Countryside Alliance criticises latest government announcement regarding trail hunting

The Countryside Alliance has accused the government of putting “prejudiced party politics” ahead of the priorities of ordinary people following an announcement at a debate in Westminster on Tuesday (1 April 2025) which confirmed that the government plans to consult on its manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting.

The Adjournment Debate, secured by Perran Moon, the Labour MP for Camborne and Redruth, called upon the government to strengthen the Hunting Act 2004, including banning trail hunting, removing exemptions and introducing custodial sentences for those who break the law.

When closing the debate, Defra Minister Daniel Zeichner said: “The Government were elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans in a generation to improve animal welfare, and that is exactly what we will do. Banning trail hunting is only one part of that.”

In response to a request from Perran Moon MP to give a specific timeline to deliver the government’s manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting he continued: “We are working to move this forward and will deliver a thorough consultation later this year to ensure that the legislation that is brought forward is effective in practice and that its impact is understood.”

This is the first time a timescale for further hunting legislation has been confirmed and it was met with dismay by the hunting community.

Tim Bonner, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance responded to this news: “The last Labour government wasted 700 hours of parliamentary time banning fox hunting and it is frankly extraordinary that Ministers are now planning to devote more time trying to ban trail hunting.

“The countryside, and the country as a whole are facing huge challenges. By focussing on such an irrelevant issue Labour is putting prejudiced party politics ahead of the priorities of ordinary people.”

Figures released by the Ministry of Justice show that since 2010 there have been 744 prosecutions under the Hunting Act, leading to 416 convictions, which is more than under any other wildlife law and twice the number of convictions as the next most prosecuted wildlife offence. The vast majority did not involve registered hunts which undertake thousands of days of lawful hunt activity each year, but it is clear that if the law is broken by anyone, including registered hunts, they can be prosecuted.

The Alliance has subsequently written to Daniel Zeichner, questioning his “reliance on unsubstantiated figures from campaign groups with a vested interest in seeing the disappearance of hunts rather than the government’s own statistics on the Hunting Act.”