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Standing Committee F
Thursday 16 January 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. George Stevenson in the Chair]
Clause 8
Tests for registration: utility and least suffering
Amendment proposed [14 January]: Amendment No. 94, in
clause 8, page 3, line 11, after 'hunting', insert 'or coursing'.—[Mr. Gray.]
8.55 am
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): I speak in support of the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) and in support of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier). I stress very strongly that coursing, whether competitive or not, must be subject to the same properly formulated tests that are applied to other types of hunting if the legislation is to be consistent. Moreover, the principles of utility and cruelty or least suffering should be constructed in such a way that the legal approach to animal welfare is logical, consistent and universal. The Bill fails on every count.
An aspect of the debate that most worries us and all who take part in coursing is whether the Minister has truly studied and paid attention to the carefully written and well presented report of the National Coursing Club, which was sent to the Minister. I have a copy with me. I commend it to all Committee members for its clarity and the way that it sets out the arguments. It is a model of how to present a case of this type.
There is much ignorance about coursing and how it works. I particularly wish to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall)—the man who has forgotten his razor—who has the honour to have Altcar in his constituency. He described the way that the slippers let slip the greyhounds, but what he said was completely wrong.
Coursing is one of the most well regulated sports. An inspector is present at every coursing meeting to enforce strict rules. [Interruption.] The reaction of Government Members shows again that they have not studied the report or understood it. The inspector regulates the sport according to rules that are clearly set out. [Interruption.] I shall give way to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall).
Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale): I do not want the hon. Gentleman to give way.
The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman was not seeking to intervene. However, we really do not need background noise.
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Mr. Soames: The hon. Member for Weaver Vale finds it very difficult to be quiet—the animal noises come naturally.
The rules of hare coursing state clearly that the hare must be given 80 to 100 yards law—for those who do not understand the term, that is a space, or a gap—before the greyhounds are slipped. That rule, which extends the law and is enforced ruthlessly, was in fact instigated by the National Coursing Club entirely of its own volition.
I am not sure whether Government Members have any idea how many days of coursing there are a year or how the sport is organised. There are 23 coursing clubs in the country. They provide 90 to 100 days of coursing each year and only about 200 hares are actually killed. The object of coursing is not to kill the hare. I say that emphatically. The object is to test the skill of the dogs.
In many ways, coursing is similar to horse racing. Competitive coursing, as opposed to other types of coursing, is not a form of pest control. Every effort is made to prevent the death of the hare. It causes minimal, if any, suffering because the vast majority of hares escape and it has enormous utility in terms of conservation and the welfare of the hare as a species. Competitive coursing should be likened to horse racing: people assemble to observe marvellous animals compete, a social ambiance is established and enjoyed and every effort is made to prevent any injury to animal or human alike.
The Burns report clearly pointed out that coursing does not involve a long chase; the hare will normally escape after an average of about 40 seconds. From the welfare perspective, the Minister should compare coursing to field trials. I wonder whether he is aware what a field trial is. Will he tell me?
The Chairman: Order. If the Minister wishes to respond or intervene, I am sure that he will.
Mr. Soames: I am sure that the Minister will tell us about his extensive knowledge of field trials in his reply. Coursing is best compared to field trials, in which birds are put up and shot to test the skill of the gun dogs that are sent to retrieve them. Any argument for banning coursing would apply equally—this is the dangerous element of the Bill and it worries a great many of us—to field trials. By parity of reasoning, the argument would also apply to shooting and fishing. Coursing can also be compared to competition angling, in which the object is not to kill the fish. Again that is a favourable comparison from the welfare perspective. There are stages in hunting at which dogs that were hunting by scent begin to hunt by sight or, in other words, to course the fox. I saw a fox coursed the other day; it escaped very happily and satisfactorily. To distinguish dogs hunting by sight—coursing—from dogs hunting by scent is intellectual nonsense.
Will the Minister explain how it is possible, logically speaking, to leave coursing out of the clause? We will return to the debate and go into matters in much greater detail when we discuss the wicked proposal for the abolition of coursing. Opposition Members think that excluding coursing from the clause is completely
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illogical. I support the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire.
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): The Minister will remember that my greatest embarrassment at the Portcullis hearings was—
Peter Bradley (The Wrekin): His tie.
Mr. Luff: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to challenge my daughter's taste in ties—
The Chairman: Ties?
Mr. Luff: The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) mentioned my tie from a sedentary position. I am glad to see that he has a shred of decency left.
The Minister will remember that my greatest embarrassment at the Portcullis hearings related to the subject of hares. I challenged Professor Stephen Harris as to why there are always plenty of hares where hunting and hare coursing take place and he replied that people would not go hare hunting and coursing where there were no hares. I remember being extremely embarrassed by that response, so I speak on the subject again with some trepidation.
The Middle Way Group has a clear view that if the tests have value, they should be applied to all types of hunting and coursing activities. That would not add greatly to the bureaucracy of the registrar's procedure. If the Minister is right about hare coursing, the registrar will find in his favour. We would be using an objective process, rather than a subjective one. I hope that the Minister will recognise the wisdom of the amendment.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon): I want to add a couple of remarks in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) said. We have been in this situation before; national coursing has been the subject of about four inquiries over the years. Following my research, and having listened to the points made by the National Coursing Club, I can point out that that club has responded every time to the concerns raised. It has been an entirely responsible body, from which many people could learn a great deal.
The Burns inquiry, as the Minister admitted—he will no doubt contradict me if this is not the case—failed to establish a link between coursing and cruelty. We have been told that coursing fails the Minister's utility criteria. No doubt we will argue about that in greater detail later, but will the Minister address, or at least comment on, various points that the National Coursing Club has made including, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex mentioned, length of slip? In response to questions and concerns raised over the years, slippers are now encouraged to give the hare a far greater chance. Will the Minister comment on the building of soughs and on pickers-up? There has been an increase in the number of people, trained and subject to regulations, employed by the National Coursing Club along the length of the course to ensure that the hare is dispatched as quickly as possible.
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All those measures suggest to me that the club is an entirely responsible body in its provision of sport and training for its dogs. Will the Minister deal with those questions?
The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael): The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) suggests that the tests set out in the Bill should be applied to coursing, as to other activities. I can assure him that they have been, which is why coursing appears where it does in the Bill. I shall try to persuade him of that. Applying the tests to that activity leads to an inescapable conclusion.
In response to the questions of the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire), I can say that the National Coursing Club, in its response to the consultation, and representatives of other coursing organisations that I have met have been nothing but courteous in arguing their case. However, their responses have not undermined the conclusions of the Burns report, nor shown that their activity satisfies the tests or could do so.
In effect, the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex asked us to set aside the tests as set out in clause 8, to give any activity a 50:50 chance of succeeding. That is not our purpose. The purpose of the principles in clause 8 is to enable certain questions to be answered. Is an activity necessary—does it have utility? If so, is it cruel or is an option that involves less suffering available that would bring about the purpose for which the activity is proposed? That sets a tough but fair challenge to those who say that their activity is necessary but not cruel—the claim made by those who support hunting. The clause takes such claims seriously and, like the Countryside Alliance, I believe that something that is cruel should not be undertaken. That is the starting point for considering coursing.
The amendment arises from either a misunderstanding of terminology or from muddled thinking—or perhaps a mixture of both.
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