Lord Habgood

Lord Habgood:

My Lords, I want to reflect for a few moments on the concept of cruelty. We have used the word constantly throughout the debate, but it is a tricky word, because it can have different meanings in different contexts. For example, we can talk about cruel events or circumstances, cruel practices or cruel intentions. The meanings can slip between those three or four in ways that distort the word's ethical content. All the meanings can gradually be pulled in a direction that makes cruel intent central to them.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie--I am sorry that he is not still in his seat--said that hunting was an event with cruelty at its core. That is a remarkably slippy statement. We need to tease out exactly what he meant by using the word in that all-embracing way.

Let us analyse the meanings of the word for a moment. Cruel events or circumstances may be just facts of life. A cruel fate--death--awaits us all. Countless animals die every day. Millions are deliberately killed by human beings: we wage war on vermin; we slaughter animals for food; we sacrifice them in laboratories; we destroy them when they are diseased. Death is cruel, yet we justify it on the grounds of necessity. Our way of life as human beings depends on keeping other animals under control and, when necessary, using them for our own purposes. In that sense of the word, the world is full of cruel events, some of which are caused by us. That is the way the world is.

The second meaning of the word is cruel practices. To employ cruel practices in exploiting or killing animals raises a different set of questions, separate from those concerning death itself and distinguishable from intentional cruelty. I am talking about the way we do things. Nobody who puts down rat poison intends the rats to suffer, but they probably do. Nobody who brings farm animals to slaughter intends it to be an occasion of terror, pain and distress, yet, in view of all that leads up to the final moment, it probably is. Animal experimenters do not mean to be cruel, but to achieve their ends they sometimes have to use cruel methods.

What about hunting with dogs? We have been amply reminded throughout the debate that all methods of destroying animals, particularly wild ones, have the potential to cause distress. The Burns report made that clear. In the light of all that we have heard this evening, the case against hunting as a cruel practice is not proven. We do not know where the balance of suffering lies and we certainly do not know enough to base socially divisive legislation on what must necessarily be conjecture.

That brings me to the third and most significant meaning of cruelty--namely, intentional cruelty. To be intentionally cruel is to find pleasure in the infliction of suffering. It is morally abhorrent and there is every reason for legislating against it. But is hunting with dogs intentionally cruel in that sense? Some of its opponents clearly believe that it is, which is why they draw comparisons with such morally repellent practices as bear baiting, cock fighting, badger baiting and so on, in all of which suffering and the cruelty that produces suffering are the name of the game. I believe that we have already heard enough this evening to show that such comparisons totally misrepresent what hunting with dogs is about and why people do it.

Why, then, do people hunt, apart from the exercise, the good rides, the new scenery and the camaraderie, and so on? This evening we have received many answers, and, although it is 55 years since I hunted, I want to add another one. I believe that part of the answer as to why people are fascinated lies in the kind of competitive encounter that one has with a wild animal. It is an encounter which must entail both knowledge of the animal and respect for it as a wild thing. That is why drag hunting can never be a substitute for hunting in the wild.

The competitive encounter with a wild animal is not about blood lust and it is certainly not about pleasure in causing suffering. Perhaps it is about a deeply embedded mental residue from the time when we all had to live by hunting--at least, our ancestors did. But, however we understand and evaluate it, the crucial point that I want to make this evening is that it shares the same fundamental motive with all other traditional blood sports.

In rough shooting or stalking, the pleasure lies in tracking and finding one's quarry and in the quickness of one's response to it. I cannot say the same about driven shoots. It seems to me that there is something morally dubious about breeding birds and then sitting in a hide to shoot at them. Perhaps some people will disagree.

Fishermen enjoy their competition with a wily fish. They, too, know and respect their quarry. They talk about the pleasure of playing a fish which puts up a good fight. The fact that so many fish are thrown back again is proof that it is the catching and not the necessity for food which is important in that type of fishing. I know that the standard answer to such a comparison with hunting is that fish do not feel as foxes do. The truth is that no one has the remotest idea what fish feel, but we know that they resist being caught and are not likely to enjoy being suffocated.

My point, however, is not to compare fishes', birds' or foxes' emotions but to compare our human emotions in these differing sporting contexts. I believe that they are all broadly the same. They all involve excitement, but I believe that only in rare individuals do they involve intentional cruelty. Because of that, it would be both hypocritical and discriminatory to single out just one of those sports for special condemnation.

It is important not to be complacent about the possibilities for cruelty, but I do not think that the case has been made that hunting with dogs is inherently cruel. I shall therefore vote in favour of control of one sort of another rather than for an outright ban, which would be grossly unfair to the many good people for whom hunting is important.

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