Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome the following representatives from the League Against Cruel Sports: Emma Slawinski, CEO; and Robbie Marsland, director for Scotland and Northern Ireland. You are both very welcome to the Committee. We have received your presentation and briefing paper, so I invite you to brief the Committee.

Ms Emma Slawinski (League Against Cruel Sports): Thank you very much, Chair and Committee members, for inviting us. I apologise in advance: I have a bit of a cold, so I will be popping Strepsils and drinking water. Hopefully, that will not be too much of a distraction.

We are delighted to be here. I am the CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports, which is a registered charity. We were formed in 1924, and we campaign to end sports, such as dogfighting and hunting, that are, we believe, based on cruel activity. I will introduce myself a little: before taking up this post, I was director of policy at the RSPCA and a non-executive director of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England advising Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers on legislation. I also sat on the ethics committee of the British Horseracing Authority.

Mr Robbie Marsland (League Against Cruel Sports): Good afternoon — just about. I am the league's director for Scotland and Northern Ireland. I have worked on issues of animal welfare since I was the head of campaigns at the RSPCA in 2000. I was also the UK director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. I have worked on a range of animal welfare and ethical issues.

I am not at all a stranger to debates about legislating on fox hunting. I was involved in work on the 2002 ban in Scotland, which was the first time that fox hunting was legislated on in the UK, and the Hunting Act 2004 in England and Wales. That legislation went through Westminster, and there were very many of the same discussions that you are having now. I hope that we can help you to pick your way through the minefield of competing ambitions and intentions in suggesting that there are issues.

This legislation is trying to stop people encouraging packs of hounds to chase and kill wild mammals. That is the intention of the Bill. From looking at the lessons of previous legislation, I think that Northern Ireland is a bit late to the game, but that means that you have the opportunity to take into account the experiences in other areas and make sure that the Bill is the most robust legislation on these islands.

The Scottish Government had a similar experience and opportunity with the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023, which came 21 years after they first legislated on the issue in 2002. The Scottish Government recognised that the legislation in England and Wales had a limit of two dogs. Hunting was banned, and you could not do it with one dog, but there was a list of exempt activities for which you could use only two dogs. In Scotland, there was no limit on the number of dogs in the 2002 legislation. I think that we have to accept that there is a very small group of extremely dedicated and passionate people who see encouraging packs of hounds to chase and kill wild mammals as part of their lives. That is who they are. We have heard presentations from sporting organisations today and on other days, and I respect their passion, but we believe that that passion should not exist in the 21st century, and public opinion, which we will talk about, supports that. People do not want to see animals being killed for sport. In Scotland, over the intervening 21 years, it became apparent that the very small group of people recognised that it could use exemptions, particularly the one on flushing to guns, to use more than two dogs. They went out hunting and said that they were flushing foxes to guns. When our investigators filmed them, however, we saw that there were no guns at all. They were using the exemption and the ability to take out a full pack of hounds to go traditional hunting. The Scottish Government accepted that and, after the same sort of process that you are going through, introduced the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023, which contains a ban on hunting and a list of exceptions that have a limit of two dogs. The reason for that is clear: if people are allowed to use more than two dogs, it becomes a smokescreen and a loophole, and we need to guard against that.

Some of the arguments that we have heard are arguments that were, I am afraid, lost 25 years ago. We have heard that fox hunting is a sport, and we have heard people who have given evidence to the Committee say that they are providing a free service, that no money is exchanged and that they are simply doing it because they enjoy it: it is a sport that they enjoy. For the past 25 years, it has been accepted that it is a cruel and unnecessary activity. However, there are exceptions, because farmers have a right to protect their property. That is why there is a list of exceptions that allows for protection against predators. I am happy to take questions on those issues.

Before I hand over to my boss, I remind the Committee that there is a small group of people who are dedicated and determined to encourage packs of hounds to chase and kill wild mammals. The legislation needs to take that into account. That has been the experience in England and Wales, where we hear about trail hunting, and in Scotland, where a loophole was exploited for 21 years until it was closed in 2023.

Ms Slawinski: We thought that it would be helpful to talk through the different kinds of hunting, because that has come up a few times. Currently, there are two simulated forms of hunting alternatives to fox hunting in the UK. First, drag hunting is where an artificial scent trail is laid well away from anywhere where foxes live. It is deliberately laid across open ground and headland, well away from where foxes live. Importantly, all of the people who are controlling the dogs know exactly where the trail goes, and they keep the dogs on that specific trail. That is important from a sporting point of view. It means that they can lay that trail deliberately on good ground, they can pick hedges that they want to jump over on their horses, and they can make sure that it is a fun equestrian activity. It is very fast and very furious — it is a real equestrian sport. Importantly, no wild animals are put at risk through legitimate drag hunting.

The second alternative is clean boot hunting. A group of people set off, having been given a head start, and is pursued by a pack of dogs — this time, bloodhounds. The bloodhounds chase the people, and people on horseback follow the bloodhounds. The pace is slightly slower — bloodhounds are not quite as quick — and everyone has a thoroughly good time. I have been out doing it a number of times. There is cake at the end and, if you are one of the runners, you get extra cake. Clean boot hunts are well regulated by the Masters of Draghounds and Bloodhounds Association. Importantly, that association makes sure that routes are submitted in advance; it requires samples of the scent that is being laid, if it is a drag pack; it has to give advance notice of meets; and it has to publicise those meets. It is, I think, really important that the Committee consider that those sports involve kennels, dogs and kennelmen; people wearing coloured coats; and people blowing horns and riding horses. They involve all of the things that you associate with hunting, other than the killing of animals.

When it comes to preserving livelihoods and tradition, those alternatives exist. Indeed, in England and Wales, we have seen a number of former foxhound packs convert to drag packs or clean boot hunting packs. That has been welcomed by their local communities, because the big difference is that you know where they are going, which is helpful to communities.

They also provide services that farmers enjoy, such as a fallen stock service.

Trail hunting is a different thing altogether, and it is fundamentally important that trail hunting be banned. Trail hunting purports to use a scent that smells like fox, typically based on fox urine, that is supposedly laid in areas where foxes live, such as scrubby woodland and along hedgerows. Nobody is told where the trail has been laid, and the dogs follow the trail. It was invented as an alternative when fox hunting was banned in England and Wales. At the time, it was said that it was to keep the dogs trained for when the Hunting Act would be repealed so that they could go straight back to fox hunting.

We have seen that it is used as a smokescreen for fox hunting. Nobody stopped fox hunting, and they have invented a very good cover for what they are doing. If you are caught fox hunting, it is very easy to say that you intended to go trail hunting, and how could that be proved any different? It is fundamentally important that trail hunting be banned. We know that it is a smokescreen — it is not just our say-so — because we have evidence gathered from eyewitness reports; members of the public telling us what they have seen, with footage and camerawork to support that. We have the support of the police who tell us that illegal hunting is prolific and that trail hunting is a smokescreen that gives cover. We also have the word of the hunts themselves who were recorded on a webinar in 2020 describing trail hunting as a smokescreen to allow them to continue hunting. We know that that is what trail hunting does, and that is why there are moves to ban it. The consultation has already happened in England and Wales, because it is very clearly being used as a cover to allow fox hunting to continue.

We will conclude by talking about some of the other issues that have come up at Committee.

Mr Marsland: The Scottish legislation from 2023 also took the opportunity to ban trail hunting in Scotland. In the same way as here, it was an activity that did not happen in Scotland at that time, but the experience from England and Wales was that it would be introduced if there was an opportunity to do so. As Emma so rightly said, trail hunting was invented overnight after fox hunting was banned in England and Wales, when they realised that there was no way to use more than two dogs. In Scotland, a way was found to use more than two dogs, but the Scottish Government closed that potential loophole, in the same way as this legislation does.

I have watched the hard work that the Committee has been doing over recent weeks. I have listened to some of the arguments, and I recognise that some legitimate conversations are going on, but it would be good to unpick and find a way through them. First, the Bill has often been described as being too broad and too vague. In common with the Scottish Bill and to some extent the Acts in Scotland, England and Wales, the Bill is very simple: the offence is hunting a wild mammal with one or more dogs. That is the offence, and that is pretty simple. In my experience, legislation is at its best when it is simple and not open to vague interpretations.

I love the idea of the innocent dog walker whom we hear about. We have heard that there may be problems if the innocent dog walker is out with their dog and the dog sees a squirrel or another animal and belts after it, and the fear is that that would be illegal. I have worked very closely with Police Scotland, and I can tell you that there have been no instances of innocent dog walkers being questioned or charged with any offences relating to the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act, because Police Scotland knows the difference between somebody who is hunting and somebody who is walking their dog: it is a very simple thing to do. If you are out walking your dog, you are walking your dog. If you are out hunting mammals, it is clear that you are hunting wild mammals.

The same applies to shooting. The Scottish Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, your counterpart, spent a long time talking about the impact of the legislation on shooting. It was a Government Bill, and Ministers and officials were in this situation, presenting. Their presentation made it clear that, again, it would be simple to identify whether what was going on was shooting — "rough shooting" was the term used in the Scottish connection — or whether people were using a pack of dogs to hunt, chase and kill wild mammals. No amendments were put forward. No amendments were felt necessary to protect shooting, and, in the three years since the introduction of the 2023 Act in Scotland, no shooter has been troubled by the Scottish legislation in any way, shape or form. It has not been a problem. A lot of the Committee's time was taken by people who were trying, I think, to create a smokescreen of concern. We have heard about the chill that will go through the shooting community, for instance. That is a large leap. I understand that it would be very troubling for someone to lose their shotgun licence or rifle licence, but to go from this Bill, which bans or proscribes hunting a wild mammal with one or more dogs, to a shooting party and on to the fear of losing your firearm licence takes a couple of big leaps.

There is one group of people who will have a chill when they see the Bill pass, as I hope it does, and that is the group of people who enjoy encouraging packs of hounds to chase and kill wild mammals. Those are the people whom the Bill is aimed at, and I think that the Bill will be successful in that.

If I may, I will turn to terrier work. I have heard that complaints have been made that John Blair's Bill goes further than legislation in England and Wales and in Scotland. They are right: it does. The reason for that, I have to say, comes from the stalwart and excellent work done by the USPCA, which has a body of knowledge, expertise and statistics, including the report that was referred to earlier, that shows that terrier work could be described as underground dogfighting. Dogfighting is banned. Putting a dog underground to interact with a fox inevitably brings about violence between the two animals. I have heard descriptions of the way that the dogs are under control and of how they just bark and the fox obediently leaves the sett, goes into a net and is instantly shot. That has not been the USPCA's experience. Reference has been made to online boasting, in effect, of the impact of putting a dog underground to fight with a fox. Animals such as the one shown in the centre of the screen here are routinely found by animal welfare organisations, with horrific scarring, wounds and damage to their muzzles because of what I describe as an underground dogfight. The fact that that body of evidence exists has given Northern Ireland the opportunity to include terrier work in the legislation, and I definitely commend its inclusion. Terrier work is a stain on the way that animals are treated across the whole of the United Kingdom, and it would be absolutely amazing if Northern Ireland could show the way and recognise that it is an activity that should cease.

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much, Emma and Robbie.

On the first issue of terrier work, you may have heard this morning's presentation from the huntsmen in which they said that, in their experience, a terrier is used to locate an injured fox or a fox that has gone to ground and that the huntsmen will then dig it out and dispatch it humanely and quickly. What is the alternative? If fox hunting is banned and snares are used by farmers to protect their livestock, surely that would result in much more inhumane treatment of foxes.

Mr Marsland: The way that most farmers protect their livestock, which is their property —. First, they need to determine whether they have a problem with a fox. There was mention this morning of the RSPB shooting foxes, which it does. To do so, a reserve manager for the RSPB has to get permission from RSPB headquarters to shoot foxes. It is quite a big exercise. You have to say, "Yes, there is a problem, and I will show you that we are having a problem". It is probably time-dependent, such as nesting time, so it will be for a month of the year. They will have to show that they have tried all alternatives, such as feeding elsewhere and the use of guard animals, and that those have not been successful and that the only method left to them is to shoot the foxes. They then have to come up with proof that the person who will do the shooting is suitably qualified, and they have to count the number of foxes that have been killed. Then they have to do a report on whether that worked. Those are very sensible steps. It is done most efficiently by using thermal imaging at night. As we heard in one of this morning's presentations, foxes are nocturnal, so they are out and about at night. The safest, most efficient and utilitarian way of killing a fox is with a rifle and the use of thermal imaging. There are times when the terrain makes that difficult. If there are rocks, for example, you do not want bullets ricocheting off them. That is why the Bill gives the ability to use two dogs to flush to guns. You can flush foxes from cover so that they are out in the open, where they are then shot by waiting guns. I imagine that there are a number of questions, and I can answer those, if you like.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Will you go back to the snare issue?

Mr Marsland: Yes. Snaring is banned in Scotland now, because it is cruel. We do not recommend snaring. We recognise, however, that, if there is a problem with a fox, there should be the ability to control it. The best way to do that is through the use of thermal imaging at night or two dogs to flush to guns.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): You mention thermal imaging at night, the terrain and the use of two dogs. We have had evidence that suggests that that is much more inhumane for the fox and the dogs, because it covers a wider distance, given that the fox can escape.

Mr Marsland: I heard that. The experience in Scotland of using two dogs to flush to guns —. In fact, there is a licensing system in Scotland whereby you can use more than two dogs. To do so, you have to say what the size of the area is. The area will be small; it is an area of cover. You are not going to flush to guns in a 5 square mile area. You will say, "We will go to that piece of gorse first and put guns around it. We will put two dogs in, and, if the fox comes out, we will shoot it. Then we will move to another area". They could cover 5 square miles during the day, but the activity happens in a very small area each time, because you have to carry and move guns around from one piece of cover to another.

I suspect that there will be a question about why we think that the two-dog limit is right.

Lord Bonomy was asked by the Scottish Government to do an in-depth, huge review of the situation. In his report, his understanding was that, when you use more than two dogs, in at least 20% of occasions, the dogs kill the fox in the cover, and the fox does not get out of the cover because it has been killed by the dogs. The dogs that are used in flushing to guns, especially if they have been associated with traditional fox hunting, tend to be foxhounds, which have been bred and trained for around 300 years to chase and kill foxes. Therefore, it is no surprise whatsoever that, if foxhounds find a fox inside cover, they will chase and kill the fox inside that cover. The problem with flushing to guns is that, if the fox leaves, nine times out of 10, it has a foxhound on its tail, and it is almost impossible to shoot the fox because you would not want to shoot the dog. The dog is doing nothing wrong: it is doing what it was bred and trained to do. It is a foxhound, and it chases and kills foxes. It is important that there is a limit of two dogs to stop that from happening.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): You referenced the RSPB shooting and the regulatory paperwork exercise that it had to undergo. Do you suggest that that would be needed in cases of fox hunting in this jurisdiction?

Mr Marsland: That is a very big question. At the moment, in the Scottish Parliament, consideration is being given to a separate Bill, which will talk about ethical principles of wildlife control. Those ethical principles are the ones that I

outlined: they are basically about making sure that you know what problem you are trying to solve. Are foxes killing lambs or were the lambs already dead? Lamb mortality is already 30% without fox predation. Fox predation of lambs in Scotland is somewhere between 0·06% and 1·5%. Therefore, you need to make sure that there is a problem before you start saying willy-nilly, "Let's kill all the foxes". If you have identified that you have a fox problem, you need to look at whether you have tried alternative methods to stop that from happening, and then you go down those lines. My feeling is that that needs its own legislation, and that is being considered in the Scottish Parliament at the moment.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): There is also a question around who would be resourced to do that work. Thank you.

Mr McAleer: Thank you very much for your presentation. I want to go back to an issue that the Chair raised. We heard from previous witnesses that the legislation could make it difficult for pest control to flush out from large buildings, for example. How do you feel about that? Do you think that any improvements could be made to enable that? We heard that from the British Pest Control Association.

Mr Marsland: I have heard the British Pest Control Association give evidence in other areas, and it is usually generally supportive of legislation that bans fox hunting. That has always been its position. I heard from a representative from the NoISE (Northern Ireland Says Enough) Coalition, which is one of the groups that is trying to preserve the ability to use packs of hounds or dogs to chase and kill wild mammals, talk about hospitals and ducts and other areas of difficulty. I was not clear about what the problem was. It sounded as though they were above ground, so there would not be an issue about using two dogs. As I mentioned, in the field, you are always working on a small area of ground — you do not work over 5 square miles at a time — and so, if you were working in a hospital or an area above ground, you would still have that ability were you to find it useful. The evidence from the British Pest Control Association shows that it is very unusual for it to use dogs at all in its pest control operations: it is the exception rather than the rule. Two dogs above ground is an available option when there are problems with foxes troubling a hospital.

Ms Slawinski: It would probably be rats and mice in such a scenario, and they are excluded from the Bill in any case.

Mr Marsland: Oh, yes. I was a bit confused by the idea of foxes in ducts.

Mr McAleer: In a previous evidence session, we heard the case made for rabbits also being exempt because of the damage that they do to crops and infrastructure such as solar farms. What is your position on rabbits being included in the list of exemptions?

Ms Slawinski: Rabbits are tricky, because they are hunted for sport: we know that people hunt them because they enjoy the sport of pursuing them. The experience in England and Wales and potentially in Scotland is that that is often used as a cover for hare hunting. As there has been legislation in England and Wales and Scotland for a while, we have learned from that where people will exploit it to go against the will of the legislation. From that point of view, rabbits can be a concern, particular given the issue with hares, which should be protected in other ways.

The other thing to come back to is the idea of what is still permitted. People can still shoot or flush rabbits, if they need to; there are still a number of ways in which that can be done. For a Bill that seeks to ban the hunting of wild mammals, those sorts of far-flung and small examples of where it could go wrong are potentially being offered up as a bit of a distraction, when the intention of the people bringing those arguments is to be able to continue to hunt wild mammals for their enjoyment — for sport. An example of that is rabbits: there are plenty of pest control methods available to tackle the problem of rabbits that would not come into contact with this legislation.

Mr McAleer: Thank you for your indulgence, Chair; I have one more wee point.

The definition of "an enclosed space" was mentioned. Do you think that that could be further defined in the Bill? In previous evidence sessions, we have heard examples of hospitals and ventilation ducts and places such as that that could be seen as being an enclosed space. What are your views on the definition of an enclosed space?

Ms Slawinski: I think that the legislation as drafted works. I am genuinely struggling to think of a scenario in which someone would have a pest problem such as that and it not be rats or mice, which is fine, or be possible to deal with in other ways. I understand that terms such as "enclosed space" immediately attract attention, given that they are definable, but I do not think that it needs to be further defined. I am certainly not aware of there having been any issues with that elsewhere.

Mr McAleer: Thank you.

Mr McCrossan: Thank you both very much for your presentation. The Hunting Act was originally introduced in England and Wales in 2004 by a Labour Government under the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair. At that point, it was hailed as one of the great pieces of legislation by that Labour Government. Some years after that, however, Tony Blair described the hunting legislation that he brought forward as being one of the domestic measures that he regretted the most, stating that he had underestimated its impact on rural communities and the rural way of life. What evidence can you give the Committee that the Bill avoids those mistakes and protects legitimate farming and pest control activities while improving animal welfare?

Mr Marsland: I will not get into the politics of what happened in the Labour Party in the early 2000s. What I will get into, however, is public opinion, particularly that of the farming community. Since becoming involved in this area in Northern Ireland, five or six years ago, I have been bombarded by representatives of farmers who are very supportive of the legislation because they are very worried about the way in which such activities, particularly mounted hunts, damage their property, kill their domestic and livestock animals and put their children through extreme levels of distress, in a way that I can describe only as being high-handed. The frustration felt by those groups of farmers is about the way that the hunts seem to feel as though they have impunity to go across their land and damage their property and also to enter into agreements not to do it and then break those agreements. Those are examples of local farmers who do not find the idea of people encouraging packs of hounds to chase and kill wild mammals to be a good thing.

As you will see from our briefing paper, we commissioned LucidTalk, the 'Belfast Telegraph' pollsters, to do polling in Northern Ireland. As in England and Wales and in Scotland, that showed that over 70% of the public find the idea of encouraging a pack of hounds to chase and kill a wild animal repugnant and want to see it end. I have been involved in this issue for over 20 years and have seen the polling from all the jurisdictions, and I am amazed at how consistent it is. When you dig down into those figures, you find that those figures stand up across the board and across all age ranges. The difference between urban and rural settings is very little indeed. It is always slightly lower in the rural communities, but it is usually within 3% or 4%, and pollsters will tell you that that is statistically meaningless.

To go back to the more anecdotal stuff, one thing that the league did with the USPCA was to set up a petition to show the weight of public support against hunting. I went to the Wake the Giant festival in Warrenpoint, the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle and the Balmoral show, and I spoke to hundreds of people about fox hunting. First, I have never had to explain fox hunting. I ask, "Have you had a chance to sign the petition against fox hunting yet?", and nobody says, "What's that?", which normally happens in that sort of situation. Everybody knows what you are talking about straight away. Secondly, they say, "I thought that was banned already". Some 50% of the people whom we polled thought that hunting with dogs was banned in Northern Ireland already, which was a surprise to me.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Robbie, that is a scenario where you have met people in those settings. What engagement has the League Against Cruel Sports undertaken with actual farmers, gamekeepers and land managers to understand the impact at that level?

Mr Marsland: I have been involved in this area since 2000, and I have always made it a part of my responsibility to talk to everybody and to understand how people think. My belief that a small group of people are determined to do those activities is based on talking to them and listening to some of the evidence that we gave earlier. I have talked to the Countryside Alliance and the sporting organisations on a number of occasions, for example, during Lord Bonomy’s review. When he saw how well we were getting on with one other, he said, "Can't you just sort it out between yourselves and have an agreement on the way that it will work?". The response to that from both sides was that there is a red line that neither side can cross and that it needs legislation.

Mr McCrossan: I am interested in seeing the geographical breakdown of the poll and the size of the sample.

Mr Marsland: It is in the briefing.

Mr McCrossan: That is OK. I will see how realistic that is.

I have read a fair bit about your organisation and its background. It is probably safe to say that you are against any sport involving animals, even greyhound racing. You take a clear, one-sided approach to this, but I represent a rural constituency and have to consider all the bases. From the evidence that we have seen, the England and Wales Act had profound consequences. Hunting has continued through alternative activities, which we know about. There has been difficulty in proving deliberate hunting. A gap between the promised ban and its practical effect on the ground has been highlighted, as have the alienation and division consequences for rural communities, of which Northern Ireland is largely made up. I know that you do not want to touch on Tony Blair's legislation — it was a law brought in by Tony Blair's Labour Government — but it left rural communities feeling misunderstood, while animal welfare campaigners, for instance, argue that loopholes allowed hunting to continue.

How will this Bill avoid that problem and protect legitimate rural activities while delivering a ban that can be enforced?

Ms Slawinski: First, the league is not against all sports involving animals. I flew over this morning after riding my horse, and I take part in many equestrian activities. We are opposed to greyhound racing, because there is a very strong evidence base on the number of injuries that happen and that cannot be avoided because of the nature of the track.

Mr McCrossan: There are injuries in horse racing as well.

Ms Slawinski: Yes; absolutely, there are. We are not opposed to horse racing, because those injuries could be addressed via other routes. We take an evidence-based approach.

I live in a very rural area, surrounded by three hunts. I genuinely — hand on heart — cannot think of a single farmer, land manager, farrier or person who works in the equestrian industry who thinks that the legislation is a problem. The amalgamation of blood sports with the countryside is a technique used by those who wish to continue participating in those sports, and it is legitimate for them to bring whichever arguments they think are relevant. You asked about the polling detail. In the most rural area of Northern Ireland, only 29% of people want fox hunting to continue. The idea that there is a town-versus-country split — that townies want it to be banned and country people want it to carry on — is not correct.

We get a lot of reports every year — the numbers are in the briefing — about the other activities that happen around hunting: for example, the blocking of lanes. If you try to get your kids to school, as I do, when the hunt is out, it is very tricky. A large group of dogs moving through the countryside will leave behind what dogs leave behind, and the impact of that is really tricky. Other livestock are spooked and scared by the hunts coming through. It is absolutely not the case that the countryside supports hunting. The evidence base from the polling and what people tell us shows us that. That is not to say that every person in the countryside is opposed to hunting — of course they are not — but the vast majority are. That is consistent across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England, and it has been consistent since before the ban and right through to now. There is no push for repeal among the general public.

What sometimes happens is that the small proportion of the countryside economy that is based around hunting is amalgamated into a general broader countryside economy, and there is the idea that ending hunting would have knock-on effects on other industries. What we have seen, however, is that people convert to a different form of hunting such as drag hunting or clean-boot hunting, as we described earlier. Essentially, they are able to carry on hunting, except for the fox killing bit — they can do all the other activities. Of course, hunting happens for only a season . All the activities that those people get up to during the rest of the year carry on.

That is an important issue to raise because, once you start peeling away those figures, you see that there is not the alignment between the countryside and hunting that people propose. My experience of farmers is that they are people who have a profound understanding of nature and how to work with nature, and that they do not like to see people enjoying hurting wild animals.

Mr McCrossan: Animal welfare is, obviously, at the centre of your core values as an organisation, and that is to be welcomed. There is a frustration about the contradiction here. I do not in any way aim this at John as the Bill sponsor, but this frustration has come up in the rural area that I represent. Conversations about the Bill are happening, as there is quite a lot of interest in it on both sides. There is, however, no trust in the Department when it comes to where the Bill will end up, particularly after recent events at Fivemiletown, where the Department shot 51 healthy cattle. Can you see how, when it comes to cruelty to animals and animal welfare, that approach is at odds with draft legislation such as the Bill?

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I ask that you are brief. We have two members waiting to contribute.

Mr Marsland: We have to put our faith in the institution of the Northern Ireland Assembly and how it works. I understand that an independent investigation of that situation is yet to conclude. We have to work with what we have. If there are problems, there are obviously ways to remedy those.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I now bring in the Bill sponsor, John Blair.

Mr Blair: I wish to clarify that the PSNI will oversee the Bill. That has been pointed out many times by people who have made submissions. The conversation about DAERA is less relevant than the previous question intimated. I caution that, if a question comes up again on that or anything similar, I will ask that the question does not proceed, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the Bill.

Mr McCrossan: It is an animal welfare issue, Chair.

Mr Blair: It has nothing to do with the Bill.

Mr McCrossan: It is an animal welfare issue. It is under review by the Department, John.

Mr Blair: The scrutiny of the Bill is not a wider animal welfare —.

Mr McCrossan: It is under review.

Mr Wilson: On a point of order, Chair. Who has the right, other than you as Chair —

Mr McCrossan: Exactly.

Mr Wilson: — to bring any question into some sort of disqualification?

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Although a review is ongoing, I do not see a problem with referencing it in this instance. I take what you are saying —.

Mr Blair: I respect your opinion, Chair. That does not prevent me, despite that intervention —. I did not interrupt anyone else, but I have had it before on this issue —.

Mr Wilson: It was a point of order though.

Mr Blair: Chair, will you —?

Mr Wilson: That happens in the Assembly ad infinitum, and yet, when I raise my second point of order in 10 months, it is called into question.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): OK. We will move on.

Mr Blair: Chair, may I ask that, in future, you ensure that Gareth is not given carte blanche to interrupt me when I am speaking? It has happened at a few meetings.

Mr Wilson: It is not in order.

Mr Blair: It really is becoming quite tiresome —

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you. That is noted.

Mr Blair: — and it will be called out on every occasion.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you. Move on, please.

Mr Blair: If I may, I will move on to my question —. His facial gestures towards me, Chair, are not particularly edifying either.

Mr Wilson: I am shocked.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Just move on. Thank you.

Mr Blair: I detect that the member's level of tolerance to a variety of opinions on this issue is similar to his tolerance level on —.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Sorry, I have to intervene: I do not want any personal comments to be made. Can we please move on to the question to the representatives that we have here?

Mr Blair: Chair, the differences between your interventions have been noted.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you.

Mr Blair: Apart from thanking Robbie and Emma, I want to ask about generalisations on demographics, which I referred to in a previous session when others were making their submissions. To say that everyone in a group supports something or is against it is really undesirable, so I want to ask for a bit more information. You covered the issue of geography — rural versus urban — which has come up on numerous occasions. Do you have any reflections on the age demographics? My experience is that, while it is mainly rural dwellers who have experienced hunts in their area or on their land over many years who care the most, many of those people are not in a younger age demographic. They may be like me, and I say that as gently and kindly as I can. It is also wrong to assume that all younger people think one thing and all older people think another. My experience is that there is a really big mixture of thinking on this.

Ms Slawinski: I will talk specifically to Northern Ireland. There is the assumption that people who have experience of hunts might care about the issue more, and perhaps they are older people, is absolutely right. On the flip side, there is an assumption that young people may be more interested in environmental issues. On fox hunting, we see no single age group in which there is not a desire to ban fox hunting. It is above 70% across all the age groups. We sometimes quip that it is the least controversial issue that we work on. The opposition to fox hunting is extraordinary compared with other animal welfare issues, and it goes across every age group.

Mr Blair: OK. That is great. Thank you.

Ms Murphy: I will try to be as concise as possible, folks. First of all, I declare an interest — I should have done so at the start — as a licensed firearms holder.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you.

Ms Murphy: Robbie, I want to go back to the two-dog limit and unpack an issue that I raised with the USPCA. Do you not agree that using only two dogs to pursue a fox could inadvertently cause more harm to a fox and lead to more animal welfare issues than using two dogs? I am looking at it through the lens of using two dogs and possibly running a fox to sheer exhaustion.

Mr Marsland: Thank you for that. There is a bit of a cascade here. On the use of two dogs, the experience in Scotland is that, if there is an opportunity to use more than two dogs, that becomes a smokescreen for illegal hunting or for using a pack of hounds to chase and kill a wild mammal. That is a problem that any legislator has to address.

Let us put that to one side and go back. Lord Bonomy, the senior law lord in Scotland, produced a report that concluded that the problem with using more than two dogs when you are flushing to guns —. Remember that this is a small area. You have 10 or 15 people with shotguns who surround a piece of cover. You put in the dogs, and the dogs scare the fox out of that cover. There is a problem with using more than two dogs, especially if they are foxhounds, which they tend to be, that are trained and bred to search for and kill foxes. Lord Bonomy's estimate was that 20% of the foxes are killed by the dogs when you put in more than two dogs. He was in favour of reducing the number of dogs. You have the problem of providing a smokescreen for that small and dedicated group of people who want to continue to encourage packs of hounds to chase and kill foxes, but you also have the animal welfare impact of using foxhounds, which are trained and bred to kill foxes inside cover.

As I mentioned before, the more dogs there are, the more likely it is that, when the fox leaves the cover to the waiting guns, people will be unable to shoot the fox because there is a dog right behind that fox, as that is where those dogs are bred and trained to be. Again, I ask you to remember that this is a small area. You need to have 10 to 15 people with shotguns surrounding it. The range of a shotgun is about 30 metres, so you have to be 60 metres apart. You can see the smallness of the area. Using two dogs is better for welfare, as Lord Bonomy found.

Ms Murphy: You referenced the small area. I am from a very, very rural area, and, on my back doorstep, the geography and terrain is very challenging. That type of land is challenging for farmers, never mind, I imagine, when it comes to trying to pursue a fox over it. The land is vast, and trying to flush a fox on that type of land —. I can see where you are coming from if you break it down into sections, but I do not think that that plays out in reality.

You talked about smokescreens. Do you not accept that the two-dog limit may make it more difficult for people to properly exercise the exemptions in the Bill?

Mr Marsland: For the reasons that I have given, I think that using two dogs is sufficient. Remember that flushing to guns is an exception and, if you like, a last resort. The first resort, as I have explained previously, is going out at night with thermal-imaging rifles or thermal-imaging sights on a rifle so that foxes can be identified without them knowing that you are there. For a trained marksman, it is a very easy shot, and it is a very effective and efficient way of dealing with a fox problem. That is the first way that we recommend that foxes are dealt with. If the terrain meant that it was inappropriate to use a rifle in those circumstances, you could fall back to using two dogs to flush the foxes out to guns.

No one is suggesting that those two dogs will hunt and kill a fox. The purpose of the exemption is to flush foxes from cover so that they can be shot by waiting guns. I appreciate, Áine, that it may happen over an enormous terrain, but the actual activity of a dog controller, two dogs and, say, six guns, which is quite a lot of guns to find, happens in a very small area. Then you move on to the next area. Often, you send the dogs into the cover and there is no fox, so you have to move the whole arrangement to the next piece of cover. You put the guns around that piece of cover, check that everyone is ready and put the dogs in. The fox comes out, and it is shot. You then move to the next piece of cover and onwards. That is the way that it works, certainly in Scotland. It happens across huge areas of land but bit by bit.

Ms Murphy: Thank you for that answer, Robbie. I will move on to terrier working. I do not know whether you heard any of our previous briefings.

Mr Marsland: I did.

Ms Murphy: I will put to you a question similar to one that I asked the USPCA when it was with us. Do you agree that, without anyone being allowed to put a dog down a hole to dispatch a potentially wounded fox, the fox could end up lying underground in a den or even under cover, facing a long and painful death?

Mr Marsland: Áine, I listened to your question carefully when you put it to the USPCA. You have identified a very particular potential moment, and I have thought long and hard about it. If there is an animal that has been wounded and is lying underground, is its welfare improved by entering a dog into that environment and in effect, as I described before, encouraging an underground dogfight between a dog and a fox? My conclusion is that that will increase the distress to the fox and also to the dog that goes underground. A wounded fox is least likely to think, "I'm leaving here" and then leave and be shot. You have given us a terrible and, I think, fairly rare example. On balance, I would not introduce a dog, because I think that that would make the situation worse.

Ms Murphy: OK. In trying to flesh all of this out and consider all of the possible consequences, we will go down a proverbial rabbit hole. In that case, if a farmer or whoever were out hunting and they saw a hole or a particular area to which a wounded fox had returned, would you be supportive, in some sense, of that person being able to dig a fox out of the ground?

Mr Marsland: That is what happens at the moment. Let me have a think about it. A gentleman who spoke in one of your earlier sessions today — I cannot remember his name, but he described himself as a huntsman — said that they locate where the fox is, they dig down and then they shoot it at very close range. It is my understanding that, where no dog is involved, that would not be proscribed by the Bill that you have in front of you.

Ms Murphy: I have one more question. I am not going to stray into the events at Fivemiletown. My question is on a broader serious animal welfare issue that we have in the North: TB. Does the league have any animal welfare position on the huge number of cattle that are culled here due to our TB crisis? There are 1,200 cases a month, if I am not mistaken.

Ms Slawinski: It is a terrible situation. Do we have a position on it? No. We are the League Against Cruel Sports. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that those animals are being killed for sport.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Áine, thank you very much. I have to close. Thank you, Robbie and Emma, for attending today and for your evidence, which we will take on board.

Mr Marsland: Thank you all for your valiant work on this. It is not going to be easy, I can see.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Not at all. Thank you very much.