity would arbitrarily have its licence to practice, operate or open withdrawn for no other reason than a change in legislation, and with no compensation in the full expectation that they would be able to carry on afterwards?

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Of course I can—that would be so if food hygiene regulations change, for example.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

A pub would be forced to close down?

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Yes. A pub might have to close down while it went through the process of compliance. Would the people get any compensation? No.

I am anxious to make some progress this afternoon, as is my right hon. Friend the Minister and Opposition Members—and you, Mrs. Roe. The hon. Gentleman talked grandiosely about this being a matter of judging people and doing away with the presumption that someone is innocent until found guilty. That is not the case. Both the Bill and the long-stop provision that I seek to introduce would mean that someone could not carry on hunting beyond that 12-month period without registration. In a scenario such as that mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, registration would not have come through and the offence would be hunting without being registered. People would not simply be adjudged guilty; they would have decided whether they were going to engage in that human and physical activity.

It is interesting that when the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle spoke to amendment No. 45 he mentioned the need for further research, which was set out in the Burns report, and he said that that would be unfair. The Burns report was published in June 2000, nearly three years ago. The Bill was printed nearly four months ago, and those individuals who expect their activities to be subject to registration may be having research done now. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman talked about the fact that one needs time to do such research, especially because of how the cruelty was framed. When he spoke about my amendment, he said that the Bill assumes that hunting is cruel when we know it is not. Either he has the research or he has not; either he knows whether it is or he does not. We are talking about something akin to the transitional period. If prospective applicants need time to engage in research, they could start now. They could also do that during the 15-month period that my amendment

would introduce. They would have the three months that are built in to the Bill, plus an additional 12-month long stop.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that I, like many hundreds of thousands of people in the country, sincerely hold the view that hunting is not cruel? We believe that at the core of our being, just as I am sure that many Government Members believe that hunting is cruel. That is not, however, the same thing as saying that it is clinically proven by veterinaries and by scientific facts that will hold up as evidence before a tribunal or in court. The two positions are quite different.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

With the greatest respect, I must say that if that is the case, when the hon. Gentleman made his statement, he should not have used the word ''know''. He should have referred to something in which he strongly believed to the core of his being, or words similar to those he just used. The difficulty arose with the word ''know''.

On the changed cruelty test in 8(2) and the associated difficulties, to which the hon. Gentleman referred when we discussed his amendment, I shall remind him, as I did this morning, that the change to the Bill was agreed and reported in fewer than two columns of Hansard, and there was no Division. I assumed, therefore, that there was general agreement on that matter. He now tells me that there was not, and I understand that. However, at the time I thought that there was. Two columns of Hansard with no division is a pretty short debate.

Under clause 15, applications will be handled under regulations made by the Secretary of State. In the nature of things, and this Bill is no exception, dummy regulations are not put forward. That would be a desirable way to proceed under any Bill, because then hon. Members who sit on Standing Committees would have some idea of the kind of regulations that might be made. Dummy regulations were put forward on the Export Control Bill—I sat on the Standing Committee that discussed it last year. I am trying to tease out from the Minister what the Department expects it will do regarding its internal organisation and in terms of regulations that are to be published in pursuance of clause 15. What regulations will there be to ensure that applications are dealt with speedily and fairly? That is what my amendment is about: it is intended to increase the pressure on the Department to get things through quickly—that point has been raised, and it is a fair one. What do we know about the handling? How quickly will certain things go through?

Opposition Members have suggested that my amendment would be a little unfair to people, and there is some strength in that argument. However, I require reassurance from the Minister that we will not need a long-stop 12 months—as my amendment proposes—because the Department will deal with and get to the final determination, which is defined in clause 45(5), within the 12-month period that I suggest.

The Minister may say that my approach to the matter is an unsuitable way to get things moving

quickly and to ensure that we do not have endless uncertainty and the sort of thing that it has been suggested is going on under the Act passed in Scotland, where de facto hunting is taking place. In our case, de jure hunting would be going on because if people were to apply for registration within the first three months, they would be able to continue their hunting activities until final determination—pursuant to clause 45—of their application. For clarity and fairness, I want the process speeded up.

Lembit Öpik (Liberal Democrat, Montgomeryshire)

I wish to make some comments about the hon. Gentleman's contribution.

That hunting applicants might go out and obtain evidence to prove that hunting is not cruel is a surprising expectation. In some parts of Britain, such as the area that I represent, farmers have an average annual income of about £4,000 or £5,000. That does not enable them to make a huge investment in research. If farmers wanted to be researchers they would work for MORI or another organisation that conducts polling research, or they would be vets. It is plainly unreasonable for the hon. Gentleman to imply that there is an onus of responsibility on farmers to conduct such research. We discussed that when we addressed earlier amendments, and there was resistance to providing substantial funding to help those individuals put together their cases.

I note—somewhat wistfully—that there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that people feel that hunting is not cruel. Two out of three vets are opposed to a ban on hunting. However, we will digress from the amendment if we go further down that track. It is unreasonable of the hon. Gentleman to say in defence of his proposal that research is a viable option for the great majority of people who hunt.

The hon. Gentleman is impatient to ensure that there is not an open-ended opportunity to carry on hunting de jure—if that is the right legal term—because of potential hold-ups in the system. I spoke to him after the previous sitting, so he knows that I think that if that is his intention, he is attempting to realise it in the wrong way. He would punish the people who want to go hunting and make applications, whereas he should be attempting enforcement by putting limitations on the registrar—on how long they are allowed to process an application. How can it be fair that a farmer is no longer allowed to go hunting because the time has run out after 12 months because of the limitations of the application system? That is not natural justice. I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on that.

That point underlines the frustration that many Opposition Committee members feel. We will discuss compensation when we address a later amendment but the hon. Gentleman's amendment does not suggest that farmers should be compensated for a period during which they cannot hunt while their application is being processed. It is patently obvious to those of us who accept that pest control is one of the most important reasons for hunting that there should be a compensation scheme because lambs will be killed. In order to look at the utilitarian benefit of hunting, one needs to consider the net impact on, for example,

lambs of preventing hunting from taking place. Therefore, once again, preventing people from hunting with dogs while they are waiting for their application to be processed has a negative animal welfare implication in areas such as upland Wales where hunting is the key means of pest control. I think that the Minister is familiar with such points, but on the assumption that he will not be sympathetic with amendment No. 355—I hope that he is not—I ask the hon. Gentleman, whose intentions I understand, to consider the injustice that would be facilitated by his amendment.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I want to pick up on the last point. In some sense, it does not matter what the Minister thinks or where his sympathies lie because we do not know the pre-arranged choreography in relation to the amendment. If it were pressed to a Division, the right hon. Gentleman might say that he does not support it. I do not imagine, however, that he has control over the voting intentions of those hon. Gentlemen who sit behind him because the Bill is a free-vote issue.

We have seen the action taken in connection with other amendments. The Minister expresses either no view or one of neutrality. He has even been mildly disapproving of an amendment tabled by one of his hon. Friends. He does not vote, but, none the less, the amendment is accepted. We should not place too much confidence in the views of individual hon. Members, in the absence of knowledge about what they have been saying in advance of our discussions.

I agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) that it is necessary to flag up the likelihood of administrative log jams in the registration system. That is not a new idea that we have thought of for this afternoon's discussions. It is been aired fully on earlier occasions. I remember criticising the Minister and those who helped him draft the Bill for assuming that, for example, the single registrar will be able to deal with a huge number of applications, which there will be soon after the Bill's enactment.

The Minister was unable to tell us about the cost, but I anticipate that there will be plenty of applications. Although they will be paper exercises and not oral hearings in front of the registrar, albeit that he is the master of his own proceedings, the process will take a long time. With the best will in the world, if only one person is to deal with such matters, although he may be supported by a secretariat, it will take a long time for the various applications for registration to be processed.

If particular applicants are concerned that the registrar and his secretariat are not dealing with the applications and the log jam is affecting adversely the rights of a particular group of people or an individual applicant, people may consider approaching the High Court to obtain what used to be called an order of mandemus, which tells the registrar to get on with his job. I forget what such orders are called now. I hope that such a process does not take place, because it would add into the equation further delay and additional cost. The more that people poke at

something, the more difficult it is often to make it react in a sensible and positive way. We can expect a likely administrative log jam.

I disagree with the remedy of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, which is to cut off at 12 months the ability of those who have applied to register to hunt. I have a suspicion—nothing that I can base on evidence—that there will come a time when the registrar will be out of a job. The general theory behind the Bill is not, of course, to provide a licensed hunting regime, but to do away with hunting altogether. By the time that the registrar has had his tail tweaked a few times by the Government's financially supported animal welfare organisations and has been taken to the tribunals on numerous occasions—possibly to the High Court on a point of law—a body of decisions will grow up that will make it clear that lowland hunting will never be licensed, because it will not pass the amended utility test. That is not what I want, but it is what I expect. On that ground alone, the registrar will never have to make a decision on least suffering, because he will be persuaded, thanks to the way in which the Bill is constructed, that hunting is of no utility in pest control. Therefore, the time will come when the registrar is out of a job and the problem that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and I have anticipated will disappear by itself. This is a short-term problem that the Government are prepared to live with because they know that, before long, the whole thing will go away and the true intent of the Bill—to ban hunting—will be evident.

That is a nasty game. I did not come into Parliament expecting fairness. I certainly did not come into Parliament expecting fairness from my political opponents, but that is just another example of the unfairness of the Bill. ''If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined up'' is the old expression. This is not a joke, I have joined up and I intend to make it as clear as I can to the outside world that I disapprove of the manner in which the Bill has been constructed, I disapprove of the policy behind it and, even more importantly, I disapprove of the underhand, hidden agenda behind it. Much as I personally respect the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, I am concerned that his amendment would merely reinforce the objectionable nature of the Bill as a whole.

Having got that off my chest, I want to deal with one or two practical problems that arise from his amendment. If it becomes part of the Bill and part of an Act, it will negate the appeal system. There would be no point in having an appeal system if a decision were taken out of the hands of the registrar, tribunal or High Court by the 12-month cut-off period. People might be told, ''You can hunt up to the 12 months while your application to register is going through the system. Come the end of the 12th month, you must stop, because you will not be doing a legal activity, but your right to hunt can be revived, once the tribunal or the High Court, if the matter reaches the High Court, has ruled in your favour or against the objections of the Government-funded prescribed animal welfare organisation.'' It is impractical to think that an organisation such as a hunt can run itself on the

basis that it must shut down for an unspecified time, while the registration system, the tribunal system and the High Court get round to dealing with the application.

That is not something that will bite back on those who have applied, because not only those who have applied for a licence have the right of appeal. We can see from the Bill that respondents—the Government-funded animal welfare groups—have a right to appeal against the registrar and, on a point of law, against the tribunal. Therefore, ill-motivated and malicious, but nevertheless Government-funded, animal welfare organisations could appeal, to make sure that the applicant's case is cut off by the 12-month guillotine under the hon. Gentleman's amendment. I can see that tactic being used.

The amendment would also negate the appeal system by discouraging from appealing those who have applied but who have been unfavourably dealt with by the registrar. They will know that if the registrar cannot deal with their application before the end of the 12 months, that is it. Even if they are one of the few lucky ones, and their application is dealt with in the 12 months, they will know that the application to the tribunal may take them beyond that period. They will then have to decide whether, in real terms, it will be worth going to the tribunal to exercise their right of appeal.

I urge the Committee to consider another practical question. If the hon. Gentleman's amendment is allowed to become part of the Bill, would it not only negate the appeal system but undermine the statement endorsed in the Bill by the Secretary of State under section 19 of the Human Rights Act 1998? I often think that the Government did not really understand what they were doing when they invited the House of Commons and the House of Lords to pass the 1998 Act, and the Home Secretary's comments during the past few days—in fact, more or less ever since he took office after the last general election—confirm that. I seem to remember warning Parliament at the time that that Act would create several constitutional collision points that the Government might live to regret. Every time the Home Secretary opens his mouth to criticise a judge for making a decision under the law that the Government made, I am persuaded to pat myself on the back. That does not do the great scheme of things any good, however, because the Government just get crosser and the judiciary is held up to further opprobrium by Ministers such as the Home Secretary.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is inviting us to create what I would describe as a wholly disproportionate answer to a problem that should, as the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) pointed out, be dealt with through administrative mechanisms, not the imposition of a penalty. The 12-month limit amounts to a penalty.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it would be the most extraordinary indication of where the Minister's prejudices lie if he were to give any support to amendment No. 355, whether positive or passive? It would reflect on the drafting of the Minister's Bill, the entire basis of which is the tribunal and registrar. If he were seen to support the

amendment, it would shoot a hole through this core part of the Bill.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I long ago gave up trying to work out what goes through the heads of other Members of Parliament, let alone of Ministers, when they speak to particular provisions or pieces of legislation. I know what my hon. Friend means, but I shall let him make his own remarks in his own way. That is not to say that I necessarily disagree, but I want to concentrate on the difficulties that amendment No. 355 would promote.

As I have said, my concerns are practical. I cannot think that the Minister would want to embarrass the Secretary of State, any more than the hon. Gentleman would, by allowing a piece of legislation to be amended to conflict with her no-doubt well considered statement under section 19 of the 1998 Act.

I suspect that the 12-month cut-off would not only destroy the appeal system from both angles—from the points of view of the applicant and the respondent—but deny human rights under the European convention. If only for those two reasons, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West might want to consider the good sense of his amendment. I know that he is a man of great wisdom and of commendably few words. I am sure that it will not take much to provoke him into saying that he would like to withdraw the amendment.

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

I will not follow all the scents that have been laid down during the course of this short debate. In his introduction, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle spoke as if on Second Reading, and followed with a Back Bencher's Queen's Speech response. Had you not kept your eagle eye on him and allowed him to continue, I might have suspected him not to be in order, Mr. Stevenson.

The hon. Gentleman galloped around a number of the courses that we have covered in early debates, and his high-flown language was inappropriate. Some points need to be dealt with. The hon. Gentleman referred to people's need to be able to undertake research. There is nothing to prevent hunters, or the opponents of hunting, from initiating research in advance of the period referred to in the Bill if they feel that pieces of evidence would aid their application or assist in challenging applications.

Equally, those people can begin to prepare their applications now. The hon. Gentleman was wrong to suggest that people would be found guilty before they had had an opportunity to be heard. Nobody is deemed to be guilty by the Bill; people have to break the law to be guilty. I hope that we will not see law-breaking once this Bill becomes law, because it will be clear what people are or are not able to do. They will be able to explore any grey areas by making an application; they will either succeed in demonstrating that the activity that they propose is not cruel because it satisfies both the utility test and the least suffering test, or they will fail, in which case I am sure that they will accept the judgment.

The basic principle is that a setting of a dog or dogs on other mammals should only be allowed if it is not cruel. I remind hon. Members again of the statement made by the Countryside Alliance:

''If it's cruel we shouldn't be doing it.''

If hunting is a means of achieving necessary pest control that involves less suffering than the alternative, people will be able to demonstrate that. That seems entirely fair.

The hon. Gentleman said that hunting is not cruel. The opportunity exists to prove both the utility and the least suffering conditions, and if those cannot be satisfied, by definition the outcome would be cruel.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

How can the terrier men prove their activity is not cruel?

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

I am not dealing with terrier men and those activities that have been tested—

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

It has not been tested.

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

The hon. Gentleman misses the point yet again. There are activities that clearly involve cruelty. Hare coursing is the obvious example—this activity cannot pass the test of utility under the definition used by its adherents. If the hon. Gentleman has not understood that by this stage, I am deeply disappointed.

The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) is wrong to suggest that I have been unclear in my responses to each amendment or new clause. I agree that the testing of evidence will lead to clarity. Applicants will have the opportunity to make their case, and to appeal if their case is turned down. The tribunal will consider the evidence. That is a fair way of making it clear which activities can satisfy the two tests and which are therefore not cruel and can continue. Clarity will emerge after a period of time.

The transitional arrangements proposed in the Bill are fair. They allow existing hunts and hunters to continue to hunt, albeit subject to conditions that protect animal welfare. From the point when the Bill is enacted, they are required to do that in a way that is not cruel. That is a change in the situation that applies in advance. As long as they undertake their activities in a way that keeps all suffering to a minimum, they will be able to continue until their applications have been decided.

Those who support the Bill want an end to cruel activity such as hare coursing and want that to happen as quickly as possible. I will come in a moment to points made my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. We have to be fair and expeditious in applying new legislation. In providing for those transitional arrangements, the Bill recognises that it will inevitably take some time before decisions on the first wave of applications can be made. It may be that that period will be shorter rather than longer, and I share my hon. Friend's hope that it will be shorter rather longer.

Making that arrangement avoids any injustice that might arise from stopping people carrying on an activity before it has been possible for them to put forward their case to test whether the activity meets the two tests of utility and least suffering. For an initial period at the beginning of the introduction of the new registration system, the Bill will permit hunting to continue until the application is finally determined,

provided that an application has been made for registration and that the hunting is carried out in accordance with the automatic conditions of registration and any conditions specified in the application.

The Bill currently provides for a window of two months; that is from one month after it is passed to the point at which it comes into force three months later. All applications will benefit from those transitional arrangements. Existing hunters have had plenty of notice that the registration scheme is due to be introduced and that the necessary forms and regulations governing applications for registration will have been prepared in the month after the Bill is passed, which will allow applications to be made in that two-month window. I ask both Government and Opposition Members to accept that a period of less than two months might be unduly short and that a longer period is unnecessary. The two-month window will give people an opportunity.

''Finally determined'' is defined in clause 45(5), which provides that an application is finally determined when the registrar has determined it and an appeal to the tribunal has been determined or can no longer be brought. That is designed to prevent hunting from being carried on for years outside the registration system while endless appeals are made against the decisions of the registrar and the tribunal.

The registration system is also designed to ensure that there is a fair opportunity for people to have their cases heard. Applications made more than three months after the Bill is passed will not benefit from the transitional arrangements. The hunting that is the subject of those applications will not be permitted unless and until the registrar grants the necessary registration. Extending the period during which applications may be made under the transitional arrangements to 12 months after the Bill is passed would enable hunting to continue outside the registration scheme for much longer than the Bill currently permits. It would also introduce a degree of uncertainty because people could leave their applications. It is sensible to know the extent of the applications that will have to be dealt with and the administrative burden that has to be assumed.

I consider that three months is a perfectly reasonable period for existing hunts and hunters to prepare and to submit applications.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

At what point will the hunting public be able to see the forms and applications that they will have to fill in?

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

The forms will certainly be available after Royal Assent and well in advance of the date for the start of applications. There will be two months during which the hunting public can make their applications. The Bill makes it clear what they will have to do in order to make a successful application to show that they can meet the two tests It is far from ridiculous to ask people to demonstrate that they can meet two sensible tests.

I should point out to the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook), who grumbles and mumbles on the Back Bench—it is nice to see that he has turned up—

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. I was here at half-past 2.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

That is not a point of order.

Alun Michael rose—

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. From a sedentary position the Minister said that I was not here this morning; I was here from five minutes to 9 until 25 past 11.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

That is still not a point of order.

Alun Michael rose—

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I do not want to put ideas into the Minister's head, but will applicants have to pay a fee for the application or will it be free? If he does not know, the answer must be no.

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

While I collect my thoughts, I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for raising that point. There will be a registration fee, but it will certainly not be onerous; it will be a small fee to cover the cost of registration.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

The prescribed bodies—whoever they are—will receive Government funding to challenge any registration. Will they also have to pay a fee to register their objection?

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

Order. I remind the Minister of the subject under debate. We cannot revisit matters already debated.

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

I am grateful, Mrs. Roe. I simply direct Opposition Members' attention to clause 13, which sets out the way in which an application has to be made. It must be in the ''prescribed form'', contain the ''prescribed information'', and

''be accompanied by the prescribed documents''

and the ''prescribed fee.''

The Government certainly intend to give as much information as possible in advance of the period when applications must be made, which is the subject that we are debating. That period is one month after Royal Assent. The point of the month is to ensure that forms and information are available to those who want to make an application. Those people then have a two-month window in which to ensure that their application is in place.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

The Minister has been kind enough to tell the Committee that we will be able to view the forms shortly after Royal Assent. Can he give some indication of the range of the prescribed fee? We do not want it to be prohibitive to individuals applying for registration.

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

I cannot, simply because, at this stage, I have not received advice or recommendations on that. We do not intend the fees to be onerous; we intend them to contribute towards the cost of the system and to be no heavier than that. As soon as I am able to give some indication, I shall be happy to do so.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

If the Minister cannot give a figure, can he assure us that the fee will not be onerous—the word he used—to someone who is on the lowest agricultural wage?

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

I repeat that we do not intend to have fees that obstruct the people making applications. The fees are intended to be reasonable. Once a level has been set and I have received advice, which will be based on the way in which the Government establish levels of fees for other purposes, I will be happy to share that information and debate it with members of the Committee. I will incur your wrath if I go further with this, Mrs. Roe, so I will point out again that we dealt with this territory in relation to clause 13, which we have already agreed.

Members have pressed for the earliest possible indication of the level of fees and for a view of draft forms and that sort of thing. I am happy to undertake to make that information available at the earliest possible date and hopefully before the period intended for finalising all those things, which is the month after Royal Assent. I am sure that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle will know from previous periods of power—whatever the party—that the information is being provided fairly speedily after Royal Assent. We have made the time scale very clear well in advance of the final points of the legislative process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said that he wanted to tease out the way in which the regulations will be made and the speed with which decisions will be taken. I am happy to concur that my hopes are like his: I hope that decisions will be taken on cases well within the 12-month period that he suggests. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough commented on the way in which certainty will develop from a perhaps slightly uncertain initial period before applications start being dealt with. That will assist the process. Applicants who have sought registration within the transitional period may continue to hunt until the registrar or, if there is an appeal, the tribunal, rejects the application. That is a fair and reasonable way in which to approach the matter.

There is also the question of how the tribunal will deal with the initial rush of cases. Clearly, the cases from the two-month transitional window will have to be dealt with. That is the period when there are likely to be a lot of appeals as people test the process.

The Lord Chancellor's Department has extensive experience of running courts and tribunals. Every time that there is a new tribunal, it has the experience of implementing something new. Work is going on to ensure that the appropriate number of tribunal staff is available and that courtrooms are deployed to ensure that the tribunal can manage its work load efficiently and effectively. The restriction proposed by the amendment would cause problems. I assure my hon. Friend that the registrar and the tribunal will have the powers to deal expeditiously with appeals where applicants try to delay determination of the application to ensure that they can continue hunting inappropriately.

The commencement provisions in practice make it incumbent on the Secretary of State to make regulations governing the registrar's work as soon as Royal Assent has been given. The regulations will

provide for the efficient and speedy handling of applications. The Lord Chancellor's rules governing the tribunal must also be made promptly. They will follow the standard form of such rules for tribunals after consultation with the Council on Tribunals. As I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept, we are not entering new territory. Tribunals operate with professionalism, and standard rules and clear principles have developed strongly over recent years. It is some time since I had the pleasure of sitting in on a tribunal, but when, as a young reporter, I used to attend employment tribunals I was always impressed by the businesslike way in which they were undertaken. I know that the quality and efficiency of the process have increased considerably over the years.

The restriction proposed by the amendment could cause problems. Let us suppose that an application had not gone through the appeal process by the end of the 12 months. There would be no point in the amendment if that was not a possibility. That is where a point of principle would become a difficulty, as it would be in danger of preventing an activity that turned out to be permissible. That could be contrary to the European convention on human rights. I advise my hon. Friend, therefore, that it would not be wise to press his amendment.

However, that is to suggest that I would be relaxed about applications failing to be dealt with in the 12-month period. As my hon. Friend said earlier, I hope that they can be dealt with in that period; indeed, many of them will be dealt with more expeditiously than that. However, what we decide in legislation must be right in principle as well as in practice, and if even in one case something, for a good reason, drifted on and could be prevented, even though it did not contravene the Act or was allowed at the end of the final hearing, that would be wrong in principle.

I and the officials in my Department and the Lord Chancellor's Department will bend our endeavours to make the information that I promised earlier widely available to help people with the early preparation of applications and to ensure that the system works efficiently and effectively to make the period between the application window and the completion of the initial tranche of applications as short as possible.

One or two hon. Members asked what the target was. The target is the fair enforcement of the Bill. That depends on clarity. The legitimate target of the legislation and appropriate enforcement will not be those who undertake an activity in the interim period, when it is legitimate for them to do so as long as it is in accordance with the law, but those who, after the event, seek to breach the law. With those remarks, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West will agree not to press his amendment.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

What a lot of points there are to reply to. I think that hon. Members will forgive me if I do not reply to them all. I shall focus on the few points that I found interesting and/or persuasive. The first is that raised by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, who is not in his place. He kindly passed me a note saying that he would not be able to be here. He suggested that my amendment was the wrong way of

tackling the issue and that it might be better to enforce on the registrar a limitation on how long he or she takes to deal with an application. That is a very valid suggestion.

The hon. and learned Member for Harborough, who has slipped out, mentioned human rights implications and pointed out that animal welfare organisations could, in theory, deliberately delay an appeal procedure or put in appeals to take the case beyond the 12-month period. I confess that I had not considered that possibility and, although I do not think that it is likely, we must consider theoretical possibilities. It was an interesting point.

On the points made by my right hon. Friend the Minister, it is not expeditious dealing in the registrar's actual hearing with which I am concerned. There is now a Council on Tribunals, and we have something like 84 tribunals in the United Kingdom. My concern is with the back office back-up and the sufficient resourcing of that. I am thinking not of the day of the hearing, but of the process of getting there and dealing with the paperwork. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider that.

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

If, in shorthand, I implied that it was only the point of decision that was important and needed to be expeditious, that was certainly not my intention. I accept that the administrative and preparation elements to which my hon. Friend refers need to be dealt with expeditiously. That is part of what we shall seek to put in place.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reiteration of his point.

My right hon. Friend also mentioned the Human Rights Act and fairness. Another point that was especially useful to me, and may also have been to Opposition Members, was what he said about information and application forms being made available early. We have also had a mini-debate on the prescribed fee. We need to be able to get that paperwork going and undertake matters quickly, but I am quite happy to rely on my right hon. Friend's assurances that the back office work and resources will be put in so that applications can go through the system quickly and fairly, and we can have closure on an application, whether it is granted or denied. On that basis, I will not press the amendment.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has shown the sense that he has often displayed before and decided not to press amendment No. 355.

I am still concerned about amendment No. 45. The two-month window will be extremely short, given the profound implications for the livelihoods and liberties of many people in the countryside. We do not know when the Bill will receive Royal Assent. It is quite possible that it might do so in mid to late summer, in which case the two months could fall during July and August, when many people are away on holiday and many Government Departments, offices, universities and research establishments are not functioning properly. Hunts and individuals may be hampered in gaining access to the information that they require. That is the time when many hunting people can

actually get away, so when the Bill gets Royal Assent, a hunt might be unable to find one individual—these are often small organisations—who is vital to the evidence that they are assembling. Likewise, the Bill may receive Royal Assent in the late autumn, so the two months could run into the Christmas period. We all know that Britain closes down for three or four weeks over Christmas and well into the new year.

Russell Brown (Labour, Dumfries)

It may or may not be of use to tell the hon. Gentleman that the Scottish Bill was introduced on 1 August, in the middle of a holiday period. Whether he likes the Bill or not, it has been introduced and implemented.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The holiday calendar is completely different in Scotland. For example, I understand that the schools go back earlier in August. Given that the hon. Gentleman is from Scotland, I do not intend to give way to him again. It was an error to give way to him in the first place.

My point is simply that we do not know when the Bill will receive Royal Assent. Much depends on what happens in the other place, and there is a likelihood that a small window of two months could materially disappear if a bank holiday or holiday period falls during that time. The organisations upon which will fall the onus to fill out the applications will be unskilled at such activities and will not be able to draw on the services of large professional bodies. Many people will have to do things with which they are totally unfamiliar. They will not have filled in application forms like this one or collated great cases. It is downright unfair.

There has long been a suspicion that the system has been rigged against those who hunt, irrespective of the arguments or the force of evidence. This is yet another example of how not only the premise of the legislation is biased against people who hunt and people in the countryside but the actual process by which they will be able to advance their arguments and pass impossible tests is also rigged against them. I ask the Minister to consider the consequences of allowing a short time of only two months. For that reason, I shall press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 17.

Clause 52 - Short title

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

It seems curiously absurd that an Act that has the primary purpose of banning all kinds of human activities, particularly hunting, should be known as the Hunting Act 2003. Quite plainly, it is the No Hunting Act 2003, not the Hunting Act. It should not form part of the Bill.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The Committee divided: Ayes 16, Noes 8.

New clause 4 - Compensation

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

As you correctly say, Mrs. Roe, we have been down a long, winding, rocky and rather nasty road. We have banned deer hunting, hare coursing and terrier work. We are very close to banning foxhunting and we are told that, when the Bill goes back to the Floor of the House, it will be banned, too. We have banned freedom. We have banned the livelihoods of people in the countryside. We have banned a whole variety of things.

We have narrowed the definitions of cruelty and utility to such a degree that it would be impossible for any sensible hunts to pass them. We have left it as the Bill that will allow the hunting of stoats, dormice, and possibly weasels, with dogs, but that is about it. It has been a pretty rough old road. Those debates are now past, the almighty strength of Labour Members has

driven through the Bill in its present ghastly format and the Minister has been overruled on at least two or three occasions. No doubt that will continue on the Floor of the House when the Bill gets back down there again.

All that is left to us now is to discuss not the principles behind the Bill or the principles behind the worst parts of it, but what we shall do about those people in the countryside who will be so badly affected by it. There is no doubt that a large number of people will suffer greatly as a result of what the Committee has done in the past two months.

I shall highlight four areas where people, their livelihoods and futures will be affected significantly. There has been an extensive debate over the years. Lord Burns became involved in how many jobs would be lost as a result of a ban on all hunting. All sorts of statistics are batted backwards and forwards. I have never taken the view that that was the strongest argument against banning hunting. All sorts of activities, if they were wicked, might be banned and jobs might be lost.

None the less, it is important that we should consider what should happen to those people. Lord Burns accepted that between 6,000 and 8,000 full-time jobs would go. A further 70 per cent. of that figure may apply to part-time or part-year employees, bringing it to about 13,600 other people. Studies produced a figure of 16,000 people who would lose their livelihoods as a result of a ban. It is a significant number.

In my constituency of North Wiltshire, many people working in livery yards, as well as farriers and others will lose their jobs as a result of what has been decided in the past two months. It is only reasonable that we, as legislators, should demonstrate some compassion for people whose livelihoods will be affected. We should consider all sorts of people, even if we disagree with them and we legislate to do away with their jobs and houses. Many hunt servants live in tied cottages and will lose their houses as a result of the Bill. They will lose their outlook and their entire way of life. It will have a significant effect on many people.

Even if we believe, as Labour Members do, that it is reasonable to take such action, we should at least demonstrate some compassion when considering how to look after them in their plight. Lord Burns estimated that it will take up to 10 years to reabsorb the jobs that are lost in the rural economy. Without arguing about it, losses will need to be considered.

Secondly, in the event of restrictions on hunting with dogs, there will be significant depredations on livestock, particularly on game birds. I was amazed to hear the other day that about 10 million pheasants are shot in England each year. There is a huge likelihood that that industry will be damaged severely by the inability to use terriers to control predators, as was decided on Tuesday. There will be great depredations, which will affect farmers and gamekeepers.

Thirdly, farmers will suffer economically from the loss of the fallen stock collection service.

Mr. Tony Banks (West Ham) rose—

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman has only just arrived in Committee. He is either standing up because he wants to leave or to intervene.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

Of course I am. I am caught halfway up and halfway down. I am trying to catch the hon. Gentleman's attention.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The hon. Gentleman has not been here for most of the Committee stage. Each time that he gets up or sits down, we do not know why. If he wants to make a sensible intervention about the effect that the provisions will have on farmers, I shall be happy to hear it. However, he might like to let me know that in a proper manner.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I shall make a sensible intervention when the hon. Gentleman starts to makes sensible speeches. I want to ask him a simple question. The slippage of accuracy that the hon. Gentleman makes from time to time has become legendary in Committee. Did he say that 10 million pheasants were killed each year? That is all that I wanted to know.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

There is no secret about that. It is a well-known fact. Yes, the number is of that order. The Government have gone to such lengths. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), who apparently does not like the revelation about the 10 million birds, should be aware that the Labour party has made it plain that it supports shooting wholeheartedly. That is part of its manifesto. It goes out of its way to say that all the time. There is no point in hiding the statistics; they are readily available. That 10 million pheasants are shot each year in this country is not a surprising statistic. It is well known. I see no reason to cover it up. The Labour party says that that is sensible action to take.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I would rather not. We are dealing with compensation for the abolition of hunting. I see no reason to become involved in a further discussion about a particular aspect of it. None the less, shooting is an important industry in our countryside and the decision that we made on Tuesday to ban terrier work will have a significant effect on the shooting industry. The hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) may think that that is a good idea. Jackie Ballard at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said recently that she is determined to see the end of shooting in this country. That is not the position of the Labour party; it is not the position of the Government. I see no reason therefore why the hon. Gentleman should take such glee in the fact that shooting is a significant industry in this country.

I was pleased that the Minister visited the Country Land and Business Association's game fair last August and made a speech in favour of shooting game. I hope to see him there this year. Perhaps we may show him around some of the other sports that are represented at the game fair. I am glad that the Labour party is the greatest exponent of both shooting and fishing. We will hold it to that. The Bill will have a significant effect on the livelihoods of a large number of gamekeepers and others who depend on shooting for their living. It will have a great effect on farmers, who

are dependent on the fallen stock collection service provided by hunts. The Minister has said in response that on-farm burial, which will be outlawed a month or two from now, does not affect the decisions at all.

The Government will come up with a magical way of dealing with the 400,000 carcases that hunts dealt with last year. The Minister has not yet told us how he is going to do that. He tells us that some of the burners provided by hunts are out of date, but none the less from 1 April all farmers are going to have to find a way of getting rid of 400,000 carcases per annum. Hunts do it at the moment and if hunting is banned, farmers will have to pay a Government agency or someone else to do it.

There is no doubt about the first three damages that will be caused to the countryside. The fourth damage will be caused to the hunts, which will be looking for compensation for having to put down hounds that are no longer required. The Burns report came to this conclusion in paragraph 10.60:

''In the event of a ban on hunting, consideration would need to be given to possible action in respect of the fallen stock service . . . and to whether there would be a case for compensation if hounds are to be destroyed and hunts had no further use for their kennels.''

Leaving that question to one side, we understand that the principle generally applied when considering compensation is whether the individual concerned is deprived of a particular benefit rather than when some limitations are placed on its use. In that context, the Minister may well choose to pray in aid the regulatory impact assessment that he has published on the Bill. It is a very interesting document. It is rather incorrect in some respects and it takes no account of those activities that have been banned in the Committee—hare hunting and terrier work.

The regulatory impact assessment published by the Government is out of date, but it was pretty poor beforehand anyway. The RIA, having referred to Lord Burns as one of the guiding lights of the legislation, goes on to dismiss the employment estimates of the Burns report saying:

''Economic evidence to the public hearings''—

those at Portcullis house—

''discounted the estimates in the Burns report . . . An economic expert stated that the number of jobs associated with hunting was a great deal smaller than that estimated by the Burns report.''

The extensive research by Lord Burns and commissioned, prayed in aid and paid for by the Government is now dismissed in favour of an opinion that conveniently happens to suit the politically expedient needs of the Minister in his relations with the Treasury.

The Minister knows that there is an economic downside to the countryside in the banning of hunting. He has accepted that with regard to Exmoor. When he visited Exmoor he accepted that there was definitely an economic downside to the ban, and in a variety of other ways he has accepted that there will be problems in several areas. Let us not debate whether there is an economic downside to the ban, or the size of the economic impact. Let us agree that there will be a

significant impact and discuss what we are going to do about it.

I ask the Minister whether it is possible to ban something and cause that economic impact on up to 13,000 to 14,000 people without considering some form of compensation. New clause 4 calls on the Government to introduce compensation in two different ways. First, the registrar should set compensation with regard to activities affected as a result of the Bill. When someone loses the application to be registered, the registrar will decide what compensation should be issued. In the case of activities banned outright such as hare hunting, hare coursing and deer hunting, the level of compensation will be agreed in secondary legislation. This House will lay down precisely how much should be paid and that seems only reasonable. If that does not happen, there may be a risk of falling foul of the European convention on human rights or the Human Rights Act 1998. That was considered before the 2001 Bill, when the Joint Committee on Human Rights said:

''In view of the absence from the Bill of provisions for compensating those who lose income or land value as a result of losing the right to hunt, either generally or on their own land, and who suffer an interference with their freedom to enjoy their own land for hunting non-commercially, there is a risk of incompatibility with rights under ECHR Article 1 of Protocol No 1.''

The Joint Committee went on to say that if compensation is not provided for the affected parties, they might have grounds for a claim before the European Court of Human Rights under article 1, protocol 1 of the convention. That protects the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions and provides protection against deprivation of those possessions. In view of that finding in 2001, I tabled some written questions to ask the Minister whether he was certain that the Bill conformed with the Human Rights Act and his reply is interesting. I shall read it to the Committee carefully:

''It is the Government's view that the requirements of the Hunting Bill would, for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, amount to an interference with the use and enjoyment of property rather than a deprivation of property, and that accordingly no compensation should be payable for any economic losses that may be suffered as a consequence of the Bill by the persons concerned.''—[Official Report, 24 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 90W.]

To spell that out again, the Minister says that because the Bill amounts to an interference with the use and enjoyment of property rather than a deprivation of it, no compensation is payable. The implication is that if it were a deprivation rather than an interference, compensation might be payable. That is the logic of his reply.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend's flow, but earlier he was greeted with some incredulity when he mentioned 10 million pheasants being shot each year. I have had the opportunity to check that with British Association for Shooting and Conservation and have obtained the definitive figure, which may interest the Committee and my hon. Friend in particular. Approximately 25 million pheasants are put down a year, of which approximately 50 per cent. are shot, giving a figure of about 12.5 million—

somewhat higher than the figure that my hon. Friend suggested. I suppose that it largely depends on how many days my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex is involved in the sport in a particular season.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification about the figure that I produced. I can find no reason why Opposition or Government Members should be ashamed of it. That is our point; it is not a wicked figure in any way. Government Members say that they are in favour of game shooting, but the only reason why they are giggling, snorting and making rude remarks is that, in reality, they are not in favour of it. They, along with their friend Jackie Ballard of the RSPCA, would very much like to abolish it if they could. That figure exposed the reality. On the one hand, they say that they are in favour of shooting, but the moment we talk about it, they start snorting and complaining about it.

I remind the Committee that the point that the Minister made in his written reply was that if the Bill amounts to an interference with the use and enjoyment of property, no compensation should be paid, but if it amounts to a deprivation of the property, compensation is payable, broadly speaking. An interesting letter written by the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), who is the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, has come to my attention. The letter is written on the Committee's paper, and is dated 21 January and addressed to the Minister. It says:

''The Bill would, in the Committee's provisional view, be likely to deprive people of possessions of type (ii). Deprivation of possessions without compensation requires particularly strong justification under P1/1.''

In other words, the Minister's written reply to me on 24 February saying that the Bill would amount only to an interference with the use and enjoyment of property, rather than a deprivation of it, is in direct contrast to what this Parliament's Committee has said. The Committee believes that the Bill will be likely to cause the deprivation of possessions, which requires compensation. The Minister's glib response indicates that he believes that it will cause only interference and that there should be no compensation.

Leaving that minute point of law on one side, it is important that a Committee that was set up to examine the matters has reached a conclusion that the Minister is gliding over easily—I look forward to hearing his response to that. It seems that there is a genuine and general point of justice because people will be deprived of their rights and livelihoods and it is only reasonable to compensate them appropriately. The Government acknowledged that principle when they considered a Bill to ban fur farming in England, which was passed only two or three years ago. Baroness Hayman, who was the Minister at the time, said that she thought that there was more to the banning of fur farming than what she perceived to be cruelty to animals because there was a moral question. She believed that compensation should be paid to fur farmers because there was a moral question. She did not say that the Government only wanted to look after mink better, but that it was morally unacceptable to have fur and mink farms in the United Kingdom so

they would be banned for moral reasons—not welfare reasons. She said that on Second Reading of that Bill on 19 July 2000. As we know, the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 made proper compensation available to fur farmers who were put out of business as a result of it.

There are good recent precedents. The Human Rights Act 1998 refers to people being deprived of their possessions—the right to use their land, dogs and other equipment—in the same way as fur farmers were deprived. They will be deprived for moral and human activity reasons, not for animal welfare reasons, as we have often discussed. It is only right that we should give them proper compensation, even if not under international law or the 1998 Act.

The new clause would provide that the registrar could set a level of compensation for people whose application for registration fails. However, if the Committee decides to put people out of business by banning hare hunting, deer hunting and terrier work, it is reasonable that we in this place, through secondary legislation, should decide the amount of compensation. That is fair, reasonable and compassionate, given the circumstances. It has nothing to do with banning hunting or any of the issues that we have discussed for the past couple of months. It is a measure of compassion for those in the countryside whom we are hurting and I hope that Labour Members will understand the thrust of what I am saying.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I rise to support the new clause as we reach the conclusion of what, for all those who have put their hearts and souls into defending the interests of hunting, has been a tragic few weeks in Committee. We can all see that the Bill will move towards a denouement on the Floor of the House which may regrettably lead to the banning of foxhunting by the House of Commons. The Minister has done terrible things to hunting in the Bill. At our previous sitting we discussed the banning of terrier work, which will lead to grave difficulties for keepers—we have been over that ground and I may return to it in a minute—and for the interests of some of our most endangered species.

I want to put in context a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) about reared pheasants and other reared game. The shooting economy in this country is an important part of the rural economy. As my hon. Friend said, it is extensive and substantial and as increasing havoc is wreaked on the rural communities of this country the farming industry is dying on its feet. I was born and grew up on a farm and I do not suppose that during my 55 years, or at least the 50 years that I have been conscious of, there has ever been a time when every aspect of the farming industry seemed to be almost flat on its back. The disaster that foot and mouth disease wreaked on the agricultural community and the astonishingly grotesque way in which it was handled by the Government, with the killing of 10 million farm animals, has left the farming community rocking on its heels and many farmers have found that having shoots on their land has

enabled them to create some diversification and some minor but hard-earned further income.

The real seriousness of what the Minister and his colleagues have done is directed not at birds that are reared for shooting, but at wild birds such as the grey partridge and grouse. I have been through that and will not go on about it, but I hope that the Committee understands that keepering a reared-bird shoot is a relatively simple exercise compared to keepering in the uplands where foxes are difficult to get hold of. Keepers will have to stay out night after night to get foxes that are wreaking havoc on ground-nesting game. The Committee may know that pheasants spend the night in trees, but ground-nesting game spend most of their lives on the ground, so they are very vulnerable to the predation of foxes. Banning the use of terriers will not put lowland keepers out of work because, until the Labour party bans the shooting of reared game, which it inevitably will, there will be reared birds. However, the small, viable populations of grey partridge—the wild English partridge—in the uplands and parts of East Anglia will be under tremendous pressure because of the banning of terrier work. That pressure will not be terminal, but it will be very serious.

It is beyond me how a Committee that came to ban hunting—many Labour Members voted for a totally different Bill from the one before us—glibly and out of the blue, bans beagling and terrier work and without any debate it bans hare coursing and deer hunting when there is not a single shred of evidence for doing so. Who will compensate stag hunts for the loss of their kennels? Who will compensate hare coursers? It is the most terrible thing that this House of Commons is doing without any knowledge or thought.

The Minister knows that some hunts provide a valuable pest control service, particularly in the wilder parts of the country, where a farmer will ring up and say ''Please come and get this fox, which has been killing my sheep''. The keepers will go out at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock in the morning and will lay the hounds on to the line of the fox. They are extremely efficient and effective at dealing with the problem.

I hope that the Minister is deeply worried about the collection of the fallen stock. The idea that hard-pressed farmers will be able to cope with that problem without the most grievous difficulty and considerable expense is ridiculous. The farmers could not do without the service provided by the Crawley and Horsham hounds, the hunt that I support in Sussex, which collects and takes away fallen stock, particularly at a time when the insane inequities of the livestock market mean that a number of cattle that are not wanted are put down on the farm and taken away. If the hunt does not take them away, who on earth will? The hunt takes them away for free, because it has good will and wishes to engender good will and to express its thanks and gratitude to the farmers and those who live in the countryside, who allow it to visit their land and to derive enormous pleasure from hunting across their ground, which the farmers in most cases—not all—

willingly allow. For many farmers, the hunt will still collect the fallen stock, even if it does not hunt on their land, as a mark of respect, help and solidarity for an agricultural community in deep and abiding trouble.

I have expanded on all the unintended consequences and have bored the Committee with them for many hours. They will not lead to a diminution in the number of lowland keepers, who will always be able to deal with foxes. They will use snares. Any member of the Committee who has seen a fox snared will devoutly wish that he had not. Lowland keepers will use snares and will shoot foxes in great numbers, and they will survive. That is fine. However, in the uplands, where there are few keepers, their job depends on the fragile nature of the ecosystem that they secure and which would not exist without them. If they cannot use their terriers, inevitably they cannot get hold of the foxes, and we gradually get into the cycle of decline: grouse stocks will diminish, grey partridge stocks, such as they are, will diminish and keepers will lose their jobs and go. It is a most wicked state of affairs.

The Burns report estimated that between 6,000 and 8,000 full-time equivalent jobs depend on hunting, although the number of people involved in hunting is significantly higher. About 700 of those jobs result from direct employment by the hunts; another 1,500 to 3,000 full-time equivalent jobs, perhaps involving some 2,500 to 5,000 people, result from direct employment on hunting-related activities by those engaged in hunting. The remaining jobs in a wide variety of businesses depend indirectly on hunting. Of those, many will be in urban rather than rural areas. It is not something that the Minister can simply brush aside.

I want to conclude by saying something about hunt kennels. One or two Labour Members have visited a hunt kennels. I know that the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) has, I am sure that the Minister has, and some hon. Ladies have done so too. I am glad that they have. I do not know which hunts they visited, but one will always find the same thing in a hunt kennels. [Hon. Members: ''Dogs.''] One will certainly find hounds, not dogs. As I am sure the Committee knows, a hound is an infinitely superior animal to a dog. One will find hounds in quantity and number. One will also generally find immaculately kept premises and extremely clean kennels, many of them in historic, remarkable and beautifully laid-out buildings. I have visited the Belvoir hunt kennels, one of the most magnificent buildings that I have ever seen. It is beautifully laid out and designed, a wonderful and remarkable place. If hunting is banned, such kennels will fall into disuse.

The Committee must understand that it is destroying not only something that people love and that is part of their fibre and being and whole life—I know that some Members do not care or understand about that and that it does not mean anything to them, so we have to put that aside—but a wonderful, unique, remarkable tradition in English life. It has been a fount and origin of some of our greatest writing, art and other things that we have discussed at length, which are being set at nought and as of no account. I

suppose that an historical treasure trove is all that we will have to remember foxhunting by.

Parents who used to hunt, and who hoped that their children would hunt, will see their children's and grandchildren's lives immensely the poorer. Tens of thousands of children hunt today, with the Pony Club, with hunts and at children's meets. I went to a children's meet the other day. One can see the real pleasure, knowledge, gain and character building brought to those children when they take part in hunting and riding—a sport that is not risk-free, but in which one chances one's neck and one's arm—with a smile on their faces. All that is going to go. A great and abiding tradition in English life will be swept away for ever.

At the same time, hunts have tremendous organisations that pay for the upkeep of kennels. They are valuable places, some of them with hundreds of years of invested capital—of money, time, effort and sweat. What will happen to them? What will the hunts do? Many are in areas of outstanding natural beauty, so there will be no chance of converting them to a software writers' counselling project or doing a barn conversion job. Kennels cannot be converted. Many of them will become listed buildings. Who will compensate the hunts for their single most important physical asset being taken away?

I realise that this is a difficult argument for the Government to swallow. My Government were responsible for the miners, who, quite rightly, received substantial compensation. This wicked, wholly unnecessary, pointless and facile piece of legislation will result in good, honourable, decent men and women who love their jobs and their lives and have no security and no stability being thrown out of their tied cottages. I declare an interest in that I am a donor to the hunt servant's benevolent fund, which has many calls on it to give time and effort to support former hunt staff. There is no way in which the hunts will be able to keep them on. The hunts are run and their funds raised through an intricate network of hunt supporters' clubs, foot followers, subscribers and evenings that are the essence of community life in some places. In some of the more remote parts of Britain, there is no social life other than that provided by the hunt: in the deeper parts of the west country, where stag hunting is an integral part of community life, there is very little social life other than that which the hunts organise and generate.

The Minister has terribly let down all the people who put their trust in him. I know what he is going to say: he is going to say that people came to Portcullis house and were wholly in favour of the hearings; I was not, but against my better judgment I was persuaded that we should take our full part in them. Lots of evidence was produced by the Countryside Alliance and many others, such as the hare coursers, the gamekeepers and the beaglers. All of them were present for the Minister to listen to and to heed, but there is not a single shred of evidence that he paid a blind bit of attention to any of them.

I have paid handsome tribute to the Minister: people keep asking me why I bother to do so, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and he did

organise the hearings, and he did hold them, and he did listen—but he did not do anything. As we have sat through the passage of this Bill, we have watched the dismantling, piece by piece, of everything that we tried to present to the Portcullis house hearings, as if it all stood for nought. As far as I am aware, not a single thing that the Minister heard at those hearings has been incorporated in the legislation. They were like the Judas sheep—the sheep that goes on to the cart first to lead the others on board so that they can be taken to the slaughter.

We are discussing something that we love. Many of the people that we represent cannot believe that Parliament could do such a dreadful thing as to destroy foxhunting, beagling, coursing and stag hunting on the basis of so little knowledge and so much ignorance and prejudice. Some Committee members have not said anything; they have just sat here without uttering a word to try to defend the awfulness that they are wreaking on the supporters of the hunt and those who participate in it. I make this forecast to the Committee: they will be back.

Do not let anyone believe that the Government will not go after shooting, because they will. They have not listened to a word. The National Gamekeepers Organisation made strenuous representations to the Minister, but not a word has been taken on board. The Minister is doing a terrible thing for which his name will live in infamy forever in the British countryside—I mean that. Given that, I hope that he will be generous with regard to compensation and generous to those whose lives and livelihoods he is going to destroy.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex has only one speech, although it is a good one. He gives us this sort of speech from time to time: it is more suited to Second Reading, but we understand how passionately he feels about the subject, and it is an open secret that I have a great deal of time for him. There is something about him that makes me smile when I see him: he just brightens up my life, which means that I must be a very sad person.

However, the hon. Gentleman paints a grotesque picture of the Bill, of us and of the rural economy. I listened closely to what he was saying as I always do because I am fascinated by him—although not in an unnatural way, I hasten to add in view of what one has been reading in The Sun recently. He paints a picture of a rural community that is largely comprised of a legion of hollow-eyed, shoeless, emaciated, ragged peasants who shuffle from one disgusting hovel to another. It does not bear saying to him, although he should listen to it carefully, that the rural economy and the agricultural industry of this country receive more central Government funding than all the other industries put together. That is a fact. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the amazing crisis brought about by foot and mouth disease. I criticised the Government savagely about that in the House. I thought that the methods that were used owed far more to voodoo than to science. Subsequent events have proved that analysis to be correct.

Sometimes one does not need to be an expert; one just needs some commonsense and some gut feeling about such things. I am glad to say that on that occasion commonsense and the gut feeling of many hon. Members were proven to be correct. Perhaps we will learn something from that.

Some 300,000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing industry since 1997.

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

Six hundred thousand.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I do not pluck figures out of the air. It is not 600,000. I will stick with 300,000 and wait to see whether that is correct. I am trying to remember the statistics. There are still 1 million more jobs in the economy. [Hon. Members: ''A million and a half.''] The point that I am trying to make is that of course one is concerned about any loss of jobs. It matters to the individual who has lost their job. However, let us not get an idea and rush away with the belief that somehow the economy, even the rural economy, is static. We are talking about infinitesimal numbers of jobs in comparison with those lost in manufacturing industry and those created in the economy as a whole.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Give way?

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I will not. I am addressing the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Through the Chair.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

The hon. Gentleman is as pedantic as ever. He never lets us down. I have never met someone so pedantic, tedious and humourless. I cannot wait for the Committee to finish so that I do not have to look at him again.

I say to the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex that there is something in the amendment that must be addressed. If we are to pass laws that deprive people of their livelihoods, perhaps we should be prepared to consider sensible compensation. I am seeking to put the issue into some sort of context and I see no reason why we should not take that view. I am prepared to take a compassionate view, particularly when animal welfare interests are concerned. If those could be shown to us on Report, I think that a sensible amendment ought to be tabled so that we could give it due consideration. I am mindful of the fact that I have strong beliefs about the matter and that I want many things to be banned. Having said that, I do not want people to lose their jobs if it can be shown that they have no chance of getting alternative employment.

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

What price would the hon. Gentleman put on the head of a hound that is perhaps three years old?

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

That is precisely what I will not do. That is why the amendment is not helpful—it does not put a price on anything. I do not want us to do that. This is the way to it: we need to think about it, consider the situation and table a considered amendment that can be proven to be worthy of acceptance by the House. There is something in the

amendment, despite the fact that it was moved by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and I am still sympathetic in principle. Even when the hon. Gentleman has a good case he manages to lose it through the kind of speeches that he makes to this Committee.

Candy Atherton (Labour, Falmouth and Camborne)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if the Minister talked about fallen stock in his response? That is a genuine issue.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

We all know that our right hon. Friend will consider the matter carefully. Where genuine problems and hardships are created by this type of legislation a decent Government should necessarily take them into account when it is being drafted and when it is agreed as it goes through the House. I am sure that the Minister will respond.

My good friend the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex talks about the traditions and the shape of the countryside and says that we are losing something for posterity, but what did posterity ever do for us? When one looks at the shape of the countryside, one realises how much has been completely changed by intensive farming methods—the nitrates that have been poured on to the land that have leached into the river, the species that have disappeared because of farming methods, the colour and shape of the fields and the hedgerows that have been eliminated.

The hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that the Bill represents a destruction of the traditional base of the countryside, but the countryside looks nothing like it looked in the 1950s and 1960s, when I spent a considerable amount of time there doing things about which I do not wish to elaborate.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I assure the hon. Gentleman that many of the hedgerows that he put to such good use are still there. I have a high regard for him, as he knows, and I am grateful for the tone of his comments but much depends on where he looks. The countryside used for hunting has, in many ways, been improved and enhanced over the years. I agree that there has been terrible destruction to some parts of our farming land—one thinks of the terrible prairie farming in East Anglia, which has been a disaster. Everyone deeply regrets the vandalism, but farmers were doing only what they thought was right at the time.

If the hon. Gentleman visits the shires—Sussex or almost any of the rural counties of England outside East Anglia—he will see countryside much of which was laid out and is still maintained for hunting. Some 97 of the 184 hunts in this country manage 38,900 of the 700,000 hectares of broadleaf woodland in Great Britain.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and we must do all that we can to ensure that those benefits are maintained, but we must find an alternative method. I will not repeat arguments that I made in other places about the role of the farming community in looking after the landscape for us as a whole, but the countryside belongs to all of us, not only to those lucky enough to live there.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether kennels could become listed buildings. When I was the Minister responsible for fine arts and tramways—an interesting combination of sport and listed buildings—I listed a pigeon cree in Northumberland. They are genuinely, architecturally fascinating and valuable buildings that have to be maintained. There is a way of looking after such buildings through the various agencies.

There is something in the new clause and although I cannot support it this afternoon, the issue could receive support on Report, especially if we emphasise the animal welfare aspect. I would certainly be prepared to support such a provision.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Gentleman because there is a note of agreement in the Committee, which is a welcome surprise. We must recognise that the people who will be affected by our failure to agree the new clause are often poor and underprivileged, not the rich people of mythology. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire had to leave the Committee to attend a sitting of the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill on behalf of his party. I know that he wanted to emphasise the serious adverse economic impact that the Bill will have on mid-Wales now that it has been re-drafted.

What the hon. Member for West Ham just said was extremely welcome, and I agree with him. As he said, the 300,000 or 600,000 jobs that were lost in manufacturing were lost not by an Act of Parliament but by other processes. The Committee is knowingly passing legislation that will lead to the loss of jobs and economic utility. The hon. Gentleman recognised that in his characteristically thoughtful remarks.

It is worth remembering that the Government paid generous compensation to the farming industry after the decimation of foot and mouth disease. Therefore, DEFRA, which replaced the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, has a precedent to follow. The Burns report is clear on the matter. Paragraph 3.75 deals with the impact on farming of a ban on hunting:

''The negative impacts of a ban would be particularly resented because they would be viewed as unnecessary by many of those affected, and as an avoidable addition to other problems facing the farming community.''

Burns makes an explicit case for compensation in paragraph 10.60:

''In the event of a ban on hunting, consideration would need to be given to possible action in respect of the fallen stock service provided by many hunts and to whether there would be a case for compensation if hounds had to be destroyed and hunts had no further use for their kennels.''

Burns made those remarks before the Bill existed and they are very relevant to the Bill as originally drafted, before it came to this Committee. It has become much more draconian in Committee and the case for compensation has grown all the time. The test on utility has been toughened significantly, notably by the addition of the words ''pest control''. There has been an absolute ban on hare hunting, for which there is no supporting evidence whatsoever. The evidential basis of the Bill was overthrown by that vote and by the spectacular ban—again, which has no evidential basis—on Tuesday on all terrier work. That is important because in paragraph 10.17 Burns

discusses the implications and workings of the human rights legislation and states:

''An important consideration would be whether legislators could point to unnecessary suffering or some other reference point beyond mere disapproval, to reflect the general interest (or, to the extent necessary, the protection of morals and pressing social need). A relevant issue would be the form of the Bill: one which required proof of unnecessary suffering, or some similar test, would be less open to argument than one which banned hunting per se.''

I have not quoted the whole paragraph, because I wish to save time and hear what the Minister has to say before the Committee finishes at 5 o'clock.

I suspect that that paragraph was uppermost in the Minister's mind when he developed the Bill that he presented to the House of Commons. However, the Bill has changed significantly in Committee and is now much more based merely on disapproval. The tests have been strengthened beyond recognition, but they are applied to many fewer activities. Hounding and terrier work, for example, are simply banned.

The banning of terrier work means that lowland hunts are much more likely to be banned. The Committee said that hunts should hunt for pest control purposes only and then denied them the means to engage in pest control—an act of rank hypocrisy. The banning of lowland hunting is much more likely, because it is much less able to meet the tests of utility by its own action, which is deplorable. Hunts such as the Croome and West Warwickshire in my constituency are likely to close. The North Cotswold hunt, which is also in my constituency, has a fine listed building for its kennels. I invite the hon. Member for West Ham to come and see it. It is a beautiful building in the centre of Broadway high street. Those kennels are now much more likely to close.

The Worcestershire hunt's kennels, which are in my constituency, have incinerators that meet modern standards. That hunt could have provided a fallen stock service to the local farming community, but will now not be able to do so. The incinerator will become valueless to them. The case for compensation has grown enormously as the Bill has gone through the Committee.

The Minister will not accept new clause 4—we are not holding our breath. However, the comments of the hon. Member for West Ham should weigh heavily on the right hon. Gentleman as he considers the Report stage. Whatever the final form of the Bill—we all think that there will be a complete ban on hunting, without the utility or least suffering tests, by the time the Bill leaves the House of Commons—the case for compensation is extremely strong.

The golden thread that the Minister talked about when all of this began has unravelled completely in the Committee, sometimes with the Minister's active assistance, for example, when he voted for a ban on terrier work. It has been unravelled and chopped into bits by the Minister and the Bill is now about disapproval. Burns said that that would make it much less likely to pass a test of the application of the convention on human rights. If the Minister wants the Bill to get on the statute book and survive the test

of the courts, it is in his own interest to be generous with compensation.

I have one last point to make before I sit down for the last time in what has been a long and emotionally demanding Committee for those of us who care about animal welfare rather than bigotry and who genuinely have animal welfare and human liberty at the centre of our considerations. The regulatory impact assessment, published by the Minister and signed off by him on 2 December is now a completely irrelevant document. It refers to the Bill as originally drafted. I will not quote it for want of time and I know that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough wants to speak. I ask the Minister to reflect on paragraphs 3.1, 5.1 and 10.1 of the regulatory impact assessment, which are now nonsense—a nullity.

Even if the Minister cannot accept the new clause, I hope that he will promise a new regulatory impact assessment so that the true costs of the Bill, which have become enormous in Committee and more than we ever expected, can be properly understood by the House of Commons and the House of Lords, before—God help us—it becomes law.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I had not wanted to speak having heard my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex because I did not want to detract from the gravamen of what he said or to disturb the effect of his words, but they were powerful. It is easy to mock, tease or pooh-pooh the way in which someone looks or speaks and I fear that many of those who have observed my hon. Friend over the years have made a great mistake in treating him with some disrespect. This afternoon, if I may say so without embarrassing him, he spoke for many of the people that I represent, who cannot speak for themselves in the Committee. I hope that the Government will pay close attention to what he said because he spoke from his heart, his head and his own experience.

Although I am five years younger than he, I share many of the values, experiences and concerns of which he spoke. I am grateful to the hon. Member for West Ham for recognising that despite the differences of opinion on the subject of hunting, there are some things that can draw us together. One of the subjects that should draw us together is legitimate compensation for those whose lives are being not just disturbed by the consequences of the Bill, but interfered with. In some cases, they will lose their livelihoods, their homes, their whole way of life and their understanding of what life is about.

I am not talking about compensation in the current sense. I cannot place a monetary figure on what I am talking about. In the few moments available to me, I am hoping to use the new clause of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire as an illustration of my points. My hon. Friend has also suffered the slings and arrows of personal abuse from others. I think that is unfair, unnecessary and it detracts from the value of the Committee's work.

Underlying what he said is a cry for fairness, and acceptance that when a Parliament does things to others, it should not do so without accepting that the people to whom those things are done are entitled to not just a hearing, but some form of compensation for the adverse consequences visited on them. I am not talking about the price of everything, but the value of those people's lives and what they stand for.

I accept, as the hon. Member for West Ham said, that the farming economy is a nationalised activity. The farming world is hugely subsidised by the taxpayer, and one has to accept it is hugely subsidised by the urban taxpayer because there are more urban taxpayers than rural ones. More to the point, we are in receipt of vast sums of European Union money in support of our agricultural industry. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is not for us to discuss today. What is relevant to the new clause is that by passing the Bill into law, we will add to the nationalisation of our rural economy by turning a huge number of people who are employed into dependants on the state. I am not sure whether that is a sensible consequence to look forward to.

I shall bring the debate to my area. I hope that I am not accused of showing off or being ostentatious because that is not my intention, but I accept that no part of life, our economy or our environment in the United Kingdom can be set in aspic. I accept that my constituency, despite the fact that it is the capital of foxhunting and has been for hundreds of years, has no right to expect to become a museum in which activities of which the public disapprove can continue simply because they have continued for many years and we must have a living example of them.

I know from my family's experience that the rural economy has changed and I say that as one of the latest generations of a family that has lived on its land since the conquest and that has never had to buy any land during that great period. Throughout that period of 1,000 years, the way in which the countryside in that part of the world has changed has been obvious. If one rolls the clock back, as the hon. Member for West Ham tried to do a moment ago, I accept that the farming scene of 2003 is different from that of the past.

Tony Banks (Labour, West Ham)

I have listened and hopefully learned. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that he lives on his lands, which have been there since the conquest. I suppose that all lands have existed since the conquest, but his family acquired its lands in the conquest. [Interruption.] If that is the case, was compensation paid?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I accept the way in which the land has been kept has changed over the years. I am not arguing that if necessary changes have to be made to our farms and to our rural economy they should not be introduced. I invite the Minister to consider that in my constituency and particularly in the village in which I live, many of the people who work have jobs connected directly or indirectly with either farming or hunting. In the event that the Bill becomes law, their jobs will be abolished—one may say, ''Bad luck''—and they will migrate to other parts of the country where jobs are available.

My point, which I agree that I am making clumsily, is that we are in danger of turning the rural parts of our country into not only nationalised museums and subsidised bits of the economy, but dormitories. Many of the houses in rural villages, which in the past were filled with people who work on farms, in stables, as blacksmiths or in hunting, will be inhabited by people who simply buy them for the view and commute into neighbouring towns and cities. The whole rural area will become a dormitory that is quiet throughout the day, that revives when people come home from work in their cars and that goes to sleep again at 7.30 the following morning. The place will become denuded of adults throughout the day. People may say that that does not matter and that life moves on. About 150 years ago, Disraeli wrote of two nations; we are about to see two nations, in the worst sense, reappear as an indirect consequence of the Bill.

Yesterday evening, I addressed the Grafton hunt farmers' dinner, at which there were 250 people. The gap between their understanding of what is important and Labour Members' understanding is vast and growing bigger. The gap will lead to the breakdown of a sense of nationhood in this country, which is way beyond Labour Members' understanding. I feel that I am making a plea in the dark, which is gaining no purchase on the intellects or emotions of those who disagree with me. I fear that the gap between us and them is now so wide as to be unbridgeable.

I do not want my part of the world to become an empty quarter or to become still more nationalised and I do not want the people of this country to become disaffected by the democratic process. All those things will surely come to pass if legislation such as this, which has one origin but which has transmogrified into something quite different, are passed into law. This could not happen in Spain, France, Italy or any other civilised country in Europe, yet the Government, the Committee and the House of Commons are content to see it happen in this country.

If there is to be any fairness in the Bill, we must consider what was envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire. Proper compensation must be paid to those whose lives are about to be ruined and it should be given willingly and not grudgingly. I am sure that even the hon. Member for West Ham would agree with that.

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

This has been an interesting debate. Compensation has entered into only a small part of it, although it has been referred to in the context of much wider comments made by a variety of Committee members. I want to focus on compensation, but I must deal with the context in which many of the contributions have been made.

The hon. Members for North Wiltshire, for Mid-Sussex and for Mid-Worcestershire and the hon. and learned Member for Harborough made a number of generalised criticisms. I reject their perception of the Bill. When it was published, I said that I would welcome constructive debate and improvements that would help to develop legislation that would stand the test of time. I am pleased that the animal welfare provisions have been strengthened and that the content has been clarified as a result of the debate in

Committee. I stress that the Bill is based on principles that all sides, including the pro-hunting organisations, accepted as right during the consultation process that led to its drafting and publication.

The principles of utility—the things that need to be undertaken to control pests—and the concepts of cruelty or least suffering provide the basis for the two tests must be satisfied if hunting is to take place. Hunting is banned unless the two tests are satisfied. The Bill's purpose is to eradicate all cruelty associated with hunting with dogs, which is the expressed aim of those concerned with animal welfare. The Countryside Alliance has also acknowledged that if it is cruel, we should not be doing it. [Interruption.] Of course, I will give way to Opposition Members, but a number of them have spoken widely and generally about the social, economic and financial impact of the Bill on the countryside and I wish, briefly but coherently, to rebut those charges, as well as to deal with compensation.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

I do not believe that countryside interests have ever accepted the principles as set out in the Bill. The Middle Way Group reluctantly acquiesced in them as an alternative way forward, less good than our proposals. The idea implied in the Minister's statement, that the Bill's principles were in some sense endorsed by the Middle Way Group and countryside interests, is not right.

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

I am afraid that I have to reject what the hon. Gentleman says. If people use the words, ''If it is cruel, we shouldn't be doing it'' but have failed to unpack the term ''cruelty'' and to examine the issues of necessity and least suffering, they cannot blame me for taking them seriously and at face value, and assuming that they know the meaning of the English language.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire made so well is that the Countryside Alliance and other such groups accepted the liberal definition of cruelty and utility laid out in the Minister's letter of April, but that we do not accept either the illiberal definitions of cruelty and utility laid down in the Bill or the Minister's unilateral, arrogant decision to ban stag hunting, hare coursing, hare hunting and terrier work. That is his decision and has nothing to do with the tests in the Bill, which we accept. We most emphatically do not accept that decision.

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

I am not sure whether the word ''we'', as used by the hon. Gentleman, refers to hunting interests, the Countryside Alliance or the Conservative party. [Hon. Members: ''All three'']. Ah, it is all three—an identity. That is revealing. The hon. Gentleman cannot on the one hand ask for principles to be applied to hunting and on the other reject, in the most cavalier manner, the meaning of words and the application of logic.

I take the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex back to hare coursing. Hare coursing, according to the definition of organisations that undertake it, involves not the control of pests or any other utility, but the testing and comparing of the skills and agility of dogs. That cannot, by any use of the English language, be seen as satisfying a utility test.

Of course it is cruel. The opportunity to make that case was there for those who came to the Portcullis house hearings and submitted evidence. They had their opportunity, and they failed. That is the fact. Opposition Members have revealed the arrogance with which they—

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

On a point of order, Mrs. Roe. We have 13 minutes left of this Committee stage. I acknowledge that the debate has gone freely, but would it not be helpful if the Minister addressed new clause 4?

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I have heard the point of order. Let us get on with the debate. It is very important, and we have only a few moments left.

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

It is fascinating that Members who took up much time in this debate do not want to hear the answer to it. They are not willing to be challenged logically on the total nonsense that they have been talking. They wanted all sorts of evidence to be brought forward and for that then to be ignored. They wanted cruelty to be ignored. They do not like it when the meaning of words is applied strictly, where logic is used and where evidence is examined objectively. They do not like it when that is what we have done—applied logic to the available evidence. At its introduction, the Bill was described as tough but fair. That remains true, although it is even more robust as the result of the amendments accepted.

I reject some of the comments made during the debate. The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex talked about rural economies and communities. The Government have paid much attention to the needs of rural economies and communities, especially since publication of the rural White Paper and the establishment of DEFRA, the Department in which I serve.

I listened to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough make some serious points on the dangers of to countryside areas becoming dormitories. He is right about the trends, but they were not introduced by the Government. They are social and economic trends, and serious ones that we need to tackle. That is one reason why, as a result of my responsibilities and my commitment to the national parks, I have been keen to bring together, for instance, the national parks authorities and the regional development agencies, because I do not want our national parks to become landlords' museums. I want them to be sustainable. We want sustainable development that respects the countryside, the community and the economy. Opposition Members do not seem to be interested in any of those important issues.

A number of hon. Members raised relevant points about hunting. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton) asked me to refer specifically to fallen stock. I shall do so only briefly, because it was referred to in two debates. As a result, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has written to all members of the Committee setting out the impact on fallen stock of the European Union's animal by-products regulations. Even without the Bill, hunts would have to change the way in which they undertake

their activities. In some circumstances they provide a free service; in others they no longer do so. They will have to change, adapt and develop. They will have the option of going out of business or developing that aspect of the business within the context of the new regulations. I refer members of the Committee to my hon. Friend's letter.

I want to refer to compensation, because the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, who took some time to reach that issue in his contribution—

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

It was all I talked about.

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

Hansard will show that that is not the case. The hon. Gentleman failed to be clear about who should be compensated or how compensation should be assessed. Do we compensate simply those directly employed by the hunts? Burns could not provide an exact number for those people, which suggests some ambiguity. If hunts fail to be registered for hunting, some aspects of their business may be able to continue, although with a reduced turnover. Does an owner, or, for that matter, the employees, of such a business qualify for compensation? What would happen in the case of a hunt that, once a ban had come into force or because it failed to register, decided to convert itself into a drag hunt? Why should an employee of that hunt, whose job description and conditions of service may remain essentially unchanged, be eligible for compensation? Therefore, the amendment is flawed on the ground of practicality alone. Beyond that, it appears that the amount of money that the registrar could award would be open-ended. The Government, as guardian of the public purse, could not support it as a matter of principle.

I recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham does, that some people will be directly affected by the Bill. Certainly those who are made redundant have certain statutory entitlements: they are entitled to use the Employment Service to find alternative employment. There are opportunities for training. I make the point again to Opposition Members that the Portcullis house evidence was that the contribution of hunting to the rural economy is small.

Russell Brown (Labour, Dumfries)

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister knows that the only hunt that has been disbanded north of the border is in my constituency. Last week, I tried to check the number of people who have presented themselves as unemployed as a direct or indirect result of that hunt disbanding. I stand to be corrected, but no one had presented themselves as unemployed.

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

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information.

The Foster Bill and the Deadline 2000 Bill did not provide for the payment of compensation. I understand the concerns expressed, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, but I cannot give a commitment on this issue. The key point is that the Bill deals with cruelty in hunting. There can be no rights to compensation that rely on allowing people to be cruel. That is at the heart of what the Bill seeks to tackle.

The difficulty of finding other jobs is exaggerated. The rural economy has expanded faster than the urban economy in recent years. As one Opposition Member said, I referred to specific micro-economic problems in relation to Exmoor, and I undertook to work with organisations and people in that area to address those concerns.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire referred to the letter sent to me concerning the Bill by the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 21 January. That letter explained that the Committee had formed the provisional opinion that the Bill is compatible with the relevant human rights obligations. The Chairman asked for an explanation of one aspect of the Bill: its effect on contracts already entered into for future hunting. I provided that explanation in a detailed reply to the Committee on 31 January, which the Committee will no doubt publish in its next report. The arguments are detailed, but I am advised that there is no obligation, either legal or moral, to pay compensation to those who may be affected by the Bill.

The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire suggested that there should be a revised regulatory impact assessment. I would point to that fact that when any Bill reaches the House of Lords, a revised RIA is automatically prepared. Without changing the processes in any way, I can assure him that that will be the case.

The Government consider that controlling hunting with dogs is a proportionate means of preventing cruelty to wild mammals. That is the purpose of the Bill. In the Government's view, any interference with property that arises as a result of the Bill's provisions is justifiable on the basis that it strikes a fair balance between the interests of the community and the rights of the individual.

The control of hunting has been accepted by the European Court of Human Rights as a legitimate aim that may justify an interference with property rights. The Scottish courts have ruled similarly in relation to Scottish hunting legislation. It is the case that there will be employees of individual hunts whose livelihood will be affected. It is right that where possible, they should be assisted in finding new employment, and their employers will have responsibility in that regard. That does not lead to the conclusion that compensation should be paid in the way suggested in the new clause. I urge the Committee not to support it.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

The Minister's woefully inadequate reply to a passionate and gripping debate is typical of his response to all the debates that we have had throughout the Committee. Whether we are talking about expanding the categories of banning—as he has done, wrecking his own Bill by his own vote—whether we are talking about narrowing the cruelty and utility tests so that no hunt can possibly pass them, or whether we are talking about compensating the poor people in the countryside who will be put out of a job as a result of his decisions, the Minister chooses not to address the human rights issues or the real difficulties that will be faced by people in the countryside when the Bill becomes law. He chooses instead to reiterate his thin arguments.

In his bogus, biased and bigoted arguments, he exposes his prejudice against the countryside and his lack of knowledge of the countryside. His ignorance is matched only by his apathy. His performance throughout the Committee stage has been despicable in our view and from the countryside's standpoint, but it has been despicable in his own terms too. He was given the task of putting together some sort of Bill that would stand the test of time, as he put it, and find widespread acceptance. It was to be some sort of middle way licensing approach.

However, as we come out of Committee, he has a Bill that bans almost everything, that does it in a most cack-handed, bureaucratic and useless sort of way, and that fails to compensate the people whose lives, expectations and outlook will be destroyed as a result of his actions. He does not care. He does not understand. He does not know anything. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex said in his memorable speech, the countryside will remember that. The Minister's name will be engraved on the heart of the countryside. His name will be engraved on the families and the children that he has cast aside in his arrogant unconcern for the future of the people affected by his disgraceful little Bill. He is a disgraceful little man, and he brings black shame on himself.

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause be read a second time:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 16.

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

I am aware that the constraints of the programme motion reduce your flexibility to hear hon. Members at this point, Mrs. Roe, but I am sure that it is possible, even following the controversy during the last debate, to end on a note of agreement by thanking you and Mr. Stevenson for the way in which you have diligently undertaken your duties in a sometimes fractious Committee. It has been the longest Committee stage of any hunting Bill that has been considered by the House.

I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will also want to thank the Clerk, the Hansard writers, the police, the officials and others who have helped and advised the Committee in a variety of ways, and members of the public on both

sides of the argument who care about the outcome and attended our sittings to hear our debates.

I also thank Committee members on both sides for their contributions, although some have pleased me more than others. Nevertheless, they contributed on issues that are passionately divisive in the Committee and made a significant contribution to the Committee's work in assisting the House in the difficult process of enabling Parliament to work towards a conclusion on the matter of hunting with dogs.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

May I add my warm words of thanks to you, Mrs. Roe, and to Mr. Stevenson? You have both handled what has sometimes been a difficult Committee with great equanimity under duress and with huge aplomb. You have both allowed proper discussion of difficult matters and sometimes allowed us to deviate from the straight and narrow with only the slightest pulling back from time to time. You have both handled the Committee extremely well.

May I also add my thanks to the Clerk, Mr. Sandall, who has handled the Bill superbly with great expertise. He has done brilliantly well.

I mumble and swallow my words, and the Hansard staff have done a superb job. The fact that one of the Hansard writers is an old Jock, like me, may have helped him to understand what I was talking about.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

A young Jock.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.