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Mr. Howarth: Hardly, as many of them are the same people who 365 days a year, day and night and in all weathers, look after the animals in their charge and tend the countryside to make it a place to be enjoyed by the remaining 95 per cent. of the population.
Many members of my family in Scotland are sheep farmers in the borders. My late uncle was master of the Jed Forest hunt. These are people who are the greatest
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animal lovers in the country. How dare my right hon. Friend suggest that my uncle's judgment was somehow inferior to hers? I think she needs to examine her conscience.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I have given him considerable latitude. I understand the frustration of Members on both sides of the House who were denied an opportunity to speak on Second Reading, but I must uphold order. We are now dealing with a motion and an amendment, rather than with the substance of the Bill.
Mr. Howarth: As ever, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am grateful for your guidance. I am merely trying to explain why I think it intolerable that the Government should behave in such an underhand fashion in seeking to extend the period of execution. In my view, that is not being done out of a desire to assist rural communities; it is being done out of a desire to minimise the disruption that might be caused during a period leading up to a general election next year. I think that the Government have failed to deal with the issue of cruelty, and I think it a shame that we have not had more opportunity to ask the hon. Member for West Ham whether he considers hunting with hounds more cruel than coarse fishing—which, on any scale of cruelty, I submit would appear to be more cruel.
The fact is that rural communities will be feeling tonight that they are under siege from a large majority, represented by Government Members, who have no feel for the countryside or their way of life. They have 18 months in which to prepare for a fundamental change. The hunt is part of the social glue that maintains the cohesion of communities in some of the most remote parts of England and Wales—communities for whom the hunt is the only social activity in dark winters. These people face the prospect of a central part of their way life being taken from them. It is grossly unfair that the majority should seek to inflict their views on the minority in this way.
We will all doubtless agree that the hallmark of a free society is tolerance towards those whose opinions one does not share. If this Bill goes through tonight, with or without this amendment, Britain will have surrendered its claim to be a bastion of the free society. The mob will have taken over and the Prime Minister will be party to the intolerable imposition of the tyranny of the majority on the minority.
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Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con): You will be delighted to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall confine my remarks entirely to the delay in implementation. I am not persuaded by the merits of an 18-month delay or the original two-year delay. I started off with a genuinely open mind. I listened very carefully to the Minister and initially I was impressed. The delay was about being kinder to the hounds, because it would provide more time to re-home them. It would also be fairer to organisations such as the RSPCA, which would have more time to re-home them.
Having listened very carefully to those arguments, I began to be persuaded. But when I asked the central question—which animal welfare organisations are in
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favour of such a delay?—the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) said, "None". If there truly were compelling reasons of animal welfare, which I was prepared to entertain, for a delay of 18 months, it is inconceivable that animal welfare organisations—I am not talking about animal rights organisations—would not support such a delay.
The second reason for my not being persuaded concerns the crucial question—I raised it earlier—of how to ensure that the period of delay is used to run down hunts and make an orderly transition, rather than as a period of grace. It was clear from the answer given that although the Minister was seized of the point, there would be no monitoring of the situation.
Alun Michael: I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising some serious points. I have discussed this issue with the animal welfare organisations. Understandably, bodies that have campaigned against hunting for many years cannot say that they are pleased with any delay, but they also pointed out that their main concern is that legislation be put in place. If MPs agree to such a delay, those organisations will accept it, move on and work with it, and emphasise the fact that legislation is coming.
On the second point, I have talked to organisations in areas in which there might be an impact on employment, for example. We are more than willing to meet people halfway and to help them—if they are willing to look at how they can re-order their activities for a period after a ban has come in. We are certainly willing to enter into that very positively.
Miss Widdecombe: I am sure that, where organisations are willing to make the change, the Government will be willing to help—at least, I sincerely hope so—but my question was rather different. It was: how do we ensure that the period is used to bring about change, and not simply as a prolongation of hunting? My hunch is that the first year of an 18-month delay will prove to be a period of grace. After all, if a hunt starts to run down—if kennel-hands find other jobs, horses are disposed of and hounds are not replaced—eventually, it will become a pretty ineffective hunt. I do not see hunts spinning that out over 18 months, so I am not entirely persuaded by that argument.
There is also the argument mounted by the hon. Member for West Ham and others, whereby a delay until July 2006 will take us beyond any possible date of an election, which will enable pro-hunting people to make their views known at the ballot box. However, we have had two elections at which the Labour party's position on this issue has been made extremely clear, so there have already been two opportunities to decide on that basis at the ballot box, if this issue was really considered the overriding one. I cannot see the sense in the Government's then saying, having got through two such elections and having implemented a manifesto promise to such an extent that even the Parliament Act is invoked, "Ah but—we'll have a referendum on the issue in the general election." That, too, is nonsense.
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I suspect that the real reason in all this is that the Prime Minister does not want the embarrassment of this issue being high on the agenda, with hunts being run down and kennels being closed, just before he is likely to call—as opposed to being obliged to call—a general election.
I am sorry that I am picking on the hon. Member for West Ham today, because he has been a great comrade in arms during this battle, but I have to point out that I was finally unpersuaded of the argument for a delay when he said that, as a result of this pseudo-deal—he stopped just short of calling it a deal—we can guarantee that the Prime Minister and other Ministers will not suddenly move that the Parliament Act be not invoked after all. In fact, that is what this is all about. It is another deal between the Prime Minister and his Back Benchers. I see no reason why I should troop into the Lobby in support of that, so I remain deeply unpersuaded.
Alun Michael: There are all sorts of characterisations that one can offer of political discussion within and outside parties. The point is that organisations such as the Countryside Alliance have almost encouraged their members to think that there will never be a ban on hunting, or that it is somehow okay to carry on with such activities, even if legislation is passed. The real challenge is for us—by "us" I mean the House and my party—to point out that we are being reasonable, but that they must come halfway. They must persuade their members to accept the fact that legislation is being passed in this House by a large majority, stop talking about how terrible it all is—some dreadful rhetoric has been used—and get their members to listen to the debates in this House. That is a reasonable approach, and I seek to re-persuade the right hon. Lady—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must point out to the Minister that we cannot have mini-speeches masquerading as interventions.
Miss Widdecombe: I am rather sorry that we will not be voting on the amendment standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), which proposed a year's delay. I could have accepted that as a reasonable period in which to do everything that the Minister is suggesting, such as demonstrating reasonableness and giving people time to adjust. A delay of 18 months is pretty cynical and politically driven, and I am not certain that I can vote in favour of it. That said, I shall listen carefully to any further arguments that are deployed.
The time has now come to bite the bullet. We have spent a very long time getting this ban, and it has been a long, hard fight. I had a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) when he said today that he felt that in these, his last years in Parliament, he has brought something to fruition. I well remember, back in the days when we were in government, what was then called the "McNamara Bill". It was instrumental in testing parliamentary opinion, and in working towards the eventual commitment given by Labour Front Benchers.
Given that we have decided to do this, my wish is that we do it quickly. I could be persuaded that three months is too short a period, but 18 months is far too long.
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7.29 pm
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