Fox Hunting (Abolition) (Hansard, 27 April 1993)

§ Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make the hunting of foxes with dogs illegal.

§ Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton)
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I seek your guidance on the tabling of the motion in the name of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks)? It refers to the hunting of foxes with dogs. Given that anyone who knows anything about fox hunting knows that it takes place with hounds, is the motion in order? [Interruption.]

§ Madam Speaker
Order. That is a matter for dispute for the House. I want to hear what the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has to say.

§ Mr. Banks
As a matter of fact, Madam Speaker, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) is absolutely correct. As it appears on the Order Paper, the wording is wrong. The hon. Gentleman will soon find out, however, that I am begging to move that leave be given to bring in a Bill to make the hunting of foxes with hounds illegal.
I last attempted to make progress with such a measure on 18 July 1990. That, in turn, was the first time that a ban on fox hunting had been tried since the second world war. Since my effort in 1990, a private Member's Bill has been presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). It sought, among other things, to give wild animals the same protection against cruelty as domestic animals. It would have banned fox hunting, and a number of other disgusting so-called sports.
My hon. Friend's Bill was narrowly defeated on Second Reading, following—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)
Order!

§ Mr. Banks
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend.

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I remind the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) that there is no vacancy in this job. He seems to have forgotten that it is just a year today since the House elected me.

§ Mr. Banks
My hon. Friend clearly has unrequited ambitions in that respect.
The Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North was narrowly defeated on Second Reading, following what I must concede was a spectacular whipping exercise on the part of that cross between Sir John Falstaff and Bertie Wooster, the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), who is sitting on the Government Front Bench.
I have detailed those various attempts to secure legislation as a clear indication that those of us on both sides of the House—[Interruption.]

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I am interested in hearing what the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has to say. I hope that the House will come to order.

§ Mr. Banks
I am giving the background details of the attempts that have previously been made in the House to 850 ban fox hunting as a way of showing that those who oppose the so-called sport will never let the matter drop until this anachronistic, barbarous sporting activity has been declared illegal.
A few weeks ago, the British Field Sports Society sent out a video to every Member of Parliament in what can only be described as a desperate attempt to vindicate its wretched activities. The video was introduced by Ludovic Kennedy, a man of great reputation who, I am afraid, sullied it by agreeing to front such an obviously fraudulent presentation. I trust that his fee matched the scale of the attempted deception. May I inform those who discarded the tape unseen, or used it to tape a showing of "Blind Date", that the film has been reported to the Metropolitan police on the grounds of possible offences under the Protection of Animals Act 1911, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937.
The film shows a fox being seized by the stomach. It is then subsequently ripped to pieces, although the latter sequence has been edited out. Another shot is of a fox deliberately snared in order to demonstrate the cruelty of snaring. I certainly agree that snaring is cruel, but when the House considered a ban on snares, the Bill was blocked by Members of Parliament who support the British Field Sports Society. So to fraud they add hypocrisy.
It is difficult to understand how anyone can claim to derive pleasure from hunting another creature to death in the name of sport. I try to understand the psychology hut, for the life of me, I can find no point of contact whatsoever. For me, those who hunt foxes are no better, in the final analysis, than those perverts who bait badgers, course hares, hunt steers, stage dog fights and inflict mindless suffering on domestic pets and wildlife.
There seems to be a close correlation between those who take pleasure in hunting and hurting animals and those who inflict violence on other human beings. Those who ride to hounds would no doubt be outraged at such a linkage, but respect for life is indivisible. Anyone who derives pleasure from the pain and suffering experienced by a fox being hunted by a pack of hounds is on a continuum which, like it or not, ends up, in its most extreme form, with the hideous cruelties of a Bosnian massacre or a Nazi death camp.
There might be reasons for culling wild animals or controlling foxes, but to use such reasons to derive pleasure from killing them is pandering to a blood lust. To take any form of life dehumanises all of us. It lowers the threshold of our resistance to further and more objectionable forms of violence. In recent months, we have heard of appalling violence being inflicted by hired thugs on those seeking to protest against fox hunting, including the tragic deaths of two young men. Regrettably, fox hunting is still a legal activity, but protest against fox hunting is also legal, and the police have a duty to enable protest to take place without hunt-hired thugs assaulting protesters.
According to all public opinion polls, the great majority of people in this country—and, I dare say, all foxes—oppose fox hunting. It is not a town versus country argument, either. A clear majority of country dwellers also support abolition. Despite this weight of public opinion, the vile practice has survived and there is substantial, albeit declining, support for it in this House—and, no doubt, in the House of Peers.
851 The fact is that, although fox hunters are guilty of babarous behaviour, they are neither fools nor without political influence. Indeed, champions of the so-called sport are to be found at the very highest levels of influence and status in our society. I only hope that whoever encouraged the young princes to slaughter a few harmless rabbits recently does not go on to introduce them to the organised barbarity of fox hunting.
The fox hunters know that their days are numbered, and their arguments are becoming increasingly desperate. They say that people like me loathe the type of person who hunts. I readily confess that, in the main, they are not my favourite people, but who could loathe the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), however much one might detest the colour of his socks on Friday or discreetly laugh at his Mr. Toad wardrobe? It is not a campaign against middle-class people—[Interruption.] Obviously, no one could deny the middle-class antecedents of the hon. Member for Crawley, but one often hears the argument that there are hunts up in the north-east that are based on the old mining collieries. I do not know whether hunts continue in those areas—if they do, perhaps they would prefer to hunt the President of the Board of Trade—but I condemn those hunts as much as I condemn those in the south and elsewhere.
The use of environmental and conservation arguments by the fox hunters makes me reach for my sick bag. It is no argument for fox hunting to say that foxes sometimes kill livestock and are pests. The fox is a carnivorous predator and scavanger, but far more lambs die of hypothermia, for example, than are ever taken by foxes, and those the fox takes are usually either dead or unlikely to survive.
However, the great majority of foxes live largely on beetles, frogs, rabbits, wild birds and carrion, and they are 852 the most significant destroyers of rats and mice. They do not constitute a pest, but, if they did, there are more humane and efficient methods of controlling them other than having a bunch of yahoos on horseback, a pack of hounds and assembled motley villains charging over the rural landscape.
Of the estimated 300,000 foxes killed each year, fox hunting accounts for some 7,500 dog foxes, and cub hunting, which is especially despicable, for another 8,500. The final lie given to fox hunting as a method of pest control is that, in some parts of the country, foxes have been deliberately encouraged to provide a quarry for the hunt.
The hunting mob is running out of valid arguments and time. Only the Labour party is officially committed to banning fox hunting at the next general election. However, given the number of Tories in the House and the country and the number of Liberal Democrats, I hope that, one day soon, those two parties will also embrace the same policy of banning fox hunting. I ken we shall shortly welcome the day when we hear the last "tally-ho" and when John Peel will have to find something else to do with his horn in the morning.