Tim Bonner: 20 years of the petty and prejudiced Hunting Act

Twenty years ago next Monday, on 18 November 2004, the Hunting Act finally received Royal Assent and three months later it came into force. 

Two things can be said with certainty about that law. The first is that rarely, if ever in our long parliamentary history, has so much time, effort and resource been spent on such a petty and prejudiced piece of legislation. A government inquiry, parliamentary hearings, private members' bills, an options bill, the Parliament Acts and 700 hours of parliamentary time all went to pass a law which on the face of it simply determines how certain mammal species may be managed. 

Of course, it was really about much more than that and as I watched Labour advisor, John McTernan, saying earlier this week that he was in favour of doing to farmers "what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners," I could not help remembering an equally honest and shocking response 20 years ago. Then the Labour MP, Peter Bradley, responded to the passing of the Hunting Act by saying that now the law had been passed they could own up that “it was class war”.

The second is that it has achieved absolutely nothing. The extraordinary effort that was required to get the Hunting Act onto the Statute Book has not delivered its stated aim of improving animal welfare. As the government inquiry found there was never any evidence that hunting was any less humane than alternative methods of management and foxes and the other quarry species are still being culled in the same numbers. If anything, more are being killed, especially foxes in lowland hunting country and hares where they were preserved for coursing. 

Hunts are obviously unhappy at the unjustified prohibition of traditional hunting, but the Act has not even pleased the animal rights movement which is demanding yet more legislation as the law has not delivered its real aim of eliminating hunts and the hunting community. It is quite an achievement to pass a law that achieves nothing and pleases nobody.

As so many have learned, ignoring the lessons of history is not wise and the new Labour government has already launched itself into a battle with the countryside over inheritance tax on farms. It may have been elected with a manifesto commitment to “ban trail hunting”, but the government should think very carefully about whether it really wants to enter another pointless and divisive struggle over hunting. It would risk wasting yet more parliamentary time on an issue which is irrelevant to the vast majority of the population, further souring its relationship with the rural community and losing the new Labour MPs it worked so hard to get elected in the countryside. 

A wise politician once told me that all political decisions are a measurement of pain and governments will nearly always take the route that hurts least. It may be 20 years since it was passed, but the Hunting Act is still a raw wound in the countryside. Reopening it would be painful for all concerned.