The Hunting Act - Past, Present, Future
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

League Against Cruel Sports
February 2014

The Hunting Act has, for nearly a decade, been a landmark price of legislation for animal welfare. Nine years later, the evidence clearly shows that the majority of people do not want to see a return to hunting for sport. Hunters need to accept that there is no place for cruelty in modern Britain....This event to celebrate the Hunting Act acts as a timely reminder to parliamentarians to protect this legislation and not to turn the clock back on cruelty. Worryingly, it appears that the Government are considering an attempt to amend the Act.

Today marks exactly nine years since the Hunting Act came into force, and to mark this milestone, the League Against Cruel Sports recently teamed up with the RSPCA and IFAW in parliament to celebrate and reflect.

It was an important evening which marked many years of tireless campaigning by the League to ban hunting with dogs, which was finally passed by parliament in November 2004 and came into force on 18 February 2005.

The theme of the night was the “Past, Present and Future” of the Hunting Act. The event was hosted by League Trustee and Labour MP for Derby North, Chris Williamson. Chris spoke about the importance of exposing and bringing to justice those who are still hunting illegally and flouting the law, and also emphasised that support for the Hunting Act had now become a cross party issue. To highlight this, Chris was followed by Conservative MP for Gosport, Caroline Dinenage, who spoke about her support for the Act and later that evening by Adrian Sanders, Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay (and a Vice President of the League).

It was also great to hear from Mike Foster, the former MP who introduced a private member’s bill to ban hunting with dogs in 1997. Although his bill did not become law, its principals paved the way for the ban in 2004.

The League’s Deputy Chief Executive, Rachel Newman (pictured above), also spoke at the event on the current challenges facing wildlife and the successful number of prosecution under the Act, which stands as testament to its continuing success. Rachel talked about recent polling that shows the majority of MP's and the public, rural and urban are opposed to seeing a return to hunting. Rachel also showed the League’s short film “No Joke”, featuring Dave Spikey, which powerfully illustrates the reality of hunting.

This event to celebrate the Hunting Act acts as a timely reminder to parliamentarians to protect this legislation and not to turn the clock back on cruelty. Worryingly, it appears that the Government are considering an attempt to amend the Act. This week, the Minister for the Environment, George Eustice, confirmed in response to a question from Chris Williamson that Defra were considering a report from the Federation of Welsh Farmers Packs (a pro hunting organization) to amend the Act to allow a pack of dogs to flush out a fox to a gun (currently the law only allows for 2 dogs).

The pro hunting lobby is aware they do not currently have the support in parliament to repeal the Hunting Act, so this seems a cynical attempt at repeal “by the back door”. We are urging all MPs to resist any attempts to weaken the Act, and have produced our own research, which has been submitted to Defra, that proves that the Welsh Farmers Packs claim that increasing the number of dogs used to flush out a fox is beneficial to animal welfare is simply not true. You can read our research here.

The Hunting Act has, for nearly a decade, been a landmark price of legislation for animal welfare. Nine years later, the evidence clearly shows that the majority of people do not want to see a return to hunting for sport. Hunters need to accept that there is no place for cruelty in modern Britain.


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