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Steve Clark: Fox hunters in sight of victory over bad law
WHEN the Hunting Act came into force in February 2005, the Countryside Alliance and the Yorkshire hunting community were determined that it was not the end of hunting.
We stated our intention to fight the ban and labelled the Hunting Act a temporary law. If I am honest, few, even of those who hunt, can have really have believed how successful the campaign against the ban would be.
First, and most importantly, we were determined to maintain the infrastructure of hunting: the staff, the kennels, the hunts and the hounds. To do that, hunts have had to adapt to hunting within the new law. Trail hunting, hunting an artificial scent, provides activity for horses and riders, while the many exemptions in the Hunting Act give scope for hunts to carry on fox control for the farmers whose land they hunt across.
This has meant that Yorkshire's 22 fox hunts, and numerous other
packs of hounds, have all survived. They will be out in force at the finale of the Great Yorkshire Show today. They have retained their support, and, in many cases, it has even grown as local people have become more determined to preserve their local hunt.
Second, we have shown, from the very first day that it came into force, that the Hunting Act is as pointless and unworkable as we argued throughout the long debate.
In Yorkshire, hunts have not regularly been the focus of animal rights campaigners, but even here, the police have had to deal with dozens of unsubstantiated allegations of illegal hunting.
In other parts of the country, local police forces have wasted hundreds of hours responding to allegations from anti-hunt activists. Yet, in more than four years, there have been just three successful prosecutions related to organised hunts, none of them in Yorkshire.
The Hunting Act is unique in that its effects are entirely negative. It diminishes respect for Parliament; it puts law-abiding people at risk of prosecution; it diverts police attention from real crime; it brings no benefit to the environment; it is a blatant example of political prejudice, and it does nothing for the welfare or conservation of the species it claims to "protect".
The question now is not whether hunting should, or should not, have been banned, but whether the Hunting Act is a piece of legislation that should remain on the Statute Book. In other words, should the Act be repealed?
The case for repeal is a powerful argument. The Hunting Act is a law that fails at every level – it is badly drafted, illiberal, cruel and divisive.
Scrapping the Act need not be complicated or time consuming.
In fact, it could be remarkably simple. Public and political support for the Act has fallen dramatically. When that time comes, there is ample reason for a new government to consign the Hunting Act to the dustbin of history.
At the moment, it looks most likely that the next government will be Conservative, so it was a significant boost to the campaign for repeal when William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary and MP for one of the most rural constituencies in Yorkshire, spoke at the Masters of Foxhounds Association annual meeting, in June.
He could not have been clearer about the law or his party's plans for it: "The passage of the Hunting Act revealed that Labour MPs' respect for the views of minorities only extended to those minorities whose views they could readily agree with, and the result was a piece of legislation so deeply prejudiced and so ridiculously unworkable that its existence weakens and discredits the laws of the land – so much so that the minority view that was opposed to it, is quite possibly now turning into the view of the majority.
"A Conservative government will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote and in government time. This has been our position, and it will remain our position."
This debate was never really about hunting – one Labour MP said as much shortly after the Act became law, admitting that it was about "class war", and it certainly is not now.
It is about getting rid of a bad law, passed for bad reasons, that has patently failed. It is increasingly likely that if there is a Conservative government which delivers on that commitment, there will be a majority of support in the House of Commons for repeal.
MPs and candidates from all parties understand that the law does not work and they are pledging their support to get rid of it. They also understand that, whatever they think about hunting, the majority of people know that the law has not worked.
Hunting is in touching distance of victory in an extraordinary
political battle that could change forever the relationship between government and the countryside. The last furlong is, however, always the hardest and we will be digging deep to finish the job.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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