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Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham) (Con): We have a first tonight, in that I agree with something that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) said on this issue. She was right to say that the 18-month delay is a cynical move to take us beyond the next general election and prevent demonstrations from happening during the campaign. Another bit of marvellous spin from the Government—the suggestion that the delay was to give the hunting fraternity the opportunity to express their view at the ballot box—absolutely defies belief.

I am remiss in not having declared my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.

Another thing that struck me about the 18 months is that one particular sport was left out of the equation. Why do foxhounds and beagles need that winding-up period, but not the sport of coursing? I know what the Minister has said about illegal coursing, but that is a fig leaf, because coursing has precisely the same contracts and arrangements as fox and stag hunting and beagling.

The right hon. Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston) was right to refer to human rights legislation. The Minister is shaking his head, but he should listen. One reason why the delay was perceived to be necessary was that, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights said, it would be unreasonable to wrap up hunting in three months, because there are contracts and so on.

Alun Michael: The Committee said no such thing, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman look at what it did say. I have twice made the point—the trouble is that people are not here for the whole of the debate—that there is serious criminal activity associated with hare coursing. Illegal coursing is conducted simply on the basis of trespass, and we need to give the police the tools to do the job. None of the welfare and business considerations apply in relation to hare coursing. I have made that very clear.

Mr. Atkinson: The Minister makes it clear that he knows absolutely nothing about legal coursing. He is utterly wrong. Of course there is a problem with illegal coursing, but legal coursing is our oldest field sport and is organised and run under the rules of the National Coursing Club. To lump legal with illegal coursers is utterly wrong. The Government's proposals will be in breach of human rights legislation, and I sincerely hope that lawyers for the Countryside Alliance are poring over what the Minister said today.

Mr. Bellingham : Is my hon. Friend aware that there are coursing kennels in my constituency that employ about three people—large kennels—and all the people working there have contracts? Incidentally, because the coursing that takes place from those kennels is supervised and follows the rules, it prevents illegal coursing.

Mr. Atkinson: That is absolutely right. The whole point of organised coursing is that it is run carefully under the rules, and the estates and farms involved are protected from poaching. That is why the Game
 
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Conservancy Trust consistently finds that estates and farms where coursing take place have a higher hare population than others.

Lembit Öpik : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the technical points that he is making seem to have been lost on those who are imposing this time limit? Similar problems occur in areas where hunting with dogs is the primary fox control method, because not only will new materials have to be used to control foxes but there will have to be fresh training and adaptation. Lord Burns himself said that fox hunting with dogs was the primary method of control in some areas.

Mr. Atkinson: I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman, and I think that I agree with him.

Illegal coursing has long been a problem. The current laws that apply to it are quite draconian, involving the confiscation of vehicles and so on. They are not always enforced, and they are difficult to police. That is not an excuse, though, for saying that the ancient sport of legal coursing will be wiped out in three months' time, and the contracts with trainers and with merchants for feed, and the capital put into the kennels to train the coursing dogs, will be totally disregarded. If anything will be against the human rights legislation, that will be it, and the Minister may well face a challenge on it.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con): Is not the point that people will give up working for hunts if they have this 18-month rundown, and they will then no longer have a claim for compensation against this ghastly and illiberal legislation?

Mr. Atkinson: Precisely. If they are working as kennel hands or in the coursing training yards, they will be out of work in three months without compensation.

The Minister spoke about the number of deer being killed by hounds. Once again, he perpetuates a myth that has long surrounded stag hunting, not recognising that the stag is shot at the end, and not killed by the hounds. I want to be sure, before he wipes out stag hunting, that he at least knows what goes on in the sport.

The other fig leaf produced tonight was drag hunting—as if that was a substitute for the hunting that goes on now. My constituency has seven packs of hounds—it is precisely the kind of upland area with a high livestock population that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) mentioned. The proportion of people following those hounds on horseback is probably a third. Another third follow on foot or in vehicles, and the rest—largely farmers and their children—on quad bikes, which have become very popular. Drag hunting holds no interest for two thirds of the people who currently follow hounds.

Hunting is an equestrian sport, so it has to be laid out in a particular way. I have taken part in that, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) would also understand this. The drag must not run over crops. It is a difficult and complex job, and by no means could all those who currently hunt and the 26,000 hounds be accommodated. Normally, only a handful of hounds go
 
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on a drag hunt. Many of them are drafted from foxhound packs, which of course understand the scent of foxes, and they could well end up going after a fox. Drag hunting cannot replace the work of 26,000 hounds.

Even if we give them 18 months, it will be impossible for most hunts to acclimatise their hounds to living in a new, almost semi-domestic situation. Hounds have a strict pecking order, with lead hounds, like a wild pack of dogs. Hounds put in twos or threes become extremely disorientated and often do a lot of damage to their kennels through frustration, and they become extremely unhappy. That is why so many vets think that the kindest thing to do will be to hunt the hounds for the final 18 months and then have them put down—a point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald has made.

This is a cynical Bill, the last knockings of the old Labour class prejudice. Nowadays, new Labour tries to cloak this as an animal welfare issue, but it is nothing of the sort: it is good, old-fashioned class prejudice.

7.39 pm

Mr. Michael Foster (Worcester) (Lab): I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) and my general committee will be delighted to hear that I am now a member of old Labour. [Interruption.] I hear shouts of "Tory gain", but they were the same shouts that I heard before the 2001 election. I will face my electorate with a very clear conscience after taking this issue forward.

The hon. Gentleman referred to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), who spoke about the European Court of Human Rights and whether the Bill could face a challenge. She made it clear that, if the Government have given notice of intent with respect to a Bill, there could be no recourse to human rights legislation because those rights would not have been breached. The hon. Gentleman will remember that a ban on hare coursing was in the original Bill of a couple of years ago. That sent out a clear signal to everyone that, regardless of what happened to fox hunting, stag hunting and hare hunting, the Government had a clear intent that the activity of hare coursing would be banned. Due notice would have been given, which perhaps explains the hon. Gentleman's misunderstanding.

I shall be brief because the House has spent enough time on this issue. Frankly, I believe that Members on both sides of the House would agree that Parliament has more pressing matters to deal with. Those people, however, who say that Parliament has those more pressing matters to contend with should not be the same people who argue for extra days to debate this issue. That is utterly wrong, and it is disingenuous of those people to make that argument.

I speak in favour of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) and others, but I do so with a degree of reluctance because I would have preferred the matter to have been dealt with, done and dusted back in 1998, when my original private Member's Bill was talked out on Report. It would have been great to see the issues dealt with then, making today's long discussions redundant. When hunting is finally banned, as it will be under today's plans, I do not
 
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believe for one moment that anyone would seriously want to bring it back. If we were starting afresh and had a problem with fox predation, we would never invent the sport of hunting with dogs.

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