HARE COURSING TO BE ILLEGAL (Hansard, 5 July 1991)

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor (Upminster)
I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 5, after 'person', insert `wilfully'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 3, in page 1, line 5, leave out 'procures'.

No. 4, in page 1, line 5, leave out 'or assists at'.

No. 5, in page 1, line 5, leave out 'or suffers'.

No. 13, in page 1, line 6, leave out 'two' and insert 'one'.

No. 16, in page 1, line 7, leave out

`in a competition as to their ability to course hares'.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
The amendments have been put together in a package and would amend clause 1 in various ways, through which I shall briefly lead the House.
Amendment No.1 would insert the word "wilfully" after "person" in line 5. The clause would then read: If any person wilfully causes, procures or assists at, or knowingly permits and so on. The reason for the insertion of the word "wilfully" is that the question of when someone causes a dog to course a hare is much too wide. Both I and those of my hon. Friends who joined me in tabling the amendment believe that it is important that someone should do so wilfully. In other words, they should have the intention of doing the act that the Bill seeks to prevent before any criminal act can be deemed to have been committed.
It appears that, at the moment, anybody who is out with a dog, or with two dogs, who permits or causes that dog or those dogs to course a hare in the way defined by clause 1 would be guilty of an offence. That person might cause the dogs to do so without intending that that should be the consequence of his actions. For example, he may be walking his two dogs through a field in which there are hares. If his dogs decided to course a hare, it would be possible to argue that he caused the hare to be coursed by the two dogs because he had taken the dogs into that field and released them, after which they had coursed the hare. However, he may not necessarily have intended that they should do so.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) will have no difficulty in agreeing with that amendment and that he would not wish to cause somebody who was not acting deliberately to commit a criminal offence. I very much hope, therefore, that he will agree to the amendment.
Amendment No. 2 goes to the heart of the Bill. A quick reading makes it clear that the Bill does not prohibit hare coursing where the object is to catch the hare. Only coursing where the object is to test dogs is to be abolished. That form of coursing is regulated by the National Coursing Club to ensure fair play.
As a supporter of coursing, it is odd that I am moving an amendment that would help the hon. Member for Leyton. However, logic insists that I do so, because under the present ludicrous state of affairs if somebody courses 613 a hare with two dogs in a competition to test the dogs' ability to course hares he commits a criminal offence, but if he courses with the intention of killing the hare he does not do so.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I must draw it to the hon. Gentleman's attention that amendment No. 2 is not included in the group. It is out of order.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am afraid that that fact escaped me when I compiled my notes. I hope that I am right in thinking that amendment No. 3 is in the group.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Yes.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
Thank you, Sir.
It will be an offence not only to cause coursing—or, as I hope, after the Bill has been amended, "wilfully" to cause coursing—but to procure it. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", "procure" can mean to take care for, take care of, attend to or look after. Alternatively, it can mean to put forth, employ care or effort, to do one's best, to endeavour, labour or to contrive or devise with care, to bring about by care or pains, to bring about, to cause, effect, produce, to obtain by care or effort, to gain, win, get possession of or acquire. Clearly the word "procure" has a wide range of different meanings which could lead to substantial confusion in the Bill. I do not think that it would be in anybody's interests that there should be less than clarity in the way in which the Bill sets a new criminal offence.
Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) said, the word "procure" is otiose as the word "causes" appears earlier in the sentence. In the context of the supposed meaning of "procures" in the clause, "causes" or "procures" seem to mean the same. Therefore, the word adds nothing to the clause and it has many irrelevant meanings that could throw a cloud of uncertainty around the Bill if it were unamended. It must be in the interests of clarity and of the Bill that that word is omitted, particularly when "wilfully causes" embraces everything that the hon. Member for Leyton is seeking to achieve.
I gather that the word "procures" was originally included in the Hare Coursing Bill, which was a Government Bill, but was deleted in Committee. I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton would wish to follow the example of Dr. Shirley Summerskill, who saw the logic of the argument that I am advancing, although it was probably advanced more strongly than I am advancing my argument today. In 1975, the Labour party was prepared to accept the deletion of the word "procures", and I can see no good reason for including it today.
I am slightly nervous that the list that I have is not the correct one, but I hope that amendment No. 4 is in this group.

§ Mr. Henry Bellingham (Norfolk, North-West)
Yes.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
If amendment No. 4 and all my other amendments were accepted the clause would read: If any person wilfully causes, or knowingly permits or suffers any place to be used for, the coursing of a hare by two or more dogs in a competition as to their ability to course hares, he shall be guilty of an offence". I do not believe that the "or assists at" adds anything to the clause as it would read if my amendments were accepted. If someone knowingly permits or suffers something to 614 happen, or if he assists at something, he is clearly knowingly permitting or suffering it to occur. Furthermore, if a man sets his dogs on to a hare and starts to judge them he would then be committing an offence. The question then arises, who are his assistants? Do they know that that is the purpose for which he is letting the dogs go? That seems to go to the heart of the Bill's inadequacy. It will clearly not achieve what the hon. Member for Leyton wishes it to achieve, which is the prevention of hare coursing as we know it.

§ Mr. Bellingham
Although I sympathise with and respect the campagin waged by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), he is misguided. If the Bill were passed it would encourage the form of illegal hare coursing which does so much to destroy wildlife and the countryside. People would arrive illegally on the land and let their dogs out to course at night without the permission of the landowner. As a result, many more hares would be killed and there would be a great deal of destruction of the local environment. That is exactly what would happen if the Bill became law, so, although we respect the motives and the campaign of the hon. Member for Leyton, our advice to him would be to spend some time in the countryside finding out how it works. He should attend a hare coursing meeting, and I am prepared to invite him to my part of the world to show him at first hand the damage that would be done by illegal hare coursing.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. Interventions should be brief.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
I hope that the hon. Member for Leyton will accept the offer of hospitality from my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham). Norfolk is a lovely county. It is full of hares and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will go and see it.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great scourges of our countryside at the moment is the people who go hare coursing illegally, usually with lurcher dogs, usually in the middle of the night and always against the wishes of the landlord. In Hertfordshire, especially—[Interruption.] I wish that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) would stop interrupting.

§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)
I have not started yet.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
If the hon. Gentleman thinks that he has not started yet, he is mistaken. He is making a confounded nuisance of himself from a sedentary position which is only mildly preferable to the nuisance that he makes of himself when he stands up.

§ Mr. Corbyn
Will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that he is not trying, yet again, to prevent an hon. Member who has the support of the House from getting a Bill passed to protect wild animals from bloodthirsty louts who participate in blood sports?

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
I have no intention of allowing on to the statute book a Bill that does not have the support of most hon. Members, most of my constituents or most people in the country.

§ Mr. Donald Thompson (Calder Valley)
My hon. Friend was talking about bloodthirsty louts who course in the middle of the night.

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
I was, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend. They come in all shapes, sizes and guises and even sometimes halfway through the day. The people to whom I referred and who have been coursing lurchers in the middle of the night in Hertfordshire are extremely dangerous. They are thugs and they are dangerous to the landowners, their gamekeepers and anyone else who gets in their way. I know of instances where they have threatened and badly beaten people who have tried to stop their illegal activities.
If the hon. Member for Leyton is keen to stop something that is against the interests of the countryside and certainly against those of the hare, he should join me in asking for much stronger penalties for such illegal activities instead of attacking the legal hare coursing which takes place under the rules of the National Coursing Club and which, as we said in Committee and earlier, is a pastime enjoyed by many people and in which few hares are killed. It is a sport of great skill whereby the dogs are pitted against each other. Such activity is legal and should remain legal. It gives a great deal of pleasure to many people who live in and understand the ways of the countryside.
It is extraordinary that Opposition Members can never realise the link between country sports and conservation. They should realise that they cannot have the countryside that they and their constituents enjoy unless they allow the people who live in it to live as they have for centuries and to continue the practices of centuries which are necessary to maintain the balance of nature. It is the activities of Opposition Members and certainly not—