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Mr. David Tredinnick (Bosworth): I have always looked up to my right hon. and learned Friend. I was the master of the Oxford drag hunt, and I think that he would have made a distinguished quarry. The difference between fox hunting and drag-hunting is very important and germane to the debate.
Mr. Hogg: Absolutely. Drag-hunting is a perfectly good and viable sport in itself, and gives great pleasure. However, it is not an alternative for many people who go fox hunting. Farmers who are willing to allow the foxhounds to cross their ground do so largely because the hounds kill foxes. They would not allow the draghounds over their land. You know a lot about rural matters, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Hounds can damage land. Gates must be opened, fences adjusted and so forth. Quite a lot of trouble is involved in allowing hounds to go over land, and in general farmers will only allow it to happen in connection with fox hunting. They will not do it in connection with drag-hunting.
Again, I speak with authority, because I am well aware of the thoughts of the farmers among whom I live. Foxhounds run over the park in which my house is set. Unfortunately, I do not own the park. Hounds involved in drag-hunting would not be allowed to do that.
Mr. Tredinnick:
In the case of the Oxford university draghounds, there was always a problem with persuading local farmers, apart from a few who were used to regular meets, to allow the hounds to run over their land. As my right hon. and learned Friend has pointed out, broadly speaking farmers want to support an organisation, namely fox hunting, that exists for their benefit--to reduce the fox population, thereby protecting their livestock.
Mr. Hogg:
That is absolutely true. I do not think that there is any serious dispute about it. No one who lives in the country can suppose for a moment that my hon. Friend is other than wholly right.
Mr. Soames:
My right hon. and learned Friend is entirely right about drag-hunting. As a champion of individual liberties and choice, he will know that, although it can be great fun in its way, drag-hunting accounts for only about 4 per cent. of meets in any one year. A very small proportion of people choose to engage in it. If it were as much fun as it is cracked up to be, many more people would take part in it.
Not only do farmers have a vested interest in hunting, as my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out--some do not, of course, but many do--but fox hunting is a much bigger operation, so the argument about drag-hunting is not germane to the debate.
Mr. Hogg:
My hon. Friend is probably right. I have not ridden to hounds, but I imagine that the unpredictability involved in fox hunting makes it much more exciting and attractive than drag-hunting, which involves predictability. In this instance I do not speak with a great deal of authority, but I suspect that those who enjoy fox hunting would not necessarily gain anything like the same pleasure from drag-hunting.
Mr. Tredinnick:
As my right hon. and learned Friend will recall, having chased across the countryside as a student at Oxford, in drag-hunting someone lays a line across country and hounds then follow it. They tend to follow the dragline much faster than they would ever follow the scent of a fox, because foxes are inclined to stop and check. Drag-hunts tend to follow a line of perhaps 30 or 40 jumps that have already been prepared: drag-hunting is much more akin to steeplechasing or point-to-point than to fox hunting.
Another question that my right hon. and learned Friend may wish to explore is whether drag-hunting is suitable for young riders, because of its speed and because lines are generally laid for pursuit at a certain pace.
Mr. Hogg:
I do not want to express opinions on matters of which I am bound to say I have no technical knowledge, but I am sure that both my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex are right. In any event, my point is that drag-hunting would not be acceptable as an alternative to many who take part in fox hunting, and that it is wrong to look to drag-hunting as a way of solving the unemployment problem that would follow a ban on fox hunting.
Mr. David Taylor:
The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) said that only about 5 per cent. of those who hunt engage in drag-hunting as opposed to fox hunting, because of an innate lack of interest. Could it not also be said that the fact that only 5 per cent. of the 400,000 foxes that die each year are killed as a result of hunting demonstrates the ineffectiveness of fox hunting, which is often said to be the vital controlling mechanism in rural Britain?
Mr. Hogg:
I am talking about freedom at this juncture, and about employment. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that because not many foxes are killed, fox hunting should not be indulged in, that is a different argument. I was talking about drag-hunting and employment.
Saying that people should stop fox hunting and take up drag-hunting is as silly as saying that people should stop shooting pheasants and take up clay pigeon shooting. Why on earth should people have their affairs meddled with by the hon. Member for Brent, East--who is not even present now?
Mr. Tredinnick:
I do not think that my right hon. and learned Friend has dealt sufficiently with the question of
Drag-hunts usually use six couple--in other words, 12--hounds, or dogs, as they are called by those who oppose hunting. Fox hunts require 40, 60 or even more hounds. The hunt is generally responsible for breeding the hounds, and in any case many more hounds are needed to find a scent than are needed in drag-hunting. In drag-hunting, the scent has already been laid by distinguished students such as, in his younger days, my right hon. and learned Friend.
When it comes to the economics--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman's interventions are becoming longer and longer. He should allow the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) to answer.
Mr. Hogg:
In the matter of drag-hunting, I bow to the expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick). I hope that he will have an opportunity to speak later, as he clearly has real knowledge of an activity that is very relevant to what we are debating.
Mr. Bercow:
Does my right hon. and learned Friend think it possible that the capture last night by the Conservative party of a seat on Kennet district council, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), was attributable to a desire on the part of voters in that area to demonstrate their support for the continuation of minority country pursuits?
Mr. Hogg:
I cannot answer that, but I can say this. It is perfectly true that from time to time opinion polls ask people whether they want fox hunting to continue, and that the majority usually reply that they do not. If, however, people are asked a different question, namely "Do you want the activity to be made criminal so that your fox-hunting neighbour can be put in jug?", they usually answer no. An awful lot depends on the question that is asked.
More particularly, I think that the country is more sensitive to the issue of human rights than Labour Members appreciate.
Mr. Soames:
My right hon. and learned Friend has reached the kernel, or core, of the argument, which is something that the Labour party cannot ever understand. The Countryside Alliance organised a march in London to which nearly half a million people came, from the length and breadth of the land and from every walk and circumstance of life, to express their view that fox hunting should not become a criminal offence. Whatever views may be held on fox hunting, my right hon. and learned Friend's point about turning a legitimate sport into a criminal activity is at the centre of the argument.
Mr. Hogg:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I develop it in the following way. We can often judge whether an activity should be made unlawful by looking at the people who pursue that activity. That tells us about the quality of philosophy involved, the nature of the people, the social implications and this and that. I was on
One asks oneself whether decent ordinary citizens pursuing activities that they and their fathers have done for years should be turned into criminals. I find that question so repellant that it is difficult to contain myself. I am very, very angry.
People talk about net benefit to animals. I have been the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I know about suffering to animals. If I wanted to abate their suffering, I would look at battery cages for chickens, for example. There are many more urgent things on the agenda than fox hunting. If one asks oneself what benefit will come from banning fox hunting in terms of animal welfare, the answer, surely, is none. Some will be poisoned. If any Member thinks that poisoning is a nice way to dispose of animals, they had better think again and come and live in the countryside.
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