On the day eight pro-hunt protesters were charged following their storming of the House of Commons, Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael defended comments made by his parliamentary private secretary, MP Peter Bradley, following a row over remarks he made about hunting and class war.
Mr Michael, who was responsible for steering the hugely controversial Hunting Bill through Parliament, said "The Act was not motivated by class war and Peter Bradley MP did not say it was. He said that pro-hunters' resistance to the Hunting Bill was based on class war. Commentators should read his article rather than believing the pro-hunt misrepresentation of it."
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was also forced to defend the practicality of the legislation after pro-hunting MPs warned of "confusion" about the planned criminalising of the centuries-old country sport when the law comes into force on February 18 next year.
The all-party Parliamentary Middle Way Group has accused lawyers at Defra of "backtracking" on the Hunting Act and inventing a new form of legal hunting.
They said a loophole in the law had been exposed by north Devon landowner Giles Bradshaw, who uses his four dogs to frighten – but not kill – foxes and deer off his land as those animals attacked his livestock and woodland.
He has been undertaking his non-lethal form of pest control for the past six years.
On inquiring if this use of dogs would be illegal, Mr Bradshaw was told by Defra on November 24 that the Hunting Act made it an offence for anyone to hunt a wild mammal with a dog unless it was "exempt hunting" which permitted the flushing to guns of an animal by two dogs only.
After several telephone conversations and apparent confusion in the department, Defra officials told Mr Bradshaw on November 26 that, according to a department lawyer, his actions were merely "chasing away unwanted animals – deer and foxes – from your land and that you are not in fact hunting as described in the Hunting Act 2004. Therefore you would not be committing an offence."
Defra said in a statement yesterday: "There should be no confusion over the Hunting Act. There is no anomaly. Defra is not backtracking and has not invented a new form of legal hunting.
"The intention behind the Hunting Act is to prevent unnecessary and intentional suffering to wild mammals.
"Setting any number of dogs on a wild mammal involves the causing of unnecessary and intentional suffering...and will be illegal from February 18.
"Chasing or shooting a wild mammal away from livestock or crops without the aid of a dog will be legal. If a pet chases a wild mammal without human encouragement, the pet will not be prosecuted nor will its owner. The very specific exemption for stalking and flushing out will not force anyone to shoot an animal they do not want to.
"In the course of a complicated exchange with Mr Bradshaw some misunderstanding may have crept in but the legislation itself is clear and enforceable.
"Prosecutors and judges will have no difficulty in differentiating between cases, however inventive are those determined to break a democratically enacted law."
Policing of protests is likely to remain a keen political issue, with the high-profile prosecution of eight pro-hunt protesters after they stormed the House of Commons in September.
The eight due in court next week are Otis Ferry, 22, of Keeper's Cottage, Eton Mascot, Shrewsbury, who has led the South Shropshire Hunt since May; Luke Tomlinson, 27, a polo player, of Down Farm, Westonbirt, Gloucestershire; David Redvers, 34, a horsebreeder, of Corsend Farm, Hearybury, Gloucestershire; Richard Wakeham, 36, a surveyor, of Alma Terrace, York; Nicholas Wood, 41, a chef, of Bowden Park, Lacock, Wiltshire; John Holiday, 37, a huntsman, of Ledbury Kennels, Bromesberrow, Ledbury, Herefordshire; Robert Thame, 35, a polo player, of Piper's Cottage, Paley Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire; and Andrew Elliot, 42, an auctioneer, of Laurel Cottage, Allbright Lane, Bromesberrow, Ledbury.