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Mr. Gray: Game Conservancy recently carried out a study of different methods of fox control. In Norfolk, where they are all shot, there is now a zero population of foxes, whereas in Leicestershire and the west country, where there is a strong fox hunting tradition, there is a healthy number of foxes. That shows that, even if hunting is inefficient in killing foxes--16,000 foxes have been killed by organised hunts in the past 12 months--it preserves the species better than lamping and shooting, as happens in Norfolk and other pheasant-shooting areas.
Mr. Öpik: I thank the hon. Gentleman for providing those figures. I hope that they are helpful to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell). There is a dynamic homeostatic equilibrium in the countryside. The fox population remains more or less constant. Farmers tolerate a certain amount of attrition and do not feel the need to eliminate the fox population. If we start messing around with that equilibrium by taking away what many feel are useful processes and their human rights, there is a good chance that fox numbers will be reduced.
Mr. David Taylor: Perhaps I could help the hon. Gentleman to answer the question from his hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell). Estimates are that there are around 400,000 fox deaths each year, of which around 20,000 are the result of fox hunts. The figure is about 5 per cent., which shows that hunting is a peculiarly ineffective method of controlling the population.
Mr. Öpik: I could direct the hon. Gentleman to any number of farmers in my constituency, for whom hunting is the chosen way of controlling fox numbers. Farmers do not hate foxes. They respect foxes, but they believe that the equilibrium should be maintained by
methods which the hon. Gentleman regards as inefficient, but which they regard as familiar and traditional systems.
Mr. Tredinnick: Those 5 per cent. are often the foxes that need to be killed because they are wounded. Those are the foxes that the hounds seek out.
Mr. Öpik: My local hunt, the David Davis pack, which keeps me awake at night because the dogs are within 200 yards of my house, is sometimes called out by farmers to track down killer foxes. Amazing as it may seem, that process seems to work. The hunt can track down specific foxes.
Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point by identifying the different types of hunting. At this time of year many lambs are born. On Exmoor, for example, and elsewhere in the west country, the packs provide a service to farmers. They will go out at any time of the day or night to get rid of a fox that has been taking lambs. There is no other way to do that. Farmers do not have time to sit up all night with a lamp and rifle, so they have to get the hounds out. That is an important part of the service that hunts provide for the local community.
Mr. Öpik: That is right. For the benefit of the House, I shall describe the various processes involved. There are four main ways to control foxes--shooting, digging out and shooting, trapping or snaring, and hunting with a pack. Those methods can be varied or combined.
Shooting is self-explanatory. One way or another, a fox is tracked down and shot. When dogs are used, the process is called flushing from cover. For example, dogs may be put into woods to flush out a fox, and then the hunters try to shoot it. Lamping is the process by which people go out at night with a lamp. The fox is then shot, perhaps by a trained marksman.
Digging out is an important part of the process. It involves digging out a fox that has been run to ground, often by terriers wearing locator beacons. A hole is dug, the fox pulled out and shot in the head.
Trapping and snaring need no explanation.
In hunting with dogs, the dogs are the primary means by which the fox is dispatched.
Hon. Members will be smart enough to work out how the various techniques that I have described can be combined. I do not think that the public understand that, even were this Bill to be passed, foxes would continue to be killed in those various ways.
No persuasive case has been made by any supporter of the Bill to explain why killing foxes with dogs is more cruel than other techniques. I do not believe that it is, although I would have difficulty providing an objective justification for that belief. To do so, I would have to use circumstantial evidence, as would people arguing the opposite case.
I would also turn to my own experience, and to evidence from respected sources such as veterinary surgeons who have examined foxes killed by hounds. However, I repeat that supporters of the Bill have provided no objective evidence that dispatching a fox with hounds is more cruel than the alternatives that they accept as reasonable.
One of the challenges for the hon. Member for Brent, East is to develop an objective argument to explain why killing foxes with dogs is more cruel than the alternatives. That was never achieved when the subject was last debated in connection with the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Worcester.
People use emotive language, and talk about the barbaric practice of tearing a fox apart. They assume that using dogs has to be cruel, and that that assumption need not be justified further. That is not acceptable, as it is based on prejudice.
In an intervention earlier, I asked the hon. Member for Brent, East whether he would amend the Bill if it could be shown that killing a fox with dogs was less cruel than shooting it. He said that he certainly would not.
Mr. Livingstone:
I said that because I do not believe that to be the case. If, at the end of my days, the people at Millbank tower offered me three choices of death--being torn apart by dogs, being hanged, or being shot--I would choose being shot.
Mr. Öpik:
That would depend on the size of the dogs, and I thought what the hon. Gentleman described had already taken place.
That is a useful point. It shows that the underlying assumption is that dispatching a fox with dogs must be cruel. The hon. Gentleman's mind is closed to the possibility that other people may think differently, in which he is not unique. That demonstrates my point. We must look at the facts. The hon. Gentleman's view in effect invalidates the Burns inquiry, whose specific remit is to look at the facts and provide some objective basis for a determination about the relative cruelty of killing a fox with dogs.
Mr. Leigh:
Does not that facetious point from the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) make our argument? He is a creature of the light. He moves in daylight, surrounded by television cameras, and so could be dispatched easily by a Millbank tower sniper with a high-powered rifle. Foxes are different: they go by night, and are impossible to kill cleanly. Even expert marksmen often only wound them. That would not happen to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Öpik:
It would also explain why the hon. Member for Brent, East is perpetually on the move. Given recent events, one has to have some sympathy for that strategy.
The crucial point is that to have a closed mind and automatically assume that killing foxes with dogs must be cruel is to give way to prejudice. If the hon. Gentleman and the supporters of his Bill are so certain of their facts, why do they fear an objective debate? Why are they unwilling to analyse the counter-arguments with an open mind? If they are right, an objective argument will confirm their view. They might even convince people like me, who have shown that we can listen and modify our views. I hope that he and others will take that point seriously.
I am optimistic. The hon. Member for Worcester listened to some important arguments from me about using dogs to flush foxes from cover, and he amended his Bill accordingly. Those changes have been carried over into this Bill. We succeeded in having some dialogue, and I hope that we can make similar progress again.
I turn now to the grounds on which the hon. Member for Brent, East has based his proposal. Let us assume that Lord Burns's inquiry finds that hunting with dogs is immeasurably worse than any other way of dispatching foxes. Let us assume that it is cruel and see where we end up.
To be consistent, fishing would also have to be banned. That has been lucidly explained already. There is plenty of evidence that fish feel pain. In the Standing Committee considering the previous Bill, I made that point and was told that fish were not mammals--at least not yet. At that point, I thought that I would be in Committee for hundreds of millions of years as fish evolved into mammals. In the event, it only seemed that long. Whether fish are mammals or not is irrelevant to whether they can feel pain. There many people here whom I regard as reptilian and I am sure that they feel pain at times. [Interruption.] I will not name names. We cannot distinguish whether it is acceptable to kill cold-blooded animals rather than warm-blooded ones. The inconsistency stands.
Mr. Gray:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in advancing what I believe to be extremely flawed arguments against fox hunting, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals advances exactly the same arguments with regard to shooting and fishing? The RSPCA would ban all three. If Labour Members who are pouring obloquy on his head for raising the issue of fishing believe in the RSPCA's arguments, they must also believe in banning fishing.
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