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Animal Welfare Bill

I have the great good fortune to live in the middle of a pheasant-shooting estate. When the guns came up at the start of the season, the lady who previously owned the house used to lie down in the road and say, ““You can’t come through here””. She was a lady of specific tendencies, but she did not add to her local popularity by her particular approach to the shoot. Certainly, on observing it, I have no objection in principle to the sport. It gives a great deal of pleasure to people, including to us when we get the odd brace from the shoot. I therefore do not have a problem with the proposal in principle. However, having listened closely to the noble Earl, Lord Peel, and coming from greyhound racing, an industry which has had problems with welfare, I believe that the shooting fraternity has been a little slow to get on to the concern caused by some of its practices particularly in breeding. I may be over-interpreting the noble Earl, but when I hear him talk about further research I hear the bells beginning to ring. We need more than research; we need action against some of the interesting documents we have all received from the lobbyists about what is happening. I have no wish to prevent the activity, but I cannot support the amendment because the great virtue of waiting and having things incorporated in codes of practice is that it will give the shooters the chance to put their house in order before we decide precisely what legislative inhibitions, if any, are placed upon them. I hope that the message will go out from the Committee that we all share the noble Earl’s concerns, so well expressed, and the determination of the official shooting lobby that something should be done. We are looking to see action accompanying the words we have heard so as to obviate the necessity for heavy-handed government intervention.