Background information
1. The Government has made it clear that hunting does not have as high a priority as issues like jobs, schools, hospitals and transport. But it is an issue that matters to a lot of people across the country and it has absorbed an enormous amount of valuable Parliamentary time, over several years. Before the 2001 election, the Labour Party said that it was time to enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on this issue.
2. In July 2003, the House of Commons passed a Bill to ban all hunting with dogs and hare coursing subject to certain limited exemptions. The House of Lords did not complete its consideration of the Bill, and so the Government reintroduced the Bill in September 2004 in exactly the same form as it was sent to the House of Lords in 2003. The House of Commons passed this Bill again on Wednesday 15 September 2004, by 339 votes to 155, a majority of 184. Peers sought to make numerous amendments to the Bill turning it into a largely permissive registration system. This was rejected by the Commons on 16 November 2004 (by 343 to 175). Following further disagreement between the two Houses, the Bill as re-introduced in September 2004 was passed under the Parliament Acts and given Royal Assent on 18 November 2005.
3. In September 2004, the House of Commons also passed a suggested amendment to delay the introduction of the banning Bill until 31 July 2006. This was intended to minimise any difficulties for the comparatively small number of people and businesses involved in hunting and enable them to make appropriate preparations for when the ban came into force. However, the House of Lords voted against this proposal on two separate occasions, and the Hunting Act, therefore, came into force on 18 February 2005.
4. The use of the Parliament Acts to pass the Hunting Act has been called into question. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 are both valid Acts of Parliament which are an established part of the constitutional structure of this country. They enable the will of the House of Commons to prevail where there is disagreement with the House of Lords and their use is not limited to any particular circumstances such as constitutional crisis or national emergency. The Acts have previously been used for passing a wide variety of legislation, including Acts relating to war crime trials, European Parliament elections and the age of consent for homosexual activities. The Countryside Alliance lost its challenge to the validity of the 1949 Parliament Act (and thus its challenge to the validity of the Hunting Act) in the High Court on 28 January 2005, and its appeal was rejected by the Court of Appeal on 16 February 2005. The House of Lords heard a final appeal on this matter in July, and confirmed the judgements of the Lower Courts in October 2005.
5. Questions have also been raised about whether this Act complies with the Human Rights Act. The Government has received very clear legal advice that the Hunting Act is fully compatible with the Human Rights Act, and this view is supported by decisions in the Scottish Courts upholding the ban there which came into force in 2002.
6. The Countryside Alliance and others launched separate legal challenges on human rights and European Union trade grounds, and these cases were heard together in the High Court in July 2005, and rejected in their entirety. The Court of Appeal heard an appeal in March 2006 and ruled in favour of the Government on 23 June 2006. The Court ruled that the objective of the Hunting Act is a composite one of preventing or reducing unnecessary suffering to wild mammals, overlaid with the view that causing suffering for sport is unethical and that that is a lawful objective. The House of Lords heard an appeal on this issue in October 2007 and a decision is expected shortly.
7. Some pro-hunt campaigners have suggested that the provisions of the Hunting Act are unclear. The Government does not accept that this is true, and believes that the Act is clear and easily understood - innocent bystanders who witness an illegal hunt, farmers whose land is used against their will, or people, including those engaged in drag hunting, whose dogs chase and kill a fox against their wishes are not guilty of a crime. However, the Government also believes that pretence would be easy to detect, and notes that persistent failure to prevent dogs from chasing and killing wild mammals could well be taken by the courts as proof of a person’s intention to hunt unlawfully.
8. There have been suggestions that the Hunting Act is not being enforced and that the police do not have sufficient resources. The police have always made clear that their job is to enforce all laws passed by Parliament. The Government believes that events since the Act came into force, where the majority of hunts have had no difficulty staying within the law, demonstrate that the Act is easy to obey and entirely enforceable. This has also meant that the dire consequences in terms of jobs, welfare and wildlife, predicted by opponents of the Act, have not come to pass.
Page last modified:
7 March, 2008
Page published: 28 September, 2004