Agricultural Property (Hansard, 17 February 1992)

§ 29. Mr. Flynn
To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what is his current estimate of the total of agricultural property held by the Church Commissioners.

§ Mr. Alison
As at 31 December 1991, the commissioners' agricultural portfolio consisted of about 154,000 acres, mostly let farmland.

§ Mr. Flynn
Does the commissioner accept that following the vote on Friday it is likely that within a short time there will be a total ban on fox hunting, stag hunting and hare coursing in Britain? Does he believe that the commissioners should lead by example in banning such barbarous activities on their land?

§ Mr. Alison
No. It has always been the practice in the Church Commissioners' holding of agricultural property to reserve the right of hunting not to the landlord but to the tenant so that the tenant, on the basis of his own conscience or attitude to hunting, can decide whether to let the hunt across the land.

§ Mr. Tredinnick
Is my right hon. Friend aware that that reply will be welcomed in many rural communities, who feel that the campaign against hunting has been wildly misrepresentative and that fox hunting is the most humane way to control the fox population in the country?

§ Mr. Alison
I voted in the same Lobby as my hon. Friend—I think that he was there on Friday—so I have some sympathy with what he says, but I repeat that the decision whether a hunt can cross a let farm of which the Church Commissioners are the landlord is entirely at the discretion of the tenant.