East: Driven to the edge?

David Woodthorpe
Politics Show East

A way of life will be destroyed throwing a some people living in the countryside into despair if fox hunting with dogs is banned.

Pro-hunters ask what will become of their hounds

In an impassioned plea for his livelihood Tim Taylor, Huntsman with the Woodland Pytchley Hunt, used a season long video diary to explain why hunting should continue.

Hunt supporters would be driven to the edge if their field sport was banned.

Tim Taylor said:

This is my life and if I'm forced to change and do something different, what is that going to do to me?

What is that going to do to the people around me. I think it's going to bring them to suicide and despair.

These could be the last months for the Woodland Pytchley in Northamptonshire as the ping pong legislative battle between the House of Commons and the House of Lords enters its endgame.

In mid October 2003 the peers voted 261 to 49 to amend the troubled Hunting Bill affecting ensuring hunting with dogs could continue with individual hunts registered nationally.

Bill returns to Commons

The bill now returns to the House of Commons where MPs have consistently voted with large majorities for an outright ban on fox, hare and stag hunting.

Anti hunt MPs are insisting the government uses the Parliament Act to force the bill through the Lords if the legislation is not passed into law by the end of this Parliamentary session.

That would see hunting continue for a further 12 months at most.

But hunters like Tim Taylor say the government's pursuit of hunting is a distraction. He added;

I think one of the problems that Tony Blair faces is that he is not concentrating on what is the most important factor, home policy, making sure that the people who put him in power democratically get the choice to actually live their lives.

Yet for animal rights groups banning hunting is a test of the government's commitment to animal welfare issues and for backbench Labour MPs a cornerstone of their support for Tony Blair.

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