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Baroness Byford: I shall be very quick after that contribution by my noble friend; he said nearly everything I wish to say, so I shall not repeat it. I accept that the views expressed around the Chamber are very strongly held. I should declare an interest: I have never been to a hare coursing event, and I suspect that it is something to which I would not particularly wish to go. However, 18 Members of the Committee have spoken, so it is obviously something of direct interest to noble Lords.
 
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I want to make a couple of quick observations. The difficulty for some people is that they tend to think of illegal hare coursing as opposed to organised hare coursing events. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen, said that her experience was from 1979, and she rightly said that things had probably changed since then. I am sure that others in the Chamber agree that they have changed; to be perfectly honest, they probably jolly well needed to. However, as my noble friend said very clearly, we may be in the position of having to stick by our guns of saying that all species should be treated in the same way.

I would be very doubtful that some hare coursing would qualify for registration, but that is no reason to deny it the opportunity to be considered for it. Whether we are for or against hare coursing is not the issue. The nub of the issue is whether it should be taken out and dealt with in a different way. Many Members of the Committee would not wish to see hare coursing where it is, but it is in that position.

I say to colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches that it would be desperately easy to take the easy way out and say, "Let's make this an offering to the Commons". This House showed this afternoon that we are not a House to take things lightly—that we take very difficult steps, otherwise we would have said that there was no compromise to be reached. We could have a Bill to ban hunting totally—including hare coursing—and say that we could not make any difference, in which case we need not debate this issue at all.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: When I—and I believe that it is the case for other colleagues—voted earlier today for registration, it was for the hunting of animals to be registered, not for animals to be used for sport to be registered.

Baroness Byford: In fairness, I did not say that. I happened to have the pleasure of sitting next to the noble Baroness at supper; we obviously disagree, but my difficulty with the views expressed from the Liberal Democrat Benches on the issue—a free-vote issue—is that it is so easy to opt out, but I do not think that we have that option. It is up to each and every one of us to make a very difficult decision tonight. Some, like me, have never hare-coursed and would never want to, but why should coursing be different? That is the issue before us.

I shall not go over all the arguments that have been made so clearly and passionately by those who are total opponents on the issue. However, I think it would be irresponsible of the Committee to take the easy way out by saying that we should not consider the issue but sacrifice it to the Commons. I for one am not prepared to do that.

Lord Whitty: I have to say to the Committee that if the vote which I assume may be taken on this amendment follows the balance of the debate, then I despair of ever
 
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finding a spirit of compromise in this House. It seems to me that, having adopted a registration system, trying to force hare coursing through the same criteria as are applied to hunting is not only illogical, but a repulsive way of trying to justify an activity that—for reasons explained by my noble friend Lord Faulkner, and even more graphically by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff—is in an entirely different category.

Lord Eden of Winton: Why, then, is it within the Hunting Bill? Why did the Government not deal with it in a totally separate Bill?

Lord Whitty: The Bill has covered the issue from the beginning, and "from the beginning" means the Bill that Alun Michael brought to the House of Commons. That Bill, which most noble Lords have purported at least in principle to support, has always covered hare coursing. It has always covered a ban on hare coursing, full stop. Those who claim that they are following that principle are distorting the history of the Bill and trying, as I say, to force hare coursing into the same criteria as hunting—whereas public opinion, opinion by and large in the House of Commons and most opinion generally is that, at the very least, a severe restriction on hare coursing is necessary, and most people would go for a complete ban.

The Committee in another place went further than a ban on hare coursing and banned hunting, which indicates that its view on the protection of hares is at least as deeply entrenched as the view of some noble Lords in defence of hare coursing. If the wish is to get the House of Commons to compromise, it is unlikely that it will accept the deletion of the prohibition on hare coursing. I think that that reality has to be faced, but I am afraid that few of your Lordships have faced it tonight. It has been spelt out very clearly to the Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer.

Lord Mancroft: The noble Lord implied that he has some sort of knowledge of what the House of Commons would do. Is that correct, or is he presupposing? Or does the noble Baroness know something that he and we do not know?

Lord Whitty: I think that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is being na-ve. It is pretty obvious what the House of Commons thinks about hare coursing, and it is not just in the past year or two that it has reached that conclusion. In many respects, hare coursing has been the target of the House of Commons, even under previous governments. It is true that this is the first time that it has got as far as legislation, but the position of the House of Commons is absolutely clear. Perhaps there are grey areas on other issues, but on this issue, there is no grey area.

Personally, I find the whole concept of hare coursing pretty distressing. For reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, explained, we are not dealing with something that might in certain circumstances be justified on the basis of pest control. Absolutely no criteria based on that form of utility would provide a justification for hare coursing. I appreciate that, in the next group of amendments, noble Lords will try to
 
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extend the utility clause to cover conservation. However, that is a pretty narrow and unlikely ground to justify hare coursing.

The net effect of those two factors is that, by adopting this amendment, this House would be saying to the House of Commons, "We are extending way beyond the Alun Michael Bill by deleting the prohibition on hare coursing, and we justify it by another means, by extending the Alun Michael Bill into an area that has not hitherto been accepted by the House of Commons". That stretches beyond belief the view that the House of Lords is genuinely involved in trying to establish a dialogue to engage with the Bill and to look for compromise.

Baroness Byford: So is the noble Lord suggesting to the House that the sacrifice of hare coursing is part of the compromise deal of which we talked earlier?

Lord Whitty: There is no deal. There is certainly no deal with me. There is a potential to engage in discussion with the House of Commons. If this House genuinely wishes to engage with the House of Commons you will not get to square one if you delete hare coursing.

There are two other points that I should mention. Regarding illegal hare coursing, we know of some pretty horrific stories. Even those who support organised hare coursing object to most illegal hare coursing and poaching. The view of the police is that if we have a clearer definition indicating that all hare coursing events are banned, their position will be improved. This clause would ban all hare coursing, whether currently legal or illegal and formal or informal. The police would have an easier job, not a more difficult one, as has been suggested by some noble Lords.

My other point is that even if the amendments are passed, they are defective in terms of how the registration system would work, because they seek to proceed by providing for the registration of events, but the other registration provisions operate by registering persons who are allowed to undertake hunting. Therefore, further amendment would be necessary to make it fit the criteria that applies to hunting. I make that point because, even if one passed the amendments, we would not be in a position where they would be workable in the spirit of the rest of the Bill regarding the registration proposals that we adopted before dinner.

There are strong moral arguments against hare coursing. There is a strong tactical argument for this House not to agree to the deletion of the prohibition of hare coursing. There are strong enforcement arguments in favour of banning all hare coursing. If your Lordships nevertheless propose tonight, or at any point, to go down that road then noble Lords will have
 
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to consider carefully what they are doing, as the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, said. We are, perhaps, at a crucial point in the discussion of the Bill and the outcome of the vote tonight will be a clear indication to the country, as well as to the House of Commons, of where noble Lords actually stand.

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