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Tory peers press for watering down of outright hunt ban
Simon McGee, Political Editor TORY peers will today begin efforts to water down the outright ban on hunting with dogs and ensure the rural sport survives by securing a "middle way" option of licensed and restricted hunting.
Lord Strathclyde, Conservative leader in the House of Lords, has urged anti-ban colleagues not to reject the Hunting Bill out of hand when it comes before them this afternoon and instead seek to amend it, perhaps in the form originally presented by Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael which proposed a regulated hunt.
Despite threats from Ministers to steamroller the ban through using the Parliament Act if peers attempt to delay it, the Government will also be keen to reach agreement because if it has to use the Act the ban will come into force immediately, which Ministers are desperate to avoid.
Using the Parliament Act, a rarely called-upon instrument which allows the Commons to overrule the Lords, would leave the Government having to criminalise hunting before the next General Election because using the Act would not allow it to have the last-minute 18-month implementation delay it wants in place, raising the prospect of massive protest and rural unrest in the months before the country goes to the polls.
Ministers would also struggle to get major Bills such as those on housing and pensions through the Lords in time for the state opening of Parliament on November 23 if they did not reach some form of compromise.
Three days of detailed scrutiny and debate at the committee stage in the Lords begins a fortnight today and after further discussion in the Lords the Bill is expected to return to the Commons by the middle of November.
Leading anti-hunt MPs insist that nothing short of a full ban on fox-hunting will do but privately some Labour backbenchers are not ruling out licensed hunting.
Lord Strathclyde has said that because of the size of last month's Commons vote a total ban is the "most likely outcome" but he is also aware that a "sensible compromise" may be tactically possible, if the Government tries to twist the arms of its backbenchers.
Yorkshire Liberal Democrat peer Lord Wallace of Saltaire said he found neither extreme appealing and would support the licensing option.
"I'm not in favour of hunting with dogs but then I'm not in favour of banning things," he said.
"My inclination is to go for any available compromise."
But one of the minority of anti-hunting peers, Lord Graham of Edmonton, said a deal would be "just code for wanting fox-hunting to continue".
He said: "Whatever amendments or spoiling tactics are planned by some of my fellow peers, democracy will see to it that a ban on hunting will be enshrined in law at the end of this Parliamentary
session."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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