Lord Mancroft:
My Lords, following that extraordinary speech, I should like to begin by declaring an interest as a board member of the Countryside Alliance, which is a democratic organisation representing almost half a million people. The Countryside Alliance contributed one of the options that made up this extraordinary Bill. We will debate those options in more detail in two weeks' time, but I should now like to focus on the proposal to ban hunting, which is at the centre of the Bill.
In six days' time, half a million or more supporters of the alliance were due to converge on London to express their passionate opposition to the Bill. The crisis in our countryside compelled us to postpone that march, and I am sure I am not alone in saying how distasteful we find the decision to press ahead with the debate at this time in these circumstances. It does the supporters of a ban no credit that they insist on having their say, when the very people whose way of life is most at risk cannot speak.
One of the main reasons why so many people wanted to come to London was to impress upon noble Lords their sense of anger and injustice and to ask your Lordships to defend them against the prejudice and ignorance that the debate has generated among their elected representatives. I know that noble Lords will understand if I ask them to be the voice of the countryside and to speak for those who cannot make their voices heard today.
I should like to make another point about timing. What message does the debate send to our rural communities about priorities? When foot and mouth disease was debated in the other place a week or so ago, only 40 government Back-Benchers bothered to attend, while almost 400 of them crammed the Chamber to outlaw hunting. More parliamentary time has been spent discussing the Bill, which we all know will never reach the statute book, than any of the real problems devastating the countryside and causing more despair than I have ever known in my lifetime. However, we apparently have plenty of time to debate measures that will cost many people their jobs and their houses and put increased pressure on rural policing, also putting police in conflict with their strongest supporters.
Two weeks ago Nick Brown was too busy to go to the House of Commons; but 48 hours later the entire MAFF ministerial team, with the exception of Mr Brown and the noble Baroness, attended the House of Commons and found time to ban hunting. While they were voting, their own officials were scurrying around the country asking hunt staff to help in the slaughter of livestock and the disposal of carcasses. This week hunt staff are a vital part of MAFF's strategy to beat foot and mouth. Next week they can draw the dole.
It is little wonder that the countryside feels betrayed, ignored, forgotten and excluded when it sees such an inversion of priorities. Only the other week the Prime Minister expressed concern about cynicism and apathy in our national life. Yet can one imagine a more blatant example of what he condemned than the Bill before us today?
The Bill, as we know from the excellent report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, will destroy thousands of jobs and many traditional skills and trades. Many people too stand to lose their homes and businesses. It will also hurt already fragile local economies and attack the social cohesion that so impressed the inquiry team. It will inevitably change, in part at least, the landscape that is part of our national heritage. That too is clear from the report. As we know, none of that apparently matters to the supporters of the ban option. Despite months of argument, the excellent report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the volumes of evidence received by the inquiry, too many supporters of this ban seem to be cocooned in the same ignorance as when they began.
As the report makes clear, this is an extremely complex debate and I should like to focus on what I consider to be the three most important issues: cruelty, morality and liberty. Those issues are central to the whole debate. The most important is cruelty. There is no doubt that the reason why so many sensible people are concerned about hunting is because they believe it to be intrinsically cruel and unnecessary. Indeed, that is the linchpin of Deadline 2000's case.
The report recognises that and consequently addresses the issue at some length, as did the noble Lord, Lord Burns, when he spoke. But he looked at the issue not as one of cruelty, which is what people do, but as one of suffering, which is what the animals feel. The report makes a number of important general points.
First, the report seeks to measure suffering in terms of welfare. Secondly, it points out that welfare is relative rather than absolute. That means that comparisons must be made between the current available methods of killing animals and by comparing today's situation with what is likely to be the position following a ban. The report points out that the welfare of the quarry species must be assessed at different times throughout the animals' lives, during the hunt itself and at the moment of death. Lastly, the whole question of welfare, which relates to individual animals, must be balanced against that of whole populations and species. That is wildlife management.
The argument put forward by Deadline 2000 is based on welfare and takes little account of wildlife management. That is only one area in which in my view it is deficient. Deadline 2000 made much of the statement in the report that hunting "severely compromises the welfare" of the quarry species--the noble Lord, Lord Burns, is right that that phrase will probably follow him around for a long time--but it fails to point out that it is impossible to kill an animal without compromising its welfare. Of course hunting compromises the welfare of the quarry; the object is to kill the quarry. But other factors must be taken into account.
The report seeks to differentiate between two aspects of hunting; first, the welfare implications of what the report calls the "chase"; and, secondly, the implications of the actual kill. In the case of the death of the quarry, Deadline 2000 still pretends that hounds kill their quarry by tearing it limb from limb. That is not correct. The report concludes that in the vast majority of cases, insensibility or death occur, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns said, within a matter of seconds. It is only after the animal is dead that the hounds tear at the carcass.
Most people throughout the country do not realise how large and strong hounds are or how small the quarry species. One of the reasons why there is still room for a debate on the exact manner of the kill is that even when one sees it, it happens too fast to be able to take in exactly what happens. But it is correct that there is no possibility of wounding.
This part of the debate is of course irrelevant to deer hunting, because at the end of the deer hunt the quarry is shot at close range by a trained marksman using a specially designed weapon. There is no quicker or more efficient way of killing a deer. There is no possibility of a deer escaping wounded, as can and does happen when deer are shot at longer range with a rifle, which is the only other method available.
The second area of concern is the chase itself. Much has been made about the stress of being hunted. But stress is normal and exists alongside good welfare. Welfare becomes compromised when stress turns to distress or when an animal is forced to operate outside its normal parameters. It is likely that deer become distressed in the closing stages of a hunt and that their welfare can therefore be compromised. But that stage is reached in only a minority of cases and only for a few minutes.
Deadline 2000 makes much of the picture of an animal hunted for mile after mile and hour after hour to the point of exhaustion, whereupon it is torn limb from limb. That is not what happens. Most fox and hare hunts take place within the time, distance and pace parameters which the quarry encounter in their normal lives. Hunts are not continuous but, as the report suggests, comprise short bursts of speed interspersed with longer periods of slow progress. It is unlikely therefore that the quarry become distressed until the closing stages, and that may be for a few minutes at worst. That is also likely to be true of mink.
As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, pointed out, we clearly cannot ask the quarry what it feels. But most animal welfarists believe that animals do not contemplate death as we do; that they run not out of fear but as a result of an in-built response to danger and that flight is one of their natural defence mechanisms. Whether or not that is correct, I am not qualified to say, but there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Lastly, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, we must balance the assessments of welfare against the requirements of wildlife management. All the four relevant animals need to be culled and that will continue to be so following a ban. The red deer of Exmoor, widely regarded as one of the best herds in the world, will cease to be what the report describes as a "community resource" and will become a pest, valued only for their meat. Farmers, who currently accept small numbers of deer on their farms because they support hunting, will not accept the larger herds that will form and the damage that they will do. It is therefore far more likely than at present that they will be shot, including by the use of shotguns. That is likely to lead to a sharp decrease in overall numbers and an equal increase in wounding rates. The deer as a whole will suffer, and there will be an increase in individual suffering.
There is very strong case for eradicating mink altogether. But a ban will lead to greater concentrations and greater damage, and the removal of one method of control, albeit not the most efficient by any means, for no valid reason.
The report emphasises that the hare survives best in areas where hare hunting and coursing take place, because hunters do an enormous amount of work to protect habitats. Indeed, it is the hare hunters who do the annual count for the Government. The likelihood is, therefore, that with no hare hunting and hare coursing a direct and possibly terminal reduction in hare numbers will occur. The report also raises concern about the welfare of hares in the event of a ban because the only alternative--shooting--has relatively high wounding rates.
In the case of foxes, a ban on hunting will lead to an increase in the alternative methods of control. The report's view is that the best alternative is shooting using a lamp, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, suggested. He pointed out to us that that is not viable on moorland and hill country. I would add that it may not be desirable to encourage the use of high velocity rifles near roads and houses, and I suggest that the mix of rifles and increased rights of access, particularly at night, is not to me an obvious one.
The report also suggests that a ban would lead to an increase in snaring and the use of shotguns, and states that both can have serious welfare implications. We must remember that we have the healthiest and most stable fox population in Europe and, regardless of welfare questions, the existing regime of management should not be compromised. The report draws attention to the fact that it is impossible to predict the effect a ban would have on the fox population.
I suggest that the question of welfare is central but it is not quite as simple as some people would have your Lordships believe. Properly conducted hunting raises fewer welfare concerns than some of the methods of control that would be used increasingly in the event of a ban. The existing evidence on which a judgment must be made does not show that hunting with dogs is crueller than other methods, and it is likely that the welfare of the quarry species would suffer rather than benefit from a ban. It is also clear that the existing regime of wildlife management would be put severely at risk by a ban, which would therefore constitute a huge and irresponsible step into the unknown.
Regardless of the strength or weakness of their argument, supporters of a ban claim that public opinion demands it. It is true that, historically, the polls have indicated a majority in favour of a ban although, as the report confirms, in the countryside there is widespread support for hunting, particularly among farmers. Since 1989 the polls have shown a steady decline in the number favouring an outright ban. In the past three months, however, there has been a marked shift in public opinion which has been sustained. Independent polls now clearly show a substantial majority of people in this country are opposed to a ban. That is an extraordinary change in public opinion.
Opinion polls also show that this is not "an important issue". When pollsters ask people what they consider to be the most important political issues, hunting invariably comes, as it always has, at the bottom of the list. People are not interested in hunting. One matter that has become evident over the past couple of months is that people are sick to death of this debate. Perhaps the other place does not therefore speak for Britain as much as it assumes.
Supporters of a ban also claim that hunting is offensive, repugnant and incompatible with a civilised society. Most other countries in the European Union permit hunting. It is enjoyed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and throughout the United States. Does that mean that all those countries are uncivilised and that Nazi Germany, which did ban hunting, is an example of a civilised country? Hunting takes place on 80 per cent of British farms. Are we really saying that 80 per cent of farmers allow cruelty, permit cruelty, are indifferent to cruelty? Supporters of a ban claim that people who hunt do so because they enjoy killing animals. There is no evidence to support that slander whatsoever. Anyone who knows the countryside also knows that such claims are not only untrue but deeply offensive.
I have hunted for over 35 years with over 30 packs of hounds in this country, Ireland, France and America. During all that time I have never seen, or ever heard of, anyone deriving pleasure from seeing the quarry killed and I, and my many hunting friends, would be repulsed by such a thing. People hunt for many different reasons, but sadism is not one of them. I use those words deliberately because it is a truism that most of us find many things offensive, but we do not presume that our distaste is grounds to impose a criminal sanction.
This Bill goes further than merely banning a sport. It intends to criminalise an activity that is not a sport in the way that football or snooker is. Hunting is a central part of many people's lives, from childhood through to old age. For tens of thousands of people hunting is symbolic of their way of life and it gives their lives an added purpose and meaning.
I suggest that a ban would be an illiberal, intolerant abuse of power. As Nick Brown said in the House of Commons on 26th February,
A ban would have no such consent. Instead it threatens to divert police efforts and to divide rural communities, branding an entire class of people, who are often stalwarts of their communities, criminal if they do what they have always done, and which no independent inquiry has ever found should be outlawed. To ban hunting with dogs, which is the central issue of this Bill, would be an affront to the civil liberties of a large, law-abiding minority within our community.
The noble Lord, Lord Burns, confirmed that hunting does not demonstrably and clearly lead to greater suffering than the other methods of control. I suggest that it is likely that a ban would lead to more suffering, not less. There is no widespread public demand for a ban and the debate over the past few months seems to indicate that a majority, as I have said, now oppose a ban.
The countryside has enough problems without this Bill. Rural communities need our support, not new attacks. Our police forces have enough challenges catching real criminals without being distracted by new and unnecessary laws. Hunting is not cruel. No case for a ban has been made. Thousands of jobs and livelihoods are at risk. A ban would be illiberal and unjustified. What most people want is for Parliament to tackle the priorities we share in common. This Bill does not solve problems; it creates them. It is unjust and intolerant. In June last year, the Prime Minister told the nation,
So am I, Prime Minister, and so, I believe, is this House.
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