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Orders of the Day

Hunting Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

3.47 pm

The Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality (Alun Michael): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This Bill is identical to the Bill to which this House gave a Third Reading on 9 July 2003. There will be a separate debate on the motion for the suggested amendment to defer commencement, so I shall not refer further to that issue at this stage.

The House of Lords did not complete its proceedings on the Bill before the end of the previous Session, although it had the time to do so. The Government are now bringing the Bill back to enable this House, if it so chooses, to insist on the Bill and, if it is again rejected by the House of Lords, to pass it under the Parliament Act.

Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): In the programme motion debate, the right hon. Gentleman made an observation on two or three occasions that he may wish to amplify: he invited the other place to engage seriously on the Bill. That can be interpreted in at least two ways. Will he help us as to what exactly he meant? Did he mean only that we should accept the amendment in his name on the motion to be debated hereafter? Alternatively, was he inviting the House of Lords to table those considered amendments to the Bill that it deems to be right?

Alun Michael: I shall come to some of the things that the House of Lords might do in a moment. Throughout the proceedings on the last occasion, I consistently made the point that it was the job of the House of Lords, as a revising Chamber, to engage with the Bill that was sent to it by this place, to suggest amendments and to send it back. It is a matter of great regret that it failed to do that on the last occasion. It was wrong for it to do that, and it has provoked the likelihood, or the probability, of the use of the Parliament Act. It is no use trying to blame the majority in this House.

Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): Does the Minister accept that there is another possible interpretation? Could it not be that their Lordships were so unhappy about the inadequacies of the Bill with which they had to deal that they sought to improve it? Surely, even if the Minister has a different view, he will accept that the upper House was entitled to suggest changes that it believed would make the Bill fairer and more workable. It was not a matter of principle on which the upper House offended the lower House; it was a matter of judgment involving the quality of a Bill that it was trying to improve.

Alun Michael: The House of Lords was perfectly entitled to try to improve the Bill, but it did not do so. All that it did was delay it.

Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): Does the Minister not accept that in the 12 hours for which the
 
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House of Lords was allowed to debate the Bill, and in the 28 amendments that it was allowed to debate out of 171 that had been tabled, its purpose was to turn the Bill back into something very similar to that originally proposed by him? That is what it was trying to do. It was trying to make the Minister's Bill come true, not the one wrecked by his hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks).

Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. The House of Lords could have put back the provisions that this House had rejected. Indeed, numerous amendments were tabled that purported to return the clauses that were omitted when this House decided against the registration system and the tribunal system, but the Lords who tabled those amendments showed no sign of engaging with the real purpose of the registration provisions, let alone the clearly expressed concerns of a large majority in this House.

In the event, the House of Lords discussed the Bill for two full days in Committee. During that time, it crawled through eight of the 60-odd groups of amendments that had been tabled. In those debates, it voted to render the Bill completely toothless, made the main offence impossible to prove, introduced a bias in favour of permitting hunting to continue and completely removed all controls over hare-coursing events. It then proceeded not to use the time available, and to send those amendments, draconian as they were, back to this House.

Mr. David Cameron (Witney) (Con): If on this occasion the House of Lords turns the Bill back into a measure for regulated hunting, pretty much along the lines originally suggested by the Minister, will he support it?

Alun Michael: It is not for me to decide; it is in the hands of the House of Commons. I simply say this: let us see the House of Lords behave democratically, and respond to the Bill that we sent it. Then we will take what it says seriously, and it will be for us to debate any proposition that it sends back to us.

Mr. Cameron: The Minister is an individual. Presumably he has free will. He can make up his own mind. I am asking a question for him to answer, as a Minister and as a Member of Parliament, on a free vote. If the Bill came back as a measure for regulated hunting, would he support it?

Alun Michael: If the House of Lords sends back amendments that make sense and help to create good legislation, I will look at them—as an individual. Let it do that, and then we shall see what it has done.

I want to make three points about the operation of the Parliament Act. First, it is a matter for this House and Mr. Speaker to determine. Secondly, the key, indeed the only, purpose of the Act is to ensure that, in the event of a dispute between the two Houses, the will of this House—the elected Chamber—prevails. That is a simple proposition. We have procedures allowing for delay, for improvement and for reconciliation between the views of the two Chambers, but in the end, especially if there is obstruction, the constitutional principle is clear: the will of this elected Chamber must prevail. The
 
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Acts do not place a limit on when this House shall insist on its will, or on the measures involved. That is the point of judgment that we have been debating today. It is worth noting, however, that the royal commission on reform of the House of Lords did not propose any such changes either.

My third point is that no Bill that has been subject to the Parliament Act in the past has been given a Committee stage the second time round. That did not even happen with the home rule and Welsh disestablishment Bills in 1913. Many of the red herrings that have been cast around in earlier debates should be put aside. What Members should do now is address the contents of the Bill itself, which is precisely the same as the Bill that was before the House last year.

Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): Will the Minister give an undertaking that if the House of Lords does what he urges and addresses the contents of the Bill that this House will send it later today, we shall be given an opportunity to consider whatever changes the Lords will have made? Or is he taking unto himself the decision on whether that should happen, and saying that eventually the Government will effectively decide whether to Parliament-Act the Bill or not?

Alun Michael: If the Lords amends the Bill and sends it back to us, I will approach their amendments with an open mind and consider whether they are serious ones. On the last occasion, their lordships passed amendments that were not serious but dissimulative, and they failed to send the Bill back to this House. It is they who, on the basis of the record, have to prove that they are behaving reasonably.

Let me make one thing clear at the outset: this is a matter on which Members have a free vote, so it is entirely a House of Commons decision. I will be making the Government's position on the Bill clear, but on hunting the Government have always allowed Members a free vote. I shall briefly remind the House how we reached the current position on an issue that has taken up an enormous amount of parliamentary time over the years.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con): How can the right hon. Gentleman say, on the front of the Bill, that in his view

"the provisions of the Hunting Bill are compatible with the Convention"

on human rights, given that the Joint Committee on Human Rights found that they are not?

Alun Michael: The Joint Committee did not say that, as I have already made clear, and if the hon. Gentleman had been with us during an earlier debate he would have heard me deal with that point. He should read the Joint Committee's report rather than misrepresent it. I am sure that it was unintentional, but his comments were a misrepresentation.

As I said, an enormous amount of parliamentary time has been spent on this issue over the years. Labour's 2001 election manifesto stated:

"The House of Commons elected in 1997 made clear its wish to ban foxhunting. The House of Lords took a different view (and reform has been blocked). Such issues are rightly a matter for a
 

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free vote and we will give the new House of Commons an early opportunity to express its view. We will then enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on this issue. If the issue continues to be blocked we will look at how the issue can be resolved."

Of course, it is in an effort to resolve the issue that we are bringing the Bill back to the House today. It is important that we do so, as promised, during this Parliament.

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