Strathclyde proposes compromise on hunting ban
The Conservative leader in the House of Lords has today proposed a compromise over the Government’s controversial Bill to ban hunting with dogs.
Lord Strathclyde told BBC One’s The Politics Show that he has urged colleagues in the Lords to modify the legislation so that hunting could continue under licence.
This, he said, would effectively allow the Bill to revert back to its original state before Labour backbenchers amended it to an outright ban.
Lord Strathclyde said: “I have been urging my colleagues in recent weeks not to reject this Bill in a wholesale manner.”
“I think the time has now come for the House of Lords to do what it traditionally does – to be sensible and to look carefully at the Bill that has been offered.”
The Lords must try to find a “middle way” between those who want to abolish hunting in its entirety and those who want to preserve something “possibly through regulated hunting”, he said.
He admitted that in light of the overwhelming majority of MPs who voted last month in favour of a total ban, the “most likely outcome” would be just that.
Nonetheless, Lord Strathclyde stressed: “In a two chamber system of Parliament – and the House of Lords is the revising chamber – we should revise the legislation.”
He also said the “blind prejudice” often underpinning calls for a ban should be counterweighed with evidence available on matters such as animal welfare.
Ministers are threatening to invoke the Parliament Act to force the bill onto the statute books if peers reject it for a third time.
The Act grants the ability to compel the House of Lords to adopt a bill if it comes before them unaltered on a second occasion.
Last time round, the Lords in effect blocked the Hunting Bill by voting to defer its committee stage to another day.
The Bill in its current form includes a deferral which stipulates a ban would not come into force for 18 months after it has been passed.
However, in the event of a Lords rebuff, an earlier defeated version embodying an instant ban could be approved by means of the Parliament Act.
Commenting on the issue, Lord Strathclyde stated: “It is a very serious matter to use this cudgel of the Parliament Act, this a blunt instrument, on something quite as controversial as this and something which is, at the end of the day, a matter of conscience.”
The Conservative leader in the House of Lords finished by saying this is the “last possible opportunity for us to stop a deeply illiberal piece of legislation.”
