Lord Burns

Lord Burns:

My Lords, I am grateful for the kind remarks that have been made about the work of the hunting inquiry. I pay tribute to the other members of the committee, including the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, for their insight and contribution to the work of the committee. I am also grateful for their delightful and stimulating company as we conducted our many visits to hunting events around England and Wales.

On one occasion we even found ourselves in Scotland with the Border Hunt. However, I should emphasise that that did not happen by accident.

At the outset many people saw our task as a "poisoned chalice". I am relieved that it did not turn out that way. In part that was because both sides of the debate handled their relationships with the inquiry in a positive and constructive way. I am grateful to them also. I met some fascinating and committed people and learned a great deal from them both about animal welfare and animal behaviour. The process also went well because we had an outstanding secretary who brought together a small but very able team to help us.

I chaired the inquiry because, as the Minister mentioned, it was asked only to look at the facts about hunting. It was not asked to come to a decision on the basic question of whether or not there should be a ban. Nor were we asked to consider the moral and ethical aspects. As we were asked to establish facts and to inform the debate, we thought the job could be undertaken. I hope that we have helped people to deal with this extremely difficult issue.

In this debate I propose to stick to that role. I do not propose to give my view on the central question of whether or not there should be a ban on hunting. Having studiously avoided that question when undertaking the inquiry it would be wrong to express a view now. Today I shall touch on some of the matters that I learned during an enormously valuable experience.

The first point to make is that those who participate in hunting do so for a wide variety of reasons. Farmers in particular play a more central role than I realised before I undertook the inquiry. They participate in significant numbers as well as providing the land on which hunting takes place. They benefit from the pest control to the extent that it matters and they value highly the fallen stock service that is provided by many hunts. They believe that they know about animals, whether that involves breeding them, handling them or killing them. Of the other participants, some like riding horses; some like watching hounds work--we witnessed many people in that category--and some participate because they view it as an important way to support the local community.

As many have pointed out, the social life that surrounds hunting during the winter months is important to many people, particularly those who live in remote rural areas. At the same time, the committee was impressed by the strength of feeling of those we met, in particular in rural communities, who were opposed to hunting. They fell into a number of categories. Some disliked hunting and resent the hunt trespassing on their properties when it is told it is not welcome. There were several examples of that. Some worry about the safety of their pets and animals and are frustrated by the difficulty of moving around their nearby roads on hunt days. Many people have a deep concern about what they see as the inherent cruelty involved in hunting. I am sure we shall hear about that aspect today. Others were worried about the damage to the countryside and other animals, in particular badgers and otters.

So there are two important sides to the debate. Views are held strongly. There is a high degree of understanding by each side about the other's view. I hope that the work we undertook and the many seminars we held have helped to further that understanding. In many cases, it is a difference of view about some of the important aspects.

The committee spent some time considering the part that hunting plays in pest control. I shall not go through it in detail. I came to the view that hunting is essentially a recreational activity in most lowland areas and in practice plays only a small part in pest control. On the other hand, it is true that in some remote upland areas hunting plays a much bigger part in pest control. Farmers would have great difficulties without the help of some aspects of the subject we are debating.

At the same time we should also recognise that we are dealing with species where landowners believe that the population numbers must be managed. If hunting were subject to a ban, I have little doubt that at least an equivalent number of foxes, deer and hares would be killed by other means. The number of deaths is not likely to be reduced by banning hunting. Instead we are talking about alternative means of killing and whether they are more or less humane.

Given my economics background, I was interested to learn that on average it costs £1,000 per fox killed to maintain the hunt infrastructure, including the kennels. In a dozen hunts the cost was more than £2,500 per fox; and for two hunts it was more than £5,000 per fox. This suggested to me evidence of a high recreational value. By contrast, for many of the hunts in Wales and the Lake District the figure was below £350 per fox and for six of the hunts it was below £100 per fox. That seemed more consistent with a greater role of the hunt in population management.

The impact of hunting on employment was an important part of our remit; we commissioned research on it. Our estimates and some of the uncertainties have been reported and I do not wish to add to them today. They are available for people to read if they wish to do so. The general conclusion was that the numbers are not huge but of course they matter greatly to those affected, particularly when they see the threat coming from Parliament rather than from adverse economic conditions.

We considered the potential for drag hunting and undertook a visit to Germany. One often hears the argument that drag hunting is a simple substitute. We came to the view that there is scope for a greater role for drag hunting in the event of a ban. It would probably be one of the ways in which people would continue to exercise their interest in horse activities. However, we also concluded that there are some important limitations, including the reluctance of farmers to make available sufficient land, and of laying an artificial scent other than in long, fairly straight lines which compounds the problem of access to land. Taken together, we concluded that it was unlikely that drag hunting would offset the effects of a ban to any great extent.

The animal welfare argument is the most difficult to evaluate and the area where I had most to learn. I realise that I might not easily escape the phrase, "seriously compromises the welfare of the fox". I suspect that it will pursue me for some time to come. It is incumbent upon me to explain why we used that phrase although I shall limit my remarks to deer and foxes in view of the time pressure. Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel but in true Sir Humphrey style were not prepared to say so clearly. The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty. It is a complex area.

Instead, our terms of reference asked us to consider the implications for welfare. We turned for help to the emerging scientific discipline of animal welfare. Scientists have been struggling with the question of how to measure the welfare of animals. The discipline is distinct from ethical or moral judgments about the way in which the animal is treated. Essentially it is concerned with assessing the ability of an animal to cope with its environment. If an animal is having difficulty in coping, or fails to cope, its welfare is regarded as poor.

One cannot ask an animal about its welfare or know what is going on inside its head. Scientists have sought to use a range of indicators to try to make that judgment. Those indicators usually involve a mixture of physiological indicators such as muscle damage as well as behavioural indicators. Our first step was to consider evidence about the welfare effects of hunting defined by assessing some of those indicators.

There is some scientific evidence about the impact on welfare of hunting deer. Quite a lot of work has been undertaken. Inevitably, there are differences about the interpretation of that data but there seems to be broad agreement that deer suffer in the final stages of hunting. Indeed, the hunt comes to an end because there is insufficient fuel left in the muscles for the deer to continue to run. There remains some disagreement about when that becomes serious. The committee's view was that in the final stage it probably falls short of the standards we would expect for humane killing and that there is a compromise of welfare.

With the fox, there is an almost total lack of similar scientific evidence about the effect on welfare of being hunted. I was surprised by that, given the intensity of the debate over many years. However, the evidence we collected in the form of post mortems convinced us that death is not always the result of a single bite to the back of the neck or shoulders by the leading hound as has sometimes been claimed. The post mortems indicated that death resulted from quite massive injuries to the chest and vital organs. Even so, we concluded that insensibility and death will normally follow within a matter of seconds once the fox is caught. Although we would have liked more scientific evidence, on these grounds we came to the view that the experience of being closely pursued, caught and killed by hounds seriously compromised the welfare of the fox and probably falls short of the standards we would expect for humane killing.

The problem--it has been referred to by other noble Lords--is that that cannot be the end of the matter. As I argued previously, a ban on hunting is unlikely to reduce the number of foxes and deer killed as farmers would use other methods to manage the population of those animals. Therefore we have to consider the welfare effects of the alternatives. For foxes, that means considering methods such as shooting and snaring. None of them is entirely comfortable. Both snaring and shooting with shotguns can have serious adverse welfare effects. We were persuaded that "lamping" using rifles, if carried out properly, was better for welfare but it was only feasible in certain circumstances. For example, it is not feasible or safe to use lamping in many upland areas, including those with dense forestry. We concluded that if dogs could not be used at least to flush foxes from cover in those areas, it was likely that the welfare of foxes would be adversely affected.

For deer, there is a viable alternative. We came to the view that, if done well, stalking with the availability of a dog to deal with wounded deer is in principle a better method from an animal welfare perspective. Our difficulty was that there was insufficient evidence about wounding rates. We recognised that a ban on hunting would be likely to result in more shooting being done by inexperienced stalkers.

A ban on hunting would also make it vital to introduce an effective deer management strategy on Exmoor. At the moment, that is effectively done by the hunt. There is a real risk that farmers will not tolerate deer on their land to the extent that they currently do if there is a ban on hunting.

It is for noble Lords to come to their own view about the balancing of those factors. I simply offer the view that the balancing need not be the same for each of the hunted species or in all areas. I am persuaded that this is not a simple case and there is no simple answer. If we are interested in animal welfare, we need to balance the various factors.

Whereas I do not wish to express a view on the central question of whether to ban hunting, I feel less restrained about commenting on the choice between licensing and self-regulation, if Parliament decides against a ban on hunting. Between those two options, my preference is for the licensing regime. That is not because of any lack of confidence in the individuals at present on the Independent Supervisory Authority for Hunting, but because of two strands of argument that came out of our deliberations.

First, the task of being in charge of a large pack of hounds is a considerable responsibility. I have watched at close hand the extent to which at times the hounds are not under the close control of huntsmen. Part of the time they are, but part of the time they are not. As a society, we insist on licensing many activities in which there is a need to show competence and responsibility. The punishment for failure to do so can be the withdrawal of the licence. The same requirements of competence and responsibility apply to hunting, as well as the question of what action should be taken if conduct falls short of what is desired. I doubt that the non-hunting community would be satisfied by those decisions being taken by a self-regulatory body.

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 licenses and when to reject an application. That might include taking account of successful prosecutions brought against some of the activities.

I have already trespassed too long on your Lordships' time without giving a clear steer on how to deal with the Bill. I hope that I shall be forgiven for that. My aim has been to try to provide some thoughts from my six months of surprising and intensive immersion in the subject to help people make their minds up. I look forward to hearing other people's perspectives, from the huge range of distinguished speakers on display today. I have already heard the views of a large number of people on the subject, but, having been brought into the issue, I continue to find it enormously fascinating.

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