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Mr. Gardiner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Leigh: No; I should like to develop this point a bit.
There is no other way--it is very hard to describe this, although it has been described very movingly in writings by Siegfried Sassoon and others--in which one can really understand the countryside, the way that it works, the animal kingdom and how the seasons evolve than by going hunting.
I accept that many Labour Members oppose the sport very passionately and think that those of us who hunt are engaged in a very cruel activity. However, I ask them to accept our point of view, and that bloodlust is not part of our motivation at all. We wish to be part of the British countryside, which we love from the depths of our souls, and feel that hunting is the best way of doing so.
Mr. Gardiner:
I have listened most carefully to the hon. Gentleman's comments. Does he accept that, although one may not participate for motives of bloodlust, none the less, even without that motivation, an activity may in itself perpetrate a cruelty?
Mr. Leigh:
The hon. Gentleman makes an arguable point. However, I shall try to explain why I believe that foxhunting is not a cruel sport and that the House should not be persuaded to override the rights of a minority.
Mr. Gray:
Like my hon. Friend, I take part in fox hunting. Unlike him, however--and despite the age and decrepitude of the horse that I sometimes have to ride--I have very often been present at the kill. I have rarely seen a more humane way of killing any animal.
Mr. Leigh:
My hon. Friend at least speaks from experience. He has made an important contribution to the debate.
I myself could not participate in drag-hunting, about which there has been much debate. Drag-hunting is a quite different sport. It is very fast and very much a sport for young people. The type of sport that we have in north Lincolnshire involves very little jumping. It moves very slowly, from copse to copse, and walks round the edges of ploughed fields. Drag-hunting is quite different from that. Those who argue that all of us who hunt could simply transfer to drag-hunting--regardless of whether farmers would let us drag-hunt over their land; most farmers see no benefit at all in drag-hunting--are making a spurious argument.
Those who talk about drag-hunting are not being entirely honest. It would be more honest if they said, "We don't want your sport. We are going to abolish it."
Sir Richard Body:
My hon. Friend may not know it, but I am chairman of one of the two organisations that represent drag-hunting in the United Kingdom. Today, we have decided to issue a challenge to any hon. Member who supports the Bill and persists in saying that drag-hunting is an alternative. The challenge is to find the places where we can hunt. The hunt of which I am chairman and have been master is desperately seeking more places to hunt. The fact is that one has to find 20 to 25 farmers with farms in a continual line of countryside who will accept 30 or 40 horses galloping across their land, inevitably causing damage to crops. It is simply not practical to call for any extension of drag-hunting.
Mr. Leigh:
My hon. Friend speaks from great experience, and we have made that point.
Mr. Maclean:
Before my hon. Friend moves on from that point, would he care to explain to the House how drag-hunting would be of use in the lake district and the mountains, where on most occasions when the hunt is called out, it is to deal with foxes that are killing farmers lambs? How would drag-hunting deal with that problem?
Mr. Leigh:
It would not. My right hon. Friend has made that powerful point.
Let us be clear about the facts. There is an annual attendance at hunts of 1,289,000 people--of whom 42 per cent. are riders and 58 per cent. are foot followers. The sport involves, therefore, not a small minority, but a quite large minority.
Mr. Gardiner:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Leigh:
No; I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
The Minister and other Labour Members have made the point that, although minorities have rights, there is a limit to those rights. However, we are talking about a very large group indeed--over 1 million people.
Mr. Leigh:
I want to make progress. Before we take away the rights of more than 1 million people, we have to listen to some of the points that my hon. Friends have made.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way, at least for the moment.
Mr. Leigh:
If the hon. Gentleman is tolerant and wishes to intervene later, I shall give way to him.
Surely Labour Members should admit that there is some merit in the point that the test of a tolerant society is not just whether we allow an activity to persist because we are apathetic about it--we can all do that--but whether we allow an activity to carry on even though we want nothing to do with it and dislike it intensely. So often, our society and our Parliament have been deeply intolerant of minority opinions and even faiths and deeply held beliefs. We have moved on from that. Surely we are now sufficiently broadminded to believe that if 1 million law-abiding people are carrying on an activity that they have undertaken and enjoyed since time immemorial, they have certain rights.
Mr. David Taylor:
Is not the hon. Gentleman basing his argument on a statistical fallacy? A parallel could be drawn with aggregate attendances at first-class football matches in England and Scotland on any given Saturday--a figure of nearly 1.5 million. If we add that together for the whole season by multiplying it by 40, we end up with a number of people supporting the game of football that exceeds the population of these beautiful islands.
Mr. Leigh:
The fact is that a large number of people enjoy hunting. During a year there are 1 million attendances at hunt events. Even if I was wrong and the figure was only three quarters of a million, half a million or a quarter of a million, it would make no difference to the argument that they have rights, too. They are not engaging in the activity because of bloodlust or because they are sadistic. They engage in it because they are country people who want to be part of a traditional country sport. I believe that they have certain rights that we, as a tolerant society, should respect. We should not allow the tyranny of the majority to overcome the rights of the minority. Regardless of whether that minority numbers half a million, a quarter of a million or a million, it is a large number of people. Their rights should be respected. Whatever other arguments Labour Members adduce, that is the one argument that they, particularly as Labour party members, cannot ignore.
Quite apart from the arguments about tolerance and respect for the rights of minorities, if we were going to abolish the activity, we would have to have a clear view that abolition would result in less cruelty to foxes. The overwhelming evidence is that shooting depends on terrain and is affected by the weather and is an inefficient and often cruel way of disposing of foxes. Trapping and snaring can
be equally cruel. The fox--or another creature who gets trapped--could remain in the trap for 24 hours and suffer a great deal.
All the other options are equally or more cruel. Those who argue for the abolition of hunting have not been able to adduce a single argument that suggests that many farmers will not continue to exterminate foxes. Shooting, trapping and snaring are cruel activities.
There have been many arguments about whether hunting is an efficient form of culling. Opponents of the Bill say that only 16,000 foxes a year are killed by hunting, but that it is a necessary form of pest control. That seems a powerful argument, but the more powerful argument concerns the environment, and states that fox hunting ensures that the species is protected.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) made one of the best points in the debate when he said that Norfolk, where foxes are shot, has no fox population left. Fox-hunting counties such as Lincolnshire and Leicestershire have healthy and balanced fox populations.
It is not a question merely of being in favour of the rights of minorities, or of whether there are better alternatives to hunting: we must accept that hunting maintains a healthy fox population.
Ms Glenda Jackson:
If fox hunting maintains environments in the countryside that benefit fox populations, why are the animals increasingly moving to urban areas? Foxes live and breed in my garden, for example, and the urban population of foxes is increasing. If hunting creates such a wonderful environment for foxes, why are they leaving it?
Mr. Leigh:
That point is so obtuse that I shall not argue it, despite my respect for the hon. Lady. Fox hunting does not increase the number of foxes and thus force them to go to Hampstead. It ensures that there is a balanced population of foxes in those areas where it is practised. People who live in the country treat foxes as vermin, and will shoot, gas, poison, trap and snare them rather than allow them to continue their depredations.
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