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Mr. Bob Russell: Does my hon. Friend agree, so that it is put firmly on the record, that the majority of Liberal Democrat Members are opposed to blood sports such as fox hunting, and that, when we had the one vote on the issue, the majority of Liberal Democrats supported legislation to ban blood sports?
Mr. Öpik: As we all know, this is a free-vote issue, not a party political issue. In trying give my hon. Friend a constructive answer, I tell him that a majority of hon. Members--unquestionably, as the record shows--voted to support the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Worcester and for a ban. That is not a point of contention. What is in contention is whether polls and majority views should necessarily determine how we address libertarian and liberal issues.
A point that I shall develop later is that the hon. Member for Brent, East is a champion of minorities. He is one of those who has often stood up for minorities who would otherwise be discriminated against. I therefore think that it is incumbent on him to think seriously about the hypocrisy of his proposal.
Mr. Bercow:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I first jousted with him in political debate, if memory serves me correctly, the best part of 15 years ago, and it is always a pleasure to listen to him. Could he tell the House, and inform me, whether he has always supported the right to hunt, or whether he was persuaded by people in Montgomeryshire to do so?
Mr. Öpik:
That is a pertinent question. Having changed my own views on the issue after debate and
I do not think that this issue is a vote winner or a vote loser, even in my constituency. I should like to think that if I were persuaded by the hon. Members for Brent, East or for Worcester to hold a position on the issue contrary to that which I do hold, my constituents would respect that I had done so on the basis of moral argument and logic. I think that the most important task of Members of Parliament is to be able--rationally, not emotionally--to justify the positions that we take. I should also like to think that people in any constituency would respect that.
The issue of votes, therefore, does not come into it. If I returned to live in Newcastle upon Tyne, I would do so with the views that I now hold on fox hunting--although there are no hunts in Newcastle upon Tyne, Central, the constituency in which I stood in 1992.
Mr. Soames:
We all the more admire and respect the hon. Gentleman because he came to his views in the way that he did. However, does he accept that, in the intervention of the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell)--who represents a wholly urban seat; has never, ever been fox hunting; knows nothing about it at all; could not possibly know about it, but professes to hold strong views about it--he has encountered the problem that everyone faces in debating fox hunting? Does he accept that, although he and the hon. Gentleman are members of the same party--I differ with members of my own party--the issue deals with individual liberty, individual rights and protection of minorities? He is to be warmly congratulated for so firmly sticking to his guns.
Mr. Öpik:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. In defence of my hon. Friend, although we may differ in our views on fox hunting, the alternative for Colchester was unthinkable, and I am pleased that he is in the Chamber. I implore him, however, to think about the argument and to do what I had to do--to move by logic from a fairly uninformed position, based on an emotional reaction and some very emotive language from those who wish to ban hunting with dogs, to a reasoned position. I believe that I can justify my position on the issue to people on either side of the debate.
Mr. Blunt:
The hon. Gentleman has used the words "liberty" and "liberal" in the same sentence. The difficulty that he has to reconcile with his membership of the Liberal Democrat party, a majority of whose Members voted for the Bill of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster), is that the Bill is thoroughly illiberal and constrains liberty. He and his colleagues cannot lay claim to the word "liberal" in defence of liberty.
Mr. Öpik:
Tempting as the offer is, I do not intend to join the Conservative party in the foreseeable future--I do not suppose that I would be welcome anyway--even if there is a potential moral conflict between liberalism and the position of some of my colleagues. I believe that
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater):
I should like to reinforce what the hon. Gentleman is saying and give him some encouraging support. The best speech that I have heard in support of the case that he is making came from the former leader of his party, then Sir David Steel, now Lord Steel, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. He said that we all have the right to hold a different view from somebody else, even to despise their opinions, but that to seek to ban a lawful pursuit in which someone has chosen to engage is another matter, and no right-thinking liberal could possibly hold a different view.
Mr. Öpik:
The difference between a policy based on logic and one based on prejudice is that one based on logic can be approved in the House even if a large proportion of individual Members find the freedom in question distasteful. It is a mark of a democracy that, to quote a well-used phrase, we may abhor what individuals sometimes say or do, but we defend to the death their right to do it. This is one of those issues. It is of profound significance not just for the countryside, but because of the message that it sends to the general public about protecting minority rights and the extent to which we allow ourselves to be influenced by emotion when we should be guided by logic and fact.
The current debate on fox hunting was kicked off again last July when the Prime Minister made a slightly careless statement on television, saying that he would like a ban on hunting. That led to a huge reaction in the countryside and among many people here. I do not blame the Prime Minister for not being clear at the time. To his credit, he subsequently clarified his position by asking the Home Secretary to commission an independent hunting inquiry under Lord Burns. The Prime Minister made that mistake because this is a tremendously technical issue. It may come as a shock to those who think that it is a simple issue to discover that fox hunting does not always involve hounds. There is an involved and complex series of four or five methods, any one of which could be used to dispatch a fox.
I shall come back to the processes in a moment, but first I shall outline the moral issue. The Government, the League Against Cruel Sports, the Countryside Alliance, the middle way group and many others accept the case for controlling fox numbers. Put bluntly, all those organisations--and, to his credit, the hon. Member for Worcester--accept that it is justifiable to kill foxes at least under certain conditions. That is important, because it moves the debate on from where the public are often led to think it is to where it really is. The debate is not about whether we kill foxes, but about how we do so. Once that point is established, we move away from an emotionally charged principle to a practical question about the efficiency of the various techniques and, more importantly, their relative cruelty.
I see that the hon. Member for Brent, East has returned. I hope that he will now be able to stay. Perhaps he might even be willing to intervene to clarify some of my points.
We have agreed that it is acceptable, even under the Bill, to kill foxes. We are talking about processes. It follows that the Bill is not about saving foxes' lives. The public need to be clear about that. Even if the Bill were passed, fox numbers would be controlled. I am willing to bet that they would be controlled in greater numbers--more foxes would be killed--because there would be less reason for countenancing a certain amount of attrition by the fox on account of the sporting benefits of hunting.
Mr. Bob Russell:
Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House the approximate percentage of foxes that are currently killed by hunting? If killing by hunting is the preferred route, is he advocating more fox hunting, rather than less?
Mr. Öpik:
My hon. Friend has not specified which process he means. I do not have the percentage to hand.
Mr. Öpik:
Perhaps the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) has the figure. I shall give way to him.
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