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Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) rose—
Mr. Gray: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I should like to move off page one and on to page two.
Compensation should be available not just to saddle manufacturers but to farriers everywhere—the farriery trade would be decimated. Clothing manufacturers, livery yards and grooms should also be eligible. Many livery yards in areas such as the west country depend on hunting and will not survive its abolition. The wider horse industry is affected. Many second-grade horses—not race horses—are kept purely for hunting, and would not be maintained if there was no hunting. Feed merchants, vets and veterinary medicine suppliers will be affected by the Bill. As Burns acknowledges, as many as 14,000 people in England owe their livelihoods to hunting. A ban would be devastating, especially in large parts of the west country and elsewhere, where large communities are wholly dependent on hunting.
Irrespective of what one thinks about hunting, and regardless of whether one likes it, if the Bill becomes law—we hope that it will not—many people will face devastation, so it is only reasonable that the Government should compensate them.
Farmers are another group who should be compensated under new clause 1, as the ban will have a devastating effect on them. There is bound to be a huge increase in predation on farmers' livestock. I shall quote briefly from a letter from the National Farmers Union, which says:
- "The NFU believes that the moment should not pass without drawing attention to the serious threat which this legislation represents to the ability of farmers to protect their livestock and crops from pests, and the significant additional costs and difficulties it would bring to the struggling agricultural industry. Farmers regard this as a disastrous and ill-founded approach which will be damaging to them, to the interests of the countryside—and not least to the cause of animal welfare."
- "As at least 17m lambs are born every year in England and Wales, farmers can be forgiven for finding it hard to agree that the loss of some 340,000 of them to foxes at a cost to the industry of over £13.6m should be regarded as not significant."
- "predation by foxes on poultry is potentially catastrophic because foxes can indulge in surplus killing".
A ban would therefore have significant consequences for farming, which the Government will ignore unless they accept the logic of new clause 1. There is another problem for farmers. Hunts provide an essential service in the collection of fallen stock. Last year, it is estimated that 400,000 carcases were collected from farms in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. What will happen now? The Government first came up with a half-baked idea for a national carcase collection scheme, but that seems to have bitten the dust. They do not know what will happen to fallen stock in the coming year, and if hunts are banned there will serious consequences across the countryside, not only for the farmers but for those who pick up the problem—perhaps local authorities or even the Government themselves. Government must therefore consider what to do about fallen stock.
Mr. Gummer: Will my hon. Friend remind the House that the Government asked the hunts to help in the removal of fallen stock, as they were an important part of such a service? This is the only country in the European Union that, because of the Department's incompetence, has not yet found a satisfactory way of dealing with the relevant legislation.
Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. There are 350 hunt kennels evenly spread across England. They would have served as a natural collection point for carcases, had it not been for Labour's ideological hatred of hunts. They would have taken the remains to the renderers, and incinerators could have been improved to deal with those remains. Because the Labour party hates hunting so vehemently, it will not even make proper use of those kennels, which is disappointing.
Mr. Bellingham : My hon. Friend will be aware that not only the farmers who make use of the fallen stock service provided by hunts but a lot of individual pony and horse owners will be hit hard. The other day, I received a letter from a constituent whose pony died, after which the hunt came to remove the dead animal. What will happen to such people? Many ponies and horses will simply not be collected.
Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend is right. There is a great tradition in this country. What will happen to the carcases of horses and ponies? Who will pay for them to be carted off to a knacker's yard, which may be situated many miles away? The Minister has not told us; perhaps he will do so later.
There is a wider point, which we will return to, in respect of the second group of amendments: how long the Government intend to take to implement the ban. The Bill currently proposes three months, although we have tabled an amendment proposing an extension to 12 months to allow proper implementation. I hope that the Minister will see that allowing a reasonable period between Royal Assent and final implementation would help rural businesses to adjust and prepare for the most damaging effects of the ban. If the ban were to be introduced immediately, a substantial problem would
have to be overcome in the countryside. It would be sensible to have a reasonable period before implementation.
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): On the ban's commencement and the question of compensation, will my hon. Friend clarify whether the new clause, which I support, would cover the destruction of the 100,000 hunting dogs that will have to be put down in very short order if hunting is banned? I am worried that it may not cover that process, which will be very distressing and expensive for the hunts concerned.
8 pm
Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Yes, the new clause would indeed pay for the destruction of those hounds and dogs.
I think that Labour Members have not yet properly considered the fact that there are about 26,000 foxhounds alone. Those animals have no other purpose in life than hunting foxes and could not, in the pathetic expression that is often used, be "re-homed". There is no way in which a foxhound could be re-homed. These are pack animals; they live in kennels in many hundreds and are trained for a particular purpose. If hunting were banned, neither the hunts nor anybody else could continue to maintain them. Some 26,000 foxhounds alone would have to be killed, and other dogs and hounds would be affected. The number may well be as great as 100,000, and I shall speak about the Kennel Club's attitude to this matter in a moment.
Gregory Barker: We know that this Government are inherently mean when it comes to country people. Does my hon. Friend agree that financial compensation alone will not be enough to cover the distress of those who work with the hounds? The kennel men and other hunt servants who know all the hounds by name and have nurtured them and brought them up since they were puppies will have to stand by and watch them be slaughtered en masse. The blood of those hounds will be on the hands of this Government, who are dog haters.
Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend is right that Labour Members' names will engraved on the hearts of people who love their hounds—there is no question about that—but under the new clause we are seeking to work out a sensible compensation regime in respect of the financial losses that they will face. I fear that he was right to say that there can be no such thing as financial compensation for the terrible pain that they will feel.
Rob Marris: The new clause, to which the hon. Gentleman has just returned and which deals with compensation—an issue with which I have some sympathy as a general rule—is merely an example of grandstanding, as he has chosen not to table an amendment allowing for a money resolution. The Bill would therefore be nonsense if the new clause were to be passed, as he well knows. He is merely grandstanding.
Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman made useful, interesting and legalistic contributions throughout the Committee stage and I thank him for doing so. That was another such contribution. I hope that, when the new
clause is agreed, the Government will take steps to amend the money resolution satisfactorily so that it can become law.
Lembit Öpik: The hon. Gentleman may not be aware, but the middle way group has resubmitted the appropriate money resolution. More to the point, if Labour Members were really so concerned about compensation, why did so many of them vote in favour of eliminating the money resolution on recommittal?
Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point.
Finally, I should like to mention a precedent for the payment of suitable compensation. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) mentioned the very good precedent of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000. It is a very good precedent because Labour Members, and I suspect hon. Members in all parts of the House, concluded that they disliked fur farming for moral or ethical reasons. They believed that it was a bad thing, although it is rather odd that they did not stop people wearing or trading fur in the United Kingdom. None the less, they prevented farmers from farming it. As the House concluded that fur farming was a wicked thing to do, it felt it necessary to compensate fur farmers for having taken the decision.
There is a direct and exact parallel in respect of hunting. I do not believe that hunting is immoral. I believe that it is absolutely justifiable in a variety of different ways, but hon. Members indicated in their vote last week that they believe it to be wrong and wicked, for some reason known only to themselves. Surely there is a direct parallel, and it is only reasonable for them to seek to compensate the people who are involved in hunting for the loss of their livelihoods. In the light of that precedent, why should the Government not consider compensating, at the very least, the people who are directly employed by hunts, as well as, consequentially, people who are associated with them? Lord Burns accepted that point. He stated:
- "In the event of a ban on hunting, consideration would need to be given to possible action in respect of the fallen stock service provided by many hunts and to whether there would be a case for compensation if hounds had to be destroyed and hunts had no further use for the kennels."
My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield referred to the European convention on human rights. I believe that that could offer an angle and I hope that the Minister will properly address the point, and not merely by saying that it is has been dealt with. We would like to know exactly what correspondence he has had with the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, about whether the Bill is truly compatible with the convention and whether, without compensation, there may be a flaw in the provisions. We would like to hear from him precisely what legal advice he has so far received on that subject and why he is so confident about it.
Whatever hon. Members may think of hunting people and hunting, and whatever their views may be, we have gone past that argument. That was an argument for previous debates and it will no doubt be one for Third
Reading. What we are discussing now is whether those people who will, without question, lose their livelihoods deserve a degree of compassion from this House. I believe that they do. This is a Government decision over which they have no control at all. Compassion for beleaguered minorities, which often seems to be in short supply on the Labour Benches these days, seems to me to be what this House is all about.I appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the House to cast aside their ideological objections to hunting and not to think about them for a moment, as they are not what we are talking about. We are talking about the livelihoods and happiness of hundreds or thousands of people in the countryside.
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