On Tuesday I met Baroness Hayman, the Defra Minister who has responsibility for animal welfare, to discuss the government’s proposals to ban trail hunting along with colleagues from the British Hound Sports Association and other hunting bodies.
The Minister was keen to stress from the start that her responsibility was to deliver the manifesto commitment which, according to the government’s logic, removes any need to justify the policy. It is understandable that Baroness Hayman, having been delivered this hospital pass, was keen to move straight on to the ‘how’, avoiding difficult questions about the ‘why’, but as I and others explained, the lack of any coherent argument as to why further hunting legislation is even necessary will have a huge impact on how it is received by the rural community.
I took that point on and emphasised the damage done to Labour’s relationship with the countryside by its last foray into hunting legislation 25 years ago. In particular, I reminded the Minister that the Blair government carried out endless consultations and inquiries on hunting, but then stood back and allowed parliament to pass legislation that ignored their findings. Whilst the Minister was clearly ready to listen, and tens of thousands of you are responding to the consultation, none of this will matter if the government enables another culture war in the countryside.
The Minister did accept the social and cultural importance of hunts to many in the rural community and stressed that the government’s policy was not to ban all hunting including drag hunting, clean boot hunting and the sport of hound trailing (Baroness Hayman is from Cumbria and was previously the MP for Workington). Colleagues from the hunting associations emphasised that the government’s position had created huge uncertainty in the hunting community, particularly amongst professional hunt staff, and that everyone connected to hunts was desperately concerned about the future of hounds.
The Minister could not help relieve that uncertainty by putting any timescale on legislation. The government will lay out its political agenda in the King’s Speech on 13 May and even before the meeting we thought it unlikely that the trail hunting ban would be included. It has become noticeable that Ministers and many Labour MPs are sensitive to the suggestion that banning trail hunting is a priority and embarrassed by having to justify their focus on this of all issues, when there are so many pressing problems that the government should be addressing.
There is, of course, a simple solution, which is to drop the whole stupid idea. Whilst the Hunting Act 2004 was completely unjustified there is no legitimate argument that it cannot be enforced. The government’s own statistics bear witness to that. As for manifesto commitments, no government has ever delivered everything in its manifesto. This government has already broken its commitment not to raise tax and National Insurance, and is widely held to have no chance of meeting its target of building 1.5 million new homes. In comparison to these issues, dropping a commitment to ban trail hunting would hardly leave a ripple on the political pond.