The Lord Bishop of Bath &

The Lord Bishop of Bath & Wells:

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Burns, because it gives me an opportunity to thank him for listening so thoroughly and putting the background facts for the debate so clearly. I make this speech as humbly as I can, because I recognise that within the Church that I serve there are completely opposing views held by a large number of people. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cope, I shall speak personally from my experience as best I can.

First, I declare an interest--my love of Somerset since childhood, including nearly 10 years as the Bishop there. I have also had 25 years in East London, including 13 years as Bishop of Stepney, which included Islington. I continue to be concerned by the increasing lack of understanding between the rural and the urban, in spite of the great deal of cross-fertilisation that is taking place. Prejudice and discrimination are growing. In some ways and in some places, it is as though we have two different cultures. If it were not for the present foot and mouth tragedy, a vast march would have expressed how deeply many country people feel about what they see as an assault on their values.

One of the sharpest distinctions is on the treatment of animals. On one side are those whose experience is mostly limited to dealing with domestic animals. On the other side, people in the country deal daily with domestic, farm and wild animals. In a recent television programme called "Bare Necessities", some people on a survival course were asked to kill a chicken. They all had no difficulty in taking the prepared, gift-wrapped chicken from the supermarket shelf, but they were horrified by having to kill the bird themselves. In one way that is funny, but in another way it is a sort of alienation from the reality of how we live. The middle way offers a controlled opportunity to monitor and decide on some of those issues.

We have all been through lifelong exposure to the projection of human character and understanding onto animals. My first and favourite book that I was able to read and consciously remember was Black Beauty. "Bambi" had me under the seat in tears. In addition there are Mickey Mouse, Piglet and thousands of other examples of animals being portrayed as though they were human and had human consciousness. The good side of that--and there is a good side--is that it develops greater care and sensitivity for animals. The bad side is that it can create a dangerous prissiness about nature. I live surrounded by a moat on which nature constantly demonstrates to me what an unkind set of arrangements it is. Yet at the same time, nature has never been so brilliantly filmed or observed, or filmed so sharply, showing us how unkind it is. We see the most terrible, prolonged and teasing deaths and killings. So great is that anthropomorphic projection that we now have television programmes showing complex operations on cancers and other conditions in domestic animals, with medical staff striving to keep them unnaturally alive. I believe that that conveys cruelty to the animals in question.

The issue of hunting has become a serious conflict, partly because of those different perceptions. Some of the arguments on both sides seem little more than downright prejudice. On the one side is the use of words such as "barbaric" and the ignorance of thinking that hunting is largely a sport for the rich or for the upper classes--or even the comment of a professor yesterday that hunting was "practical atheism". On the other side there is a failure to tackle at a deep enough level the question of cruelty, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, so admirably set out, and the stereotyping of the urban response. I have stood for many years on both sides of that divide and I do not find the two sides describing each other accurately.

There are critics and supporters on both sides of the urban-rural divide. I have been on both sides of the argument. This is not just a cultural and economic question, vital though those aspects are for the countryside and for all the people who make their living there. It is shocking to travel across Somerset in any direction and see desolate fields--perhaps one field with sheep in every 10 miles--as all the animals are in their barns and farmers are living in fear of what might happen to them the next day.

In my view, the hunting question is a moral and a spiritual one. We often hear about the moral question; we rarely hear about the spiritual one. People say that it is not important. If it is not, then why do hundreds of thousands of people want to march and be heard, and why do hundreds of thousands of other people take tremendously serious efforts to oppose it? I believe that it is an important question because it concerns the relationship between the human race and nature and, ultimately, God.

One of my colleagues--not in this House--briefly and tellingly put the case against hunting--that it is impossible to believe that the cruel killing of a sentient being for human pleasure can be pleasing to God. To me, that is the core of the argument which must be faced. At first sight, it is a telling and powerful remark. No doubt it is the view of many such good people. But there are serious weaknesses in that statement.

Let us look at the key word "cruel", which has already been mentioned several times as applied to the killing in a hunt. "Cruel" is defined in the dictionary that I use as:

"Disposed to inflict suffering; indifference or pleasure in another's pain."

Of course, in nature, wolves, jackals, hyenas, other groups of dogs, and so on, pursue other animals quite cruelly and persistently wherever nature is left to itself. It is a natural way of killing: the crocodile takes the wildebeest and the lion a deer. Their prey live in the wild in fear wherever there is a threat in the wind. Many creatures are eaten alive. Indeed, I am afraid to say--I find it deeply unpleasant--the sparrowhawk constantly eats pigeons alive on the lawn outside the place where I live.

Those who believe in God must come to terms with a creation of mutual hunting and eating. Everyone else does, but that is not such a problem if one does not have to believe in an almighty, loving Father and Creator. Those who believe sometimes think that perhaps He could have organised matters a little better. But we are unable to organise matters better. People say that we have now moved beyond the need to hunt, and what was our nature throughout the history of the human race is now thought of as unnatural for humans.

The hunting instinct is sublimated in many ways--some good, some bad: in athletics, which derived originally from hunting skills; in archery, obviously; packs on the rugger field hunt in their own way and get a lot out of their system; and, sadly, in racist pursuit. I have seen gangs in East London looking for, pursuing and hunting down people because they are of a different race. I have certainly witnessed gangs of football followers hunt other people.

My point is that hunting is within our being because it is part of our genetic history. The question is: how is that to be dealt with? Whether people like it or not, perhaps the hunt reminds us of what we have been and, in a sense, what we continue to be. I realise that it is no argument to say that we are just like nature. Although we are part of it, we have consciences to instruct us. However, in many ways we are confused and dysfunctional towards nature. As many of the big debates that we have show us, we do not have a great record in relating to nature. I believe that hunting is not only practical; it is also a reminder of that part of ourselves.

I turn to the subject of cruelty. Animals have predators. Some predators kill quickly and easily and some do not. If we possess, as we do, ways of killing which minimise suffering, those should be used whenever it is possible to do so successfully and properly. The deer is shot at bay but is usually otherwise unmarked. But, importantly, no animal escapes wounded. That is an important factor.

Reports on the relative cruelty of the chase often vary and, indeed, contradict each other. I, too, was moved when I heard of the number of vets who support hunting. A huge correspondence--admittedly, much of it from Somerset--suggests that a wide variety of people support it. I notice that many conservationists--I was particularly interested in David Attenborough's recent series on television--recognise that the survival of animals around the world often involves a compromise of some kind between we humans and the rest of nature which surrounds us. People may not like this fact, but, before hunting on Exmoor, the red deer population was almost lost. Its revival was due in part to the hunt and what Ted Hughes called "the strange agreement" between the farmers and the deer.

We must be sure that the degree of cruelty administered by the chase--now likely to be banned--is not abandoned in the name of greater cruelty, leaving the quarry in question to die in worse and more cruel ways. Deer which are shot by poachers, for example, are constantly having to be cleared up by the hunt when, wounded, they creep away to a ditch to die. One issue which is most misunderstood is the relationship between farmers and deer. Most hunting people whom I know are not indifferent to the suffering; they simply see it as a necessity for the good of the herd which is sustained on farmland. That fact must be recognised.

A noble Lord said that those are fine distinctions. I consider them to be very important distinctions. It is possible that, ultimately, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, the decision that must be made will go beyond the limit of what we should expect or the standards that we should have. However, I believe that the issues are very different to those involved in cock fighting or the bull fight. They come far more within a natural context and, therefore, are more acceptable. Hunting provides a way of limiting the number of animals which are free to do damage to crops and farm animals.

My final point concerns the question of human pleasure. As I said, sometimes I feel uncomfortable when I consider the Creation. However, one unjust criticism of the hunt is that people enjoy inflicting the pain, the suffering and the killing. There are sick people who enjoy it. That is why bad things sometimes occur and why there must be regulation. But most of the people who take part do not enjoy the killing; indeed, many go home long before the kill takes place.

As your Lordships know, many other issues arise in relation to the rural community. I have tried to look at the way in which we see man relating to nature--about which I believe there is deep confusion--and the question of cruelty and pleasure. On an issue where opposing views, to which great thought has been given, are held with such passion, and in a society where there is such uncertainty, can it really be right at this time to introduce legislation to ban altogether something that is so much in question and so much part of the rural way of life?

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