Men who backed hunting (From Gazette Series)

Men who backed hunting

SIR - The Scott Henderson Committee, set up by a Labour government to inquire into hunting with dogs, came to the following conclusion, and I quote: "Fox-hunting makes a very important contribution to the control of foxes, and involves less cruelty than most other methods of controlling them. It should therefore be allowed to continue."

On October 12, 2004, in the House of Lords debate on the Bill to ban hunting with dogs, Lord Burns, who under the instruction of the Labour government headed the inquiry into hunting with dogs, said: "There is insufficient verifiable evidence to reach views about cruelty, one way of the other, and our committee came to that conclusion."

Later he said: "The committee did not have sufficient evidence to reach a clear conclusion on whether hunting involves significantly worse welfare effects than other legal methods of control."

He added: "Although I fully understand the frustration of those who favour a ban and who feel that the issue has been debated long enough, I find it difficult to accept the use of the Parliament Act in circumstances in which there is no clear scientific support for the animal welfare implications of a ban. I fear it can only be divisive in the country at large, as well as being inconsistent with the use of that procedure. I struggle enormously to see how it passes Alun Michael's test that the legislation should be soundly based and should stand the test of time."

These are the findings of men who took a vast amount of evidenced and who came to their conclusions dispassionately.

R J Berkeley, Berkeley Castle