Commons Sitting of 24 October 1975

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Ordered,
That the draft Noise Insulation Regulations 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Pavitt.]
Ordered,
That the matter of Northern Region affairs be referred to the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs.—[Mr. Pavitt.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  HARE COURSING BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  HARE COURSING BILL
    New Clause 3

      DURATION OF ACT
      'This Act shall continue in force until 31st July 1980 and shall then expire unless Parliament by affirmative resolutions of both Houses otherwise determines; and upon the expiration of this Act the law existing immediately prior to the coming into force of this Act shall again operate as though this Act had not been passed.'.—[Sir David Renton.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      11.6 a.m.
      Sir David Renton: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      May I take it that it would be convenient to the House, and that it has your approval, Mr. Speaker, for us to discuss at the same time new Clause 7—Application of section 1—and the following amendments:
      No. 1, in Clause 1, page 1, line 5, at beginning insert—
      'Subject to the provisions of section (Application of section 1) of this Act'.
      892
      No. 11, in Clause 2, page 1, line 14, leave out from 'on' to end of line 15 and insert:
      'such day, not being earlier than six months from the date of the passing of this Act, as the Secretary of State may by order appoint, and different days may be appointed under this section for the coming into force of this Act in different areas.
      (4) The power of the Secretary of State to make orders under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and any statutory instrument containing such an order shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament'.
      No. 12, in page 1, line 14, leave out 'one month' and insert 'twelve months'.
      The three amendments stand together.
      Mr. Speaker: Yes.
      Sir David Renton: I am much obliged, Mr. Speaker.
      The effect of new Clause 3 is plain from its terms. I should explain that new Clause 3, new Clause 7 and the three amendments are all based upon the assumption, whether a valid one or not, that the Bill will one day receive the Royal Assent. Of course, whether it does so depends upon economic and political circumstances which it would be out of order for me to invite the House to discuss. At any rate, for the purposes of these new clauses and amendments, that is the position.
      The effect of new Clause 3 would be to give the Act a clear run for five hare coursing seasons. Then, all that would be needed for it to continue in force indefinitely, if the House and another place considered that it should be continued indefinitely, would be the passing of an Affirmative Resolution in both Houses. I shall have more to say about new Clause 3 later.
      The effect of new Clause 7 would be to allow local option to operate on a district basis in much the same way as there is local option in Wales for the Sunday opening of pubs. It is not dissimilar from the way in which for many years we have had local option concerning Sunday cinemas.
      I find the suggestion of local option most attractive. I hope that the supporters and opponents of the Bill will also find it so, because it involves the exercise of local democracy, community politics and public participation which is just what we want. Let the people

      893
      decide for themselves in this controversial matter which is said to be socially divisive, not as between the upper and lower strata of society, but socially divisive in a vertical manner. Therefore, I believe that there is a great deal to commend new Clause 7. I shall say no more about the matter, but I understand that some of my hon. Friends will deploy the case for it more fully.
      I turn to the effects of Amendments Nos. 1, 11 and 12 which, as I have said, stand together. The first amendment is merely a paving one. These three amendments would postpone the coming into force of the Bill until six months after Royal Assent and then would enable the Home Secretary to appoint different days for the Bill to come into force in different areas. That introduces a measure of flexibility which I hope will commend itself to the House. However, again I shall leave my hon. Friends to deploy the case for that.
      I should like to revert to new Clause 3. In my view the supporters of the Bill are on the horns of a dilemma which I shall describe. Therefore, I hope that they will welcome the new clause. The dilemma seems to have been created for them by the introduction of the Bill against all really knowledgeable advice.
      On the one hand, the Bill is very controversial, unwanted by many thousands of country people of all classes, and makes into a crime a traditional sport which has been enjoyed since the advent of history. On the other hand, the Bill will not achieve its purpose of preventing cruelty, or alleged cruelty, and it will fail in its purpose, not because it will be unenforceable against small-scale coursing but because many hares which might have had a quick and certain death by being coursed will have a slow and lingering death in snares or after getting away from being shot at and wounded.
      That is the dilemma, and we want to lift the supporters of the Bill off the horns of it. New Clause 3 would do just that. Surely it would be wise to give this controversial Bill a trial run of five seasons to see whether the experiment of banning coursing and turning it into a crime was in every way justified and acceptable to the people. If it were justified and were found to be fully and reasonably enforceable, it could be extended indefinitely
      894
      merely by a resolution of both Houses, introduced perhaps by the Government. It might not be the same Government as we have today, and it would not be right for me to start speculating about that matter, but this is a fair approach. Five seasons is not a short time for a controversial experiment such as this.
      If the Bill were found to be justified and if it were wanted, all that would be needed would be an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses. However, if public opinion, especially among country people, were that no good had come of the Bill, or if the police found that enforceability presented problems, the legislation could simply be allowed to become a sleeping dog—if that it not an inappropriate expression. If it became a sleeping dog, one would hope that it would be a permanently sleeping dog.
      Death has been described as
      "a dreamless sleep without an end."
      From it there is no awakening, and that is perhaps the best thing that could happen to the Bill.
      Mr. Kevin McNamara: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that if the Government were to accept his proposal for a trial period of five years those who oppose the Bill would give it a Third Reading and we could all go home?
      Sir David Renton: It is not for me, a mere back bencher, to start making bargains of that sort with the Government. I am speaking for myself. I cannot speak for members of the Opposition Front Bench. I cannot speak for all my hon. Friends, although I know that many of them agree with me and, I hope, will vote with me on this proposal. It would be presumptuous, I think unseemly, for me to start entering into bargains with the Government.
      Mr. Stephen Hastings: Unreasonable.
      Sir David Renton: Yes, unreasonable. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) will not tempt me further along that course.
      I am not a coursing man, as I have previously told the House, but I have witnessed coursing events to see what coursing was like.
      Mr. Leslie Spriggs: Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman leaves the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), may I remind him that he has claimed to be speaking on behalf of many thousands of country people who are in favour of a form of hare coursing? I assure him that there are many thousands of country people who take the opposite view and are altogether against cruelty to animals.
      11.15 a.m.
      Sir David Renton: We should be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for trying to enable me, and I am sure other hon. Members, to see this controversy in its proper perspective. This is a matter of our own evidence and experience. All that I can say is that in my constituency, where, I suppose, there is as much coursing as there is anywhere else in England, the vast majority of country people seem to want me to oppose the Bill. I am opposing it partly for that reason and partly because I do not consider that it is necessary or right to have a self-defeating Bill which turns a traditional sport into a crime.
      The hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) has suggested that I claim to be representing thousands of country people. I claim to represent only what I believe to be the feelings of most of my country-living constituents and, for what they are worth, my own views. I did not say, and I have not claimed, that I represent thousands of country people in other constituencies who are opposed to the Bill, indifferent towards it or in favour of it.
      Mr. Hastings: The intervention of the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) sought to show that many country people were against cruelty. Nobody here is in favour of cruelty, but is it not part of the case against the Bill that its passing would increase cruelty?
      Sir David Renton: Yes. My hon. Friend's intervention brings me back to what I was about to say. I do not doubt the sincerity of hon. Members who wish to turn coursing into a crime, although some of them have never seen it. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has made a close study of it and has seen a number of courses, perhaps even more than I have. I have seen coursing only three times, but I have seen
      896
      rabbits and hares which have been snared. I have found them in snares, in which they have been suffering for many hours, perhaps days, and have despatched them. I have seen hares shot and I have hunted with harriers, and I must confess that coursing provides a quicker and more certain death or, as an alternative, a free escape.
      Therefore, in this vale of tears in which we and all our fellow creatures live, I do not believe that from the point of view of cruelty the case for the Bill has been established. That is why I think that after a five-season trial of the experiment it would be right for Parliament to take stock of the situation if the Bill were to receive the Royal Assent. I trust that none of the supporters of the Bill will be totally self-confident that they are right about this matter, but the vote on the new clause will give them a chance to prove their modesty and to prove that there is room for two honest views about this matter, however mistaken either of them may be. In a matter so uncertain and controversial as this, it would be much better for Parliament to take stock of the matter after five years, as was done with the Capital Punishment Act 1967. A five-year look was taken at it and then there was an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
      The case is perfectly plain and there is no need for me to elaborate upon it further.
      Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I have not intervened in debates on the subject of hare coursing hitherto. It is not a matter that I know much about and I have only once witnessed a coursing meeting. I was moved to postpone other engagements for today—indeed, also for tonight and tomorrow—because I was concerned that we should find ourselves dealing with this subject at this particular time, when there are so many more important things to deal with.
      Mr. Arnold Shaw: Does the hon. Member consider this Bill to be as important as, for example, the Community Land Bill? If so, would that be the reason for his presence here today and the fact that he was not present for the discussion we had the other night on the Community Land Bill?
      Mr. Ridley: I was here during the discussion on the Community Land Bill,

      897
      and I think the hon. Gentleman will find that I registered votes throughout that day, based upon a firm conviction that that was also a waste of time of the House. The Bills which we should be discussing are not being discussed, and the actions which should be taken are not being taken by the Government. That is what is so frustrating for people such as myself who are deeply worried by the economic crisis and find ourselves day after day presented with irrelevancies. Today is no exception.
      There comes to mind the miraculous escape yesterday of my right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser). That was a matter in which cruelty was involved. It is to me obnoxious that we should be discussing hare coursing when there are really serious crimes being perpetrated against human beings around the world.
      One of the worst vices of the British character is that the British are much more concerned about animals than about people. This is the only country which has an RSPCA, and probably does not need one, whereas the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children does not bear the affix Royal. It would seem that we get our priorities wrong, and this day is no exception.
      I do not think that hare coursing is more cruel than some other things, or cruel at all. It is not in any degree different from many other ways in which animals are killed, both by men and by other animals. What I dislike is the singling out of this particular prejudice in the minds of the supporters of the Bill, and their attempt to impose their will on the rest of the citizenry. This is why I am attracted to new Clause 7, which at least seeks to allow local option.
      One of the blind spots of the Labour Party is that it is so convinced in its prejudices that it believes it to be right to impose them upon others without consulting them or asking them. The whole history of this Government has been to single out something which in their opinion is wrong and to force their opinion, or ram it, down the throats of the rest of us.
      I recognise that there are strong opinions both ways on this matter of hare coursing. I agree with the country view that the traditional sports are sports
      898
      which are no business of those who do not engage in them, and are sports which should be allowed to continue. I cannot believe that the country people would be right if they were to impose on people who live in towns some sort of control over pets and the keeping of pets. There is very much cruelty involved in keeping pets. In 99 per cent. of cases they are properly kept but there are those who do not feed or look after pets properly. There are those who put birds in cages which are too small. There are many ways in which cats, dogs, birds, mice, tortoises, horses, and other animals can be treated cruelly. It would be possible to draw up regulations and legislation making it wrong to do so. I am not in favour of so doing.
      My prejudices in this matter may not be shared widely, and what I think is cruel may not be thought to be cruel by other people. It is this lack of humility in imposing one's own selective judgment on others that is offensive in this Bill.
      Mr. Martin Flannery: If I gather correctly what the hon. Gentleman is saying, it is that those who are particularly interested in something should have the right to decide about it. Would he be in favour of bringing back bear baiting, bareknuckle fighting, cock fighting, and so on? These seem to me to be similar, and that is the direction in which his argument appears to be going? Would he clear up this point?
      Mr. Ridley: The hon. Member has given me my point, when he says that "these seem to me" things which should be stopped.
      Throughout the whole of South America cock fighting is still practised, and people there do not think that it is cruel. I have no doubt that there are countries in which bear baiting is still practised. There are countries in which all sorts of things are still done. I am not an expert. It is not right to assume that this particular prejudice is shared by the whole House.
      Mr. Spriggs: It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman quite honestly and sincerely believes that there is no cruelty whatever in hare coursing and that it is the best way of bringing a hare's life to an end. Would he try to appreciate the

      899
      suffering of an animal whose one important indication of pain and cruelty is its screaming when one, two or more dogs grab it and start to tear it to pieces while it is alive? Is not that a sign of pain and suffering?
      Mr. Ridley: I do not think the hon. Gentleman can be a very great naturalist. I remember as a young boy wandering about in the countryside and once witnessing a rabbit being attacked by a stoat. The stoat ran round the rabbit several times and the rabbit was petrified and paralysed. It sat shivering with fear. After a while it started to scream. The stoat continued to dance round it, delighting in the screams, until finally it delivered the mercy killing bite in the back of the rabbit's neck, putting the rabbit out of its pain. This is an example of one animal being cruel to another.
      It is nature's way that animals are cruel to each other. Every animal lives on another animal, except for those which are vegetarians. All animals which are insectivores or carnivorous are involved in some degree of cruelty to other animals. It is no exception when dogs are chasing hares. It is the natural function of the dog to chase the hare. Who am I to intervene in what nature has provided in this matter?
      In my opinion, hare coursing is less cruel—if cruel it is—than many other sports, because man himself is not involved. It is animal being cruel to animal. It is not possible, in my view, to weigh up whether it is more cruel to shoot a hare or to snare or course it or just to let a fox take a hare in the wild. It is impossible, in my opinion, to make any value judgment about it at all. If I were forced to make a value judgment it would be that where man is involved in doing a cruel act it is more likely that man himself will discipline himself than where it is one animal being cruel to another.
      11.30 a.m.
      Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I apologise for intervening but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that this is the only point that I shall be making today because hon. Members opposite will be doing enough speaking anyway. The difference between the stoat taking and killing a rabbit or a dog chasing and
      900
      killing a hare or fox in the normal way and hare coursing is that in the latter human beings intervene and it is done for their enjoyment. There is a moral point here which I see the hon. Member does not understand. It is precisely on that point that there is a difference between hare coursing and the normal course of events of animal against animal.
      Mr. Marcus Kimball: What about fishing?
      Mr. Ridley: The hon. Member's intervention illustrates the difficulty that we now have with this new suggestion prefixed by the word "moral", which I always treat with the greatest respect. The moment that someone accuses another of morality or immorality I suspect that we are getting near a piece of shaky ground, and this is no exception. If it is immoral for man to get pleasure from something involving the death and suffering of animals, one has to start along the whole road of fishing and shooting and all the other activities in which man husbands-animals with a view to sport, pleasure or even food.
      Let me rehearse with the hon. Member, whose researches into this subject I am sure are very great, what happens on our farms and in our slaughterhouses. There, in order that the hon. Member may have his steak, there are the unpleasant processes of castration of young animals when they are born and the disgusting sights which take place in slaughterhouses. All of these are for the enjoyment of the hon. Member when he eats his roast beef. As he sticks his fork into his roast beef and licks his chops as he sets about the Yorkshire pudding, is he taking enjoyment in the cruel and unpleasant processes which have gone into producing that roast beef? Where are his morals? If he accuses the coursers of immorality, he should quickly turn vegetarian, because the chain is there throughout nature, that one animal eats another.
      The hon. Member is no exception in this unless he is a vegetarian. I remember that he once missed a vital debate on Report stage and came in just as the winding up speeches were concluding because, he said, he had had to have his supper. He was sorry that he had not been here. The debate—it will come to

      901
      me in a moment—was on worker participation.
      Mr. Heffer indicated dissent.
      Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friends had to carry the day on that occasion in explaining the rights and wrongs—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the hon. Member come back to the new clause?
      Mr. Ridley: Of course, Mr. Speaker. I merely say that the hon. Member may not be so moral if he remains a carnivore.
      I will get back to the new clause, particularly new Clause 7. We do not have the right to impose our own fine judgment as to which way of killing hares or other animals is right and which is wrong. The least that we can do, seeing that we are now on Report and not on Second Reading, is give people the option in this matter on a local basis. I have no doubt that the country districts would vote, if given the opportunity, to continue this traditional sport. I am certain that the two district councils which I have the honour to represent, if a proper balance were arranged, would both produce a positive vote to continue coursing.
      I cannot see why those who live in London or Liverpool or the other big cities should be allowed to impose on my constituents the decision whether they may continue with what they think to be right.
      Sir David Renton: To avoid misunderstanding, it would help if my hon. Friend could make it plain that it is the local government electors for the area and not the councillors themselves who would exercise this local option.
      Mr. Ridley: That is very helpful. I should not be quite so certain if it were the councillors. But if it were the electors themselves, we could with confidence predict that the country districts would wish to retain coursing. That seems at the heart of this debate. Is it right that those who may not have full knowledge of these sports, those who do not have to live in country districts with the problems perhaps of too many hares—I know that the constituency of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) is over-run with hares, which can do great damage—should deprive country people
      902
      of the right to decide this matter for themselves?
      To put the case the other way, suppose that this were predominantly a rural country with a 75–25 per cent. rural industrial split, as many countries are, would it be right for the country people to decide to ban football because of the damage to trains and stadiums and the chaos which is caused in big cities by riots at football matches? No, emphatically no. I would advise the country people not to ban football because it is none of their business. So it would be wrong for those who live in towns to seek to impose their will on those who live in the countryside.
      I therefore commend to the House the new clause which gives the local people the right to decide. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, if we want to consult people more, to allow them to shape their own pleasures and pastimes rather than having them imposed from the centre, if we are to avoid value judgments which may seem right to hon. Members whose prejudices may be offended by such things as hare coursing, surely we must give them the right to decide.
      I should prefer the Bill to be withdrawn, but if the Government are not prepared to withdraw it, my hon. Friends should continue to urge strongly the case for local elections in this matter.
      I mean no discourtesy to my right hon. and learned Friend when I say that I prefer new Clause 7 to new Clause 3. The latter is one that I would certainly support but I would like it better if, during the five-year period, coursing could continue and we then decided whether to stop it. I think he has the onus the wrong way around. But if he would let me place the weight of my argument on the local option clause, I would be satisfied.
      Mr. James Lamond: I will speak for only a few minutes and only because I was enraged by the speech to which we have just listened. I have always regarded the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) as a mild-mannered man, but at the end he revealed the real reason for his speech when he said that he would prefer the Bill to be withdrawn. I think that he has been trying to defeat the

      903
      Bill by means of two new clauses and has tried, rather inadequately in my opinion, to justify them.
      For example, he told us at some length that it is wrong to impose our will on people who do not agree with the Bill. But every Bill that we consider imposes something against the will of some section of the community, as any MP must realise from his mail. I suppose that a large number of burglars, for example, object to our passing laws to make burglary an offence. But we do not hesitate on that account to pass them, because we believe that what we are doing—and what we owe the electorate is our judgment—is for the benefit of the community as a whole. That is why I support the Bill.
      To give a catalogue of other sports which the hon. Gentleman imagines are even more-cruel is no reason for withdrawing the Bill or modifying it. If there are other sports which the hon. Gentle man regards as cruel, he ought to do something about them and not come here and attack those who have had the good sense to tackle the problem which they see as a first priority. If the hon. Gentleman has other priorities, let him do something about it. If he can demonstrate to me that those other sports are as cruel as or more-cruel than hare coursing, he will have my full support for his Bill.
      As for the suggestion that there should be a five-year period during which this matter should be tested, this again is a strategy by which the Opposition hope that the Bill will be defeated in the end, because they know that if there is no record for five years of cruelty in this sport they are likely to get support if they pursue the argument that the sport should be permitted again.
      Those who object to the Bill should vote against it and demonstrate to those who have made representations that they wholeheartedly support the petitions and letters that have been sent in. There is nothing to be ashamed of in doing that. There is no need to try to conceal things by means of specious amendments and new clauses. Let hon. Members make quite plain where they stand on the Bill. They should do that so that they reflect the feelings of all those who, they claim, have written to them. I shall vote in the way which I think is best and which I
      904
      am confident will reflect the feelings of many people in my constituency.
      Mr. Hastings: I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond). I think he said he was satisfied that the Bill was in the interests of the community. If that is his conviction, I cannot see why he should oppose new Clause 7, which would give people in all districts affected—indeed, throughout the country—an opportunity to express their view. If that is the interest that he is putting forward, his place today is with us in the Lobby should we divided on the new clause.
      There are many other aspects to this complicated matter. We who had the good fortune to serve on the Standing Committee are aware of them but they have not been aired all that widely in the debate today. It is not solely the welfare of the community as a whole or the benefit of the community as a whole with which we are concerned. We are also concerned with the benefit of the hare population.
      That brings me to the main purpose, as I conceive it, behind the amendments and new clauses refered to so eloquently by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton). They all have one aspect in common, although they ask for slightly different things, and that is delay of some kind. As my right hon. and learned Friend put it, the Bill should be stopped and should go to sleep after five years. The purport of the amendments is to have the delay first so that a further inquiry can be carried out.
      I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). I prefer the latter rather than the former approach to this problem—that is to say, we have manifestly not had the time to conduct anything like as deep an inquiry as we should into the welfare of this species, into its way of life and into the possible effects of this legislation. Therefore, by some method or another—and I am not particularly choosey as to how it should be done—delay should be imposed, whatever the merits of the Bill in the long run, so that a further inquiry can be undertaken.
      11.45 a.m.
      During the last century we had a most unfortunate experience of legislation over

      905
      ground game—that is to say, hares and rabbits. The effect of that legislation turned out to be near disastrous. That Act was the result of the disastrous harvest of 1879, as any student of these matters will know, when the farmers, who were in an appalling condition, protested that amongst the causes for that disaster were the activities of rabbits and hares. That Act, which was known also as the rabbits and hares Act, was brought in with catastrophic results for the hare population in a short time.
      To emphasise what happened, I do not think I can do better than quote from the able and deep study of aspects of this matter by Stable and Stuttard, although they admit that not enough is known about the hare population. I quote from their quotation of what the Rev. H. A. Macpherson said shortly after that Act came into force:
      "A great change has taken place in the number of hares that are annually bred in England. Go where you may, one meets almost universally with the same lament, that where you would formerly have seen 20 or 30 hares feeding in the fields on a summer evening you will now hardly see a single animal."
      As his colleague Richardson said at the same time,
      "In the South of England big and important coursing meetings have ceased to exist, except at Newmarket in Essex. All those magnificent downlands in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Dorsetshire furnish possibly one course for every score that used to be run less than a quarter of a century ago. At Ashdown, Amesbury and a few other places in the same district"—
      I hope that hon. Members who represent these places have the good fortune to be with us this morning—
      "where the conditions were one simply perfect, occasional small and unimportant meetings are held; but the fact is that the disappearance of the hares has caused the greyhounds to disappear in like manner, and in disgust."
      There is no need to emphasise it any further. That was the result of legislating for hares without sufficient knowledge of the hare's life, the dangers that it faces or the likely results of what was being done, and we are engaged in doing much the same thing now.
      An inquiry is necessary, and I should like to suggest the form that the inquiry should take. We had inadequate time to deal with this in Committee. We did our
      906
      best but there were a limited number of sittings and we never got round in a serious way to the matter of conservation. We are discussing the welfare of animals, yet nobody has bothered to look in any depth into conservation of the hare. What dangers does it face? It faces many threats as it is. Very little work has been done into diseases affecting hares. A lot more is known about this in France and the Scandinavian countries, but we were not able to go there to find out more about it.
      Mr. David James: My hon. Friend has talked about diseases affecting hares. Does he agree that far more cruelty was perpetrated by the introduction of myxomatosis than will ever be perpetrated by hare coursing?
      Mr. Hastings: My hon. Friend has taken the words out of my mouth. I was coming to deal with myxomatosis, but there are other and important diseases affecting the hare. In particular, there is one that has been identified as a form of tuberculosis which is contracted from the parasite known as strongylus commutatus which attacks both forms of hare in this country, both lepidus timidus and the common brown hare. Once myxomatosis was let loose in this country we would have expected the hare populalation to increase rapidly because the competition of the rabbit would have been removed. For a short time in certain areas that was the case.
      This points indisputably to the fact that this creature faces a great many other threats about which we are relatively ignorant, one of which is crop spraying. The weedkiller Paraquat, which is manufactured by ICI, is used fairly widely in down land districts. I do not know what it contains. It has been established and admitted by the manufactureres that hares have been found dead, sometimes in large numbers, as a result of its use. I understand that ICI is conducting an analysis or inquiry to determine the extent of the danger. It is a pity that it did not do so earlier.
      Anyone who is familiar with the countryside in East Anglia will know of the enormous increase in traffic to the East Coast. If one drives in that direction, at any time of the year one will find the road literally littered with dead hares and

      907
      leverets. This trend must be on the increase.
      However, without doubt the greatest danger is that of shooting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury pointed out, in many respects the hare is a menace to farming. That cannot be denied. Not every farmer is guilty of shooting, because many farmers prefer to see hares in the wild as well as having economic efficiency on the farm. However, there are those who do not view the matter that way, who have no use for animals and who regard them with suspicion even if their detrimental activities cannot be proved. Shooting takes place on a large scale and has recently increased. It will continue to do so whenever there is no counter force at work. This is an old story.
      In no sense am I exaggerating. I commend to the House "The Leaping Hare" by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson. It says:
      "A Norfolk farmer of the old school estimated that"
      —this is as recent as the 1950s—
      "in the farming year one hare would cost him two sacks of corn. Consequently, if there were forty hares on the farm his yield would suffer by eighty combs—a loss that no farmer could afford to stand. He said that hares work during the day; and they eat the 'knots' out of the wheat-stems thus preventing the plants coming to maturity. Moreover, they work out in the middle of the field, unlike the rabbits which keep to the edge where damage is immediately visible. But as the hare likes to live in the open where it can use its speed to best advantage, the farmer will suddenly come across huge, ruined patches in the centre of his corn, perhaps the first indication he has that hares have been at work."
      The book continues:
      "In recent years, too, hares in East Anglia have done extensive damage to sugar-beet crops. This happened particularly in the 1954 season when hares were unusually plentiful. At that time West Suffolk farmers estimated that in some areas hares had reduced the crop of sugar-beet by as much as two tons an acre."
      As long as that continues, the shooting of hares will continue to increase and the species will be in danger and will continue to be in danger.
      The evidence taken by Stable and Stuttard shows that five years ago in some places in Lincolnshire 150 to 200 hares were shot in an afternoon, but now only 20 to 30 are shot. It is indisputable that
      908
      if co-operation exists between coursing clubs and farmers, the hare population keeps steady. Hare coursing conserves. The evidence adduced by Stable and Stuttard and by other studies in this matter proves it. The species may have to face dangers in other respects, but there is no doubt whatever that, regardless of its other merits or demerits, hare coursing tends to conserve.
      The cases I have adduced so far have been confined to the brown hare. I would admit, if I were to give a complete picture of the state of affairs, that the blue hare, the mountain hare or Arctic hare—lepidus timidus—is in a different category because it does not compete with man in the food which it pursues and eats—lichen, cotton grass and coarse grasses on the mountain. The numbers of these hares are very large and they do not live below about 1,000 ft. It could not be said that the menaces that the Arctic hare faces are the same as those which the brown hare faces, except that more predators menace it on the mountain than at sea level. For instance, among the predators there are the eagle, the buzzard and the hen harrier, which take a large number of hares.
      If we conducted a full and deep inquiry of the kind I have in mind, a case could be made for coursing the lepidus timidus instead of the brown hare, which those who have been to coursing meetings know is the normal quarry. I hope we shall be told today whether that is a feasible proposition. Deer hounds have been used, but I do not want to go too deeply into that matter in the context of these amendments. Perhaps later during the debate there may be a chance to do so.
      Threats to this species are different for the mountain hare than for the brown hare. Without question, shooting not only by farmers but by syndicates will continue and is the biggest menace. Hon. Members who have experience of these matters—I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) agreeing—will know that there is a vast difference between syndicates and syndicates. There are those which for the best reasons enjoy sport in the open air but which, perhaps because they are town bred and have an urban background, do not have sufficient

      909
      knowledge of the balance of life in game in the countryside always to judge effectively whether they are overshooting. This is an additional reason for shooting probably being the greatest menace.
      There is no doubt that the hare population is menaced. Equally there is no doubt that we do not know by what or how. When coursing takes place regularly and is properly regulated there is no doubt that it tends to conserve, as do all field sports. We would need a separate inquiry from the one I have in mind to settle this matter once and for all and to demonstrate to those who, for their misfortunes, have always lived in towns or in an urban atmosphere that field sports conserve and that in the long run the disappearance of such sports would mean the end of all the game involved.
      Sir David Renton: And foxes too.
      Mr. Hastings: And foxes too, as has happened elsewhere. I have been to France and seen what has happened there.
      However, be that as it may, all that we can ask for in this context is a full inquiry into the hare species itself. Coursing tends to conserve. Its abolition will add to the threat to the hare population, not reduce it. Thus, anyone who supports the Bill as it stands and is not prepared to accept these amendments must face that inevitable consequence of his action, if it should succeed.
      Since the effect of the Bill, therefore, is adverse to hares in the various ways I have described, some moratorium or delay should be imposed. The proposals now before us give the answer, and I earnestly hope that the House will support them.
      12 noon.
      Mr. Spriggs: The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) has just asserted that hare coursing tends to conserve. I have never in my life heard such an extraordinary interpretation put on the term "conservation". The hon. Gentleman tells us that his object is to conserve, and I gather that his reason for supporting hare coursing is that the hare is responsible for taking many tons of farmers' produce every year. Thus, in supporting his idea of conservation, the hon. Member supports the loss of food which the farmers produce. That must follow from the meaning which he applies to conservation
      910
      when he speaks of conserving the life of the hare.
      The most important matter before us, in my view, is new Clause 7. We ought strongly to oppose any effort to take from Parliament the responsibility of enacting measures on behalf of animals which cannot speak for themselves. We can only take evidence from what we see and hear at hare coursing. I have myself witnessed hare coursing, and I am arguing the case today only after having gathered firsthand evidence for myself.
      It is not possible to deal with this matter on a national basis, applying to it the strength of law, without putting a Bill on the statute book to protect hares—the same applies to other animals—against cruelty. We cannot leave it to certain local authorities which, as we well know from what has been said this morning, would favour the retention of hare coursing.
      Sir David Renton: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to draw his attention to the fact that new Clause 7 places power not in the hands of local authorities but in the hands of the local government electors?
      Mr. Spriggs: Yes, it would be the responsibility of local authorities to hold a local poll. I acknowledge what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has drawn to my attention, and I correct what I said. The electors in a local poll would decide. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] That interpretation is quite correct, but the point here is that we must deal with this matter on a national, not a local, basis.
      The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) described the antics of the stoat when seeking its natural food, when encircling the rabbit or hare, after which the creature becomes virtually paralysed and is an easy victim to the stoat. We can all understand that story. It is a story of natural life in the countryside. But that is entirely different from the hare coursing with which we are here dealing, in which man makes a special job of training dogs to chase and catch hares. I remind the House that it is when the hare has been caught by the dogs that we see and hear some of the most-cruel aspects of hare coursing.
      I wish that those who have had nothing to do with hare coursing, the general

      911
      public who have not seen it for themselves, would take the opportunity to do so. Invitations are openly sent out by those responsible for organising hare coursing, and it has been and remains for the moment quite possible for people to go and see for themselves what happens.
      Mr. Charles Morrison: The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech against hare coursing. With great respect, I must remind him that the Bill is directed to hare coursing matches. He will not abolish hare coursing under the Bill as it stands.
      Mr. Spriggs: I understand the intention of the Bill. If it is enacted, it will on a national legal basis remove hare coursing matches. It will remove organised hare coursing. Most of us realise that there is hardly a law in this country which is not broken at some time by someone. I do not imagine that the Minister or his Department believes that it will be possible to eradicate hare coursing completely, even on an organised basis. We know the history of cock fighting. In some parts of the world cock fighting still goes on, though outside the law, because there are small groups of people who are still prepared to organise it illegally. I could discuss other forms of law breaking too, but I know that the Chair would not allow me to stray from the Hare Coursing Bill.
      Mr. Michael Mates: Will the hon. Gentleman go back to what he said a minute ago, with which I very much agreed? He wishes that the vast majority of people who know nothing about hare coursing would take the opportunity to go and see it for themselves. If the hon. Gentleman will support the amendments now before us, people will be able to do just that, because an opportunity for delay and for consideration will be imposed.
      Mr. Spriggs: What the hon. Gentleman calls for has been possible already for a long time. It has been possible for people to look into the matter for themselves, and these clauses and amendments are not necessary for that purpose. For 10 or 20 years this matter has been brought to public notice, publicity has been given to it by the media at various times and most of those interested to do
      912
      so have been able to witness hare coursing at first hand.
      I ask the House carefully to consider the difference between what the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury told us about the natural habit of the stoat and the true character of this man-controlled so-called sport. Hare coursing on an organised basis is done for the entertainment of a comparatively small minority, and I deeply regret that there are still those who enjoy watching dogs chase a hare until it is caught and who stand watching with relish the tearing to pieces of a living animal.
      Mr. David James: What justification does the hon. Member have for saying that people watch hare coursing with relish? The relish for a fisherman lies not in knocking a fish on the head with a priest, but in pitching a fly one foot in front of its nose. It is not the kill but the art which is interesting.
      Mr. Spriggs: We find the same group of people attending and supporting organised hare coursing meets. It is obvious that they have enjoyed watching previous matches. That is why I appeal with all my passion and moral feeling for the House to reject the new clauses and amendments.
      Mr. Carol Mather: Before winding up on this group of amendments, I must say that we deplore the absence of the Home Secretary today. If the Government believe this is an important enough Bill to announce in advance that the rule will be suspended at four o'clock, the Home Secretary should be here, at least for the start of our proceedings. If he and the Home Office are right behind the Bill, he ought to be here.
      Sir David Renton: Does not my hon. Friend also find it rather surprising that there is only one person on the Treasury Bench—the Under-Secretary, who has always been diligent in her attendance—and only three hon. Members of the Government back benches for what has been presented as a necessary Government Bill?
      Mr. Mather: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. He is absolutely right. The House has been put to considerable inconvenience over this Bill. A lot of time and effort have been spent on it at a time when the

      913
      House had better things to consider than a Bill of this nature.
      Mr. Spriggs: The hon. Member should realise that there are many meetings taking place this morning. In particular, there is one to which the Home Secretary is having to give special attention. It is wrong for any back bencher to criticise the Home Secretary when he has such important matters to deal with.
      Mr. Mather: The hon. Member might be more specific about those meetings. He seems to speak with some authority. It is certainly the right and privilege of any Privy Councillor on the Opposition benches to criticise the Home Secretary.
      This is perhaps the most important group of clauses and amendments that we shall be discussing today. We have put them down because we believe that this is bad legislation founded on misconceptions. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was right when he said that the prejudice involved in the Bill could be boiled down to the fact that those who wished to ram this process down the throats of other people are showing a lack of humility. This is bad because the Home Office is repudiating its own inquiry set up several years ago and it is bad from the point of view of democracy because it victimises a tiny minority.
      12.15 p.m.
      The object of the new clauses and amendments is to give time for second thoughts. If the Government are determined to get this Bill, despite our efforts to bring wiser counsel to prevail, it is our job to see that the legislation is soundly based. There have been too many examples of poor legislation passed in a great hurry and repented at leisure. We have only to look at the abortion law to see an example of that. There have been numerous Private Members' Bills trying to change it and Select Committees have been set up and have absorbed and wasted the time of the House. The onus is very much on the Opposition to see that legislation is soundly based.
      I freely admit that this is a subject which stirs up emotions, and we have already heard several emotional speeches. But emotion is not a good parliamentary draftsman, and legislation must be based not on emotion but on common sense.
      914
      The purpose of the new clauses and amendments is not simply to delay, though that may appear to be so at a casual reading. Each has an element of delay in it, but we want to allow time for the Government to set up an inquiry Amendment No. 11, which provides for the Bill to come into operation at different times in different areas, has precedents in legislation, the main one being the 1968 Town and Country Planning Act. A similar provision has also been allowed for in the Community Land Bill.
      Under Amendment No. 11 the Home Secretary could draw up a code of rules and send his inspectors to each coursing area where meetings were held. If the coursing club did not abide by the strict and stringent code, which could improve provision for muzzling, the Home Secretary could bring the Act into operation by order. Amendment No. 11 is really consequential on new Clause 7, which would allow for polls to take place in each local government district. My hon. Friends have already explained very well the merits of this proposal, which would be good for local democracy.
      We hear a lot about local democracy these days. The place in which this arrangement is allowed from time to time is in Wales in connection with licensing. I have a recent Press cutting about a referendum which we all forget. It states:
      "The Welsh seven-year itch is upon us again. How many dry areas will vote for Sunday drinking? How many wet areas will go dry? How many people care?"
      People care about these local government polls. This particular poll causes great excitement in Wales. That is local democracy. I therefore advise the Under-Secretary to look with some care and interest at the amendment.
      Mr. Kimball: Will my hon. Friend make it clear to the House that, from a coursing point of view anyhow, we should prefer new Clause 7 with its safeguards to the new clause moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton)?
      Mr. Mather: I tend to agree with my hon. Friend that new Clause 7 is a more satisfactory method and should be regarded as the main clause of the group.
      Apart from local government polls, there are other examples. There was the Northern Ireland border poll which

      915
      dealt with a somewhat different situation, but it was nevertheless an adventure into local democracy. It set a precedent. Although there were those of us who argued that it was not good for Parliament and parliamentary democracy to have such polls, I willingly concede that the Conservative Government created the border poll in Northern Ireland. Although I believe that the EEC referendum should not have taken place and that Parliament should have decided, it nevertheless set another precedent.
      I understand from the advice of the learned Clerks that if we had put down our amendments and new clauses before the EEC referendum became law they would automatically have been ruled out of order, but the referendum breached the old principle and, therefore, we may discuss them today.
      We have to consider whether polls have come to stay. Local polls would be very popular on other issues such as capital punishment, nationalisation and even fluoridation, on which people feel passionately.
      Mr. Hastings: Since my hon. Friend has raised the point, may I ask whether it would not be very much better if this House were today discussing capital punishment for terrorists rather than this Bill?
      Mr. Mather: I had intended to touch on that aspect during Third Reading, because after what we have been through this week we should bear in mind why we are in this place. We have to decide which are the real issues of the day, whether they are terrorism, the economic crisis, unemployment or anything else. In a way it is somewhat embarrassing for us to have to be here on a Friday discussing matters of this sort when we should be discussing really important issues.
      Although I do not favour the new clause moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire as strongly as the other proposals, it would, if accepted, nevertheless give time for an inquiry to be held. The origins of the Bill are to be found in the Stable Report and in the late Mr. Chuter Ede's statement. Page 101 of my reference book shows why the original proposal to bring in a hare
      916
      coursing Bill was rejected by the Labour Government of the day. It was because
      "(i) the Bill was based on the false premise that its provisions would lessen cruelty;
      (ii) the suppression of hunting and coursing, without effective and efficient alternatives would lead to much less satisfactory activities."
      It was as a result of that that the Government agreed to set up the inquiry by Mr. Scott Henderson.
      In her Second Reading speech the Under-Secretary made great play about the Scott Henderson Report and its so-called obscurities and what she called its classical text. Of course, it is a classical text because it is the only authentic inquiry ever held on field sports and coursing. The most surprising comment on the report was the hon. Lady's remark that it was too neutral. I have never heard of a Government setting up a committee of inquiry and then complaining because it was too impartial or too neutral.
      If I had time, I should like to go on to explain how unbiased that report is and how unbiased were its authors. It was published 24 years ago. I do not think that there has been an advance in the standards of morality, if this is a moral question, in those 24 years. In fact, several backward steps have been taken and, therefore, one cannot argue that-times, and certainly not moral attitudes, have changed. If the report is so obscure and worthless, why not bring it up to date and provide something on which to base sound legislation. That is part of the object of our amendments.
      There was the Stable and Stuttard Report to which the Under-Secretary objects. If she objects to it, why not ensure that there is a soundly-based, up-to-date report to take its place? I guess that she does not want an objective report because it would not serve her purpose or the purpose of those who are behind the Bill. That is why we shall divide on this group of new clauses and amendments.
      The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): For the convenience of the House, I shall deal with each new clause and amendment in turn.
      New Clause 3 would have the effect of restricting the prohibition of hare coursing to five years in the first instance,

      917
      after which time it would become legal again unless Parliament decided otherwise. I listened to the brief explanation given by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton), but it did not include an answer to the Government's objection to hare coursing: that it is a cruel sport. If it is cruel in 1975 it will be cruel in 1980, and the same argument will apply at any later date.
      The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) is passionately concerned to ensure conservation of the hare. He exhibits a very worthy motive. If it is so uppermost in his mind, I suggest that we find some other method of promoting its conservation and do not rely on a brutal and cowardly sport.
      12.30 p.m.
      The suggestion of an inquiry into the hare population sounds academically interesting. I am surprised that it has not been done before by those interested in the welfare of the hare. There is nothing to stop us from carrying out an inquiry into the hare population, but meanwhile we do not wish the sport of hare coursing to be continued.
      I turn to new Clause 7 and Amendment No. 1, which seek to introduce a system of local options. Hare coursing would continue to be legal unless in any particular area not less than 500 electors requisitioned a poll on the question and the poll was decided in favour of banning hare coursing. The new clause, as I understand it, would also give the Secretary of State power to make regulations by statutory instrument for the purpose of arranging such a poll.
      The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) seemed to feel that the whole issue of hare coursing was a matter of town versus country, and that in some way London would vote against hare coursing and that some remote part of Britain where it was carried out would vote in favour. I believe that there is no such clear delineation of opinion.
      There are a few precedents for local polls, but the circumstances to which they relate are wholly different from the subject of the Bill. The best known example is probably Sunday licensing in Wales, where every seven years the population has an opportunity of deciding whether
      918
      alcohol should be sold on that day. That provision recognises the deeply-held conscientious and religious objections of a substantial minority of the community in Wales. It has been pointed out by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire that the similar precedent of Sunday cinema opening has been brought to an end. However, those precedents are of no relevance to the creation of what is a new criminal offence, the justification for which has nothing to do with legal circumstances.
      The justification for the Bill is that hare coursing is a barbaric sport wherever and whenever it occurs. It is the Government's view that hare coursing is cruel per se and should be made illegal irrespective of whether in particular areas some people take a different view. It would be indefensible to have a situation in which, because of local feeling, hare coursing was permitted to take place in some areas but not in others.
      Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 are similar in intention and effect. Amendment No. 11 would provide for the Act to be brought into effect by order not earlier than six months after its enactment. The order could provide for its coming into operation to date from different days in different areas.
      The substitution of a six-month minimum period before the Act may be brought into effect in place of the one month in the Bill as drafted would have the effect of allowing the coursing season which has just begun, including the Waterloo Cup, to be completed. It may be argued that this would allow the coursing fraternity to make arrangements for the disposal of staff and dogs. This argument has been raised before. It has been pointed out that the coursing world has had notice of the Government's intention for a considerable time and cannot possibly claim to have been taken unawares.
      There is no justification for bringing the Act into effect by order as there is no administrative machinery to be set up or preparatory work to be completed to enable the Act to function effectively. The Bill provides for its provisions to come into force one month after its passage. That is the normal interval for criminal law. It would also be most unusual for a commencement order procedure to be made subject, as the amendment would

      919
      make this one, to further parliamentary proceedings.
      Similarly, there is no reason for the Act to be brought into effect at different times for different areas. If coursing is unacceptable in Yorkshire, it is unacceptable in Essex. The Government's objection to coursing is that it is cruel wherever it is practised.
      Amendment No. 12 provides for the Act to come into force 12 months after its enactment instead of after one month. The same general arguments apply.
      For those reasons, I invite the House to oppose all the new clauses and amendments before it.
      Sir David Renton: I seek leave to withdraw new Clause 3. It seems that the weight of support that we have heard is in favour of new Clause 7, the local option clause, which I also commended to the House. So that we may make progress, I suggest that we do not take time on a Division on new Clause 3. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave withdrawn.

    New Clause 7

      APPLICATION OF SECTION 1
      '().—(1) Section 1 of this Act shall not apply in any local government area unless the
      local government electors for that area have determined by a majority, on a poll held in accordance with the provisions of this section and regulations made thereunder, that it should apply.
      (2) There shall be no poll under this section for any local government area unless it is requisitioned by not less than five hundred local government electors for the area and a requisition shall not be effective unless it is made in accordance with regulations made under this section.
      (3)(a) The Secretary of State may make regulations for the purposes of this section and without prejudice to the foregoing generality such regulations may prescribe the form and manner in which requisitions may be made and the manner in which polls shall be conducted and notice given of the result thereof.
      (b) The power to make regulations conferred by this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution by either House of Parliament.
      (4) For the purposes of this section the expression "local government area" means, in relation to England or Wales a district as provided by the Local Government Act 1972 and in relation to Scotland, and Islands Area or a district as provided by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973'—[Mr. Jasper More.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Motion made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—[Mr. Jasper More.]
      The House divided: Ayes 68, Noes 89
      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 9

      INTERPRETATION
      'In this Act—
      "coursing" means hunting hares with greyhounds;
      "dogs" means greyhounds;
      "place" means any naturally or artificially enclosed area of land;
      "competition" means the act of striving against others to win something'.—[Mr. Farr.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. John Farr: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): With the new clause we are to take the following amendments:
      No. 5, in Clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out from 'for' to 'he' in line 8 and insert 'hare coursing matches'.
      No. 8, in Clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—
      (2) For the purpose of the foregoing subsection a hare coursing match is a competition between two greyhounds as to their ability to course hares, being a competition—

      (a) for which entries are invited before the day of the competition;

      (b) for a prize for money or money's worth;

      (c) for which official judges are appointed; and

      (d) of which the results are announced publicly.'

      Mr. Farr: I believe that it would be helpful to have an interpretation clause to guide those who will seek to implement the Bill in the months and years ahead if it should reach the statute book. With that in mind, I have selected what are probably the four most significant words in the Bill and have suggested their interpretations. These words are "coursing", "dogs", "place" and "competition", all of which are highly significant and highly loaded in respect of the Bill.
      Before giving my reasons for the suggested interpretations, I shall give my reasons for thinking that we should have an interpretation clause. Most major Acts of the past 30 or 40 years have had interpretation clauses. In some cases some of the simplest words, with the most obvious meanings, are included in the interpretation clause. Let me give an idea of what I have in mind. If we look at the Public General Acts and Measures of 1973 we shall find some guidance to past procedure. I have chosen many short Acts because this Bill, if it becomes an Act, will be a two-section Act. I draw attention first to the Concorde Aircraft Act which is a two-section Act. There is no interpretation section in that.
      On the other hand, if we turn the page, to the Coal Industry Act—a public Act of great significance and importance but only a short Act—it will be seen that there is a comprehensive interpretation section, Section 12. That Act has only 14 sections.
      Mr. Hastings: I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend say that here was no

      923
      interpretation section in the Concorde Aircraft Act. I would have thought that this was an excellent example to reinforce the case for the new clause since, if we had had such an interpretation section in that Act, we might have been spared all the trouble we have had with this aeroplane.
      Mr. Farr: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It would not be right for me to refer to the Concorde Aircraft Act in detail. One would think that with a Bill of the type we are discussing today, "coursing" should be defined, just as one would have expected that in the Concorde Aircraft Act the word "Concorde" would have been defined. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the aircraft has caused a great deal of discussion.
      Section 12 of the Coal Industry Act takes up half a page in defining, for instance, that
      "'the Act of 1946' means the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946;
      'the Act of 1965' means the Coal Industry Act 1965."
      There are other examples when obvious interpretations of this nature appear in what is a relatively short Act. In view of that it would seem that this Bill ought to have an interpretation clause.
      If we skip through the Public General Act and Measures of 1973 a little further we come to the Matrimonial Causes Act which is a long and substantial Act. I remember it going through the House. It amounted to over 50 sections. Section 52 is the interpretation section. My point is that the most-simple words imaginable are defined here. It even defines what "child" means.
      The Bill we are discussing today has such complex words as "coursing" but there is no interpretation. Yet in the Matrimonial Causes Act there are such words as "the court", "education" and many other simple words, of which even the densest person knows the meaning. There are several lines of closely printed type in Section 52. The Matrimonial Causes Act even defines what is meant by the word "adopted". Most of us have a ready recognition of adoption and its meaning. The Act refers to the Adoption Act 1958 and deals with what an adopted child is.
      924
      Probably a more relevant Act for our help and benefit today is the London Cab Act 1973. This was a three-section Act. This Bill has only two clauses. In the London Cab Act, nearly as short as this Bill, there is an interpretation section. It defines for instance the meaning of "private hire-car". It was defined as having
      "the same meaning as in section 4 of this Act."
      Two further examples are the Rate Rebate Act, which had only four sections and contained an interpretation section, and the Bahamas Independence Act. That was a short Act of seven or eight sections including an interpretation section.
      It puzzles me why the Government have failed to take the same precaution today. Section 6 of the Bahamas Independence Act actually defines the meaning of "the Bahamas". It seems odd that, while most of us have a good knowledge of what is meant by that phrase, there should be no references in this Bill to the definitions I have mentioned. It has to be remembered that it is the practice for our parliamentary draftsmen—when words are in question or meanings in doubt or when there is more than one interpretation of a significant word, sentence or phrase—to act most carefully to avoid any doubt.
      I turn to the interpretations which I suggest to the House. In the first I refer to "coursing". I have extracted from several dictionaries the interpretations of that word. My amendment says that
      "'coursing' means hunting hares with greyhounds."
      That corresponds with the definition of coursing in Collins English Dictionary, which says that "coursing" means hunting with greyhounds. It comes from the Latin word "cursus", which means running.
      1.0 p.m.
      The short version of the Oxford English Dictionary gives a similar definition of the word "coursing". It refers to "coursing" as the sport of "chasing hares, etc." with greyhounds. The Bible of the English language, the full edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, gives the same meaning to the word "coursing". The full edition refers to coursing as running, racing and pursuing, and as the sport

      925
      of chasing hares and other game with greyhounds, by sight.
      It is important that there should be a definition of the word "coursing". The Under-Secretary, who is well known for her patience, forbearing and understanding, will appreciate that a definition will assist the House. If my definition is wrong—I accept that it may need amendment in some respects—perhaps the Government will say what kind of interpretation clause they would like to include in the Bill.
      Mr. Kimball: Will my hon. Friend confirm that he checked the definition in Collins English Dictionary?
      Mr. Farr: I referred to the 1959 edition of Collins English Dictionary, page 120. It is smaller than the Oxford English Dictionary but it refers to the word "coursing", in terms which cannot be confused, by saying that it means hunting hares with greyhounds. The word comes from the Latin "cursus".
      I now refer to dogs. I have referred to the shortened and full-length versions of the Oxford English Dictionary. The amendment states that "'dogs' means greyhounds". I gave much thought to that definition.
      The purpose of those promulgating this measure is the banning of hare coursing. In Britain the sport of coursing is almost entirely confined to coursing with greyhounds. All the dictionaries refer to coursing as the sport of chasing hares with greyhounds. "Dogs" must therefore be interpreted to mean greyhounds.
      The full version of the Oxford English Dictionary says that the origin of the word "dog" is unknown. It refers to Hunting Dogs as being a Northern constellation near the Great Bear, although that has nothing to do with the amendment. Reference is made to the burrowing dog, which is a kind of hyena. Again we are not concerned with that. Another section refers to a dog used for hunting, or a hound. A book published in Britain in 1475, which must be one of our oldest printed books, refers to a person taking "greyhounds" to chase the hare. The shorter version of the Oxford English Dictionary defines a dog used for sporting purposes as a dog used for hunting, which is often a greyhound.
      926
      I was not a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Bill. There were, I understand, long and detailed discussions about the meaning of the word "dog" and whether hunting and sporting hounds in Britain would come under the Bill. As practically all hare coursing in Britain and the rest of the world is carried out with greyhounds, it would be sensible to define the word "dog" as meaning "greyhound", as I suggest in the amendment.
      The definition of the word "place" should be included in the Bill. I have not extracted this definition from a dictionary. This is a suggestion. The amendment reads,
      "'place' means any naturally or artificially enclosed area of land".
      The shorter version of the Oxford English Dictionary devotes one page to the meanings of the word "place". It says that "place" means a particular part or spot in a body or surface, or a particular part or page in a book. That is not an appropriate meaning. It also refers to a place as being an open space in a city—a square or a market place. That definition is less appropriate. It goes on to say that it can form a group of houses in a town or city.
      In view of these silly dictionary definitions, I strongly urge the hon. Lady to accept the clarification of the meaning of "place" contained in the amendment. The amendment suggests that "place" means
      "any naturally or artificially enclosed area of land".
      By a naturally enclosed area of land I mean a valley with a river or stream at one end—
      Mr. David James: Does my hon. Friend regard the Isle of Wight as being a naturally enclosed area of land?
      Mr. Farr: The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) is not present today. If he were here he would no doubt tell us all about that. I would say that it is a naturally enclosed area of land, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, surrounded by sea water.
      A valley with a river at one end and rocky escarpments or impenetrable brushland on two sides which prevents the escape of a quarry is a naturally enclosed area of land. An artificially

      927
      enclosed area of land can be simply defined as any place which is fenced in, wired in or entirely walled in. The definition of "place" suggested in the amendment would be a valuable clarification.
      The last of my interpretations is of "competition". I only wish that I had been a member of the Standing Committee because I understand that discussions took place on the meaning of "competition". If the Bill is to be readily understandable when it reaches the statute book it must give the meaning of "competition". "Competition" is perhaps the easiest word of all to interpret. Clear definitions are given in the three major dictionaries which are available to us for reference here. The 1959 edition of Collins English Dictionary defines "competition" exactly as I have defined it in the amendment, as
      "striving against others to win something".
      The unabbreviated Oxford English Dictionary refers to "competition" at considerable length but in the first five lines it gives the meaning as
      "The action of endeavouring to gain what another endeavours to gain at the same time; the striving of two or more for the same object; rivalry".
      It goes on:
      "Now largely used in connection with competitive examinations".
      That perhaps is not appropriate. The Collins English Dictionary interpretation and the interpretation given in the first four lines of the unabbreviated Oxford English Dictionary are synonymous.
      1.15 p.m.
      The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary interprets "competition" in much the same way, as
      "The action of endeavouring to gain what another endeavours to gain at the same time; the striving of two or more for the same object; rivalry".
      The interpretation mentions various types of rivalry. It does not mention sporting rivalry but deals with rivalry in commerce and allied forms of rivalry.
      Those three dictionary interpretations of "competition" are helpful to the House. From what I have said it will be obvious to all that the interpretation of "competition" contained in the amendment
      "the act of striving against others to win something"
      928
      is a condensation of the meaning of that word given by the three dictionaries I have mentioned.
      The Children Bill, which we are to discuss on Tuesday, was produced by the same Government as were in power when the Hare Coursing Bill was introduced and it contains a whole clause which is devoted to interpretation—Clause 89. It interprets simple words, not complicated words which are capable of a double or treble meaning. "Child" is defined as
      "a person who has not attained the age of 18 years".
      The clause contains 20 lines on the interpretation of "guardian". It even defines the meaning of "home". Every simple, non-controversial word is spelt out with meticulous care, including the meaning of "United Kingdom national" and "voluntary organisation". The Under-Secretary of State and those who sponsor the Bill have made a grave error in omitting an interpretation clause.
      Mr. David Weitzman: I cannot resist the temptation to express my admiration for the speech made by the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and the research he has done in a valiant effort to prolong discussion on the Bill. I wonder why he did not define the terms by saying that reference should be made to the Oxford Dictionary or another dictionary, or that "place" means "place", "dogs" means "dogs" and "competition" means "competition". Every lawyer knows that the amendment is not a definition clause but a restrictive clause and that its whole object is to defeat the purpose of the Bill.
      Mr. David James: I must declare a non-interest in the Bill. I have not been hare coursing and I do not believe that I ever shall because, although I have indulged in every other field sport, to the best of my knowledge coursing is a spectator sport and I am not a born spectator.
      It has been suggested to me that I should bring the Loch Ness monster into the ambit of the Bill, but I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if I did so you would rule me out of order, and rightly so. In any case, I have no evidence to believe that greyhounds are very skilful at swimming. Nevertheless, it is with great regret that I oppose the motion of my

      929
      hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) because, although it seeks to clarify a bad Bill, it can only make it worse. In my submission, the Bill is essentially an attempt by ignorant townsmen to legislate against the interests of country folk. [Laughter.] The Under-Secretary of State is laughing. I hope that she will soon laugh on the other side of her face.
      The one failing of people who live in towns is that they do not realise that there are no geriatric wards in nature. Animals do not go to sick berths and die surrounded by attendant nurses. To all intents and purposes the fate of every animal is to be eaten, sooner or later, in the predator chain. The only animals which achieve old age are domestic pets such as dogs. It is significant that most of us, sooner or later, no matter how valued a family dog may be—mine is now 14½—have to take it to the vet to be put down because it is clear that it would be incapable of supporting itself, even in a domestic situation, let alone in wild life.
      It is to the extent to which the clause attempts to clarify a bad Bill that I object. I have referred to predators. I have been through the list of British birds and mammals. The hare and leveret are subject to the attention of 17 different sorts of birds and three mammals; namely, the fox, the stoat and the weasel. In the past the hare's main enemy was the wolf. The wolves were finally exterminated in Scotland, the last one being shot in Kirkcudbright in 1775. However, for many centuries the wolf was the main container of the hare population.
      Labour Members wax angry and become upset about hare coursing, but I wonder, from the hare's point of view, whether it makes all that much difference whether it is chased by a pack of wolves or by a couple of greyhounds.
      Mr. Farr: Is my hon. Friend right in his definition of the numbers of predators which prey on the hare? I understood him to mention three mammals in Britain. Is he not forgetting the Golden Eagle? I think he will find that the latest research shows that the staple diet of the Golden Eagle is the Scottish hare. The Bill applies to Scotland. I suggest that my hon. Friend bears that matter in mind.
      Mr. James: I am sorry. Possibly I missed out a sentence in my speech. I thought I said that there were 17 birds on the British list which took hares—all the raptores, two owls and one skua. It may interest the House to know that I saw an eagle take a full-grown hare from a hill in Scotland just over a fortnight ago.
      Therefore, the hare is at risk from many quarters. It has developed a technique for survival. It has developed great speed, and a capacity to twist and turn. That is how a hare defends itself.
      It is not surprising that with the extermination of the wolf men have bred greyhounds specifically with the aim of making them come to terms with the hare—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. James) but I should be grateful if he would relate his argument to the question of interpretation rather than the question of the mechanics of hare coursing.
      Mr. James: I am most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will appreciate that the speech I am trying to make was designed for the previous amendment and not for this one. I am doing my best to keep myself within order by pointing out that any interpretation clause makes a bad Bill even worse.
      With your warning in mind, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall not deal with the nature of hares, which are stupid creatures, which cannot anticipate death and which have virtually no sense of pain. Therefore, it is a great mistake to impose on wildlife animals the sort of sentiments which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I feel. This is a thoroughly bad Bill and any attempt to improve its interpretation merely makes it worse.
      Sir David Renton: I believe that we owe a debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). I do not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Hackney North, and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman).
      Mr. Weitzman: Surely it would be more honest for those hon. Members who move or support the new clause to say plainly that this is a restrictive clause and not a definition clause.
      Sir David Renton: If the hon. and learned Gentleman is good enough to hear me out in the very short speech that I propose to make I am sure that I shall be able to help him.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough has remined us how very difficult legislation is. It is often assumed that if a majority in Parliament wants something done one just introduces a law, pushes it through, votes it through with one's feet and somehow it will produce the desired effect. However, my hon. Friend has illustrated that doubts can arise. Sometimes doubts arise because there is an interpretation clause and sometimes because there is not one. In my opinion we must first try to avoid having unnecessary detail in the Bill. I fear that I do not go the whole of the way with my hon. Friend in the wording of this clause, much though I admire the motive behind it.
      Secondly, we must try to avoid doubt. If we are not careful in that respect we shall leave doubts which will have to be resolved by the courts, which are sometimes given an almost impossible task of interpretation. Such a situation can arise because we put in unnecessary detail or, because, with or without detail, we have created doubts.
      Therefore, my view about interpretation clauses in general is that necessarily they may add to the detail and to that extent they are unwelcome. However, to the extent that they remove doubts they should be put into a Bill. One has to consider each case in the light of its own terms and decide what should be done.
      I see that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department has just left the Chamber, but I invite the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office to a matter that arises out of my hon. Friend's attempt to give clarity and to remove doubt. Clause 1, line 7, refers to "a competition". However, in the side note we see, not "competitions", but "matches".
      1.30 p.m.
      In my opinion, those two words are not synonymous but they do to some extent overlap. In other words, every match is a competition but not every competition is a match. The courts are not entitled to use the side notes for interpreting the
      932
      wording of the sections of an Act, but when different words are used in the side note, as with this instance, it throws doubt on the words used in the section. To the extent that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough may, by his proposal, remove that doubt, we should be grateful to him. This is the sort of matter that will be discussed in the House on Monday week, I hope, and other hon. Members may wish to follow up the point.
      Mr. John Cope: My right hon. and learned Friend has referred to the use in the marginal note of the word "matches" as opposed to the use of "competition" in the clause but the difficulty also relates to the Long Title to the Bill. The Long Title is capable of being used. Certainly it affects our debates. It can also be used and referred to in the courts and it may therefore affect the question of definition.
      Sir David Renton: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend because, through an oversight, of which I should not have been guilty, I had failed to read the Long Title. As the Long Title uses the word "matches" and Clause 1 uses the word "competition", we must assume that the two words are intended to have different meanings. If so, there should be a definition clause in the Bill to describe at least one of the meanings, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough has done.
      Mr. Mather: May I try to clarify the matter? Originally we tabled an amendment to amend the Long Title. We were led to believe that it would be ineffective. Therefore, we changed the amendment and tabled a fresh amendment dealing with the point about "matches".
      Sir David Renton: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend, but the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) and with which I am dealing remains valid in the context of the new clause.
      We should not knowingly, now that we have been alerted to the matter, pass legislation which presents the courts with a doubt. It is far better that we should strive, not necessarily in precisely the way proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, to remove that

      933
      doubt so that the people affected by the Bill when it becomes law need not have recourse to the courts, and, incidentally, so that the police, acting on behalf of the public, know the position when they prosecute people for infringements of the legislation, as they may occasionally have to do. I hope that the Bill will give clear guidance to the police as well as to the courts.
      It will be interesting to hear what the Under-Secretary of State says about the new clause. I did not expect the Bill to be dealt with today, because I assumed that, as this is a Government Bill, it would be taken at a more usual time for Government legislation. Therefore, I arranged a long-standing invitation in my constituency a number of weeks ago. I shall not be able to stay indefinitely for the rest of the discussion, and I am sorry about that.
      Mr. Anthony Fell: My right hon. and learned Friend is vastly experienced in legal matters and legal phraseology. I am not sure—perhaps because I am stupid or because I did not hear him say it—whether he is saying that the Long Title containing the word "matches" would be taken by the courts as meaning that it overrode the clause.
      Sir David Renton: That is the difficulty. It would be for the court to decide whether the word "matches" in the Long Title meant anything different from the word "competition" in Clause 1 and, if so, whether the word "matches" or the word "competition" should have precedence. I cannot answer that question. I do not think that anyone could. It would be for the court to decide. That shows that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough has done a service by alerting the Government and the House to the use of different words which, I agree, overlap to some extent. The problem could be resolved only by taking it to court or by a definition clause which dealt effectively with it to prevent the necessity of going to court.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My right hon. and learned Friend is a great expert on legal matters and will be speaking in the House at a later date on the question of the preparation of parliamentary legislation. Is he indicating that the confusion to which he and my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough
      934
      (Mr. Farr) have rightly drawn attention could place the courts in a difficulty if the matter needed to be decided on the basis of the Bill as drafted?
      Sir David Renton: Let us suppose that somone was charged with
      "the coursing of a hare by two or more dogs in a competition"
      and that that was the wording of the charge or indictment. If the defence argued that the word "competition" did not carry out the intention of Parliament as expressed in the Long Title but meant something different from it, the answer to my hon. Friend's question would be "Yes".
      Mr. Charles Morrison: Although I understood precisely why my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) sought to withdraw new Clause 3, the fact that that happened, coupled with the fact that the House decided in the Division not to include new Clause 7 in the Bill, has emphasised the importance of putting an interpretation clause in the Bill. If either or both of those new clauses had been included in the Bill, there would have been further opportunity to reconsider the question of the interpretation of certain aspects of it. However, they have not been included. That emphasises still more how important it is that an interpretation clause should be included at this stage or perhaps in another place.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) has spoken eloquently of the need for an interpretation provision. It is worth pointing out to the hon. and learned Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman) that this is not the first occasion on which a request for an interpretation clause has been made in discussions on the Bill. I said during the Second Reading debate:
      "It is important to know what we are talking about. It is not good enough to produce a Bill as short as this with no interpretation or clarification".—[Official Report, 13th June, 1975; Vol. 893, c. 851.]
      I expanded on that theme a little later in the debate.
      I was not lucky enough to be a member of the Committee on the Hare Coursing Bill, but I am extremely disappointed that, for one reason or another, no such clause was included in the Bill at that

      935
      stage. I can only believe that this was because of the generosity of my hon. Friends towards the Government. I can only suspect that they were desirous of helping the Government with their programme and in consequence did not indulge at that stage in a lengthy debate on an amendment aimed at introducing an interpretation of many of the important aspects of the Bill. But I am convinced that, if no interpretation clause is included, the danger to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire referred will come about.
      Why should it be right to leave the interpretation of the Bill almost entirely, as will be the case, to the courts? If this Bill ultimately receives Royal Assent, I am afraid that yet again Parliament will only have produced a lawyers' field day. I have nothing against increasing the income of the legal profession—although I suspect that very often their needs are rather less than those of some other sections of society—but in practice, unless there is an interpretation clause in the Bill, we shall be doing no more than legislating to increase the income of the legal profession.
      My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire has described this in much greater detail than I intend to do, and it was perhaps as an act of self-denial on his part, as an eminent lawyer, that he should have expanded on what will happen if the Bill gets on to the statute book as at present drawn.
      I do not want to cover the ground already covered so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, but while I agree in principle with the need for an interpretation clause, as I have already emphasised, I do not think that the new clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough is necessarily fully adequate. For that reason I hope that the Under-Secretary, when she sums up, will give an undertaking that the Government at a later stage will introduce a more comprehensive interpretation clause.
      I am concerned about the meaning of a number of aspects of the Bill as at present drawn, but I fear that if I were to
      936
      enlarge in any detail on these aspects I might be going outside the rules of order. I therefore express the hope once again that the hon. Lady will give an undertaking of the type I have requested when she replies.
      1.45 p.m.
      Mr. Fell: I am astonished at the fact that the House of Commons is apparently, with the lead of the Government, ready to acquiesce—I say this with respect to my hon. Friends who are not ready to do this—in the passing through this legislature of a Bill which, as stated by one of the leading legal authorities in this country, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir. D. Renton), will simply be left for interpretation to the courts and to the judges. Nobody has yet challenged my right hon. and learned Friend—who has unfortunately had to leave—on his assertion.
      What nonsense is this that we are doing? What have we come to in the House of Commons? What are the Government thinking about in bringing in these stupid little measures, which have no sort of validity or general support amongst people who know anything about the subject in this country? What is the matter with them? We are like people who have gone mad and berserk. Here we are asked to accept shoddy legislation from a shoddy Government. It is legislation which, as we have been told, will not be understood until our judges, brilliant as they are—better than the judges in any other country in the world—have been called upon to decide what the Government had in mind.
      This is monstrous. But it is all of a part and no different from the Government's action in many of the measures that they are putting before the House these days. What a sorry farce this great assembly of a great nation has come to when the hon. Lady is willing to sit there and cannot get off her seat for a moment in order to deny the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire. She was. I believe, present when the statement was made. It was a statement which must have proved to her that the Government do not know what they are talking about, and that the judges will be left to decide what is meant by this legislation. It is tragic.

      937
      I only wish to ask the hon. Lady, in conclusion, whether, with her experience and her mother's experience in the work of this House over many years, it does not irk her slightly to be the leading party in telling the judges that this monstrous Bill has nothing to do with Parliament and that it is their job to decide what we mean.
      Mr. Cope: I should like, if I may, to correct my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) in one small particular. He was a little carried away at one stage when, in referring to the shoddiness of the Bill and of the Government, he seemed to be including the Minister. Whatever else one may say, whatever else those who served on the Committee may say, the Minister is not shoddy. On the contrary, it was a delight to have her sitting opposite us in Committee.
      Mr. Fell: The Minister, of course, of herself is not shoddy, except that she runs herself down and makes herself a miserable person by being party to this sort of rubbish.
      Mr. Cope: I entirely support that and am glad to have given my hon. Friend the opportunity to correct the impression he might otherwise have left.
      The Standing Committee, contrary to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison), spent some time discussing some of these questions. It is true that some of our debates were a little rushed and that we were not able to discuss the point which was discussed earlier by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) about the difference between matches and competitions as deeply as we would like to have done. In fact, I tabled an amendment to the Long Title but the Chair in its infinite wisdom decided that it was out of order.
      One hon. Member complained earlier that the new clause was not solely interpretative but was also restrictive. I agree. It is in part restrictive, but that is not necessarily an argument against it. On the contrary, that is part of its charm. But it is also interpretative.
      My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire, as he explained, has had to leave, and probably he did not speak as fully as he would
      938
      otherwise have done, but we have the benefit of some more of his thoughts and those of some distinguished colleagues who served on the Committee on the Preparation of Legislation. We are to discuss the whole of that report a week on Monday, but certain of its passages deal with the desirability of definition clauses and are relevant to this clause. Unfortunately, the passages in the report do not come down firmly on one side or the other.
      The alternative arguments are put and it might be helpful to refer to them. One side was put in the early evidence by Professor Reed Dickerson of Indiana University. The Committee drew widely in its choice of witnesses and experts.
      Professor Reed Dickerson thought that definitions should be used sparingly, which may surprise hon. Members. He thought that the word "includes" in a definition could be helpful and was often preferable. That way, of course, one gets a definition which does not of itself limit the matter being defined. It includes certain things but does not say that something is all that is defined. He went on to say:
      "Occasionally, you need a full-blown definition, but most of the time definitions need only to stipulate the meaning in the area of marginal uncertainty."
      Mr. Ridley: That is what we have here—marginal uncertainty.
      Mr. Cope: "Marginal uncertainty" is an American expression which I would not have chosen. As my hon. Friend says, we are certainly in such an area at the moment.
      The contrary view was put by Professor Driedger of Ottawa University, who advocated the use of definitions not only for extending or fixing the boundaries of meaning but also as a drafting technique to remove from complex Bills some of their lack of clarity. This Bill hardly comes into that category and on that basis probably does not need a definition clause. Nevertheless, the Renton Committee was able to agree fully with Professor Driedger in relation to complex Bills. So we do not get from the Committee clear guidance on whether or not, in principle, interpretation clauses should be inserted in Bills.

      939
      But the clause that we are discussing is in part restrictive as well as interpretative. It is also, in my view, wrong. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) will not take it amiss if I say that at least one of his definitions is clearly wrong and some of the others are less than desirable. The one which is wrong is his definition of coursing. I do not believe that it means hunting hares with greyhounds. I understand from him that that definition is from Collins Dictionary, but he used others from other dictionaries which I think were more accurate.
      Hunting essentially means pursuit by means of smell, whereas coursing is pursuit by means of sight. Those of us who have been able to go to coursing matches, as I have although I am not what would be called a coursing man, have seen this to be so. When, as frequently, indeed normally, happens, the hare gets through the hedge or fence at the edge of the ground after a minute or so of pursuit, as soon as the greyhounds lose sight of it they give up. Although they may be only a few yards behind and most dogs would be able to use their sense of smell to continue the pursuit, the greyhounds as a rule do not follow.
      Mr. Farr: I can probably satisfy my hon. Friend's curiosity. The definition in the amendment is that of Collins National Dictionary but it was a 1959 edition, whereas the other two versions to which I referred were from pre-war editions of the Oxford English Dictionary which are available in the Library and one of which went back to the beginning of this century. Over a period, the meaning given to words varies. I would respectfully suggest that the 1959 Collins edition meaning is more up-to-date and appropriate now. To give a simple example—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has already spoken for 30 minutes. He is now going beyond the length of time appropriate for an intervention.
      Mr. Cope: What my hon. Friend says concerns me. If he is correct and the courts hold him to be correct, the Bill will deal not only with coursing as it is generally understood but with other forms of chasing hares. It might cover such
      940
      forms of hunting as beagling if his interpretation were held to be correct.
      There is another point about this, namely, that it very much strengthens the idea that we need a definition clause. If there is this uncertainty between the compilers of dictionaries about what the word means, it needs definition if the courts are to understand what we, the House of Commons and the legislators, intend the Bill to mean.
      2.0 p.m.
      The second definition is of "dogs", and this is said to mean greyhounds. That is one example of a restrictive rather than an interpretive definition, but I do not quarrel with it for that reason.
      The next definition is of "place". I think that in some respects this goes to the heart of the basic argument about hare coursing and whether it should continue. I have found in my constituency that those who have written to me or approached me on the subject of hare coursing have been divided in the first instance roughly speaking half and half between those who are in favour of the sport continuing and those who are against it. When I have discussed the matter in more detail with those in favour of the Bill and against hare coursing, however, I have found that many of them have a false impression of the way in which hare coursing is conducted.
      What is involved is summed up in the definition in the new clause which defines "place" as an enclosed area of land. In so far as this is a restrictive element in the new clause I regard it as desirable, though I realise that not all Members would take the same view. Many members of the public who are against hare coursing on the basis of limited knowledge would accept that this is a sufficient restriction to put on the conduct of hare coursing. If the definition were included, the only coursing that could take place would be in an open field where the hare was able to escape. That is the form of coursing that takes place for the most part in this country, though I understand that the position is different in Ireland, and in Northern Ireland to a certain extent, but I cannot speak for that. But the definition seems to be restrictive but desirable.
      Then we come to the fourth definition, that of "competition". I dislike the definition used here, though it is difficult to

      941
      quarrel deeply with it. It seems to me that in the context in which they appear the last three words of the phrase
      "act of striving against others to win something"
      has the implication of a kill. This again is part of the misunderstanding in the public mind about hare coursing, or at least in the minds of many people who do not know much about the sport. They think that hare coursing necessarily involves the killing of all the hares that are coursed, whereas I am sure hon Members who have studied the matter know that that is not the case. I should prefer a definition that did not carry the implication of killing that this definition seems to have, because it is a little misleading.
      Perhaps I might conclude by referring briefly to the definition of "match" because it arises a little in the context of Amendments Nos. 5 and 8. The point that I was trying to put to the Committee upstairs was that a match is essentially a competition between two individuals or two teams of individuals. The definition of "match" in the racing fraternity is exactly that. A horse race may have any number of horses in it—quite often there are 10, 20 or more horses in a race—but if there is a horse race between two horses it is described as a match. I am sorry that the hon Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) is not here, because not long ago he took part in a notable horseracing match.
      There is another element to "match" as opposed to "competition" which has entered into the word in the course of its life, and that is the element of formality. If one plays football, one may kick a ball about in an informal manner on a piece of waste ground or grassland or in the park, but if there is a football match more formalities enter into it. There are rules and a referee, and in general the whole thing becomes a more formalised arrangement.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: If someone was out exercising two of his greyhounds—whippet or saluki—and they put up a hare, would he be liable under the Bill? He would be a person out exercising his animals. They put up a hare and perhaps pursue and kill it. Would he, with his two dogs, be liable under the Bill?
      Mr. Cope: That is an interesting question. My own opinion, for what it is
      942
      worth—I am not a lawyer, and I cannot interpret the Bill in a legal sense—is that he might be liable in such circumstances if it were thought that the purpose of releasing the two dogs at the same moment to course the hare was to compare the abilities of the two dogs. In a peculiar way, however, if it were thought that the purpose of releasing the dogs was to kill that hare, or hares in general, he would not be liable. As far as I can see, he would have a perfect defence against an action under the Bill.
      That seems to be a peculiarity of the Bill, because many people who have not followed the debates on this subject might feel that the Bill was about stopping people from killing hares, but if someone sets out to kill a hare in this way that will be a defence under the Bill. It is only if someone is setting out not to kill but, instead, to judge the ability of two or more dogs that it becomes an offence. If someone can say that he was doing it to kill, he would get off scot free.
      I turn to what I was saying about the definition of a match. This is an important definition that should be included in any definition clause that is inserted into the Bill. The definition in Amendment No. 8 has an essential element. It refers to two greyhounds, which to my mind, as I explained earlier, seems to be an essential feature of a match. That is certainly so on my old-fashioned definition of it. However, more importantly, it demonstrates that what is attempted to be legislated against in the Bill is a formal competition set up with prizes and with the public able to attend in a formal manner.
      The sort of informal occasion to which reference has been made is not the occasion against which legislation should be attempted. If that is the occasion on which hares are chased by two or more greyhounds, or whatever sort of dog is involved, and against which the supporters of the Bill are trying to legislate, they are not doing what many people who might otherwise be sympathetic towards them believe they are and should be doing.
      Mr. Robert Boscawen: I have not intervened in discussion on the Bill because I recognised that many others know a great deal more about this subject than I ever shall. Some matters

      943
      cause me considerable concern, in particular the justification of the Bill as it stands without close definition, which has some unsavoury implications.
      Many of my constituents have written asking me to oppose the Bill. The Under-Secretary gave as the justification for the Bill that it was a cruel, barbaric and cowardly sport. By implication she is saying that many of those who have written to me are supporting a brutally cruel and cowardly sport. If that is the case, it behoves Labour Members who support the Bill to define it carefully.
      In this country we tolerate a great deal of cruelty to animals as well as to human beings. The hon. Lady's great Department tolerates some revolting experiments on animals. They are done under careful control with, as she assured me in a letter the other day, the minimum of cruelty. However, they are done because the ends justify the means and for the better enjoyment of human life. I suggest to Labour Members that that is cruel all the same.
      At present in certain areas of my constituency the Department of Agriculture is engaged in exterminating the badger on the ground that it is the carrier of bovine tuberculosis. The Department is doing so in a particularly repulsive and dangerous way—gassing these enchanting animals in their own homes. It is said that the end justifies the means and that it is necessary for the better enjoyment of human life. However, I suggest to those hon. Members who are against cruelty to animals that it is cruel all the same.
      The Department of Trade imports films into this country on which horses, for the sake of glorious spectacles, are brought down by trip-wires. Their limbs are broken and afterwards they have to be shot and put out of misery. That is for the better enjoyment and entertainment of our people. We tolerate and allow it to happen but it is cruel all the same.
      Unfortunately and regretfully, there are many examples in this country of individuals maltreating domestic animals, especially dogs. I happen to be very fond of dogs. I hate to see the condition of some of the dogs that are wandering about our city streets. One can see that
      944
      they are suffering, in pain, badly fed and not properly looked after. However, we tolerate it because it would be highly unpopular and expensive to bring in the restrictive measures that are necessary to prevent that happening.
      Mr. Spriggs: The hon. Gentleman has given a list of items that come under the heading of cruelty. He should not forget the pig farmers who harness down the sow while she has a litter of 20 or so piglets feeding off her. She cannot protect herself because she is fastened down by a steel harness. Is not that cruelty for the sake of profit?
      2.15 p.m.
      Mr. Boscawen: I do not want to enter into the controversy over factory farming. It is a closely argued controversy whether it is more-cruel for the animal to step on a piglet. We could argue about that for a long time.
      Mr. Spriggs: People want cheap food.
      Mr. Boscawen: I am trying to impress on the hon. Gentleman that we tolerate a great deal of cruelty to animals when it suits us. It ill behoves Labour Members to tell me that many of my constituents are brutally and cowardly inclined because they support this blood sport, when Labour Members close their eyes to other cruelty that is taking place because the end justifies the means.
      The Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office (Mr. William Price): That is totally untrue.
      Mr. Boscawen: It is not totally untrue. It takes place and the hon. Gentleman knows it. [Interruption.]
      Mr. Price: I have been challenged by the hon. Gentleman's colleagues to say why I regard that as totally untrue. I speak only for myself and as a vegetarian who regards all killing as equally immoral. I draw no difference, as many Conservative Members know, between live hare coursing and any other form of killing. As it applies to me, what the hon. Gentleman has said is quite untrue.
      Mr. Boscawen: I accept absolutely the hon. Gentleman's explanation and his high morality in this matter. I am not attacking any individual. It ill behoves

      945
      me or anyone else to attack others for cruelty to animals in this country when we tolerate it officially as well as unofficially. It behoves those who want to stop hare coursing to define what is and what is not cruelty. The Bill is loosely defined. I should like Amendment No. 8 to be agreed so that those who are called cruel in my constituency know what is and what is not cruel. We have to get away from humbug and cant on this subject, and from pretending that one or another of us is holier than thou. We are not.
      In the main we are quite a cruel nation, despite the fact that we pretend we are not. We were cruel in the war—I know, because I saw it. We are still cruel in some areas in peace time. That is why I resent the attack on a rural section of the community which does not believe that it is any more-cruel than those who live in cities and who allow their dogs to run about unfed and medically unfit. I resent this attack on one side as opposed to another. If hon. Members want to tackle cruelty and to put a stop to it, let them do so as a whole and not in the partisan way in which they have approached this Bill.
      Mr. Kimball: I am in some difficulty on these amendments and the new clause. While agreeing entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) that we need a definition, and while at the same time not wishing to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), I cannot accept that new Clause 9 which my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough has put to us gives the definitions which we need in this instance.
      Definitions of words are included in many Acts of Parliament. As hon. Members know, full lists of such words may be found in the volumes of "Halsbury". In Room A of our Library there are over 43 volumes giving definitions of terms used in Acts of Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough made much of his search of two of our principal dictionaries, but I do not know whether he had time to search the third edition of definitions of words and phrases under Halsbury's name. I strongly suspect that had he done so he would have been able to find better definitions than appear in his new Clause 9. For that reason,
      946
      should we come to a vote, I do not feel that I could support my hon. Friend in adding the new clause to the Bill.
      My main objection to the definitions proposed in the new clause lies in the certainty that, if such definitions were added, they would restrict the number of activities in the countryside which could be carried on if the Bill were ever to become law.
      It is significant that Messrs. Stable and Stuttard carefully considered what would be the consequence if the House of Commons were ever to pass the present Bill, which is precisely the same Bill as has been trotted out before us some 13 times during the last 11 years. Thus, in forecasting what the position would be, Messrs. Stable and Stuttard were not talking about a hypothetical situation but were directing themselves to something which they could properly forecast. As I say, my reason for opposing the proposed definition clause as it stands is that it would be more restrictive than the Bill as drafted.
      As Messrs. Stable and Stuttard saw it—this must be right—if the Bill were to be passed in its present form and without a better definition clause than new Clause 9, both the coursing rules and the field officials associated with the present conduct of coursing would no longer be there. The organisation of matches and the systems of cup, plate and purse would no longer be there. But coursing would still continue.
      It is significant that in recent times the owners of Scottish deerhounds have adapted their practices to keep them in line with the Deer (Scotland) Act 1959. That Act made it an offence to set two dogs on a stag, a red deer or a hind, but now the owners of Scottish deerhounds wishing to test their dogs in their natural surroundings go on to the hills and course blue, mountain or Arctic hares with their dogs. We shall never change the genuine desire of enthusiastic breeders of dogs always to test their dogs' natural abilities—and not necessarily their natural abilities one against the other.
      What happens today if one runs a fox to ground? Out of every corner of the countryside men appear with their terriers, hoping to be given a chance to see whether their dogs will go to ground and whether they will work. One of the greatest

      947
      problems at any dig which a master of foxhounds encounters nowadays is to get his own well-trained and experienced foxhounds into the earth and tactfully keep out the mass of enthusiasts who bring their own dogs because they want to test them in doing the job they are bred to do.
      The House has no doubt about my interest in this matter. I want to see coursing survive in some form or other, in any possible legal way, even if the Bill becomes law. But, having studied the new clause, I fear that if its definitions were added to the Bill they would make it more difficult for those who own any one of the five coursing breeds to be given an opportunity not necessarily to match one dog against another but to be certain that their dogs still retain the natural characteristics of the breed.
      Messrs. Stable and Stuttard predicted what the position would be if the Bill ever became law without a definition clause. We should have to dispense with the judge in a coursing match, the judge who is a symbol and the arbiter in a test of merit and ability. One would no longer be able to test the merit and ability of two dogs one against the other.
      I cannot accept that the definition of "competition" in new Clause 9 is sufficiently closely drawn that some form of testing of one dog against another in some other form would still be possible. As I understand it at present, we should find coursing continuing on people's farms and for the control of hares, but without the judge.
      We should have to dispense also with the field officials. There would no longer be the slipper. In a greyhound match, the slip is an extremely skilled job. I do not believe that Labour Members realise what they are doing in wanting to remove the slipper from coursing. The slipper is the man who stands where the hares come on to the coursing ground and who decides whether a particular hare is fit to be coursed. If hon. Members have ever stood in the slip, they will understand what a skilled job this is. Is the hare coming forward a wormy ill-bred poor creature on which it is not fair to slip the dogs? Is the hare coming forward an animal which has been balled up on its feet from coming across a lot of plough? It is the slipper who decides whether it is
      948
      a suitable hare on which the powers of two dogs shall be tested. If hon. Members remove the slipper, they will be removing one of the most important officials from the field.
      Moreover, their proposals would remove the pickers-up. We hear a lot of talk from hon. Members opposite about hares being torn to pieces. I have never seen a hare torn to pieces at any coursing match.
      Mr. Mates: Nor have they.
      Mr. Kimball: I agree.
      Mr. Mates: Perhaps my hon. Friend would care to invite any hon. Member opposite to stand up and say whether he has seen a hare torn to pieces.
      Mr. William Price: I have.
      Mr. Kimball: The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Price) and I differ greatly—
      Mr. Flannery: I respond to the hon. Gentleman's intervention in this way. I have never seen a woman raped. I have never seen torture. I have never seen a public execution. Yet I abhor them all, and I should expect the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends to share that abhorrence with me.
      2.30 p.m.
      Mr. Kimball: I cannot follow the hon. Member. I would like to keep to my argument. I am against the new clause, which seeks to add certain definitions, because it would not be helpful to coursing.
      Even if the Bill goes through, certain forms of coursing will take place quite legally, but they will not be helped by this definition clause. This coursing, although legal, will be carried on without the present safeguards. We shall be going back to the seventeenth century form of coursing when people went out with their greyhounds to catch hares solely in order to eat them or as an amusing way of controlling hares. There will be nothing illegal in that. If people go coursing with these motives, they will want to make sure that they kill the hare. The hounds will be slipped at short range, at the moment the hare is sprung or at the moment it appears through a hedge.
      The National Coursing Club rules lay down that, in competition, dogs must be slipped from at least 80 yards. This

      949
      makes coursing a fair match and gives the hare a chance. It is not difficult to kill a hare if one does not give it much of a start. The first hare I ever killed with a greyhound died purely by accident. It knocked itself out on the bottom bar of a gate. It had suddenly been sprung in an unsual position and dashed through the first hole it could see.
      If Labour Members are worried about hares, they should realise that the best way to reduce the number of hares that are killed by greyhounds is to see that all chasing of hares is carried out under the rules of the National Coursing Club.
      Messrs. Stable and Stuttard looked most carefully for a definition of the word "coursing". I have survived various examinations in the peculiar language of Latin and become dependent on Kelly's "Keys to the Classics", but that does not cover the definition of coursing. In trying to define coursing, Messrs. Stable and Stuttard found that it was derived from the Latin "currere". I am rather apprehensive about using Latin words in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More), whose pronunciation is slightly different from mine. He was at school earlier than I was.
      Mr. Jasper More: I was brought up on the classical pronunciation. One pronounces Latin exactly as one does English.
      Mr. Kimball: The particular versatility of the words descended from "currere" is seen in such words as " current", "currency", "curriculum" and "corsair", which is a hit-and-run sea raider upon coastal settlements. A courser may be either a runner, a swift-running horse or charger, a dog used in coursing or the dog's owner. This shows the difficulties we get into in trying to define "coursing". Scientists have also got hold of the word, and the scientific word "cursorial" is a term used by zoologists for certain types of insects, birds and mammals whose legs are specially adapted for running. Cursorial mammals are dogs of the greyhound type. In the excellent report by Messrs. Stable and Stuttard there is a very good appendix which gives in more detail the qualities of dogs of the greyhound type.
      950
      When one looks at the problems that Messrs. Stable and Stuttard had in defining the word "coursing", I cannot accept the definition in the new clause that "coursing" means hunting hares with greyhounds.
      Mr. Hastings: It is important that the House should be clear on this matter. The definition in the new clause includes only greyhounds, and, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, a number of other dogs are often involved in coursing. As this subject was inadequately dealt with in Committee, and as Labour Members have shown today that their ignorance is profound, could my hon. Friend tell us a little more about the subject?
      Mr. Kimball: My hon. Friend pre-empts the argument I was about to develop. This is not the only point to be cleared up if we are to accept, as the new clause does, that "dogs" means greyhounds. We also find ourselves in considerable difficulty about dogs used for hunting purposes being considered as greyhounds.
      First, I should like to clear up the definition of "coursing". We have heard that the word means not only swift running or the owner of a swift-running dog but also a hound which hunts by sight. Greyhounds hunt by sight, and one can unsight them very easily. This is why so much coursing takes place in the North-West in the fens, where the Waterloo Cup is held. It is possible to go for miles without being able to unsight a greyhound Whippets can also be unsighted and they, too, will cease to pursue their quarry.
      A definition of coursing limited to hunting by sight would exclude lurchers, salukis and Scottish deerhounds, all of which are coursing dogs. They hunt not only by sight but by scent. I do not know whether any hon. Members have been to a saluki meeting, but the moment they become unsighted they set off in pursuit of the hare on its ground scent. One can see owners disappearing into the far distant countryside to collect their dogs after they have chased off after a hare. They may hunt it very slowly, or they may do so quickly according to the scenting conditions on that day. If hon. Members opposite had seen the coursing of the Arctic hares in Scotland—
      Mr. David Stoddart rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Mr. Speaker: I shall accept that motion in five minutes. If the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) wishes to hear a Government reply he must conclude his remarks almost at once.
      Mr. Kimball: On a point of order. If I were to conclude now, Mr. Speaker, to give the Government a chance to reply to these arguments, and the closure were then not carried, would I be allowed afterwards to develop the rest of my argument? I have five other points connected with the amendment with which I have not yet been able to deal. If I sit down now I shall cut myself out of the debate which will follow if the closure is not carried, and I shall be unable to continue with my argument, which is vital to the debate.
      Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is well known for his reasonableness. He has been speaking now for 21 minutes.
      Mr. Mates: But it is all good stuff.
      Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As one who is seeking to intervene in this debate may I suggest, first, that points of order should not count towards the five minutes—
      Mr. Speaker: I can help the hon. Gentleman on that point straight away. They will count.
      Mr. Ridley: Is there a precedent for your saying, Mr. Speaker, that you will accept a closure in five minutes' time? It might be that no hon. Member will seek to move such a motion in five minutes. Surely it will greatly truncate the debate if hon. Members have notice that they have only five more minutes to speak. I believe that the precedents are that either you accept the closure when it is moved or you do not. If you do not accept the closure when it is moved, it is usual for hon. Members to delay for another two hours before seeking to move it again. The closure having been moved by the Assistant Whip and having been refused by you, surely it would be within the precedents that no hon. Member should seek to move another closure for another hour or two. For you to announce in advance that yon will accept it in five minutes'
      952
      time is something which has never before come to my ears in my short experience in this honourable House. Of course, I may have missed it. Is it not unusual to say what you have said, Mr. Speaker?
      Mr. Speaker: There is no question of accepting it in five minutes. I shall now accept it in two minutes.
      Mr. Mather: I am in difficulty, Mr. Speaker. I have been unable to speak to my amendment and I do not know whether it is usual practice for the closure to be moved so suddenly without warning the Opposition Front Bench so that we may adust our timing and arrange for a proper conclusion to the debate.
      Mr. Jerry Wiggin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has made a fairly fundamental point. There are other implications to giving five minutes' notice of a closure. While I appreciate that probably in your charity it would seem advisable to give that notice, may I suggest that on reflection you might reconsider whether you are setting a wise precedent? I can see that in the future it could cause infinite procedural difficulties to give notice of the time when a closure will be accepted.
      Mr. Speaker: I think I took a commonsense line. I thought it was conceivable that Conservative Members would want to hear what the Minister had to say on the debate which, after all, has been going on already for nearly two hours.
      Mr. Adam Butler: Just so that the House may fully understand your ruling, Mr. Speaker, are you saying that there is a delayed agreement to the Question being put five minutes from when the Government Whip moved it, or are you saying that you would accept it if he were to move it again within five minutes of the time when he originally moved it?
      Mr. Speaker: Of course, the Whip will have to move it again. I think the time has come when he should do so.
      Mr. Stoddart rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Question put, That the Question be now put:—
      The House divided: Ayes 101, Noes 1

      Division No. 361.]

      AYES

      [12.37 p.m.

      Alison, Michael

      Fell, Anthony

      Nelson, Anthony

      Arnold, Tom

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Page, John (Harrow West)

      Banks, Robert

      Freud, Clement

      Raison, Timothy

      Beith, A. J.

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

      Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Bell, Ronald

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

      Berry, Hon Anthony

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

      Biffen, John

      Hastings, Stephen

      Ridley, Hon Nicholas

      Body, Richard

      Havers, Sir Michael

      Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Hawkins, Paul

      Shersby, Michael

      Brittan, Leon

      Hooson, Emlyn

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Brotherton, Michael

      Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

      Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Hurd, Douglas

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)

      Buck, Antony

      James, David

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Clark, William (Croydon S)

      Jopling, Michael

      Wakeham, John

      Cockcroft, John

      Kimball, Marcus

      Walters, Dennis

      Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Wells, John

      Costain, A. P.

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Drayson, Burnaby

      Marten, Neil

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Mates, Michael

      Emery, Peter

      Mather, Carol

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Maude, Angus

      Mr. Jasper More and

      Farr, John

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Mr. John Cope

      NOES

      Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

      Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Booth, Albert

      Cant, R. B.

      Bates, Alf

      Bottomley, Peter

      Cartwright, John

      Bean, R. E.

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

      Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Jeger, Mrs Lena

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Clemitson, Ivor

      Judd, Frank

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Cohen, Stanley

      Kerr, Russell

      Rooker, J. W.

      Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

      Lamborn, Harry

      Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Lamond, James

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

      Deakins, Eric

      Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

      Lipton, Marcus

      Skinner, Dennis

      Eadie, Alex

      Luard, Evan

      Spearing, Nigel

      Edge, Geoff

      McCartney, Hugh

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      English, Michael

      Marks, Kenneth

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

      Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Flannery, Martin

      Mikardo, Ian

      Tomlinson, John

      Forrester, John

      Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

      Tuck, Raphael

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Freeson, Reginald

      Molloy, William

      Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

      Gould, Bryan

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Ward, Michael

      Graham, Ted

      Newens, Stanley

      Weitzman, David

      Grocott, Bruce

      Noble, Mike

      Wellbeloved, James

      Harper, Joseph

      Ovenden, John

      Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Owen, Dr David

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Hatton, Frank

      Parker, John

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Perry, Ernest

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

      Phipps, Dr Colin

      Mr. Laurie Pavitt and

      Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Mr. David Stoddart

      Division No. 362.]

      AYES

      [2.44 p.m

      Abse, Leo

      Graham, Ted

      Price, C. (Lewisham W)

      Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

      Grocott, Bruce

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      Radice, Giles

      Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Bates, Alf

      Hatton, Frank

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Bean, R. E.

      Hayman, Mrs Helene

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Rooker, J. W.

      Bishop, E. S.

      Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

      Sandelson, Neville

      Booth, Albert

      Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

      Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

      Cant, R. B.

      Jeger, Mrs Lena

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Cartwright, John

      Judd, Frank

      Silverman, Julius

      Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

      Kerr, Russell

      Skinner, Dennis

      Clemitson, Ivor

      Lamborn, Harry

      Spearing, Nigel

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

      Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Cohen, Stanley

      Lipton, Marcus

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

      Loyden, Eddie

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

      Cryer, Bob

      McCartney, Hugh

      Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

      Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Marks, Kenneth

      Tomlinson, John

      Davidson, Arthur

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Tuck, Raphael

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

      Mikardo, Ian

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Deakins, Eric

      Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

      Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Ward, Michael

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Molloy, William

      Watkinson, John

      Eadie, Alex

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Weitzman, David

      Edge, Geoff

      Moyle, Roland

      Wellbeloved, James

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      Newens, Stanley

      Whitehead, Phillip

      English, Michael

      Noble, Mike

      Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

      Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

      Ovenden, John

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

      Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

      Owen, Dr David

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

      Parker, John

      Flannery, Martin

      Pavitt, Laurie

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Forrester, John

      Perry, Ernest

      Miss Margaret Jackson and

      Gould, Bryan

      Phipps, Dr Colin

      Mr. David Stoddart

      NOES

      Buck, Antony

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Mr. Stephen Hastings and

      Mr. Jasper More

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Question put accordingly, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House proceeded to a Division; but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Ayes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it.

    Clause 1

      HARE COURSING MATCHES TO BE ILLEGAL
      Mr. Speaker: I call the hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Mather), on Amendment No. 4.
      Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you announce in advance, Mr. Speaker, whether and when you will move the closure on this amendment? On the previous new clause some of my hon. Friends were put to considerable disadvantage. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) did not have
      954
      a chance to speak on the clause and we did not have a chance to hear the complete speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball). Indeed, many of my hon. Friends wished to speak. We did not have a chance to hear the Minister's reply. With the greatest respect, Mr. Speaker, the five minutes which you suggested was not long enough for all those contributions to be made. We are in some difficulty because my hon. Friends did not vote on the substantive matter. We did not vote because we were not in a position to hear the Government's attitude to the points that were made in favour of the clause.
      Mr. Speaker: This is a hypothetical point. I call in aid a very distinguished predecessor of mine, Mr. Speaker Shaw-Lefevre, who said something like this:
      "I have so ruled, and it is now an established practice of the House."
      Mr. Farr: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that we may

      955
      have some guidance whether it is likely to be your practice in the ensuing debates to accept a closure after a fairly short time. The amendment that we are now to discuss—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not prepared to allow an irregular debate on this matter. Anyone who has been a Member of the House as long as the hon. Gentleman knows quite well that Members approach Mr. Speaker to know whether he will accept the closure. In this instance I told the House that I would accept it in five minutes. I thought it only fair to those who had spoken in favour of the clause that they should have the chance to hear what the Minister had to say. If they did not want to do so, that is a matter for them. Perhaps we may now get on.
      Mr. Mather: Before moving Amendment No. 4, in view of what went on in Committee perhaps it would be appropriate for me to establish the basis of the debate by means of a point of order. I speak on a point of order to explain to all hon. Members what happened in Committee on this amendment and why we are discussing it again. We had a full discussion on the amendment in Committee but we are now having a further discussion. Therefore, it is right that we should say this, on a point of order, to establish the basis on which we are having this debate.
      Mr. Speaker: I do not see what this has to do with the Chair.
      3.0 p.m.
      Mr. Mather: I was going to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether my understanding of the position in which we find ourselves was correct, because we have already debated the words "assists at" upstairs, and are now debating them again. Perhaps I should continue with my point of order, or as part of my speech establish what happened in Committee.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not understand the hon. Gentleman. He has his name to an amendment on the Order Paper, in page 1, line 5, leave out "or assist at". I have selected that amendment. It is now for him to continue to move it.
      Mr. Mather: I accept your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to ask as an
      956
      introduction, on the point of order, the basis on which we were discussing the amendment. But I shall continue with my speech in the normal way.
      Mr. Jasper More: Before we leave the point of order—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. We have left what was not in fact a point of order. The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) is now moving his amendment.
      Mr. More: I have very much a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
      Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may put his point of order if it is a new one.
      Mr. More: It concerns the way in which the amendment has come to the House, Mr. Speaker. I do not know whether your attention has been drawn to the proceedings in Committee—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot allow the time of the House to be taken up in this way. What happened in a Committee is not a matter for me on Report. I have selected the amendment, and if it is not moved we may have to go on to the next one.
      Mr. More: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Something happened in Committee which should be brought to your attention.
      Mr. Speaker: That is entirely appropriate for a speech. It is not a point of order.
      Mr. Mather: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 5 leave out 'or assists at'.
      Perhaps I should begin by saying that there was some confusion in Committee when we discussed the same amendment. It arose because at the opening of our debate there the Minister said that she was willing to accept the amendment and the one before, which was to leave out "procures". The hon. Lady said:
      "I was going to announce to the Committee that I would be pleased to accept Amendments 3 and 4."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 8th July 1975; c. 149.]
      Our amendment then was Amendment No. 4. The Committee agreed to Amendment No. 3 and we went on to debate Amendment No. 4. We had a Division, because my hon. Friend the Member for

      957
      Gloucesteshire, South (Mr. Cope) disagreed with the amendment, and the hon. Lady voted against it. Therefore, vote did not follow voice, and hence we are now debating the same amendment again.
      There are precedents of vote not following voice. There was a famous person involved in 1970—as it happens, on a previous Bill to abolish hare coursing—when Mr. Speaker ruled that it was the practice of the House that a Member's vote must agree with his voice.
      Mr. Fell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have spent the last two or three minutes considering what you told us a few minutes ago. The more I have thought about the matter, the more I have felt that it would be right for me to raise this point of order while you are still in the Chair rather than to wait for your deputy to take your place.
      We are in the odd situation that we are having a debate on an amendment that has been correctly moved and we cannot know when the debate will end. It may be that only two or three hon. Members on the Opposition benches will speak and perhaps one or two Labour Members. Of course, we hope that our side will be allowed to answer any speeches from the Labour benches. We shall wait with ears hanging open to hear the Government's reply to the debate. Therefore, it must be relevant to the discussion which has just started that we should have some idea whether it is likely that you will accept a closure motion in a short time, otherwise we cannot—
      Mr. Speaker: I have already ruled. This is a purely hypothetical matter. It is one of the discretions left to the Chair by the House. The Chair may decide to accept the closure motion after five minutes or five hours. It is a matter for the Chair.
      Mr. Mather: We obviously do not want to go over ground that we went over in Committee. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) had to curtail his classic speech in Committee, and would perhaps welcome an opportunity to expand it at some length, it might be unfair to the House if we went through the whole debate again. We had a reasonably full debate in Committee. Although it may seem that the leaving out
      958
      or keeping in of two small words, such as "assists at", is of minor importance, it is a matter of considerable moment because the Bill is very short. The authors were no doubt at some pains to keep it short because they wish to see it go through the House in as short a time as possible. That was entirely up to them.
      Mr. Fell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have given a little more thought to what Mr. Speaker ruled. I accept that ruling completely, but may I ask one further question? If there is to be acceptance in advance of a request for the closure, may we at least be assured that the Minister will be given sufficient time to make even the most cursory of answers to the debate?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): This is entirely a matter for the discretion of the Chair and should not be pursued any further.
      Mr. Jasper More: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are in the difficulty that the Government have decided to move the lifting of the four o'clock rule. If they had adopted the other device of giving us a timetable, we should have known how to moderate speeches so that we might be assured of a winding-up speech from our Front Bench and a reply by the Minister. It would be of great assistance, because all the forthcoming debates are important, if we could have an indication of what the Chair has in mind for the provisional allocation of time for the separate debates.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order. It is entirely a matter for the discretion of the Chair.
      Mr. Mather: Both this debate and the debate which has recently been the subject of a closure motion deal with very much the same topic. We were talking about words, definitions and interpretations and how important it was that the courts should know exactly what the words in the Bill mean. We have had the benefit of most expert advice dealing with the interpretation of words from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton). We shall be discussing his report dealing with the preparation of legislation in a week's time. The opinion he gave was that some of the words in the Bill were in great need of interpretation.

      959
      He felt that the courts would have difficulty in deciding exactly what the words meant.
      This explains our emphasis in Committee upon the importance of the phrase "assists at". We would like to know why the Under-Secretary agreed at the beginning of our debate in Committee that these words were superfluous, together with the words "or procures" and then, when it came to the end of the debate, voted against the amendment.
      We deserve an explanation about the Minister's change of mind. The hon. Lady had plenty of time before the debate to take the expert advice of her officials. Presumably it was their advice that these words were superfluous and should be omitted. We should know how it was that she came to vote against her own expression of judgment—whether there was an error or whether she had second thoughts or last-minute advice.
      Mr. Cope: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but he is doing me less than justice. I must point out that I spoke after the hon. Lady and before the vote was taken. I spoke against the amendment and I assumed that she was convinced by my speech. Certainly she had spoken one way, but after hearing my speech she had second thoughts and voted in the way I suggested that the whole of the Committee should vote. It is for the hon. Lady to explain, but I do not think my hon. Friend should imply that it was a bolt from the blue or a mistake.
      Mr. Mather: I apologise to my hon. Friend. I have gone into the previous debate in some detail. While I had taken due note of the fact that his words had carried great weight, I am afraid that in the confusion of the moment today I omitted to mention this. A strong speech was made by my hon. Friend. Perhaps when the hon. Lady replies we shall learn whether it was my hon. Friend's words which made her change her mind, whether it was a mistake in the heat of the moment or whether she had last-minute advice from her officials.
      Mr. Jasper More: I reinforce what my hon. Friend has said. The events in Committee were a great personal humiliation to me since I had moved this amendment, I thought, most persuasively. I thought
      960
      that the hon. Lady was entirely in agreement with me. After the eloquent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope), she appears to have been completely swayed the other way, with the result that her vote did not follow her voice. That was true of at least one other Member on the Government side of the Committee.
      3.15 p.m.
      This raises the point whether public notice ought to be taken in the Chamber that such a thing happened in Committee. "Erskine May" says in Chapter XXIV, dealing with the system of committees:
      "A member's vote in a standing committee must agree with his voice."
      In the interests of proper debate in Committee and in this Chamber, I feel that this is a matter that should not be overlooked.
      I put it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we ought, perhaps, to ask Mr. Speaker to come back to the Chair and publicly admonish the hon. Lady. Much as we respect her and much as we recognise that there was a genuine change of view after the eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South, the hon. Lady's action is surely a precedent that will bring our proceedings into confusion and contempt if no notice is taken of it. I know from the good spirit that prevailed in Committee that the hon. Lady will know that there is no personal—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman, because the ruling in "Erskine May" on page 606 dealing with the procedure in Standing Committees specifically states that
      "no appeal can be made to the Speaker regarding the decisions and rulings of a chairman of a standing committee."
      Mr. Jasper More: Further to my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I think our difficulty arises from the fact that we had no ruling from the Chairman of our Committee.
      Mr. E. Fernyhough: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May we know whether hon. Members who were on the Committee and who are now filibustering raised this issue decisively when it took place, what ruling they received from the Chair and

      961
      why they are not prepared to accept the ruling?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I can make the comment, which is well known in this House, that whatever may have taken place in Standing Committee can have no effect upon proceedings in this Chamber.
      Mr. Mather: It is not in our gift to filibuster. We were told that the debate would proceed until four o'clock and that the Government intended that the rule should be suspended. This was announced several days ago.
      Mr. Fell: My hon. Friend will also note that it is quite apparent that we now have a guillotine.
      Mr. Mather: Can I remind—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not know whether I heard the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) aright when he referred to a guillotine motion. I hope that there was no suggestion of a criticism of Mr. Speaker or the Chair.
      Mr. Fell: I do not see how there could be a criticism of Mr. Speaker. I am reminding my hon. Friend, because he has a lot to say and wants to say it as briefly as he can, in spite of the points of order raised by Labour members, that it looks now as though we are working to a timetable. If I should have used the word "timetable", I apologise and substitute that word.
      Mr. Mather: This part of the debate is of an important technical nature. In Committee the hon. Lady said this about these words:
      "In the light of the precedent of the 1911 Act it is difficult to believe that the inclusion of 'or assists at' in the Bill would create any difficulties of interpretation for the courts, but the amendment brings out the fact that the inclusion of 'or assists at' adds nothing to the substance of the Bill. The principal offence is adequately covered.
      Procuring someone else to undertake the coursing of hares by dogs or to assist in it is covered by the provisions of Section 35 of the Magistrates Courts Act 1952 which provides that a person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission by another of a summary offence shall be guilty of the like offence.
      "'Assists at' has the same source as 'procures', but it cannot be construed as synonymous with the principal offence. It only relates to the part played by people present in an
      962
      ancillary capacity, such as stewards or attendants.
      The 1952 Act will clearly apply to any person aiding or abetting a principal offence and, to this extent, the inclusion of 'assists at' can be said to be superfluous. There is authority for the proposition that people whose presence is found to be an encouragement to an offence are guilty of aiding and abetting. This description is readily applied to some spectators, although it is not our intention to catch innocent passersby, but the inclusion of 'or assists at' will make it easier successfully to prosecute some spectators. The Bill will only apply to people who have knowingly taken part or offered encouragement.
      It seems unnecessary to strengthen the provisions of the 1952 Act and once the 1911 precedent for 'causes, procures or assists at' has been altered by the omission of 'procures' as the Committee has already agreed, there seems to be no good reason to retain 'assists at'. There are still ample powers to proceed against any person with real complicity in an offence."—[Official Report, Standing Commtitee B, 8th July 1975; c. 170–171.]
      That was the hon. Lady's opinion, which had been arrived at after consultation with her advisers and officials. We are now owed an explanation of what happened and what the hon. Lady's intentions are. If she opposes the amendment we would like to know why she changed her mind.
      Many hon. Members of the Opposition are unhappy about the situation, and I hope that the hon. Lady will answer our points at a later stage.
      Dr. Summerskill rose—
      Mr. Jasper More: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that this is not the conclusion of the debate on the amendment.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is the custom of the House, when a Minister rises, for the Minister to be called.
      Dr. Summerskill: I hope that by speaking so early on this amendment I shall not be accused of anticipating the debate, but as there seemed to be a desire for me to speak I thought it best to do so at this stage.
      The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) quoted what I said in Committee. Anyone reading that will see that my words were moderate and did not come down violently on one side or the other. I said that the inclusion of the words "or assists at" would make it easier successfully to prosecute spectators. That was the reason why they were put in the

      963
      Bill in the first place. It is likely to make it easier to prosecute successfully some spectators whose presence might be sufficiently ambiguous in character to make it difficult to prosecute them as aiders and abetters.
      When I indicated at the outset of the sitting that I was prepared to accept the amendments on "procures" and "assists", I assumed that that would find favour with the Committee. However, the mover of the amendments was unwilling to accept my acceptance. He proceeded to speak for nearly one and a quarter hours in moving the amendment, with which I had found favour on the assumption that the Committee would also find favour with it.
      Mr. Jasper More: In the event I was proved wise in having moved the amendment. Not only has the hon. Lady changed her mind, but almost all the Government supporters in Committee voted with her against the amendment. In addition, there was disagreement amongst the Opposition in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) made such an eloquent speech that he may have been responsible for swaying the Committee and securing the rejection of the amendment. As there was that atmosphere and feeling in the Committee, I do not think that I can be taxed with having been wrong or unwise in developing my case, although I seem to have developed it so badly that it was swept away as a result of the brilliant eloquence of my hon. Friend. All the Government supporters were swayed in his direction, not in mine.
      Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) has taken the words out of my mouth. He spent an hour and a quarter trying to persuade the Committee of the validity of his amendment, but the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) took three and a quarter columns in the Official Report of the Committee proceedings finding difficulties with the amendment, and doing so in a speech of some merit.
      We are not discussing a world-shattering matter. As I indicated in Committee, these words slightly enlarge the offence created by the Bill so as to make it possible to catch some spectators more easily.
      964
      The arguments are fairly evenly balanced in support of the omission of the words in question. It can be argued that persons who are innocent bystanders should not be put at risk. However, it can be argued, in favour of the inclusion of these words, that anyone who stands around at an unlawful hare coursing and subsequently finds himself prosecuted has only himself to blame. He would be convicted only if the court were satisfied that he had assisted the coursing. As the Committee spent a great deal of time deliberating the matter, and we now have this amendment before us again, I have had a great deal of time in which to consider it. The Government's original intention was to include these words in the Bill. My decision is that we should include the words in the Bill as originally introduced and resist their deletion.
      Mr. Fell: The hon. Lady is cool, collected and pleasant, as always. I wish that I had had the good fortune to have been a member of the Committee which discussed this matter.
      We are in trouble, whether the hon. Lady says so or not. The hon. Lady said that we were not discussing a world-shattering matter. It is only world-shattering to someone who may be brought up before the courts, who may not know with what he is to be charged or what the fine will be. It is only world-shattering for the judges and magistrates who consider the matter.
      At one stage the Lady did not know whether it was necessary to include the words "or assists at". She now tells us that she knows. Whom did she consult? Are there hon. Members present who are great experts in the use of the words "or assists at"? What is she on about? How does she know that this is not a world-shattering matter for those who may be charged under a law, the implications of which the House does not know?
      3.30 p.m.
      The Government are besotted with power, forcing themselves to take decisions which they know perfectly well are taken for no other reason in the wide world than political aggrandisement and to ob-obtain votes for their marvellous ideas on how to run country districts, about which they know little. The hon. Lady,

      965
      kind and gentle with the House as always, tells us that this is not a world-shattering matter. Is she in the same breath saying that it does not matter? Why does she not accept the amendment? Who has told her not to? Have the highest legal advisers to Her Majesty's Government been brought in, and have they told her to leave in "or assist at"? Did she get a wigging and a ticking off from her right hon. and learned Friends, the highest legal advisers?
      I imagine them reading her speech and saying "We find that what you said was rubbish. We have discovered that you have agreed to something which is enormously important. We are sorry; you are charming and wise, with a wisdom beyond your age, but we think that you are an idiot. We think that you do not understand that there is a difference between including and leaving out 'or assist at'"—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. There is some confusion whether the hon. Gentleman is addressing the Chair or addressing the Minister.
      Mr. Fell: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thought that I had cleared up earlier my slight question with the Chair. If I used the word "you" to the hon. Lady I apologise, but I hope that I did not.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman was using it with great frequency. I understood it to be in the form of a quotation, but I was not quite certain.
      Mr. Fell: I said earlier that I was not fortunate enough to be a member of the Committee, so I was not using the word as a quotation. I cannot remember my exact words. I think that I was using the word as a quotation of what might be said in future by a judge talking to a Minister. I shall do my utmost to incur your pleasure rather than displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by bringing my remarks to an end as quickly as possible.
      I should be greatly assisted in doing that if some great and notable legal figure were present. I cannot see one on the Labour benches. If I could see a notable legal figure on the Labour benches who might have had the temerity to tell his Minister the facts of life about "or
      966
      assist at" I would of course readily give way, sit down and ask the distinguished legal gentleman, who had perhaps advised the hon. Lady and who might advise me and the House, what to do about these enormously important words. I should be delighted to hear why the hon. Lady had such a wigging because she had the temerity in Committee to agree to leave out the words.
      What a nonsense it all is. The further we get on Report—and we are now dealing with Amendment No. 4, in case you might think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am attempting to discuss matters outside the amendment—the more ridiculous does the situation become.
      Mr. Jasper More: We were sad not to have my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) with us in Committee. Had he been a member he would have known that we were frequently in the difficulty of needing high legal advice. Now that the Bill is back in the House that legal advice is perhaps even more necessary. Would my hon. Friend think it right formally to request the presence of the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General or the Lord Advocate to advise us on this difficult question?
      Mr. Fernyhough: And the Leader of the Opposition and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all!
      Mr. Fell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion. I hesitate to follow his request for I know that the Government are in such case that were they to ask any of these distinguished legal advisers to be present they would probably make an even bigger mess of another Bill that they are studying before it is presented in the middle of next month. [Interruption.] It is all very well for the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) who promised not to intervene again—a promise that I am certain he much regrets. It would not be going wide of the amendment if I said to him that if he recants I shall understand and give way immediately. A man more likely to recant I do not know. If he recants I shall listen with great respect to any legal view he may have on "or assists at".
      On the other hand, there may be other legal minds of great repute who could give advice. There are one or two legal

      967
      minds on the Labour benches—no official ones but, after all, one never knows what may happen in the future. If one of those legal minds could advise us and the Minister at the same time of the reasons for including or leaving out "or assists at", he could so enhance his future position as to come into the enormous treasures of office sooner than he expects. If one of those legal minds would like to enter into the fray and tell us that the Minister; was right in Committee and wrong now, that legal gentleman would make clear that he disagrees with the senior and important Minister who told the hon. Lady she was talking nonsense. He might in that way enhance his repution and secure an appointment when the more senior Minister concerned gets his come-uppance, which is probably likely in the not too far distant future.
      I ask the hon. Lady to think well before she hands to those who have to interpret her miserable Bill the problem of what to do about it, because she has left it in such a mess.
      Mr. Hastings: In his usual way, my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) has succeeded yet again in focusing the attention of the House. I listened to him with great interest. I certainly second what my other hon. Friends said earlier, namely, that we regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth was not with us in Standing Committee to bring the power of his oratory and conviction to bear at an earlier stage of this important debate.
      After a great deal of thought and in spite of the oratory of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope), who, unhappily, is not with us at present, but who made a most impressive speech in Committee, I have come to the conclusion that I must support the amendment. There are two themes in my thoughts on the amendment. The first concerns precision and language. The Under-Secretary briefly told us in her intervention a few moments ago—perhaps we shall have the benefit of her views again on this matter, as it is as complicated as my hon. Friends have continually pointed out—that the phrase, "or assists at" will make it easier to catch spectators. If it will make it easier,
      968
      we must assume that she is setting out a precise phrase.
      Dr. Summerskill: I said "some spectators". Let us get it accurate. I did not say "all spectators".
      Mr. Hastings: Even if it concerns only some spectators, it is a serious matter for them. If they are to be hauled before the courts and accused of this hypothetical misdemeanour, they have a right to know where they stand. What lies behind the amendment is an attempt to point out that these words are wholly unacceptable because they are wholly imprecise.
      The burden of the remarkable speech that we were privileged to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) took some time because of the interruptions and uncertainties caused by the absence of any legal advisers or Law Officers. The burden of his speech concerned imprecision. We should be delighted if he could confirm the position if he is lucky enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at a later stage.
      Mr. Ridley: I was not a member of the Committee and I have not had time to read all the debates. Can my hon. Friend tell me why spectators should be caught at all? Will it now be an offence even to be a spectator? Can my hon. Friend advise me why the Committee did not throw this out completely?
      Mr. Hastings: My hon. Friend has referred to a most germane aspect of the argument and one to which I was coming. He has put his finger on the nub of the matter. Who are spectators? Why should spectators be hauled before the beak? I shall come to that matter later.
      First, let me deal with the imprecision of language. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was unfortunate enough to miss the debates in Committee I commend him to read the record of the proceedings.
      Mr. Ridley: Which is the relevant column?
      Mr. Hastings: Column 151 of the Committee Official Report for 8th July. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow quoted liberally from Fowler's "Modern English Usage". He discovered to the

      969
      entire satisfaction of all Opposition Members in the Committee that the phrase "assist or assists at" was not Anglo-Saxon at all. If it is anything, according to Fowler, it is a Gallicism. It comes from the French verb "assister". There is, therefore, no certainty in Fowler's mind, to judge from what my hon. Friend said, about what it means in English.
      Not only is it a Gallicism, but worse than that, it is a genteelism. I refer hon. Members to column 151 of Hansard. It would be wrong for me to go over the speech, but my hon. Friend adduced a long list of genteelisms. They are remarkable explanations of how our language has degenerated. A clear example of this degeneration happens to be the phrase "assists at". In Fowler's view we do not know what we are talking about when we say "assists at". From what my hon. and learned Friend has said, Fowler is an authority whom we disregard at our peril.
      3.45 p.m.
      Since that time I have sought to confirm from any other sources whether there is any adequate certainty about the phrase. I should like to turn to the Oxford English Dictionary, which is neither so informative nor entertaining as Fowler. Nevertheless, I think the House should have some idea about how the phrase is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary. I turn to page 511 which deals with the word "assist" and the phrase "assists at". The following quotations occur:
      "1626 C. POTTER Father Paul's Hist. 1. 32 The Counsellors assembled to assist at a solemn Masse."
      I am quoting these examples to illustrate how the thinking in the dictionary clearly advances:
      "1705 ADDISON Italy (1767) 29 The Duke of Lorrain used often to assist at their midnight devotions. 1765 WILKES Corr."—
      this must mean in correspondence—
      Mr. John Wells: It is John Wilkes, a former Member of this House.
      Mr. Hastings: Yes. The quotation continues:
      "(1805) II. 163 Last Saturday I assisted at the great festival. 1837 J. H. NEWMAN…"—
      I do not believe that anyone would deny the validity of his view on English—
      970
      "I quote the words of Cornelius Mussus…who assisted at the Council of Trent. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 53. The congregation may be said to assist as spectators rather than as auditors. 1854 Thackeray Newcomes II. 103. The dinner at which we have just assisted. 18…Dickens Seven Poor Trav. 12 And assisted—in the French sense—at the performance of two waltzes."
      At this point the Oxford English Dictionary and Fowler are beginning to talk in unison. How one assists at waltzes in the French sense is a fascinating basis of inquiry. However, I am sure it lies without the bounds of order, so I shall leave that matter. "1873…The sane and sober must simply 'assist', in the French sense, i.e. stand by and say nothing."
      There is one other quotation which is worth while and germane:
      "1603 FLORIO Montaigne (1634) 392 Having all day long assisted to the ceremonies, and publike banket."
      It is difficult to discover from the Oxford English Dictionary what is meant by this phrase except that at a certain stage it looks as though it is simply borrowed from the French. It is also made fairly clear that it indicates somebody standing by and doing nothing.
      Mr. Ridley: Does my hon. Friend consider that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) "assists" at our debates?
      Mr. Hastings: That is a most interesting point. I personally regret in view of his well known, deep, profound and firm interest in this matter the efforts he has made to galvanise his hon. Friends to come here on a Friday afternoon. Time and again he has played his part in bringing this miserable little Bill before the House, but we have had only one small intervention from him about a sentence long. We always enjoy listening to him and we are well aware of his sincerity in these matters. I hope that before the end of the day we shall know to what extent he is "assisting" at our debates.
      Mr. Adam Butler: May I suggest that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is "assisting" by sitting in the Chamber because he is a man of considerable distinction and fame in his own right? He is on the executive of his party. Therefore, his very presence suggests some form of assistance, although he is sitting dumb.
      Mr. Ioan Evans: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) has been giving various definitions in connection with banqueting and waltzing matters. Will they be related to the amendment? Is it in order for hon. Members opposite to invite my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) to participate in the debate?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: All that has been said has been in order. If the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) does not wish to intervene, that is perfectly all right.
      Mr. Adam Butler: Let us suppose that it is said that a man, because of his position and distinction, is assisting at a function. Let us suppose that the local high sheriff and an ordinary person with no status whatsoever are watching a coursing match. If it is said that one is assisting but not the other, one of them will be guilty of the offence but not the other.
      Mr. Hastings: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has anticipated the second theme of my speech.
      Mr. Jasper More: My hon. Friend has gone into the question of definition of the phrase "assists at". I do not know whether he is acquainted with the phrase "stand by". I was for a short time a very inefficient soldier. My recollection is that all my time in the Army was spent standing up, standing down, standing to, or standing by. When I was told to "stand by", I was not sure what it meant. Does my hon. Friend think that somebody who was "standing by" would come within the scope of the provision which the Under-Secretary of State is trying to put in the criminal law?
      Mr. Hastings rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues his speech, I remind the House that it would be helpful for the progress of business if interventions were kept as short as possible.
      Mr. Hastings: May I reply, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, whose experience in the Army equates strangely with mine. I always associated the phrase "stand by" with getting up in the middle of the night and shivering for a long time to no pur-
      972
      pose. Whether "stand by" and "assists at" mean the same, I am not sure. That was why I deployed at some length the extract from the Oxford English Dictionary. It might well be construed from what is printed in the Bill that they mean the same.
      I pass from the matter of the imprecision of the phrase to the results, misunderstandings and muddles which are almost certain to ensue if prosecutions are to be conducted on the basis of anything like the wording of the Bill. If the hon. Member for Walton were sitting behind a hedge and were spotted in suspicious circumstances near greyhounds, would he be "assisting at"?
      Let us picture the scene conjured up by the phraseology of this extraordinary Bill. Out in open country in perhaps East Anglia are a number of people walking about with greyhounds on leashes, with perhaps somebody on a horse and a number of people without horses or greyhounds standing about or walking about; some eager arm of the law lurking in a country lane espies the scene from afar. What is he to do? Who is "assisting" and who is not? I think that we have established that illegal coursing is bound to continue should the Bill reach the statute book. Nothing that the Under-Secretary of State has said seeks to persuade us otherwise.
      Mr. Ridley: Let us suppose that the hon. Member for Walton heavily disguises himself, as he is wont to do, in order to see what is happening, goes to the meeting in East Anglia, and is arrested for assisting because the very presence of his power and the dignity of his personality made him someone who must have been assisting—otherwise why would he have been there; is not that a likely possibility, although we all know that he is violently opposed to the sport?
      Mr. Hastings: I wonder what disguise the hon. Member for Walton would be using, or for what purpose and whether he would be on the side of the police. I do not know whether that was what was in my hon. Friend's mind. Perhaps it was, in which case the hon. Gentleman would disguise himself as a policeman. Plainly the peril in which anybody stands in such circumstances, either dressed as himself or as some other entity, is considerable.

      973
      My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), to whom we owe a great deal, has satisfactorily defined the officers and people who have a part to play in regular coursing. Irregular or illegal coursing is the same basic activity and there is no reason to suppose that these same people will not play a role. Let us suppose that a policeman says to a man on a horse, "What are you doing on that horse?", and the man says, "I am going from A to B because I have to exercise the horse". Is the man to be taken in for "assisting"?
      Let us suppose that the horse had been lent to him. What about the girl who straps the horse? What about the farrier who shoes the horse? All these people are involved in some degree or are "assisting". We have heard a great deal about slippers. Let us assume that a man with two greyhounds on a leash says, when spoken to by a policeman, "The hares are in my sugar beet and so I am here to get rid of the hares". What would be wrong with that?
      There are even more equivocal ex-examples of people "assisting" or not "assisting" illegal hare coursing. People may be standing about in a hedgerow. A number of us have—surprise, surprise—taken the trouble to go to coursing meeting to learn what happens. It is
      extraordinary that its opponents should have overlooked this elementary qualification to speak, but there it is. We know that a large number of people are required to guide the hares into the general area of the coursing ground. When I was coursing in Huntingdonshire, a number of people who were not stoppers or beaters were standing about in the hedgerows. I met a constituent who is a barman—a very good barman—and he had gone to watch the coursing because he was interested. Sometimes he stands at a stop and sometimes he just stands and watches. What is his crime and how is it to be defined? How is he assisting at this performance?
      On the day that I was coursing it was very cold. It generally is at coursing meetings. The people who undertake this sport are a hardy group. After I had stood about, learning—
      It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
      Motion made, and Question put,
      That the Hare Coursing Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]
      The House divided: Ayes 110, Noes 0.

      Division No. 363.]

      AYES

      [4.00 p.m.

      Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

      Gould, Bryan

      Noble, Mike

      Atkinson, Norman

      Graham, Ted

      Orbach, Maurice

      Bates, All

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Ovenden, John

      Bean, R. E.

      Grocott, Bruce

      Owen, Dr David

      Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      Parker, John

      Booth, Albert

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Hatton, Frank

      Peart, Rt Hon Fred

      Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)

      Hayman, Mrs Helene

      Perry, Ernest

      Cant, R. B.

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Phipps, Dr Colin

      Cartwright, John

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Prescott, John

      Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

      Hunt, John

      Price, C. (Lewisham W)

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Radice, Giles

      Cohen, Stanley

      Jeger, Mrs Lena

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

      Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Cryer, Bob

      Judd, Frank

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

      Kerr, Russell

      Rooker, J. W.

      Dalyell, Tam

      Lamborn, Harry

      Sandelson, Neville

      Davidson, Arthur

      Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

      Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

      Lee, John

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

      Deakins, Eric

      Lipton, Marcus

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Loyden, Eddie

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

      Eadie, Alex

      Luard, Evan

      Silverman, Julius

      Edge, Geoff

      McCartney, Hugh

      Skinner, Dennis

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Spearing, Nigel

      English, Michael

      Marks, Kenneth

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Ennals, David

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

      Mikardo, Ian

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

      Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

      Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

      Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Flannery, Martin

      Molloy, William

      Tomlinson, John

      Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

      Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

      Tuck, Raphael

      Freeson, Reginald

      Newens, Stanley

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Ward, Michael

      Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

      Watkinson, John

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Weitzman, David

      Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

      Miss Margaret Jackson and

      Wellbeloved, James

      Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

      Mr. Thomas Cox

      NOES

      NIL

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Mr. Jasper More and

      Mr. Michael Mates

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
      Mr. Hastings: Now that the House, rightly or wrongly, has decided to continue this debate, it is my duty to return to the categories of person who may be seen in the future as attending a hypothetical illegal coursing meeting and to what extent they are assisting at such a proceeding. But before I do so it is right to recall that it is not so long ago that my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) pointed out to the Minister the deep difficulty into which we were plunged in Standing Committee because we had no adequate senior legal advice about what this phrase meant
      Since none of us is blind, it must be clear that the House is now filled with senior Ministers, including the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. They all seem to have time to spare to come to the House this afternoon to vote on the Hare Coursing Bill. Some newspaper people seem to regard our state of affairs in this country as ruinous.
      Mr. Charles Morrison: My hon. Friend has listed all these important right hon. Members. Is it not all the more extraordinary that the Home Secretary should not be here?
      Mr. Hastings: Exactly. My hon. Friend has taken the words out of my mouth. I was going to say that if the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection can spare time in this crisis of our country to vote on Friday afternoon for the Hare Coursing Bill, why not the Home Secretary or the Lord Advocate or one of the other Law Officers?
      Mr. Mates: May I correct my hon. Friend? Going through the Lobby was
      976
      the Attorney-General. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman can come here and cast his vote, would not my hon. Friend agree that he could come here and explain to us, clearly and probably briefly and acceptably, what is meant by the phrase which we are struggling to define?
      Mr. Hastings: Now that we have the benefit of the keen eyes of my hon. Friend and we know that the Home Secretary is somewhere in the House—
      Mr. Mates: No, the Attorney-General.
      Mr. Hastings: Better still, the Attorney-General is in the House. The very least that we have a right to expect is that he should help us in this matter. This is probably the most tricky point that we shall have to face throughout these proceedings. Perhaps the Minister could give us her view on this point. Since her right hon. and learned Friend cannot be far away, if she could send a PPS or someone speeding after him, it might be possible to get his assistance. Would she be prepared to do any such thing?
      Dr. Summerskill: Conservative Members seem to find the amendment extremely complicated. It was put down by Conservative Members and it is therefore for them to clarify it for the rest of the House and not for us to try to explain it to them.
      Mr. Hastings: That is the most extraordinary doctrine that I have heard from the Dispatch Box in 15 years in this place. If the hon. Lady would do us the favour of reading the amendment, she would see that we are seeking to remove these words from the Bill because we cannot understand what they mean. The longer we go on explaining why they are so imprecise, the clearer it should be to Labour Members that there is something wrong with them. We want the Attorney-General here to explain what he thinks they mean.
      Mr. Charles Morrison: Is it not extraordinary that the Minister should have said what she did, given that the selection was made by the Chair? Mr. Speaker decided that the amendment was important enough to warrant a debate, but the hon. Lady apparently does not agree. Would my hon. Friend agree that that is surprising?
      4.15 p.m.
      Mr. Hastings: Indeed. My hon. Friend has made an important point. The Minister's remarks could be interpreted as a reflection on the Chair. That is, of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a matter for you and not for me, although it would be entirely understandable to many of us if you called the House to order on just that point.
      Mr. Mather: It is because of the lack of understanding by the Minister of these words in Committee that we are brought to this pretty pass. We have to spend a late afternoon on Friday debating these matters when, if she had made clear in the first place the meaning of these words, we would not have to go through this palaver.
      Mr. Hastings: My hon. Friend puts the matter succinctly. That is what is in all our minds. However, if the Minister is not prepared to send out after the Attorney-General, we must do the best we can without his advice. That is where we were before the Division.
      I do not want to take up the time of the House any longer than is strictly necessary to deploy the case. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not much."] However, if it is difficult, because of the noise from Labour Members, for my hon. Friends to hear me, I shall have to repeat what I am saying.
      When I found it necessary to observe that on a Friday afternoon when the nation is in a state of crisis half the Cabinet were down here voting on the Hare Coursing Bill, I was trying to describe the different categories of people who might be engaged in the hypothetical activity of illegal hare coursing, which everybody, including by implication the Minister, admits is bound to occur if the Bill is put on the statute book, and who are likely to get into trouble. I was asking which of them would be assisting or assisting at a hare coursing meeting, illegal and hypothetical.
      978
      I got as far as recounting my own experiences during last season's coursing when I went to a meeting in Huntingdon. I said that it was a very cold day. This is by no means unusual, as anyone with the benefit of some experience of coursing will confirm. There was a time when I spent at least two hours standing in the bitter cold doing my best to learn about the fairness or otherwise of coursing and how it was regulated.
      I felt it necessary to retire from the scene to a small tent which had been thoughtfully provided by the amiable and jolly crowd of people engaged that day at the meeting. If some Labour Members could only meet some of these people, I wonder what they would think. A nicer band of people one could not wish to be with.
      In the tent they had taken the sensible precaution of providing suitable beverages to assist people like myself who by that time had been standing for a considerable period and were very cold. I spent some time talking to them and drinking my beverage. I wonder to what extent they were assisting at the hare coursing. Suppose, which is perfectly likely, that at the illegal coursing meetings which will certainly continue after the Bill is enacted people provide refreshments of this kind, which are necessary in those climatic conditions. Are they to be hauled up and prosecuted for assisting at hare coursing?
      Mr. Flannery: Yes.
      Mr. Hastings: The hon. Gentleman is convinced that they should be because he thinks that a man having a drink in a hedge on a Saturday afternoon is automatically guilty of some criminal offence. That is the kind of attitude about which we are concerned. Government supporters have their prejudiced minds made up. They understand nothing about the small minority of decent people who will be made to suffer as a result of the Bill. That is what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are here to do but some of us are not prepared to put up with that and that is why we want these matters deeply and properly debated.
      I hope that I have said enough to convince the House—I can always begin again if something is not clear—that there is real merit in the amendment. I may have been uncertain about it in Committee, mostly perhaps because of the

      979
      oratory of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South who, unhappily, has not been able to stay with us, but on this occasion, having listened carefully to what has been said, I have no doubt that we should support the amendment.
      Mr. Adam Butler: I assisted at the Second Reading by voting, and I have assisted in the proceedings today by voting. Apart from one intervention earlier on I have sat quietly on this bench, but I feel that there are still a number of queries about the Bill that need answering.
      One of the main queries arises in relation to the amendment. I have studied the Committee proceedings when the amendment was put before the Committee. I note that the right hon. Lady said at the beginning that she was going to accept the amendment, presumably recognising what it stood for, but then, as we have learned, she decided to vote the other way and now she is leading her hon. Friends in opposition to it.
      I owe some responsibility to my constituents who, by a considerable majority, have expressed their views in favour of hare coursing. As many hon. Members know, I sit not for a country constituency but for one which has a large element of industry in it, and in particular coal mining. My slender majority in the 1970 election was increased because of my support for field sports.
      Members of the mining fraternity in my constituency of Bosworth in Leicestershire came to me on a number of occasions and asked for my views about field sports. I admit that the first time it happened I was somewhat concerned because I thought that I was going to give an answer that would not meet with their approval. For a split second, on the first occasion I hesitated whether to prevaricate a little, but then I thought that honesty was the best policy and I said that I was firmly in favour of field sports. The first man who asked me the question grasped me by the hand and said, "You have my vote", and off he went. I swear that that is the truth, and that was to happen on other occasions.
      Mr. William Price: I should not dispute what the hon. Gentleman has said, but what I find a little odd is that I have not found that to be so in my
      980
      constituency, which is on the other side of the A5. There has been no more staunch supporter of the Bill in this House than myself, and during the last election I increased my majority.
      Mr. Butler: I do not want to swop majorities or experiences in this respect with the hon. Gentleman. We all respect the sincerity with which he pursues his point of view in this matter. One may disagree with him, but he has been consistent throughout and one must respect that. We welcome him back on the Front Bench, though I know that he has been in and out of the Chamber during our proceedings.
      In the election to which I referred the swing in my constituency was the second largest in the country. I do not owe it to my support for field sports, but the circumstances that I have described are true, and on the two or three occasions that the Bill has come up for consideration during the past five years or so the representations that I have received from my constituents have been in favour of hare coursing. Apart from my own feelings in this matter, which are strong. I must respect those views.
      Because I respect my constituents views, and because of the publicity given to the debate today and to previous debates, I must be able to answer questions that are put to me. There are some questions that remain unanswered after many hours of debate in Committee and after the debate on the last group of amendments. I tried to take part in that debate because there were some important points of definition that I wished to make clear.
      I am now confronted with an amendment which seeks to delete the words "or assists at". My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) has gone back into the history of language and the derivation of this expression "assist", and it would be wrong for me to cover the same ground. I say only that the example he gave of the words "assist at" to show the French origin was rather apt. One French expression which always amuses me is assister au marriage, because one wonders about the help that might be given. I shall not say any more about that or I might get rather involved, but it means only "to be present at". Is that the meaning in this case?
      Mr. Jasper More: It was frequently the practice at French marriages in the Royal family for the audience to go to the marriage bed. They saw the whole thing through.
      Mr. Butler: Perhaps we ought to speak French more frequently. I do not want to be diverted from the case that I am making. We have dealt with this at length and you, Mr. Speaker, may feel a little concerned if I take up time unnecessarily.
      I come to what the hon. Lady said about spectators. She said—and I think she was repeating what she said in Committee—that this phrase made it easier to prosecute spectators. This is where we get the shades of meaning. She repeated her view in an intervention, saying "This phrase will allow us to catch more spectators more easily".
      The hon. Lady then said "We do not want to catch the innocent passer-by or spectator." I was not sure whether she was using her own words or quoting a legal authority when she said that the man who stands around has only himself to blame, but that on the other hand the court would have to show that that person had assised in some way. We have returned to the question of "assists at".
      4.30 p.m.
      Mr. Farr: I am shocked to hear this definition. Does it mean that if a farm-worker who is engaged in his employment in a field holds open a gate for a car to pass through, he can be charged with assisting at and possibly partaking in the performance? If so, it is utterly intolerable.
      Mr. Butler: I was about to deal with this matter. There must be further guidance on it, and I am sure that by leave of the House the Minister could speak again on it. My constituents would then be able to say "There are two choices. Either we shall be helping at the meeting or we shall be present at it as spectators, innocent or otherwise." The question is what they are able to be at, if anything.
      Like most hon. Members, I received an invitation to attend a coursing meeting, but through lack of time I could not go. However, I am fairly well aware of some of the phrases used. Let us suppose that, for example, a slipper is assisting at and
      982
      that, if he has an assistant, the assistant is assisting the slipper. If the phrase means "to help to be an assistant in some way", that man would be guilty if prosecuted and he would be subject to these fines.
      At this stage I do not know whether it is permissible for two of my mining constituents to take their whippets out on a Saturday afternoon and release them after a hare, because those dogs would be in competition with each other. One miner might say to the other "I bet that my dog can catch that hare". Are they allowed to do that without the passing of money? Had I spoken to the last group of amendments, I hope that I would have received an answer which distinguished a match from a competition. If one miner says "I bet you a fiver that my dog can beat yours" and money passes, what advice should I give them? They will be taking part and it must be made clear whether what they are doing constitutes a competition within the meaning of the Bill.
      I revert to the question of "assists at". What happens if another person is brought into the exercise? For example, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) said, a farm worker on a tractor might see the chase pass by and join in because it looks good fun. He has, therefore, intentionally joined in. Is he assisting at the competition between two dogs, which we do not know is a competition? Without going outside the rules of order, I hope that the hon. Lady will enlighten me on this matter.
      The question arises of the type of dog used. If persons are not allowed to assist at a greyhound meeting, can they assist at a whippet meeting, a Saluki competition or a lurcher competition?
      Mr. Farr: There are also deerhounds.
      Mr. Butler: I doubt that deerhounds would hunt hares. New Clause 9 would have been invaluable in this respect because it sought to define what a dog was. I ask the hon. Lady to intervene again—I hope that her Whips will not make it impossible for her to do so—so that I shall be in a better position to understand this problem. If she does not reply, my constituents will risk not insubstantial fines—for example, £200—for watching on a Saturday afternoon what turns out to be, in their ignorance, an illegal entertainment. I assume that

      983
      once a person has been fined £200, he will be unlikely to be so foolish again. Nevertheless there is the risk of the far greater fine, which is still a substantial sum for anyone nowadays.
      I make those points and ask those questions in serious vein at the first opportunity I have had to intervene in this debate, and I hope that the hon. Lady will give helpful answers.
      Dr. Summerskill: May I have leave to speak again?
      First, I take up the question raised by the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Butler) about two farmers out in a field with their dogs. Clause 1 prohibits
      "the coursing of a hare by two or more dogs in a competition"
      where the basic object is to compare the relative coursing abilities of the dogs, but, as I said both on Second Reading and in Committee, that will not interfere with the right of a farmer to set his dog or dogs after a hare to catch and kill it for control purposes. Nor will it create a criminal offence if two people are taking a country walk with their dogs and the dogs put up and pursue a hare. What we are concerned to do is to prohibit competitive coursing as it is now organised.
      To revert to the amendment itself, I remind the House that we have a precedent here. That precedent is the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which made it an offence
      "to cause, procure, or assist at the fighting or baiting of any animal".
      The interpretation of that provision has never given rise to any difficulty on the part of the police or the courts.
      Mr. Jasper More rose—
      Dr. Summerskill: As the hon. Gentleman spoke for an hour and a quarter in Committee on this matter, perhaps I could continue now. As I said in Committee, in the light of the precedent of the 1911 Act, it is difficult to believe that the inclusion of these words would create difficulties of interpretation for the courts. Moreover, apart from the precedent to which I have just referred, to "assist" in the coursing of hares by dogs is covered by the provisions of Section 35 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952, which provides that a person who
      "aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission by another of a summary offence shall be guilty of the like offence".
      Therefore, "assists at" cannot be construed as synonymous with the principal offence. It relates only to the part played by people present in an ancillary capacity, such as stewards or attendants. It will apply only to people who knowingly take part or offer encouragement.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Mr. Thomas Cox rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Question put, That the Question be now put:—
      The House divided: Ayes 95, Noes 0.

      Division No. 364.]

      AYES

      [4.38 p.m.

      Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

      Ennals, David

      Lipton, Marcus

      Atkinson, Norman

      Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

      McCartney, Hugh

      Bates, Alf

      Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

      McNamara, Kevin

      Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Booth, Albert

      Flannery, Martin

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

      Mikardo, Ian

      Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)

      Freeson, Reginald

      Mitchell, R. C (Soton, Itchen)

      Cant, R. B.

      Gould, Bryan

      Molloy, William

      Cartwright, John

      Graham, Ted

      Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

      Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Newens, Stanley

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Grocott, Bruce

      Noble, Mike

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Orbach, Maurice

      Cohen, Stanley

      Hatton, Frank

      Ovenden, John

      Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

      Hayman, Mrs Helene

      Owen, Dr David

      Cryer, Bob

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Parker, John

      Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Perry, Ernest

      Davidson, Arthur

      Hunt, John

      Price, C. (Lewisham W)

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

      Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Deakins, Eric

      Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

      Radice, Giles

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Jeger, Mrs Lena

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Eadie, Alex

      Kerr, Russell

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Edge, Geoff

      Lamborn, Harry

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

      Sandelson, Neville

      English, Michael

      Lee, John

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

      Tomlinson, John

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

      Silverman, Julius

      Tuck, Raphael

      Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Ward, Michael

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Watkinson, John

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Weitzman, David

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Mr. Arnold Shaw and

      Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Mr. Thomas Cox.

      NOES

      NIL

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Mr. Michael Mates and

      Mr. Jasper More.

      Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 31 (Majority for Closure).
      Question again proposed, That the Amendment be made.
      Motion made, and Question proposed That the debate be now adjourned.—[Mr. Mellish.]
      Mr. Ridley: This has been a remarkable day. It seems that all 95 hon. Members were missing their important constituency meetings. They have missed the opportunity to address their constituents. It seems that they decided to stay in London for the purpose of pursuing this shoddy little measure to try to push it through, using the procedures of the House. They have decided to spend the evening in London in the House. I am sure that they would like to have the debate continued.
      I invite them to join in the debate on whether we should continue. It has been a most remarkable scene. We have found that the Government cannot even keep more than 95 of their supporters in the House. Although I am personally in favour of the motion now before the House, I do not think that the occasion should pass without remarking that this rather sordid little manoeuvre on the part of the Government has effectively been defeated by their failure to get their supporters to turn up to support a closure motion.
      Mr. Fell: I wonder whether we may be told where the strongest proponent of this measure has been this afternoon. It may be that he has been through the Division Lobby, but I have not seen him. I am referring, of course, to the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman has always been the strongest proponent of this measure. Where is he?
      Mr. William Price: Is my right hon. Friend the strongest proponent?
      Mr. Fell: I forgive the hon. Gentleman if he thinks that he is the stronger. The right hon. Gentleman's language has been much more immoderate than that of the Parliamentary Secretary.
      Mr. Mather: It should be added that it has been monstrous that the Secretary of State for the Home Department has not been present during any of today's proceedings. If the Bill has his support at least he should have shown his face during today's debate. The Bill has been mismanaged. It is a bad Bill. It has been ill-handled and we wish it no luck from now on.
      Dr. Alan Glyn: I cannot let this occasion pass without saying that the Government spend their time, and quite rightly, saying how important is our economic situation, yet we stay here until nearly five o'clock to discuss a Bill which has no constitutional importance. We have had no assistance from the Under-Secretary of State. If the hon. Lady looks at an encyclopaedia, she will find that her definition of "assistance" is not capable of interpretation in the courts. I believe that the House has wasted a considerable amount of time discussing this Bill.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

      ADJOURNMENT
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

  HOSPITALS (BROMLEY)
  4.54 p.m.
  Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: The National Health Service is currently undergoing many difficulties. Those difficulties are mostly connected with its financing and the size and nature of the private sector. In my constituency of Orpington we also suffer from the handicap of atrociously antiquated hospital buildings, about which I have previously spoken. However, these problems pale into insignificance beside the desperate need for a proper standard of medical skill in our hospitals.
  It is painful to have to raise this matter publicly. I do so knowing of the dangers of undermining public confidence in a vital service which has hitherto served my constituents well, and which still includes many practitioners of immense skill and devotion to their patients' welfare. I regret to say that the standard of medical skill in at least one department of the Bromley area hospitals has fallen alarmingly in recent months. My constituents are particularly worried about two tragedies involving anaesthetics which have received the maximum of local publicity recently but the minimum of action to allay public anxiety.
  Adam Grier was nine when on 19th August last year he went into Orpington Hospital for what his parents were assured was a routine operation for appendicitis. During the operation the surgeon noticed something wrong with his colour, but, tragically, did nothing about it until it was too late. What was wrong was the tube inserted into the boy's throat by the anaesthetist, a locum trained abroad and secured that very day from an agency run by an overseas-trained doctor. It was the wrong tube for the purpose, made of the wrong material and inserted in the wrong way, with the result that it kinked, interrupting the passage of oxygen to the brain.
  In its Annual Report for 1975, at page 41, the Medical Protection Society speaks of "The Vital Airway" as follows:
  "It is the prime responsibility of the practioner who administers a general anaesthetic to maintain a satisfactory airway. This responsibility can only be discharged by a clinical and appropriate monitoring of the patient and a considerable degree of self-discipline may be required to maintain critical
  988
  observation of both patient and anaesthetic apparatus during the course of a long surgical procedure. Even in the most skilled hands a crisis may supervene during an operation, yet tragedy is averted because appropriate signs are recognised at once and the situation rectified. It is this degree of constant alterness that is the hallmark of the good anaesthetist. Failure to note immediately inadequate ventilation and resultant hypoxia comprises the largest group of successful claims against anaesthetists."
  By the time the surgeon realised what was wrong, little Adam had suffered serious and irreversible brain damage. His parents were hastily summoned. One can imagine their shock and anguish as, despite the devoted efforts of the doctors spread over six days, their litle boy died.
  There was no doubt an immediate inquiry at the hospital. The use of the agency was suspended. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against the anaesthetist after hearing the medical evidence, which was reported fully in the Press. After a full hearing of the evidence at the Bromley magistrates court, the anaesthetist was committed for trial at the Old Bailey on that charge.
  Then, to the surprise of almost everyone, at the opening of the trial on 14th March prosecuting counsel offered no evidence, and the case was dropped. It transpired that he had previously spent some hours at Orpington Hospital, where doctors persuaded him that a criminal charge, as opposed to simple negligence, was not maintainable. I make no comment about that professional legal opinion, but this was a matter of acute public anxiety aroused by two hearings before public tribunals, each of which had decided in a contrary sense. So the words used by Mr. Justice Chapman in acceding to the prosecution's decision were particularly significant. He said:
  "There is no doubt that the cause of death of the child was for some reason due to the supply of oxygen, and there was resultant damage as a result of it not getting into his brain. How and why that occurred is very mysterious, and whose fault it was we do not really know."
  We still do not really know Despite acute anxiety felt locally by all who have read and know of this case, the reassurance offered by the local and regional health authority has been minimal.
  There was obviously a failure of the system at Orpington General Hospital

  989
  which enabled an incompetent anaesthetist to take up the wrong instrument and use it in the wrong way. All that we have had so far from the regional authority is the announcement of an inquiry, in effect into how the anaesthetist came to be appointed as a locum. One of the four members of the committee of inquiry into this case is a consultant who, before reorganisation, was in the Bromley Group. The scope of the inquiry appears to be almost wholly internal and professional. It therefore seems to be intended more to allay the fears of the professionals than those of the public.
  This is the main point of my appeal today, that cases of this kind demand public reassurance. For the parents of Adam Grier, nothing can console them for the loss of their little son. They are, however, anxious, as I am, that their experience is used to help prevent any similar tragedy recurring. Unfortunately it already has. Robert Quickenden aged 18, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), went into Farnborough Hospital, also in my constituency, and also in the Bromley Health Authority district, for an appendicitis operation last July.
  There was an error on the part of the anaesthetist, whose name we do not know. We do not know what the error was because the regional health authority has not seen fit to give those particulars. As a result of the error, Robert suffered brain damage of an apparently irreversible kind. He is still under treatment. No one knows what his future will be. In that case the anaesthetist was trained abroad. But it was not a locum and so her capabilities should have been well known. The health authority has accepted responsibility but refused an inquiry. Once again the need for public reassurance has been ignored.
  It is true that we have been told that the anaesthetist had an ECG and an X-ray of the chest taken to try to find out what was wrong with the patient. But by the time these were taken the brain damage was apparently irreversible. Any similarity with the case of Adam Grier has been denied by the regional health authority. Yet in both cases the anaesthetists were foreign-trained, the nature of the operation was the same, the injury done to the patient was the same and the cause—incompetent anaesthetists
  990
  —was the same. Small wonder that statements issued by the health authority about these cases are generally disbelieved.
  Recently I have been told of another case of comparative failure in the anaesthetics department of Farnborough Hospital, the details of which I have already given to the Minister of State. A constituent, in the hospital for a post-natal operation last December, recovered consciousness twice during the operation because of a failure in the anaesthesia. She suffered some internal injury and was taken to the intensive care unit where, fortunately, she eventually recovered. She now lives a normal life and I suspect that that is only because, unlike a child, she possessed great strength and stamina. In her case there has been no inquiry and so far no repercussions beyond a private apology. Cases of this kind should never occur in a well-run hospital, in so far as they can be humanly prevented.
  My constituents are right to demand that these incidents should not recur. They want to know what went wrong and above all what has been done to prevent a recurrence. Reluctance to give information about such cases only breeds a suspicion that matters are being hushed up.
  If the National Health Service is to enjoy the confidence of the public, it must not try to conceal its failures. If those failures are due to the incompetence of inadequately trained foreign doctors, those doctors should not be allowed to practise in Britain. The standard of British-trained doctors is as high as any in the world. We should pay them properly and give them the conditions appropriate to their excellence rather than drive them abroad and rely on imported substitutes, who are often of inferior quality, on inferior pay. Above all, matters must be brought out into the open and explained.
  I therefore ask for an inquiry into the standards of anaesthesia practised in the Bromley area in the light of these cases. Whether it is held in public or private does not matter as long as it is independent and publishes its report. If the Health Service Commissioner is able and willing to undertake such an inquiry, I should welcome that. In any event we must have an assurance, as far as

  991
  humanly possible, that tragedies such as this will never recur.
  5.8 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Dr. David Owen): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) for bringing this matter to my attention, since the subject of the standards of medical care must be of concern to anybody occupying my position with responsibility for the day-to-day running of the health service.
  The hon. Gentleman said that concern had been especially expressed in Bromley as a result of the two tragic incidents in local hospitals. Adam Grier was admitted to Orpington Hospital in August 1974 for an emergency operation but an interruption of the oxygen supply during the operation caused his death. Various theories have been put forward for the interruption of the oxygen supply—probably that the tube used was of the wrong type and kinked, or possibly that the tube used was in error installed in the oesophagus instead of the trachea. Despite variations, the theories all centred on a mistake by the anaesthetist. He was a locum who had been engaged from an agency. The facts of the case pointed to deficiencies in the area health authority procedures for the engagement of locum staff, and an inquiry, which is expected to report in December, has been set up to look at these procedures.
  There appears to be a misunderstanding about the exact terms of reference of the inquiry, because it will not only look into the procedures involved. It will investigate the procedures by which locum medical staff are appointed, with special reference to those engaged through medical agencies. More particularly, it will examine the circumstances of the case which gave rise to the inquiry. The committee of inquiry will look into the specific aspects of the Grier case as well as the much wider aspects of the situation of the locum service and medical staff agencies. I hope that that case is already being investigated fully.
  The question of Robert Quickenden is different. He was admitted to Farnborough Hospital for an emergency operation on 11th July 1975 but an interruption of the oxygen supply led to brain damage, although the patient is still alive. It
  992
  seems fairly certain that the interruption was caused by a mistake in the installation of the oxygen tube. Again it would seem that the tube was passed down the oesophagus instead of the trachea, but in this instance the anaesthetist was a full-time employee engaged through normal procedures. There has been a full admission of responsibility by the area health authority.
  At first glance I understand why both cases may appear to the hon. Gentleman's constituents to be similar. Both involve anaesthetic incidents with young patients at neighbouring hospitals in the same area health authority, and can be traced to mistakes by doctors in the installation of an oxygen tube. It may even be that the same mistake was involved in each case. On the other hand, the coincidence of the hospitals involved should be seen as no more than that, as entirely separate consultants and medical staff were involved in both cases. The Grier case involved a locum, but in the Quickenden case the anaesthetist was a senior house officer who had been engaged in the normal way and had, in fact, already worked four months of a six-month contract before the incident happened.
  The hon. Gentleman also mentioned a third case, involving a constituent, which occurred a year ago, but it would appear that the issues here, involving as they do a matter of fine clinical judgment on the part of the doctor concerned and to some extent of the anaesthetist, are not really comparable with the other two cases. I also understand that the constituent has never made any approach to the area health authority, and that is why there has been no inquiry. The authority assures me, however, that it will investigate any complaint which is brought to its attention.
  I shall deal with the wider issues raised. The hon. Gentleman said that reluctance to give information breeds suspicion that matters are being hushed up. I very much agree with that. He went on to say that for the National Health Service to have the confidence of the public it must not try to conceal its failures. The fact is that failures occur. Doctors, like any other part of the human race, are capable of error, but I agree that, when an error is made, public confidence is restored by frankness and by what the public consider to be an impartial investigation.

  993
  The type of investigations that are available to us are not fully adequate. The tendency is to hold only the formal inquiry, in which individuals are often legally represented which takes a long time. In many cases that is an inappropriate mechanism to deal with an indivdual case. The House in its wisdom has tried to introduce a different mechanism in the rôle of the Health Service Commissioner. He holds an independent office, established under Act of Parliament, for the carrying out of investigations into complaints concerned with hospitals and other health services.
  The commissioner has a team which is sent out and visits the complainant as well as the health authority, talks to anyone who may be able to shed light on the matter and examines all the relevant documents. The commissioner is, therefore, uniquely well placed to get all the facts and form an independent judgment. He has the same powers as the High Court to examine all relevant documents and to take written and oral evidence from anyone who may be able to give useful information.
  However, it is necessary to point out that the commissioner is excluded from investigation of action taken in connection with the diagnosis of illness or the care or treatment of a patient if, in the opinion of the Commissioner, it was taken solely in consequence of the exercise of clinical judgment. There is this interface between maladministration, which lies within the terms of reference of the Health Service Commissioner, and the problem of identifying whether the matter arises solely in consequence of the exercise of clinical judgment.
  The House in future years may well wish to examine the exact terms of reference of the Commissioner. I do not disguise from the hon. Gentleman that I believe that the Health Service Commissioner offers a valuable and flexible form of inquiry, but if he were to be used as the main vehicle for inquiry into the health service the question would arise whether the restrictions and exclusions currently applied would satisfy the House as giving him sufficient scope for inquiry.
  There is a Select Committee of the House which keeps under review the operations of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Health Service Commissioner. The Government are studying
  994
  this issue carefully at the moment in the light of many other reports, including the Davies Report on Hospital Complaints Procedure.
  In my judgment, both the Quickenden case and the other case of the hon. Gentleman's constituent would possibly fall within the terms of reference of the Commissioner. It is not for me to determine whether they do. The Commissioner alone decides whether he can investigate a complaint. He cannot normally investigate a complaint unless the responsible health authority has already had an opportunity to do so. If the Commissioner investigates a case, he can and does interview the area health authority.
  In some cases there is statutory provision for a health authority to ask the Commissioner to investigate a complaint. Health authorities may avail themselves of this opportunity in cases where they feel that a fully independent inquiry is the best course or that the person making the complaint is unlikely to be satisfied with anything less than a completely independent inquiry.
  There have been occasions when as Minister I have sought, either through encouraging the Member of Parliament concerned or through talking to the area health authority, to invoke the services of the Health Service Commissioner, because I believe he has already proved that he has a valuable rôle to play.
  The Commissioner began work in 1973. Since then I have been fully convinced of the value of having an ombudsman for the health service. He provides a completely independent means of investigating complaints about failures in the service. His reputation in the House of Commons and the way in which he has dealt with cases in his other rôle as a Parliamentary Commissioner has shown this. He makes an independent report, which is published for Members of Parliament, on matters of complaint.
  In his last report covering the 12 months up to the end of March this year, the Commissioner records issuing over 100 reports on complaints referred to him which came within his scope. The complaint was upheld in half these cases. In many cases the Commissioner has invited

  995
  the health authority to review its practices and procedures. The complaints covered such matters as failure of communication between patients or their relatives and hospital staff, delays in admission to hospital, and failure to provide an adequate service, which covers a large number of areas.
  It is, of course, the job of management in the first place to look into things that go wrong in hospitals or other parts of the health services and only they can put matters right in many cases. The great majority of complaints about health services are dealt with satisfactorily in this way. However, there will inevitably be occasions when those who complain remain dissatisfied with the explanations given by the health authority and who may from the outset make it clear that they want an independent inquiry to be held. In those cases an independent inquiry by the Commissioner may often be conceded late when sometimes it would have been better to concede an inquiry earlier.
  The area health authority, following discussions which the hon. Gentleman and I had about the possibility of using the Health Commissioner, has expressed interest about whether the Quickenden case should be referred to the Commissioner. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman discusses this either with his constituents to see whether that is what they wish or with the area health authority chairman. The result of such a meeting with the area health authority might be that it would decide to look into the matter.
  There are problems in this case because there is a possibility of litigation, although an admission has been made, about the matter of compensation. The Health Commissioner, in his terms of reference—I quote from his leaflet:
  "cannot investigate any matter in respect of which the aggrieved person has appealed to a tribunal or has taken proceedings in a court of law. Nor can he normally investigate the matter if the person has, or had such a right of appeal or of recourse to the courts, but has not used it; but he may nevertheless decide to investigate in an individual case if he is satisfied that it is not reasonable in the particular circumstances to expect the person to use or have used it".
  It would be possible to take either course, but it is for the Commissioner to decide.
  996
  In the other case which the hon. Gentleman raised perhaps there is more evidence of a purely clinical judgment having been made. I have not seen evidence of any maladministration. I am less certain that that would fall within the terms of reference. If either the hon. Gentleman or his constituents wished to take up this matter with the regional or area medical officer, they would be able to do so.
  In summary, I point out that mistakes are made in the National Health Service. Mistakes will be made in any health service. We need a flexible, independent mechanism for investigating complaints which is sympathetic to the problems of doctors who often work extremely long hours, and to the possibility of human error, which can occur in any profession, but which satisfies people outside that the investigation is not a cover-up or hush-up or is not held internally within one profession. The appointment of the Health Service Commissioner was an important start in ensuring that sort of independence and it might well be something on which we can build in the light of experience.
  The hon. Gentleman said that many of the people concerned were foreign doctors. That was certainly so in one case: the doctors were trained abroad. It is right that we should tighten up on the procedures in respect of the question of language, but do not let us forget the invaluable debt which the National Health Service owes and will owe for many years to doctors who have been trained overseas and whose standards in the vast majority of cases are of the highest. English-trained doctors who have worked alongside foreign doctors would pay tribute to the work which they have done.
  I have noticed a tendency in recent months to highlight cases of error, which have perhaps occurred with foreign-trained doctors. We must ensure that we have the highest standards and that no doctor is able to practise in this country unless he satisfies the regulations of the General Medical Council, which is an independent professional body. But we must recognise that the standards of foreign doctors have been very high.
  I thought that the hon. Gentleman implied that the foreign doctors in question received a lower rate of pay. That

  997
  might be so under the agency arrangements. However, the doctors in this case were paid at the normal rates.
  The House has a great sympathy with the problems of the junior hospital doctors. They work extremely long hours. However, the present dispute, which I very much regret, is not of the Government's making. It is purely and simply a question of the need to counter inflation. The Government have never had any intention of singling out the junior hospital doctors in counter-inflation policies which did not apply to the whole population—far from it. We have considerable sympathy with their case and wish a contract structure to be agreed with them which will reduce the number of hours they work. The longer the hours they work, the greater the possibility of human error.
  998
  I hope that what I have said will have reassured the hon. Gentleman and his constituents. I am sorry that the coincidence of cases has caused concern. I understand the concern. I believe that it is a question more of coincidence than of anything else, but we should not be afraid to try to ensure, whether by tightening the procedures or by making changes in practice, that tragic errors of this sort are reduced or, as I hope, totally eliminated.
  Mr. Stanbrook: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said and look forward to co-operating with him in securing adequate inquiries into both the cases I have raised.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Five o'clock.