The Earl of Arran

The Earl of Arran:

My Lords, I have the honour to be the first name on the back of the hymn sheet. Perhaps we are now in the final straight.

I shall not dwell on the technicalities of hunting or on arguments about whether it is right or wrong. Many of your Lordships have already done so and others will continue to examine such arguments and carefully consider the economic, conservation and animal welfare issues, which are all of huge consequential importance.

Instead, I want to draw your Lordships' attention to the impact that a ban on hunting would have on communities and, in particular, on those that I know best in the West Country, in Devon and on Exmoor.

I make no apology for returning to the community aspect because I believe it to be such an important part of the Bill.

With regard to the impact on communities of a ban, it was rightly said in another place that in principle it is irrelevant whether one job or many thousands of jobs are at stake if there is no justification for a ban. If something is unjustifiable, no one should lose their job or way or life.

Hunting in the West Country is a way of life. It is a way of life very similar to that in Cumbria, described so eloquently by my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew. It is a crucial part of the fabric of our communities; it brings people together from all walks of life; and it binds communities together. It is a recreation that involves people of all ages, all sexes, all classes and all incomes. In a typical hunting field one might find a Peer and a plumber, an eight year-old and an 80 year-old, and probably more females than males, all meeting on equal terms with a common interest in the same activity. They are not barbarians filled with bloodlust; they are people devoted to animals with high standards of care for their horses and dogs.

Sir Robin Dunn, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, said:

"Hunting on Exmoor is like Premier Division Football in a large industrial town. To ban it would be to tear the heart out of the community just as would a ban on football in Liverpool".

People there would simply not put up with it. I fear that the same reaction would apply to a ban on hunting on Exmoor.

In his submission to the Burns inquiry, the rector of Exford, near Minehead, said,

"seven different packs will, at some time during the year, hunt over the area in which I am Rector. This not only provides a common unifying thread throughout the Exmoor area (and beyond), but also generates most of the social activities that are vital to the well-being of any rural community. In addition, those who support the hunts have a strong and justifiable sense of being the traditional guardians of Exmoor's wildlife. Should hunting with hounds be banned it will be a body-blow to these knowledgeable people and would severely diminish the unity of these remote Exmoor communities".

A medical practice at Dulverton, which covers some 300 square miles on Exmoor, said in its submission to the Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs:

"All partners in the practice endorse the importance of this Inquiry and are in no doubt that a ban on hunting would result in substantial and critical economic deprivation and a substantial increase in stress, depression and suicide in this community, already under pressure from agriculture policies. This would be comparable with studies showing increased morbidity and mortality in mining communities following the economically necessary closure of coal mines. A ban on hunting heralds no such ... benefit, in fact would be detrimental to the Exmoor economy and would critically damage this community, without any alternative provision for social support or access to cultural sports or leisure facilities".

Now, of course, we have the current bitter irony. With hunting disallowed due to foot and mouth disease, we already have a foretaste of what might come to pass. With no hunting taking place on Exmoor during this month or next month, when so many hunt supporters would have come from all over the British Isles, the economic draught is being felt in the hotels, in the bed and breakfasts and in the livery yards. Already the knock-on effect is pervasive. Their winter incomes sustain a way of life which, if eradicated, will be unsustainable. With the well known decline in summer tourism, villages within the parish of Exmoor will become ghost towns. They will die on their feet instead of being the vibrant source of economic benefit to their area.

Nearly 60 per cent of respondents in the four study areas in the Burns Report were opposed to a ban on hunting. The report states:

"Many feel too that there is a culture associated with hunting that will be lost to the equestrian industry and to the countryside in general in the event of a ban. In particular, they feel that there is a set of social mores and body of knowledge and understanding associated with hunting which has ramifications extending beyond the hunting field, linked with the proper care of horses, the countryside and other riders and users of the countryside".

Nowhere is that more true than on Exmoor. It is those communities' way of life and freedom that are at stake and we would do well to listen to them.

I do not say that there will be civil war if hunting is banned, but those who live on Exmoor and in other rural areas of the West Country were already seething with discontent at the Government's treatment of rural issues well before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease and were becoming increasingly angry and bitter at the prospect of a ban. With the new background of the fearful and dire consequences of foot and mouth disease, a ban on hunting is more than they can be expected to bear. I genuinely feel that there would be increased hostility to government and the police, increased non-co-operation, civil unrest and perhaps even civil disobedience.

While I have restricted my remarks to the West Country and the impact of the Bill on those communities, what I have said applies to no less an extent to large parts of this country. The appalling damage that a ban on hunting would inflict cannot be underestimated or brushed aside.

In conclusion, unless there is overwhelming evidence against hunting, Parliament simply does not have the right to take away people's freedoms, jobs or homes or to destroy hundreds of families and communities on the grounds of prejudice alone. To do so would herald the beginning of the end of all our freedoms and liberties in a tolerant and liberal society. It would be profoundly wicked and it must be resisted.

Well before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, wrote in a recent article in The Times,

"now the Government is responding to the sharpening, worsening countryside crisis by introducing as a measure the Bill to allow hunting with dogs to be abolished. Hunting is in no way the central issue but this does rub salt into the wound".

He continued:

"It is as though the Good Samaritan had spotted a traveller in the ditch, gone across and given him a hefty kick in the teeth. The trouble is"--

he concluded--

"that Labour is an almost entirely urban party--and it shows".

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