League Against Cruel Sports

With thanks to Tom Watson MP.

NC: Now, later in the programme if I may before you go, we’re hearing a claim that the fox hunting ban is being flouted more than another law. Are you going to repeal the ban?

DC: Well we’re going to have a free vote in the House of Commons.

NC: But what are your instincts?

DC: My personal view is the ban has been a, is a mistake. I always opposed the ban…

NC: You’re a hunter though aren’t you you’ve been hunting?

DC: I have in the past. I always thought that the ban was a mistake because I think it is very difficult to enforce. I think it’s somewhere where the criminal law shouldn’t go and I think that the mess we have now pretty much proves that. But it will be a free vote. There are, MPs take different views, there are Conservatives in my party who support the hunting ban, it will be a free vote in the House of Commons and if the ban if kept it’s kept and if it’s repealed it’s repealed.

NC: And will you go hunting again if it comes back?

DC: I personally have got other things I’m hoping to do.

NC: No but if you had any spare… what is it, you’ve been hunting, for those who don’t understand it because it’s a tremendously divisive issue, explain the joys of hunting.

DC: Well I was born, I’m a country boy, I was brought up in the countryside and I love walking in the countryside and riding in the countryside and every aspect of growing up in the countryside. I was taught to fish by a wonderful grandfather. I was taught to shoot rabbits by my dad. You know and I’ve always been a country boy and I went hunting as well.

NC: And was it for pest control or was it just for the fun of chasing the fox?

DC: Well people like, if you like riding and people like riding across the countryside and it’s an opportunity, and lots of people do it together, it’s an opportunity to see parts of the countryside you never see before. That’s a lot of why people go and it’s part of something that happened, something that happened in the countryside for a very many years.

NC: People against it would say you can do that without killing an animal.

DC: Yes of course that’s true and I do, I like riding. But the point is that the fox population has to be controlled – every farmer will tell you that and every farmer will also tell you that the methods now being used in more case gassing & shooting and trapping and snaring, are as the Burns inquiry itself found, very very cruel and the case on animal welfare grounds for the hunting ban I’ve always thought was very very weak. But as I say it’s a free vote issue. This is something I would never whip any party members to have. It has you’re right been a divisive issue, I think the right thing to do now that the ban’s been in place to have a free vote and to see whether people want to keep it or not.