Hunting Act

In a reversal of expectations, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has threatened to oppose the pro-hunting effort to relax a key provision of the Hunting Act in England. The SNP move appears to doom chances of passage. As Foxhunting Life reported last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron, a former foxhunter, decided not to test the Hunting Act with a free vote in Parliament for a total reversal—an effort that would consume much Parliamentary time with questionable chance of success—but to attempt a statutory change instead. Cameron’s proposal would relax a key provision of the Act and consume only ninety minutes of Parliamentary time before a vote. Pro-hunting factions believed they had a chance of success, having been assured by SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon that the party would refrain from voting since it was an English issue. However, pressure from the party’s anti-hunting constituents in Scotland persuaded SNP MPs to announce their readiness to participate in the vote and defeat the bill. The SNP reversal is somewhat surprising in that the statutory change sought by Cameron would, if passed, bring the foxhunting laws in England more in line with those in Scotland. In the wake of the SNP turnabout, Cameron will delay this week’s planned introduction of his proposal to amend the Hunting Act. The ramifications of pursuing his original course now transcend the relatively unimportant (to most) subject of foxhunting and enter the more explosive realm of Scottish independence. If Cameron goes ahead with the vote, and if SNP MPs vote with the Labour Party as threatened, a new precedent of SNP votes on purely English matters will be set, and renewed pressure could arise on fragile Scottish-English unity.   Read more details in The Guardian article by Rowena Mason and Libby Brooks and the more recent AP report. Posted July 14, 2015Updated July 15, 2015

With Prime Minister David Cameron now leading a majority government, pro-hunting Conservatives are looking to him to make good on his pledge to bring a free vote to the floor in Parliament to repeal the despised Hunting Act of 2002. Despite his majority, however, Cameron is loath to risk a free vote. Too many members of his own party, not to mention the Liberal opposition, have pledged to oppose him on the issue. But the natives are restless, and he must do something. A potential solution has been announced that would, rather than produce a protracted battle for repeal, require only a statutory change in the existing law. This approach would involve only ninety minutes of debate as opposed to weeks. The proposal, if passed, will make it legal once again to use a full pack—as many hounds as deemed necessary for wildlife management—to flush a fox to a gun, rather than the current limit of only two hounds. This, pro-hunters will argue, will help farmers who need predation control and will also help sick and mangy foxes to a speedier and kinder demise. Such a change will also bring the English Hunting Act more in line with Scottish law, thus rendering the plan less objectionable to members of the Scottish National Party than would an outright attempt to reverse the Act. Cameron’s plan is to put the idea to the Conservative party this week. If approved, the statutory instrument could be debated in Parliament as early as next week. Click for more details in Melissa Kite’s article in The Spectator. Posted July 8, 2015

In the runup to the May 7 elections in Britain, foxhunting and the Hunting Act that outlawed traditional hunting there in 2005 are once again subjects for polarized wrangling in the British media. While issues of greater import confront the nation as a whole, foxhunting remains a burning issue in rural areas. For many in those locales, their way of life was drastically altered by the nation’s voters, the majority (95%) of whom live in urban settings and were unaffected by the consequences of their vote. Although the ban was successfully pushed through by a vocal minority of animal rights activists and anti-toff sentiment, to the majority of urban dwellers, foxhunting is far down on their list of crucial issues and easy to quickly dismiss as frivolous. Once again, as he did in the runup to the last election, Prime Minister David Cameron declared last week that the countryside would not be forgotten. Cameron never fulfilled his initial campaign promise during the current session of Parliament because he and his pro-hunting supporters knew they didn’t have the votes to prevail. And once again, foes of hunting, noting the renewed rhetoric of the pro-hunting faction, have pledged through their sympathetic media channels that repeal will never happen. Click for more details in “WMN OPINION,” published by Western Morning News. Posted January, 12, 2015

Persuaded by evidence furnished to the court by investigators from the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS), an English judge found three men from one of that country’s foremost hunts guilty of illegally hunting the fox. Joint-Master Timothy Windham Basil Smalley, MFH; huntsman Ian McKie; and kennel huntsman Andrew Proe of the College Valley North Northumberland Foxhounds were convicted in Berwick Magistrate’s Court. LACS cameramen secretly filmed a meet on February 27 of this year. The videos showed foxes bolting from covert, and it appeared that hounds were in the chase. The defendants argued that hounds were following a drag scent and that hounds came across the fox and switched to the live hunt. McKie tried to explain to the court that it takes some time to stop a pack, but the judge was not persuaded. In other evidence put forth by the plaintiffs, the allegation was made that Smalley lifted his cap and pointed in the direction of the fox and that staff encouraged hounds with horn and voice. The conviction was a disappointment to the pro-hunting community. Outside the court, huntsman McKie said that hounds were stopped successfully, and the fox was not killed. Another judge, he felt, could have come to a different conclusion. As yet, no decision on an appeal has been announced. Foxhunting Life reported on August 2 that a spokesman for the Countryside Alliance expressed confidence that the men would be exonerated, as was the only other defendant—Percy huntsman Robert McCarthy—to be charged under the Hunting Act in that jurisdiction back in 2009. Click to read the complete article in The Telegraph. Posted October 15, 2014

  Three members of the College Valley and North Northumberland Foxhounds were charged under the Hunting Act. Two Masters—former champion jockey Ian McKie and Timothy Smalley—along with kennel huntsman Andrew Proe are accused of hunting illegally on February 27, 2014. Charges are based on evidence furnished by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) and investigations by police. The defendants pleaded not guilty at their July 17 court appearance and will stand trial on October 13. A spokesman for the Countryside Alliance expressed confidence that the men would be exonerated, as was the only other defendant—Percy Foxhounds huntsman Robert McCarthy—to be charged under the act in that jurisdiction back in 2009. Click for more details in Michael Brown’s article in The Journal. Posted August 2, 2014  

  Like Fagin, the RSPCA is reviewing the situation. With income from donations having cratered by seven million pounds last year, the RSPCA is cutting jobs and restructuring. Donor disaffection is surely due, at least in part, to enormous sums spent by the Society in prosecuting foxhunters under the Hunting Act for very little return. The RSPCA was widely criticised in 2012 by the press and even by judges of the courts after it spent more than three hundred thousand pounds prosecuting the Heythrop hunt. In 2013 the charity was estimated to have spent at least a half million pounds of charitable funds on prosecutions against hunts, seventy-eight percent of which failed. RSPCA Chairman Mike Tomlinson is quoted as saying “things cannot carry on as they are” after the charity suffered a “£6.1m net cash outflow” last year. It will now prioritise its front-line animal welfare work, he reportedly told a journalist. The Countryside Alliance has reported that RSPCA CEO Gavin Grant resigned in February 2014, followed by his deputy, John Grounds, in April. Click for more details. Posted July 7, 2014  

  The return on investment expended in the prosecution of foxhunters in England is abysmally low, yet the “social mission to purify” countryfolk persists, according to Michael Henderson in The Telegraph. The numbers are in. Of 110 people charged under the Hunting Act last year, fifty-six were found guilty. And most of those were poachers! According to the Countryside Alliance, only six of those fifty-six belonged to a registered hunt. The cost of bringing these few foxhunters to “justice” was in the millions of pounds, much of it furnished by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in snooping on foxhunters and funding prosecutions.The RSPCA spent more than three hundred thousand pounds prosecuting the Heythrop Hunt alone in 2012. Originally “established with the noblest of aims but which has degenerated into an association of zealots,” the RSPCA has even provoked the ire and condemnation of judges of the court with their freewheeling use of donors’ funds. Henderson reports that the RSPCA’s income from donations fell by seven million pounds last year. He writes, “There is valuable work for the RSPCA to do, but it doesn’t involve meddling in the lives of countrymen and women who pay their taxes on time and do their best by their neighbours. “For farmers, and for an increasing number of city-dwellers as well, Johnny Fox is not quite the cuddly chap some of these people think he is. They have better ways to spend their money. It is time, begging Fagin’s pardon, for them to review the situation.” Click for the complete article. Posted July 6, 2014  

  A British defense solicitor has called for an end to the hunting ban in England because too many prosecutions are thrown out for lack of evidence. Passion, yes, he says. Evidence, no. A Master and huntsman from the Weston and Barnwell Harriers and his whipper-in were recently acquitted in court of charges leveled by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS). The League presented a video that their Chief Executive Joe Duckworth said, “Clearly shows evidence of illegal foxhunting.” The judge, however, said the ninety-seconds of footage showed drag hunting, using a cloth soaked in fox urine, and the hounds were stopped before reaching a live fox. The exonerated Master and huntsman, George Milton, has been unsuccessfully accused four times in a period of only twelve months by LACS. He has suffered through two trials costing in the six figures. Milton’s defence solicitor, Jamie Foster, sees the case as another blow for the League Against Cruel Sports. In an OpEd piece in the Western Morning News, Foster writes, “While I have nothing against anyone’s deeply held beliefs, the criminal court is not the place for those beliefs to be relied upon. A court demands cogent evidence, and, yet again, [LACS] was unable to provide it. “In the end, justice was done but at a considerable cost. The League must have spent in excess of £100,000 of charitable donations on the case. The police, the CPS and the court all had to commit public money to it and the taxpayer faces a hefty bill for the legal costs run up by George and Toby in their defence. It is impossible to see how any of this expense can possibly be justified by a case in which a fox, two minutes ahead of the hounds was pursued for less than the length of a single field and would never have been aware of the existence of its pursuers. Surely it is time to repeal this legislation and allow the League to go back to waving placards and gnashing their teeth freeing up the criminal courts to deal with matters that really are in the public interest to prosecute.” Posted May 15, 2014  

It would appear that British Prime Minister David Cameron’s admission in the House of Commons—that there will be no change to the Hunting Act due to lack of agreement among coalition ministers—is not his final word on the subject. (See earlier FHL news item.) The ban on fox hunting with a full pack of hounds could be relaxed after all, according to Christopher Hope in The Telegraph. Cameron’s words in the House of Commons notwithstanding, the Prime Minister has asked government officials to gather factual evidence to support a change to the Hunting Act. Under the ban as currently constituted, in cases where the landowner wants foxes killed, no more than two foxhounds may be used to flush a fox to a gun. Cameron along with Environment Secretary Owen Paterson had earlier proposed to amend that restriction, through a parliamentary device known as a statutory instrument, to allow up to forty hounds to flush a fox to a gun. Their proposed amendment was in response to complaints by Welsh sheep farmers of fox depredation on their flocks. Critics argued, however, that it was a “back door” attempt to reintroduce foxhunting. Cameron and Paterson were unable to garner sufficient votes, even within their own party, to bring the matter to a vote. Cameron now hopes to build a case based on hard evidence to persuade recalcitrant members of his coalition government that the ban should be eased in some parts of the country. The hill farmers argue that fox control under the ten-year-old ban has been insufficient, and changes are needed to ameliorate the growing threat to their livelihood. Before achieving leadership of the Conservative Party, Prime Minister Cameron rode with the Heythrop Foxhounds. Click for more details in Christopher Hope’s article in The Telegraph. Posted April 6, 2014

Speculation about any near-term relaxation of the hunting ban in England has been laid to rest. The BBC reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron informed the House of Commons that there will be no change to the Hunting Act as passed in 2004. Expressing regret, Cameron said that coalition ministers had failed to reach agreement. In the days leading up to that announcement, Conservative MPs warned Cameron that his plan, in concert with Environment Secretary Owen Patterson, would fail. (See earlier FHL report, “British PM Has New Plan to Ease Hunting Ban.”) Under the ban, in cases where the landowner wants foxes killed, no more than two foxhounds may be used to flush a fox to a gun. Cameron and Paterson proposed to amend that restriction, through a parliamentary device known as a statutory instrument, to allow up to forty hounds to flush a fox to a gun. The proposed amendment was a response to complaints by Welsh sheep farmers of fox depredation on their flocks. Critics argued, however, that it was a “back door” attempt to reintroduce foxhunting. Cameron and Paterson were unable to garner sufficient votes, even within their own party, to bring the matter to a vote. Click for more details of the doomed proposal as reported in The Guardian. The plight of the countryside was well-expressed in the Mid Devon Gazette: “If you put the politics, the prejudice and the class warfare aside and focus on the practicalities of fox control in an efficient and humane way, the case for changing the rules on hunting are difficult to challenge. “In essence farmers, particularly in upland areas of Wales where fox predation of lambs is a serious issue, wanted to be allowed to use a full pack of hounds to flush a fox from cover. They argue using just two, as the Hunting Act allows, doesn’t work in many cases. “The proposal has been scuppered, not because the vast majority against the measure have studied the facts but because they had long since made up their minds on this issue. “The sad conclusion to this modest attempt to help farmers and sensibly amend a flawed piece of legislation – which would also bring the whole of the UK in line [Scotland allows what England is trying to achieve. -Ed.] – is that it is impossible to discard the baggage and talk sensibly about animal welfare, cruelty and efficient countryside management. That is a great shame and does a disservice to wildlife and to farmers.” Posted March 28, 2014Updated March 29, 2014