Hunting with Dogs (Fox Hunting)

What is hunting with dogs?

Hunting with dogs was practised across rural Britain, involving the pursuit and usually killing of animals with one or more dogs, frequently followed by riders on horseback.

A number of different animals were hunted with dogs in the UK, including foxes, deer, hares and mink. Each quarry species was hunted in a different way.

Hunting was regarded variously either as a recreational pastime, a pest control measure, or a cruel and inhuman blood sport. It was one of the most divisive political issues of recent years. Although all forms of hunting were controversial, fox hunting was the most widespread form of hunting with dogs, and as such, it was the focus of public and political attention.


Background

The hunting of animals with dogs has been a rural activity for centuries. The development of modern fox hunting is believed to have arisen following the Restoration in 1660, and modelled on the royal sport of stag hunting. As stag hunting declined in the 18th century, many stag hunts shifted to fox hunting.

Some farmers have traditionally welcomed hunts on their land for their pest control functions, but others have been concerned that the environmental damage caused outweighed any pest control benefits. Proponents of hunting argue that hunts provide an essential service to rural communities, and are an important component of rural culture and the economy.

There has long been opposition to hunting on animal welfare grounds, and during the 1970s and 1980s the activities of "hunt saboteurs" - who sought to disrupt hunts - increasingly came to prominence with occasional violent clashes with huntsmen.

Hunting became a particularly high-profile political issue in the late 1990s, with the election of Tony Blair's Labour government, which in its 1997 manifesto promised MPs a free vote on a ban on hunting with hounds.

A large number of Labour MPs were very keen to use the party's majority to ban hunting, but the government remained formally neutral. As a result, MPs sought to ban hunting through a number of private members' bills, which failed for lack of parliamentary time.

By 1999 no such free vote on a ban had appeared. The government appointed the Burns inquiry to investigate the practical aspects of the different types of hunting with dogs, the implications of a ban and how any ban might be implemented. The Burns inquiry was not asked to judge whether hunting was cruel.

The resulting report, published in 2000, was seized on by both sides who each claimed it validated their argument. On animal welfare, the Burns report did conclude that hunting "seriously compromises the welfare of the fox", but it suggested that other methods such as using shotguns during the day or snaring could be considered equally cruel.

It also agreed that hunts did contribute to the cohesion of rural communities, but qualified this by saying that this was not as important as the bonds formed by the village pub or church. In terms of the economic impact of any ban, Burns estimated that there were around 700 jobs directly associated with hunting, and a total of 6,000 to 8,000 jobs dependent on it.

However, he qualified this by saying that "in terms of national resource use, the economic effects of a ban on hunting would be unlikely to be substantial", with the effects most likely to have dissipated within a decade, but that in the short term "the individual and local effects would be more serious".

In response, the government pursued a number of bills that would give parliament a free vote on a number of options: an outright ban, hunting with regulations, and maintaining the status quo. In each case, the bill failed due to irreconcilable differences and the impossibility of getting a bill that satisfied the Commons through the House of Lords.

The Labour government made a manifesto commitment in 2001 to resolve the contentious issue of hunting with dogs in England and Wales. The rural affairs minister, Alun Michael, introduced a new hunting bill in December 2002 which would have banned stag hunting and hare coursing and introduced a system of licensing for fox hunting. Hunts would be eligible to register if they could show that hunting was undertaken for purposes specific to pest control (the utility test), and that it would cause less suffering than any alternative method of pest control (the cruelty test).

This bill, however, met opposition in the Commons and the Lords. The Commons amended the bill to push for an outright ban, but this was then amended to a licensing system by the Lords. It was then re-amended to a ban by the Commons, before being finally rejected by the Lords. Eventually, the bill ran out of time.

Hunting with dogs was banned in Scotland by a 2002 Act of the Scottish parliament, which was two years in the completion.

In 2004 the government reintroduced the issue and gave MPs a free vote to pass an outright ban on hunting with dogs. The leader of the House, Peter Hain, made the decision to rush the bill through the Commons in a single day - drawing protests from pro-hunting groups and politicians. The bill was, however, comprehensively backed by the House and was sent to the Lords with the government warning that an outright rejection would be met with the Parliament Act.

The Parliament Act of 1949 gives the House of Commons the ability to pass legislation even if the House of Lords has rejected it twice, but only after a year has passed since the Commons first introduced the bill. The act is controversial because it was not initially passed by both the Lords and the Commons.

In November 2004 the Commons decided to invoke the Parliament Act to ban fox hunting outright in England and Wales after weeks of legislative ping-pong between the two houses. The Lords repeatedly voted to allow hunting to continue under license, but this was rejected by the Commons.

But on the last day of debate, the government attempted to amend the bill to delay implementation of the ban to July 2007. MPs rejected this, agreeing to July 2006 instead. This presented the House of Lords with a dilemma.

If they voted for the bill the ban would have been delayed until July 2006. This would be good for pro-hunting campaigners but it would have let the government off the hook by relieving them of the need to use the Parliament Act and to introduce a potentially unpopular ban just months before a general election in May 2005.

Another choice was to vote for an amended bill that would allow fox hunting to continue under license. Peers chose this option, and, as a result, the government enacted the Parliament Act. The bill was forced through on November 18 2004, stipulating a full ban on fox hunting, deer hunting and hare coursing to come into effect in February 2005.

Controversies

Hunting with dogs has been one of the most controversial issues of recent times. There are essentially three positions represented in the debate: those who want hunting continue in its present form; those who want it banned; and those who want hunting to continue, but with regulation to mitigate its negative effects.

The principal exponent of keeping hunting in its present form is the Countryside Alliance (CA). In the opposing camp is Campaigning to Protect Hunted Animals (CPHA), made up of the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), the League Against Cruel Sports and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

The regulated approach is promoted by the Middle Way Group, a small but vocal cross-party group of MPs. Neither Labour nor the Conservative party has an official position on hunting - all the votes of recent years have been free votes, as hunting is regarded as an issue of conscience. However, most Conservatives have historically voted in support of hunting, while a smaller majority of Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have voted against it.

Central to the controversy is a tension between the anti-hunt campaigners' protestations of cruelty with the pro-hunters' assertions that hunting is an integral part of rural life. Animal welfare campaigners argue that animals are literally torn apart by dogs, and fervently reject the hunters' claims that animals are killed quickly. This principle argument has, however, spun off countless sub-debates on what level of pest foxes are; what damage is caused by hunts to the countryside; and what freedoms and liberties the individual has. In recent months, the Countryside Alliance has repeatedly accused the anti-hunt MPs of a form of class warfare.

Fox hunting has also emerged as a symbol of tensions between urban and rural Britain. This culminated in the September 2002 'Liberty and Livelihood' March through London, organised by the Countryside Alliance, when an estimated 400,000 people demonstrated in support of rural concerns, chief among which was keeping fox hunting.

In late 2004, as the prospect of the ban moved closer, some pro-hunting demonstrations increasingly took on a violent element. Sixteen individuals were arrested on September 15 when a demonstration turned violent outside parliament, while inside the House of Commons, hunt protesters broke into the chamber but were quickly detained. Later that month carcasses of dead animals were dumped in Brighton outside the Labour party conference. Although the mainstream Countryside Alliance has distanced itself from these activities, it has published the Hunting Handbook outlining loopholes in the Hunting Act which allow hunts to continue while operating completely inside the law. The League Against Cruel Sports responded by establishing the Hunt Crime Watch programme designed to help provide police with information so that they may easily prosecute those violating the Hunting Act.

In the political arena, some backbenchers and commentators had begun to question the amount of parliamentary time dedicated to the issue, at the expense of other matters. Anti-hunt campaigners believed that banning hunting was a moral issue upon which there could be no compromise and welcomed the decision of the Commons to vote for an outright ban and ignore 'compromise' proposals.

After the bill came into effect in February 2005, pro-hunt campaigners sought to contest the Hunting Act using two legal challenges: the validity of the 1949 Parliament Act; and on the basis that the ban infringed their human rights. Leading this fight was the Countryside Alliance. In October that year, it was decided unanimously by nine law lords that the 1949 Act had been used by the House of Commons in accordance with the law. However, in early 2007 the alliance was still continuing to contest the hunting ban.

In August 2006, Tony Wright became the first person to be convicted of illegally hunting a fox under the terms of the act. He was fined £500 and ordered to pay £250 costs after a week long trial at Barnstaple magistrates' court.


Statistics

In 2000, there were around 200 registered foxhound packs in England and Wales, which killed around 21,000-25,000 foxes per annum; three registered staghound packs, killing around 160 red deer per annum; about 100 packs of hounds used for hunting hares (killing around 1,650 animals per season) and 24 registered hare coursing clubs (killing a further 250); and 20 minkhound packs, killing 400-1,400 mink per year. There are also a number of unregistered packs of each variety

Between 6,000 and 8,000 full-time equivalent jobs presently depend on hunting: about 700 of these jobs (involving some 800 people) result from direct employment by the hunts; another 1,500 to 3,000 full-time equivalent jobs (involving some 2,500 to 5,000 people) result from direct employment on hunting-related activities by those who are engaged in hunting

Some 3,000 hounds are destroyed each year because they are surplus to requirements

Conservative peer Earl Ferrers claimed that a ban on hunting in England and Wales would require the destruction of 11,766 foxhounds, 3,600 beagles, 1,200 harriers, 511 mink hounds, 420 fell hounds, 220 deer hounds, 300 basset hounds and 3,000 other dogs, which would no longer have a purpose and which are not suitable as pet animals

Statistics 1 and 3: (Source: Burns Report, 2000); Statistic 4: (Source: Hansard, September 2003)

Quotes

"There can be no compromise on cruelty"

John Rolls, director of animal welfare promotion for the RSPCA

"Our fight to defend and promote hunting is at a critical stage. We must not waiver. Our defence is built upon solid logic and fact. The Burns report acknowledges the role of hunting within the rural community and the environment. Voice your arguments with pride."

Countryside Alliance, 2003

"Probably, despite the very passionate views on either side of this debate, the majority of people would have preferred to have seen a compromise accepted."

Prime minister Tony Blair, 25 January 2005

"If the Labour government ever gets round to banning fox hunting, I might as well leave this country and spend the rest of my life skiing."

Prince Charles, 2002