§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ 3.30 p.m.
§ Mr. William Price (Rugby)I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is a simple, straightforward Measure. It has been before the House on a number of occasions and will be well known to all hon. Members. As time is not in our favour, I shall be as brief as possible.
There can be no doubt that there is mass support in the country for an end to hare coursing. It is a practice in which a tiny fraction of 1 per cent. of the population take part. Its end will be welcomed by people in all political parties. I have received a number of letters in favour of the Bill from the bluest parts of the country, from people who have been Tory supporters all their lives and will go to their graves Tory supporters. The greatest myth of all about the campaign against live hare coursing is that it is a curious vendetta conducted by Labour M.P.s from highly industrialised areas, partly for political reasons. That is not so. I represent a constituency in which there are 50 rural villages, so it can hardly be argued against me that I come from the safe preserves of Liverpool, Walton. My postbag from Rugby and all over the country proves conclusively that the strongest opposition to hare coursing and all other blood sports comes from those who live in the rural areas. They have seen it for themselves. The great majority of people living in the highly industrialised areas never have and possibly never will. There is clearly widespread support for the Bill in the House as well.
§ Mr. PriceWe have only half an hour, and it is important that the other side should be able to get a word in. If I am interrupted no one else will be able 915 to say anything. I will see the hon. Gentleman outside afterwards—only for the purposes of having a drink with him.
The Order Paper today contains a Motion in my name, supported by 105 right hon. and hon. Members on both sides—and that is only a beginning—urging the Government to introduce legislation to ban live hare coursing. I believe there is a majority wish in the House for hare coursing to come to an end. It is significant that when the House last divided on such a Bill, the issue being whether to permit my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) leave to introduce his Ten-Minute Rule Bill, the voting was 181 to nil in favour. As we are good democrats here, I should have thought that might have been felt to be a fairly substantial majority in favour. Right hon. and hon. Members had their opportunity to go into the Lobby against the Bill, but not one was prepared to do so.
It will be argued against us that the House was divided by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), one of the sponsors of the Bill. That is true. We were roundly rebuked by Mr. Speaker, for reasons we still do not understand. It seems that if Erskine May says that it has never been done before, then we must not do it in the future. But I assure the House that we shall do it when such a Measure comes before the House next.
We want to be fair about the Bill. We want the hon. Members opposite who are opposed to us, and the one hon. Member on this side, who is not present, to be able to register their protest in a democratic way in the Lobby. They did not do so then, and I think I know why. I have a feeling that those involved in blood sports, particularly fox hunting, are embarrassed about hare coursing. They turn up here to support their friends out of a misplaced loyalty and in the belief that the passage of the Bill through Parliament could be the thin end of the wedge.
§ Mr. Kenneth LewisThe hon. Gentleman said so in opening.
§ Mr. PriceAs far as I am concerned, this is the thin end of the wedge. That is why the tactics hon. Members have engaged in today have not been adopted 916 out of principle or loyalty but for self-preservation.
§ Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw)They have filibustered all day.
§ Mr. PriceI want to raise one matter which has caused some concern to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) and the field sports societies. I wish to be fair and put the record straight. I shall seek to do so with rather more charity towards his people than they sometimes show towards their opponents. Some of the literature, comment and editorials they put out about those with whom they are in conflict stinks. Some of their abuse has to be read to be believed. A classic case was the occasion when my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) introduced a similar Bill and was then roundly abused in these magazines on the ground that it was all a very clever political left-wing plot to embarrass my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson), who was then Prime Minister and in whose constituency hare-coursing took place. I find that incredible. No doubt my right hon. Friend has had many plots to worry about but I doubt whether they include hare-coursing. Yet that is the sort of argument put by those to whom we are opposed.
Together with my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and officials of the League Against Cruel Sports, I went ten days ago to a hare-coursing meeting at Buckworth, near Huntingdon. Certain incidents took place. One free-lance journalist attributed to me remarks which I believe I did not make. Several newspapers carried his report to the effect that we were beaten up and punched. Six other reporters, together with the I.T.A. and the B.B.C. got my remarks right. I am sorry to detain the House on this but it is a matter of importance to the hon. Member for Gainsborough, who I know wishes me to clear it up.
I want to explain fairly and objectively what happened. I leave it to hon. Members to decide whether or not this is the sort of activity we ought to permit in this country. We went unannounced and in response to repeated challenges in this House and outside to see what was going on. We may be asked why we did not tell those concerned that we were going.
917 I believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is possible to rig a hare-coursing meeting. I may be wrong but so that there should be no doubt at all we decided that we would not tell anyone what we were doing.
There were about 150 people for a meeting of some importance with a top prize of about £200. It is often argued that hare-coursing is the sport of the working man—the dockers from Liverpool, the miners, the car workers from my constituency, the pottery workers from Stoke-on-Trent. We are told that they all flock to see the delights and joys of live hare-coursing. All I can say is that they missed out on this one. They were certainly not there. The people who were present are much more likely to be among those writing to the Daily Telegraph complaining about absenteeism and lack of productivity among working people.
They were taking part in a three-day meeting. They had come from all over Britain, including one quaintly named organisation, the Yorkshire Public School for Dogs, at Wakefield. Apparently, status is important.
§ Sir David Renton (Huntingdonshire)Was this a co-educational establishment?
§ Mr. PriceA greyhound is no doubt more likely to chase a bitch than a hare, but on this occasion the dogs had no opportunity to do so. They had come from all over Britain. I understand that they move from meeting to meeting, the same faces, the same jobs, the same bookies—a familiar and, I am afraid, a strange body of people. The point I am trying to make is that there are so few of them that they have to walk each other around from meeting to meeting all over Britain to get a reasonable crowd.
Long before the coursing began the beaters were out in strength driving the hares towards the field in which the course was to take place—a field very heavily ploughed. It is probable, and I do not think it is in dispute, that many of those hares had been chasing across that ploughed field for two to three hours before they were driven through the fence on to the coursing track. I leave hon. Members to make up their own minds 918 about the effect on their stamina. There is no escape.
At one stage nearly 40 beaters were surrounding that adjoining field systematically hunting the hares, ensuring an adequate supply upon which their masters could place their bets. There it was, the hare against 40 beaters, the hare against two highly-trained greyhounds, against a long line of vehicles which had the effect if not the intention of making a getaway as difficult as possible. And this is the equal contest which the hare is alleged to enjoy so much!
§ Mr. AshtonAnd barbed wire round the field.
§ Mr. PriceI want to talk about the effect that the barbed wire had on the dogs later. For the first half hour it appeared that no hares were caught at all. I thought we were doing well. But as the day wore on and the ground softened up and, presumably, the hares in the other field became more and more tired, a number of them went to their fate, often subjected to what is denied but what I saw, the notorious tug-of-war between competing dogs. I saw six hares killed in this way and I am told by the organisers that there were seven killed. In my view there were probably many others.
What happens is that the dogs do not give up just because a man sitting on a horse waves a flag to indicate that one or the other is the winner. Greyhounds do not have that much intelligence. They keep going and they disappear over the horizon. What I want to know from anyone who speaks for this sport are the figures for kills at hare coursing meetings which take place in the coursing field. Has any attempt ever been made to estimate the number killed away from the competition? In fairness let me say that I do not believe that anyone at that meeting—and when this is quoted in the field sports papers I hope they get it correct and in full—went to see hares killed. I doubt very much whether anyone enjoys seeing that. It would be a very strange person who did, and I do not believe that they were that strange. But it is the inevitable consequence. In a substantial number of cases many hares were torn to pieces. That day many hares met their fate.
919 I am not only concerned with the kill. It is often argued, "Why worry, so many get away?" That is really immaterial. In my view the whole procedure is barbaric not only to the hare, and this may surprise hon. Gentlemen, but to the dogs. I do not restrict my love of animals to the hare, I include the greyhound and the owners too. What I saw shocked me.
I saw greyhounds coming of that track in a far worse state than the hares. There was a lot of ice about and, again in fairness, the organisers put the meeting off for nearly 90 minutes in the hope that it might thaw. It was icy, frostly and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, there was an awful lot of barbed wire around the fences.
I saw dogs coming off exhausted, torn and with toenails hanging off. The winners will be coursing again later. We stayed there for two hours, quite unmolested and causing no trouble to anyone. Then suddenly, without warning, we were surrounded by a gang of 12 to 15 people. The language had to be heard to be believed. I hope the House will accept from me that I am no prude. I spent the first 24 years of my life in a mining village, but it was a long time since I heard anything like that.
We were threatened with a wide range of atrocities, having been recognised, and during that we said nothing. In due course an argument did break out. We were accused having thrown fireworks at the dogs, or, at least, of being associated with people who had. It is right to say that earlier in the morning and quite unknown to us two members of a hunt sabateur's association had been throwing missiles in the direction of the dogs and, not surprisingly, had got the hell out of it.
In the circumstances I concede quite openly that it is likely that tempers would have been aroused. I think that if I owned the dogs and people had been resorting to that sort of action my temper would have been roused. I do not approve of violence and if I had known of what had taken place earlier I should have left that meeting before any difficulty broke out at all. But in my view that does not justify the action of a minority of those involved in dispute.
920 Much of the trouble came from one man and a couple of associates, a man with a mighty big mouth and a frame to go with it. In language which would have done credit to the Camel Corps, he insisted on telling the assembly, in no uncertain language that he had backed five dogs in succession and had lost £125 and was going to smash somebody's face in.
§ Mr. AshtonMy hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Would he not also say that they threatened to castrate us, chop our legs off, and throw us in the pond as well?
§ Mr. PriceI really would not care to say what fell out between us. All I would say is that I am no shrinking violet and was not without a few words of my own. I am not suggesting that it was a one-way dialogue. It was not.
He then physically assaulted the Secretary of the League Against Cruel Sports on two occasions, and if some of his colleagues had not been there to restrain him—and I give them full credit for doing so—that young man would have been dealt very serious injury indeed.
The dog owners clearly thought he had under his coat fireworks and challenged him to produce them. What he had was a camera which, despite all the arguments in this House about photography being permitted, is regarded at a hare coursing as the ultimate enemy. We were later told to hand it over or we would be thrown out.
The secretary of the league rightly or wrongly believed it would have been damaged. He then made a remark which this House would regard as inappropriate. He said, "If I had fireworks I would not throw them at the dogs, I would throw them at you." That provoked the assault. In view of the abuse we had suffered, that was, perhaps, understandable.
During the fracas my hon. Friend and I were pushed and spat upon, and I was kicked, though not severely, and I am making no complaints about it other than to say I would rather deal with the matter in debate.
We said we were Members of Parliament, and that restored a degree of sanity to the proceedings and for an argument on rather more logical lines. What I am asking hon. Members to consider is 921 whether, in view of what happened to us, violence does not breed violence and that those who use brutality towards those defenceless animals are not unlikely to turn it on others when facing a difficult position.
It was my wish to give a proper account of what happened, and I believe I have done so. There was provocation, but not from us, and there was one inappropriate remark. In return we received thirty minutes of violent abuse and a good old thumping for one member of the group.
Everything I saw that day strengthened my resolve to pursue hare coursing in this House. It would be wrong to say that I was shocked, apart from the state of the dogs; I knew what was coming, and I am in no way disappointed.
Hare coursing belongs to the seventeenth century. It should have gone when we got rid of cock-fighting. I cannot see how one can be regarded as more or less evil than the other. It will be argued against us that what we saw was some quaint form of pest control. On the other hand, it will be suggested that we are making an almighty fuss about nothing—"Because, really, chaps, we never catch any anyway". I have always regarded that argument, whether about hare coursing, fox hunting or anything else of the same kind, as very strange—"We are controlling pests, protecting the countryside, so what is all the fuss about? We are never fortunate enough to catch any".
Those who support hare coursing know that their days are numbered. They are fighting an effective rearguard action in the House, and it is unlikely that I shall make progress today, but I give them this warning. I have no intention of giving up, and neither have many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides. Sooner or later, Parliament will take the action which the vast majority of people want, action which will rid us of just one more bestial act—and, if it be any consolation, one in which very few people find enjoyment.
I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading in the belief that hare coursing has no place in a humane and civilised society. There is a limit to what we in Parliament should permit. In my view, what I saw at Buckworth went far beyond that limit.
§ 3.57 p.m.
§ Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid (Walsall, South)The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) has given us exactly eight minutes to answer his moving speech. First, I pay tribute to his consistency, for, so long as I have been in the House, he has been involved in the various moves to have hare coursing stopped.
This has now become a highly emotive subject, far removed from the actual sport with which we are concerned. All decent people detest cruelty, and, what is more, decent people detest being labelled as cruel unless that charge can be brought home. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman got kicked on the shin, but I cannot regard that as absolute proof that hare coursing is carried on with cruelty.
§ Mr. William PriceThat was not all we saw. There were many other things, too.
§ Mr. Neville Sandelson (Hayes and Harlington)What do the hares say about it?
§ Sir H. d'Avigdor-GoldsmidLet me continue. I have little time, and I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman.
As the hon. Member for Rugby was the first to say, only very few people take part in this pursuit. I do not for a moment say that cruelty is any less reprehensible if few people practise it, but, equally, I say that it is ridiculous to label this as a class pursuit of one sort or another. The figures collected from the coursing clubs are most interesting in what they show of the professions of those who attend three of the clubs. Out of 300 members, about 100 would normally be regarded as agriculturists and probably not, therefore, likely to indulge in cruel sports.
The total membership of the 23 clubs is only 1,600. The maximum crowd at any meeting is about 800 to 900—that is, for the Waterloo Cup. The figures showing the occupations of people attending meetings of the three clubs which I mentioned are quite dramatic. Out of 300 members, as I say, 100 come under the heading of farmers, land owners, and greyhound owners or trainers. Of the remainder, there are half-a-dozen pit workers, three bricklayers—[Interruption.]
These are the figures of the members of clubs—
§ Sir H. d'Avigdor-GoldsmidThese figures relate to three years ago, when they were busy. Then there are three brewery workers—
§ Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid—two dentists, one inspector of taxes, four printers, a tripe dresser and so on. I will not go through the whole list. But, clearly, this is by no means a pursuit which is confined to one class. It is widespread over the community. The hon. Gentleman may feel that such people are behaving in a dishonourable manner, or in a manner of which he disapproves. I make no comment about that. I point out merely that it is no good the hon. Gentleman saying that this is entirely due to wickedness in one class.
Let us now consider the dogs. First, there is no pursuit in the country of which I know which is as closely policed by the ruling authorities as the sport of greyhound coursing. This may be one of the results of the campaign of the hon. Gentleman and his friends—
§ Mr. Sandelsonrose—
§ Sir H. d'Avigdor-GoldsmidNo. I cannot give way. I have only five minutes. It is not my fault that I have so little time.
§ Mr. SandelsonHas the hon. Gentleman seen anyone policing the hares?
§ Sir H. d'Avigdor-GoldsmidAs for the number of hares killed, my information is that the number killed in one coursing season was 599. I agree that they should not be killed cruelly—
§ Sir H. d'Avigdor-GoldsmidAny hon. Members who are familiar with hare shoots will know that the numbers killed are greatly exceeded when hares are shot.
In support of what I say, I wish to quote part of the Report of the Scott Henderson Commission, which, after all, was a Royal Commission set up to 924 inquire into these matters. Among the Commission's findings, one reads:
Our conclusion about coursing is that it involves no more suffering than the shooting of hares as ordinarily practised. Indeed there can be no comparison between the lingering death of a hare that is shot at and wounded and the quick death of a hare that is coursed and caught. Having regard to the meaning which we have given to the word 'cruelty' in reference to wild animals,… we should not regard the degree of suffering which is involved in coursing as constituting cruelty in so far as it is used as a method of control.I understand that 600 hares are killed in this way.The hon. Gentleman's point about greyhounds is unworthy of him. No one makes a greyhound chase a hare. He chases it naturally. He chases a hare by sight and, in so doing, he inflicts the damage which the hon. Gentleman has described. But this has nothing to do with any human being taking part.
The hon. Gentleman said that not many of the hares that he saw escaped. The testimony that I have is that the highest figure of hares killed is 30 per cent. and that the lowest can be as little as 5 per cent. Clearly the killing of a hare is very incidental to the testing of the greyhound, which is what the sport is about. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to admit that.
The hon. Gentleman went out of his way to maximise the opposition to him with his outspoken remarks about opposing all forms of blood sport. Furthermore, he has admitted to me on another occasion that lie is a vegetarian. I do not think that he wants to bring vegetarianism into this matter—
§ Mr. Ashtonrose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put; but Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr. E. L. MALLALIEU) withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.
§ Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. While not seeking in any way to challenge your Ruling on that Motion, is not there some way in which we can have a vote on this matter, since the voice of the House continually has been in favour of the Bill? On occasion after occasion, hon. Gentlemen opposite have deliberately prevented legislation of 925 this sort going to Committee and being put through this House.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)Order. That is hardly a matter for me. I have given my Ruling and it stands.
§ Mr. AshtonOn a point of order.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. We cannot discuss my Ruling.
§ Mr. AshtonI should like to draw to your attention—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Debate to be resumed what day?
§ Mr. AshtonOn a point of order.
§ Mr. William PriceOn a point of order.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerDebate to be resumed what day?
§ It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.
§ Mr. AshtonOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to draw to your attention that we had a very important statement to begin the day regarding the recognition of Bangladesh. That took a certain proportion of hon. Members' time. Following that, hon. Gentlemen opposite, not having been sitting through the debate, were coming in and speaking for five or 10 minutes one after the other to prolong the proceedings on the earlier business.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish to transgress the rules of order. The matters about which he is talking are not for me at all.
§ Mr. William PriceOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.