Campaigners call for stronger fox hunting laws outside Labour Party conference

Stephen Price

Animal welfare campaigners from national charity the League Against Cruel Sports were joined by a Welsh MP outside the Labour Party conference calling on the government to strengthen fox hunting laws.

Yesterday’s protest (Monday 28 September) saw the League ‘fox’ and campaigners urge Labour Party MPs, delegates and trade unionists to pledge their support for the government banning so-called trail hunting and introducing a series of measures that would end hunting with dogs for good.

The campaigners called on the government to ‘finish the job’ after its consultation to ban trail hunting earlier this year and introduce legislation in the next parliamentary session that will strengthen the Hunting Act.

Ruth Jones MP for Newport West and Islwyn joined the campaigners. She said: “At the last election, Labour MPs stood on a clear manifesto commitment to close the loopholes in the Hunting Act by banning trail hunting. Colleagues are impatient to make this change happen – we just need the Government to act now.”

Emma Slawinski, chief executive at the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “We were here to remind the government that we are waiting for them to introduce the legislation needed to finally end fox hunting, which is still going on despite the ban.

“We need a ban on so-called trail hunting, which is simply a smokescreen to hide the chasing and killing of foxes, and we need the government to finish the job after its consultation to ban it earlier this year.

“The Hunting Act needs to be strengthened with the exemptions that hunts exploit to target foxes and deer being removed; the law needs to be changed to prevent hunts from claiming their kills are ‘accidental’; and an effective deterrent in the form of prison sentences is needed for those that break the law.

“We are calling on the government to make an announcement this autumn on new legislation at the latest in the next parliamentary session that will consign fox hunting and hunting with dogs to the history books.”

“We need to make it easier for the police and courts to tackle the scourge of fox hunting, something that would be popular with the public in both urban areas and the countryside.”

Polling commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports and carried out independently by FindOutNow with further analysis by Electoral Calculus in March/April 2024 found that 76 per cent of the public supported stronger fox hunting laws, with only seven per cent disagreeing.

A clear majority of voters in rural as well as urban areas across the country backed new laws to stop foxes being chased by hounds and killed, with 70 per cent of people in the countryside supporting the proposal.

The League’s end of season figures show the scale of fox hunting still taking place – 488 foxes were seen being chased during the most recent cub hunting and fox hunting seasons in England and Wales which finished at the end of March.

The figures also showed a pattern of anti-social behaviour by hunts, with 1,220 incidents in which they wreaked havoc on rural communities. The ‘hunt havoc’ included reports of trespass; livestock worrying; and hounds running amok on railway lines and busy roads – all activities inconsistent with the idea of following a trail, which is what hunts claim to be doing.

Just 23 or 3.7% of the 624 hunt meets reported across England and Wales contained evidence of a trail being laid – and within those 23 reports there was still evidence of 22 foxes being chased.

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