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Claire Ward: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gray: The hon. Lady is now on her second intervention, and I will happily give way to her a second time, but I should warn her that two is not enough.

Claire Ward: I can probably help the hon. Gentleman with a clear answer on why we are trying to get this legislation through. The reason we have a large majority is that people voted for us, and many of those who voted Labour in 1997 and 2001 wanted fox hunting banned. We are doing what the people who voted for us want to be done, because the overwhelming majority of Labour supporters want fox hunting banned. That is the simple answer to his question.

Mr. Gray: That is the dictatorship of the majority. The purpose of this House and of Parliament is not necessarily to drive through the will of the majority—or what the hon. Lady believes to be the majority, as the figures do not concur: 59 per cent. of all people say that
 
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they do not want fox hunting banned. But even if 59 per cent. of people were in favour of banning fox hunting, is that necessarily a reason to do it? Is she saying that if one can prove that more than 50 per cent. of people want us to do X, Y or Z, it is terribly important that we should do it? Surely most of what we do in this place is defending the rights of minorities—looking after people who cannot speak for themselves, those who are eccentric, those who are different from Labour Members of Parliament, and those who are unusual or difficult. That, not doing what the majority want, is our primary task. [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Please may we have some order during this debate?

Mr. Gray rose—

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Gray: I give way to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Bercow: Speaking on behalf of the difficult, to whom my hon. Friend referred, may I put it to him that, in addition to the civil libertarian and countryside management arguments against a ban, it would also be regressive and discriminatory? Can he confirm that the effect of such a ban would be that, whereas wealthy people would simply go to Ireland or travel to parts of the continent to hunt, people of modest means would not be able to do so? It is a measure calculatedly directed against the poor who enjoy hunting.

Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend makes an interesting and important point in his customarily colourful way. He is right to say that all kinds of different people go hunting—

Dr. Desmond Turner (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gray: I shall finish my point first, if I may. Predominantly, it is ordinary people who go hunting and they will be unable to go to France or Ireland. One of the most bizarre things about the report into the re-homing of dogs that was recently produced by the all-party group on animal welfare was that it suggested that a possible solution to the 26,000 hounds that will be excess to our requirements is to export them to overseas hunts. Some of the rich people whom my hon. Friend describes would benefit from that, but very few of the ordinary people who go hunting.

Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Gray: If I may, I want to get on to the main part of my speech—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend has substantial support from Labour Members—

Miss Widdecombe: I am a minority of one.

Mr. Gray: As my right hon. Friend says, she is a minority of one, at least on our Benches, so I happily give way to her.
 
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Miss Widdecombe: My hon. Friend has continually asserted, as have others, that this is about suppressing minorities. I put it to him that being in a minority is not an absolute defence for anything. If we regard what that minority does as sufficiently cruel, it does not matter whether it is a majority or a minority—it is a fit subject for legislation.

Mr. Gray: I refer my right hon. Friend to Lord Burns, who said with great clarity that there is nothing cruel about fox hunting. She would be right were she talking about bear baiting or other demonstrably cruel activities, where there might be a reason for ignoring the interests of the minority and dealing with it.

Because of the disgraceful intervention earlier on, and because of my relative generosity in taking interventions during my speech, we are now extremely short of time to discuss the Second Reading of this very important Bill. I therefore give notice that I will seek to limit the number of interventions that I take, and that I may have to gallop through some of the important points that I want to make.

The Secretary of State made it plain that she believes that an outright ban on hunting is unworkable. We agree and we should make it clear that we would be content with a licensing regime along the lines of that, albeit greatly changed, that the Minister proposed before his Back Benchers wrecked it. The Minister, in a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister on 14 May last year, stated:

"A complete ban . . . would be perceived as pursuing prejudice rather than targeting cruelty."

On other occasions, he said that

"a measured view should be taken of this issue"

and that

      "The future of hunting with dogs should not be decided on personal taste, but on evidence; on the principles of whether or not it is more or less cruel than the alternative methods currently available."

Shooting is the main alternative method that is currently available. The Bill does not ban killing foxes, mink or deer. Most observers—including, I suspect, Labour observers—accept that at least the same number and probably more of those animals will be killed if hunting with dogs is banned. The debate is not therefore about whether they are killed or even how many are killed but about the means whereby they are killed.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the best assessment of the number of foxes who die or are killed is approximately 250,000 and that 15,000—around 6 per cent.—are killed by the hunt? It cannot therefore be called an effective method of controlling the fox population. More foxes die in road accidents.

Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman makes a relatively sensible point, albeit an inaccurate one from a statistical standpoint. The figures are approximately 140,000 foxes in total, with around 40,000 being killed by organised hunting and the use of dogs. However, he is right that a relatively small percentage is killed by hunts. I shall make a counter-point: of the 40,000-odd foxes that are killed in organised fox hunting every year, the vast bulk are elderly or ill. They are mainly aged dog foxes because
 
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foxhounds are slow-moving animals, foxes are fast moving and therefore only the ill, the aged and the weak are killed using hounds. By contrast, if one is shooting, one is lamping and shoots whichever fox appears in the headlights. Shooting is an unselective method of killing foxes; fox hunting using dogs is selective. I appreciate that it is a debatable point, but, in our view, shooting, snaring, gassing or poisoning are much crueller methods than a simple killing using dogs.

David Burnside (South Antrim) (UUP): Further to the point about the number of foxes that will be killed before or after a ban, does the hon. Gentleman have any idea of how many more thousands of foxes will die following the ban? Anybody who knows the farming community will appreciate that if foxes are not controlled by hunts and the rural community, there will be a massive killing of foxes by shooting, snaring and many illegal methods.

Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That happened when hunting was banned because of foot and mouth disease. Farmers had to kill an enormous number of foxes by shooting them. The National Farmers Union tells me that, last year, foxes killed 340,000 lambs. Surely a farmer will react to that by killing as many foxes as possible. We believe that the most humane and selective way of doing that is by using dogs.

Mr. Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): I have genuine concerns about the Government's favoured method of fox control, which is lamping. Given the tragedies that have happened this week and in the preceding months, would not it be a better idea for the Government to defer consideration of the measure until they had some idea of the number of people who would be killed and severely injured as a result of the Bill?

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