The Hunting Debate a possible impact on Angling

[Alan Roe]

My attention has been brought to this interesting item. Methinks that we need to be very vigilant in keeping an eye on what is happening in Parliament whilst this mess is ongoing or we could wind up being quietly stitched up along with the foxhunters a few wrong words in a piece of legislation could cause us unending problems.

Regardless of our views on the rights or wrongs of foxhunting we need to ensure that the legislation is looked at with great care otherwise our pastime could be inadvertently damaged.

I do not wish to reopen the hunting debate with posting this indeed my position on the whole foxhunting thing is neutral what I do want to do is to alert all of you to the potential pitfalls that we have to be aware of.

 

Daily Telegraph - Labour MPs plan revolt on Hunting Bill

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor

(Filed: 27/12/2002)

 

 

Labour backbenchers are planning to revolt against parts of the Government's

Hunting Bill because they believe it sets a legal precedent that could lead

to the abolition of angling, horseracing or dog racing.

 

Under pressure from Britain's three million coarse, game and sea anglers,

MPs are backing amendments scrapping the tests of "utility" and "least

suffering" against which the Bill says any form of hunting should be judged.

 

Led by Martin Salter, the Government's spokesman on shooting and fishing,

backbenchers have rejected the repeated assurances of Alun Michael, rural

affairs minister, that the Bill sets no legal precedents that could be used

by animal welfare groups to abolish or impose regulations on other sports.

 

The MPs, who are all anti-hunting, are to propose amendments removing the

tests of utility and cruelty in the now likely event that the Bill is

amended in the Commons to bring about a total ban on hunting in all forms.

 

But in doing so, they are being accused of hypocrisy and bigotry by

pro-hunting activists for seeking to abolish hunting - without reflecting

any of the evidence or principles established by Lord Burns's hunting

inquiry and set out in the Bill - while preserving traditional,

working-class sports such as coarse fishing, which some animal welfare

activists regard as equally cruel.

 

Mr Salter, Labour MP for Reading West and the Government's appointed

spokesman for shooting and fishing, said the Bill set unfortunate precedents

for angling.

 

He is a keen trout and coarse angler whose crowning piscatorial achievement

was catching a 92lb mahseer (a fish rather like a cross between a carp and a

barbel) in India on 40lb line.

 

Mr Salter said: "You cannot make a utility case for coarse angling, for

horseracing, for keeping pets or for greyhound racing.

 

"I know that my colleagues will be proposing amendments to delete the

utility tests from the Bill because, in the light of a total hunt ban, they

are irrelevant.

 

"I am not in the business of being anything less than honest and

straightforward with anglers. In my judgment, those tests could easily be

used against lots of other sports. What is the utility of the Grand National

or greyhound racing?

 

"At the moment you can argue the case for coarse fishing on the grounds that

cold-blooded creatures don't feel pain. But who is to say that in 20 years'

time science might have changed the current scientific position?"

 

Mr Salter said he was expecting the necessary amendments to remove the

threat to angling and other sports to be devised by the RSPCA's legal team

and made available to backbench Labour MPs.

 

He has received representations from coarse fishing organisations saying the

sport, in which fish are returned to the water alive often after spending

some hours in a keep net, could not withstand the test of "utility" as it is

done purely for pleasure and not pest control.

 

Bob Clark, of the National Federation of Anglers, said: "Coarse fishing has

a problem with these tests which must be taken out.

 

"We are concerned on behalf of our 230,000 members that the desire by some

MPs to get a ban on hunting with dogs doesn't affect other sports in the

future, which this Bill clearly does.

 

"If MPs want to get hunting banned for class-based reasons, they will do it.

However in their desire to ban hunting with dogs, they need to be careful

they don't bring angling into the argument."

 

He said there was no middle way, or regulatory route, possible when it came

to fishing. "The middle way is for Government to clear off and leave people

alone to get on with their pleasures."

 

The Government had collaborated with the federation in promoting angling in

inner-city Sheffield, where it had been shown to deflect young people from

crime.

 

Coarse fishermen are sensitive about precedents in parts of Germany

controlled by the Greens. British troops brushed with the law for taking

part in angling matches where the fish were caught and returned to the

water. Anglers were told they would have to kill everything they caught as

only fishing for the pot was morally justified.

 

Simon Hart, director of the Countryside Alliance's campaign for hunting,

said: "Martin Salter's comments are the first official recognition by Labour

backbenchers that this Bill poses a serious threat to fishing and shooting.

More sinister though is Mr Salter's blatant discrimination.

 

"It simply isn't possible or justifiable to apply welfare principles to some

activities and not to others or to pick and choose the people they affect,

according to prejudice and bigotry.

 

"The only solution to this debate which will work is one based on evidence

and principle. Neither seem to feature in Mr Salter's thinking."

 

 

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Cheers

Alan

[Peter Sharpe]

I wouldn't believe anything I read in the Telegraph about this issue. The paper is run by dyed-in-the-wool fox hunters, who have been maliciously stirring up all kinds of half truths and nonsense to deflect animosity away from fox hunting and towards coarse angling.

[trent.barbeler]

Ay Up Alan Me Duck,

 

Interesting post.

 

I remember when talking to a barrister friend of mine who incidentally doesn't hunt but does fish for trout regularly, when he said that the proposed Bill in question was shot full of holes in a dangerous way to many practices and passtimes outside of the hunting with dogs issue. But then again, he also stated that most Bills going through Parliament are equally flawed until they receive constant scrutiny as they pass through their various Parliamentory stages.

 

I welcome Bob Clark's comments. I would think that guys like Tim Marks, Chris Burt, Mike Heylin of the SAA, (some instrumental within the Moran Committee and EA) and Terry Mansbridge of NAFAC equally so, will have their finger on this Bills pulse and will be ready to lobby and advise within all area's that they work within ensuring the best interests for angling generally are looked towards.

 

The last thing angling needs, is the passing of any Bill that through its wording comes straight back to haunt sports and passtimes that such a Bill was not intended for. But as all the angling politiko's know full well, such a badly structured Bill would serve to hand out bullets to the enemies that angling undeniably has if passed unchallenged. And many other accepted sports and passtimes would come under the legal spotlight also via this present Bill's wording if every minority crackpot group jumped aboard their own "banning buses" with this Bills present structure.

 

I welcome Martin Salters stance over this Bill. Lets hope Uncle Tony and other's around the long table feel the same way?

 

CA's Simon Heart's comments were predictable if not a tad naive. I did wonder though Alan, did the CA's fishing spokespeople have anything to say on this matter? Seeing as Martin Salter "WAS" highlighting the possible threats posed to angling by the present wording within this Bill, one could be forgiven surely for assuming that the CA's angling side would want to back Mr Salter to the hilt. Or in the very least, have something to say about the issue on behalf of their angling membership. Strange that they seem to have pushed forward their hunting spokesman to comment dont you think?

 

But then again, its a crazy world we live in now a days.

 

Personally, I grow increacingly alarmed at this "banning" culture whirling around the corridors of power now a days. A culture that is reflected in all forms of media as worthy "news items" and within certain quarters of the general public that appears to be loosing its grasp for what basic rights and freedoms are supposed to mean. Or could the reality be nearer the reason why so many of the electorate didn't bother to turn out to use their votes at the last General Election? Who knows.

 

Regards,

 

Lee.

[poledark]

I think the CA spokesperson was absolutely right to highlight the fact that there is some hypocrisy in banning hunting with hounds because it is seen to be cruel and not banning angling which by any standards is equally cruel.

 

Indeed it could be argued that "playing" fish and then returning them so that we can catch them and "play" with them again is totally immoral.

 

So either you ban the lot, or none of them.

 

As for me I say "Ban none of them"

 

 

Den

[John Ellison]

The problem we've got here is the same one as when Maggie was in power. No worthwhile opposition!

If there was, there would be nothing to worry about at all. Maggies mob smashed the miners, relieved us of our disposable income that we used to spend in the pub, instead we had to support 15% mortgage rates. I had to have a vasectomy 'cos another kid would have meant us being homeless. If there was at least a glimmer of hope that new labour were threatened to lose the next election all this garbage they waffle on about in the prosecution of political correctness

would be where it belongs, in the 'to be dealt with later tray'.

Does anyone really think they'll be banged up in HMP for dry fly fishing on the Test? I hardly think so :mad: :mad: :mad:

Incidently, I'm a floating voter, I just wish there was some one half decent to vote for.

[peter mccue]

It doesn't fill me with optimism to learn that the R.S.P.C.A. legal team, are the ones wording the amendment to the bill in order to protect angling.

 

Their website carries a less than enthusiastic attitude to coarse fishing. Indeed they state that after the Medway report could find no conclusive evidence that fish feel pain, they would give the fish the benefit of the doubt anyway!

 

They also state that the only reason they haven't made any negative moves towards angling is that there is very limited support for it from the membership.

 

And then there's Ms Ballard

 

Oh yes I think we're in good hands there!

[Alan Roe]

Like most reasonable people I am somewhat alarmed by what has been flagged up in this report and like I hope many of you I will be writing to my MP to make him aware of my concerns as the last thing I would wish to see is angling being detroyed via the back door due to bad legislation

 

Lee I haven't heard a peep out of Messers Jardine or James who I assume are the CA's official angling spokespersons as they were. It is to be hoped that they may yet have something valid to say

 

[ 06. January 2003, 09:01 PM: Message edited by: Alan Roe ]

[DCB]

The SAA already has the 'problems' of the new Hunting Legisalation in hand. It's high on the agenda of the next meeting of the NAA later this month.

DCB

[Peter Waller]

Oh dear, here we go again.

 

The blessed CA, once again, gleefully leaps in where it is clearly not wanted, even by-passing messrs Jardine and James. Very clearly it is attempting to stir anglers into a reaction by intimating that angling is under threat because fox hunters are being attacked.

 

It seems to me that we are being skillfully, and cynically, manipulated into a corner where we will have to defend angling, where we will have to prove that angling is NOT cruel.

 

Peter Sharpe is absolutely spot-on in his response. He perfectly highlights my opinion of this highly undesirable situation.

 

There is the dreaded 'memorandom of understanding', it would be nice if the CA cared to remember it and got off our backs. Surely, by now, they must realise that they are not welcome by the vast majority of anglers.

 

In this I speak on a personal basis, NOT on behalf of the RSSG.

[Newt]

quote:

---

The MPs, who are all anti-hunting, are to propose amendments removing the tests of utility and cruelty in the now likely event that the Bill is amended in the Commons

to bring about a total ban on hunting in all forms.

---

Is that "hunting" as in using dogs or "hunting" as in take a gun and go hunt for something to shoot? Either way it would be real scary to my (admittedly non-UK) mind but maybe slightly less so if it were simply a ban on hunting with dogs.