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PAUL WILENIUS: Farmer Roger Goodchild fortifies
himself for a hard day's work. He feels many of Britain's city dwellers
are blissfully unaware of the threat to life in the countryside, and the
government's doing little to defend it.
ROGER GOODCHILD: A lot of farmers feel as though
they're hard hit, and that things like the banning of fox-hunting is just
one last body blow.
WILENIUS: Tony Blair will be facing
fresh trouble over foxhunting, when the Burns Inquiry into hunting with
dogs reports next week. Labour backbenchers are planning to force a Commons
vote shortly afterwards, to get hunting banned before the next election.
But countryside campaigners are threatening to mobilise mass protests
to kill off any attempt to outlaw hunting.
RICHARD BURGE: People in the countryside
would get very angry, and they probably would protest if they saw any,
any ban being brought in on a wave of political expediency and prejudice.
PHIL WOOLAS: There's no doubt in my mind
that the Labour Party, whether it's locally or nationally, coming out strongly
against fox hunting, is an electoral vote winner.
WILENIUS: Roger Goodchild's family
has farmed in Buckinghamshire for generations.
Linking the way of life of farmers like this, to foxhunting, has galvanised
opinion in many rural areas. The Countryside Alliance, which organised
the massive rally in London, warns that there is a lot at stake.
BURGE: The prime issue is that
hunting is not a welfare problem for animals, it's just as humane way of
controlling those quarry species as any other way. Secondly it has a
massive impact on the social and cultural life of the countryside. It's
a major player in the way that we manage pests, species, it's a major way
in which agriculture and farming management goes on. Jobs are an issue.
WILENIUS: But others say there
is another side to hunting with dogs. They believe it's got little to
do with countryside tradition, and everything to do with animal welfare.
The anti-hunt campaigners claim hunting is not an issue of rural lifestyle,
it's about the thousands of foxes torn apart every year by packs of hounds.
They say the foxes suffer terrible anxiety and pain. Many Labour backbenchers
agree.
GORDON PRENTICE, MP: This issue is about killing
for fun, that's what fox hunting is, that's what hare coursing is, it's
about killing for fun. And it's about time that the government took a
handle to this issue, with more than three years into this Parliament,
and the government cannot afford to give out any more signals, that it's
procrastinating on an issue that so many people feel very, very strongly
about.
WILENIUS: Last year Tony Blair
said he too felt strongly.
TONY BLAIR: It will be banned. We will
get a vote to ban it as soon as we possibly can. We had one try at it,
last session, it was blocked by Conservatives in The House of Commons and
the House of Lords, and we are looking now at ways of bringing it forward
in a future session and allow people to have a vote and actually carry
it through.
WILENIUS: There was no quick ban,
because of the angry reaction of pro-hunt campaigners such as Labour Peer
Baroness Mallalieu and Roger Goodchild. They're now waiting for the Burns
Inquiry into hunting with dogs which is expected to report to the Home
Secretary very soon.
Although it is expected to say only 5,000 jobs will be at risk from a
ban, it won't produce a definitive solution to the problem.
BARONESS MALLALIEU: The Burns Inquiry commissioned
a poll on rural views on hunting, and it showed an overwhelming support
in truly rural areas for hunting, something we've always been told by the
opponents of hunting was just not true. I think over, well over 59 per
cent, nearly 60 per cent of people heavily support the continuation.
MICHAEL FOSTER: Clearly they will show,
I believe, evidence that that the anti-hunt people have always thought
to be the case, and certainly the post mortems on foxes, and this week
the post mortems on hares that have been coursed, make grotesque reading.
And that is what is conducted in the name of sport. And I think the Burn's
evidence will bring that to the public's attention, and gel the support
that the anti-hunt movement has.
WILENIUS: So the mixed messages
of the Burns Inquiry are unlikely to hold back this explosive debate, as
the rival groups will pick out parts of the report which support their
case. The government's now expected to back a bill introduced by an MP,
rather than bring in its own legislation, but this type of bill has failed
in the past. And it's unlikely to get through the Lords.
WOOLAS: I think colleagues and
certainly myself have realised that whatever the majority view, these old
fashioned procedures, are just stopping us getting the majority verdict
through and that of course is in some quarters turning to frustration at
the government for not acting decisively.
WILENIUS: So there's a new call
to arms, among the anti-hunt campaigners. Gordon Prentice will put forward
an amendment to the government's Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, now
going through the Commons. This would allow Ministers to invoke the Parliament
Act to force the ban through the Lords within a year. This amendment will
be tabled early next month, and many Labour MPs are backing it.
On The Record asked 100 Labour MPs whether they would support Gordon Prentice's
amendment to the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill calling for a ban on
hunting with dogs. Sixty-nine said they would back the amendment, while
only ten said they wouldn't, eighteen said they didn't know and three refused
to comment.
But if the anti-hunt Labour MPs rush towards an early ban, Ministers warn
they could risk wrecking the long awaited Countryside Bill, and its right
to roam for the nation's walkers. If the Commons votes for the Prentice
amendment, the whole bill could be lost in the Lords, until after the next
election.
BARONESS MALLALIEU: If the countryside Bill were
to go to the Lords with an anti-hunting amendment tacked on to it, I think
there must be a very real doubt about the Bill reaching the statute book,
because it would immediately be subject to major delays, there would obviously...the
Lords would overturn that amendment. And I think the Lords would inevitably
take steps to see that it didn't in any form reach the book.
PRENTICE: And what do we want,
if the government decide that the Countryside Bill is not the appropriate
vehicle, then it's got to come forward with an alternative and what we
have at the moment is the private members route. Now we've been here before
and it's failed.
WILENIUS: Tony Blair is under pressure
from many in his own party to back his words with action. But if the moves
to ban hunting with dogs before the next election fail, they want a firm
manifesto promise to use a government bill to implement the ban soon afterwards.
But this raises the spectre of big protests by countryside campaigners,
right in the middle of a general election campaign.
BARONESS MALLALIEU: I'm sure that the government
don't want to attract at least half a million people onto the streets of
London against them, in the run up to the elections and many of the Labour
MPs in rural seats, who never expected to get in, have been on a very fast
learning curve and quite a lot of them, I think, are beginning to understand
a great deal about the countryside and I hope will influence the government
not to make a stupid mistake of committing government to a ban on people.
WILENIUS: Labour does now have
dozens of MPs in rural seats, but many feel countryside traditions like
foxhunting should not be immune from change. On The Record asked one hundred
Labour MPs if the Labour Party should have "a manifesto commitment to introduce
a government bill to implement a ban in the next Parliament ?" The vast
majority of Labour MPs, ninety-one, felt the government should make this
promise to voters at the next election, two didn't want a manifesto commitment
and seven didn't know.
Labour leaders are worried
about the slump in party morale and support. Yet here at last year's
Eddesbury by-election Labour MPs say there was clear evidence that firm
backing for a ban could energise party workers and enthuse those voters
turning away from Labour. Insiders say signing up to an anti hunting policy
paid off.
WOOLAS: There was strong support
against fox hunting, not just from Labour core vote in the constituency,
but also from the those traditional conservative voters, who for, either
for moral reasons opposed fox hunting or because they saw it as being part
of the arrogant upper class set as they saw it and we were able to use
that issue to gel opinion across the social spectrum and to in fact achieve
a vote that was a swing towards the Labour candidate.
WILENIUS: For Tony Blair there'll
be no running away from a tough political choice on hunting. He knows
that a ban on hunting would be unpopular with many in the countryside but
he's also shown that this issue has the potential to unite the party, he
poked fun at protesting hunters to win over last year's party conference.
TONY BLAIR (28.9.99) I'm sorry we're a bit late
but it's all those hunting horns outside the window, still here goes -
tally ho!.
WILENIUS: But some fear that if
the Prime Minister fails to match up to these words, he could appear weak.
PRENTICE: The worst enemy is vacillation.
People have got know where you're coming from. You can't put off the evil
day when you've got to make a decision and that's the point that the Prime
Minister has got to make a decision and we've got to make it clear to people
that we're all four square behind his policy.
WOOLAS: If we don't have a firm
manifesto pledge without a ban being in place by then, then we will be
on our back foot, we'll be defensive, we'll be accused of having dithered
over the issue and why turn what is a vote winner for Labour into a potential
vote loser.
FOSTER: Most people would actually
like to see the manifesto commitment, the words of the Prime Minister,
who last July said that we will get it banned and I think if there is wording
sufficiently clear and positive, that basically says we're going to finish
the job off, that will satisfy the vast majority of people in this country,
who want to see hunting banned.
WILENIUS: It's the end of a hard
day's work for Roger Goodchild. And if Labour MPs get their way it'll
soon be the end of fox hunting too. But the Prime Minister will have to
face up to harsh reality, that he'll make enemies in the countryside.
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