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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now David Cameron will attempt to water down the ban on fox hunting this week.  He’s going to give MPs a free vote on changing the rules but is already facing the prospect of defeat, some of his own Ministers are set to vote against the change.  Well I am joined now in the studio by the animal welfare campaigner and founder of the Save Me Trust, Dr Brian May and joining me from Ellesmere in Shropshire is the Conservative MP and former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson, a very good morning to you both gentlemen.  Staying with you, Mr Paterson, why does this ban need relaxing in the first place?  

OWEN PATERSON: All this is, is a minor technical amendment allowing the exemptions which already allow hunting with two hounds to be extended to conditions very similar to Scotland. So the Bill in Scotland allows an unlimited number of hounds and the conditions these amendments put up are slightly stricter but only yesterday I was talking to a couple of guys who run a pack up on the hills up above Oswestry, they’ve had a significant problem with lambs being taken by foxes and that’s got much worse since hunting was banned and a limit of two was put on and it is just very simple practical common sense.  One of their big blocks in the forestry is 2000 acres, everyone can understand that if you only put two hounds in a big block of forest like that  it’s much harder to flush the fox out to guns.  Now in Scotland the Bill has worked pretty effectively, I don't know of any campaign to change the Bill in Scotland.  The Minister, Dr McLeod, has very recently said there is absolutely no intention by the SNP government to change the Act in Scotland so all this minor amendment does is move the technical conditions for using the exemptions to help flush out foxes more effectively so that lambs can be protected and our hard working farmers in the hills are having a tough time can be on the same level as their Scots counterparts.  

DM: Okay but there are more efficient ways of killing foxes than riding around on horses with dogs aren’t there?  I mean you know that some of your very own colleagues have doubts about this, Tracey Crouch, as I say one of your colleagues, said don’t be fooled by the spin of the pro-hunt lobby, this is substantial.   

OWEN PATERSON: I am fully aware there are strong feelings about this and one has to respect them but this is nothing to do with people galloping around on horses, these are people up in the hills, on steep hillsides with very large amounts of forest where there is a real problem with lambs being taken.  It has got significantly worse and every year that the fox numbers are allowed to increase, the problem with lambs gets worse further so this is just practical management of wildlife.  There are other methods, you can talk about lamping where you go out at night with a big torch and guns but I talked to the guys yesterday about that and they say the fox is becoming very canny, it’s much harder to get foxes lamping and the rules on snares I think quite rightly on animal welfare grounds, have been tightened up.  So using hounds to flush to guns which works effectively in Scotland, is a sensible methods.  It has been actually praised by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, from the strongest opponents of hunting, they recognise there has to be welfare and management going together in the countryside and these amendments make a sensible step in the direction of making England and Wales pretty well on the same level as Scotland where there is no controversy about the legislation at all.  

DM: Okay, well thanks for that Owen Paterson.  I don't know whether you could hear the snorting and harrumphing from Dr May sitting beside me.  Owen Paterson there saying some animal welfare experts are praising these changes, I take it you’re not one of them.  

BRIAN MAY: I have to laugh, I’m sorry.  

DM: But your response?  These are minor changes says Owen Paterson, it’s about practical management of the fox population.  

BRIAN MAY: That is rubbish.  This is nothing to do with farming and I know a lot of farmers now and I can tell you, they don’t go around digging out foxes in their spare time to shoot them.  This is about, as you say, people rushing around the countryside torturing wild animals to death for fun, that’s what this is about and it is an absolute scam to pretend that this is about farming in the first place, this is the first thing.  I think Owen Paterson saying about the farmers and the foxes in the uplands, it’s nonsense, I think he is trying to say the foxes are trying to move the goalposts or something aren’t you?  

DM: That was the badgers wasn’t it?   

BRIAN MAY: Yes, that was the badgers but the second thing is it is nothing to do with parity with Scotland.  

DM: That was what I wanted to ask.

BRIAN MAY:  This is an important point, it’s not a minor change and it is nothing to do with bringing it into line with Scotland, that’s an excuse.  The Scottish Wild Mammals Act of 2002 is quite differently draft and there are other differences between the two Acts.  Firstly, the penalties are a lot stricter in Scotland, secondly there are special provisions in there to make sure that the foxes are treated humanely which we don’t have in the English Act and there are other differences as well.  

DM: Do you think, as some in Parliament are going to argue, that this is a backdoor way of relaxing it so much that in effect fox hunting comes back?  

BRIAN MAY: This is the return of full scale packs of dogs roaming the countryside and who will be able to know if they are going to flush out a fox to shoot it.  Foxes don’t need controlling anyway, this is rubbish.  There was a five year study by DEFRA which said that lamb predation is less than 0.8% of mortality in lambs, it’s rubbish.  This is an excuse, Mr Paterson, to go out there and be fox hunters again.  It is a criminal act, you are talking about a criminal act of cruelty.

DM: Okay, let me bring in Owen Paterson a criminal act of cruelty and that issue there that Brian May raised that there isn’t a great predation of sheep from foxes.  

OWEN PATERSON: Well I know that Brian has very strong views about this but he should really come up here and talk to the farmers.  These packs are called out sometimes 20, 30 times a season because lambs have been taken.  The farmers only call them out when they are up to about 20 lambs taken by a very aggressive fox so there is I’m afraid a real problem of wildlife management and he is wrong about Scotland.  Scotland has unlimited hounds, here the terms will be hounds appropriate to the terrain so this is moving England and Wales to an arrangement very similar to Scotland and I can’t understand why … can I just finish?  

BRIAN MAY:  You guys breed foxes, you breed foxes to continue your vile sport. It is not about control, it is a pretence, it’s a lie.  

DM: And may I add to that, some hunting you would admit Mr Paterson, is for recreational purposes, that’s why some hunts exist.  

BRIAN MAY: How can you defend this vile pursuit?  

OWEN PATERSON: No, no, no, you haven’t read the Bill and the Amendments.  The Amendments …

BRIAN MAY: Oh yes I have.  

OWEN PATERSON: … to the Hunting Act stands as it does in Scotland.  This is about management in the uplands where there is a real problem of lamb predation.  All it is, is putting England and Wales on a similar regime, not quite as liberal a regime as in Scotland and I don’t understand why the Scottish government has been attacked.  It is very telling I think that the SNP Minister has said recently that there are no plans to bring amendments to Scotland and this is all about management of wildlife where thee is a significant problem if foxes are allowed to go uncontrolled and I mentioned two other methods which don’t really work anymore, then this is the best method as proven in Scotland.  

BRIAN MAY: I do not accept that.   

DM: Tell me why, why don’t you accept that, Brian May?  Mr Paterson is making a very powerful case, saying these farmers, these upland farmers, sheep farmers, they need to be protected and foxes are a real problem.  

BRIAN MAY:  I don’t believe farmers are behind this on the whole, the NFU is not behind it.  They breed foxes to hunt, I mean basically we’ve seen very recently there was a barn discovered with 16 baby foxes in there which were being bred purely so that they can be put in bags or cages in front of a hunt.  It’s a disgusting pursuit and I cannot see that we can allow this piece of …

DM: So on this other point Mr Paterson is making, why aren’t you protesting about the situation in Scotland or are you?

BRIAN MAY: No, the Scottish situation actually works because as I say, the Scottish Wild Mammals Act of 2002 is a different kind of Act and it is actually rather stronger than the English Act and it’s working fairly well. The fact that they can use whole packs of dogs has actually given problems and IFOR, you are incorrect as well about IFOR, Mr Paterson, IFOR have discovered that there have been packs of dogs out there with their owners with no gun in sight, so they couldn’t possibly be flushing foxes out to be shot.  They were out there on full hunting and that’s what’s going to happen here, this is the return of full scale blood hunting in England and it’s a crime.  

DM: Owen Paterson, from what I’ve read, there are differences in terms of Scotland in what’s envisaged in England and Wales, so research and observation would be allowed, which is something they don’t have in Scotland and that is open to interpretation isn’t it?

BRIAN MAY: That’s right, that’s another difference between the two Acts.  

OWEN PATERSON: I’m afraid Brian is wrong actually, there is unlimited hounds allowed in Scotland and IFOR said that the management of wildlife was understood and hounds flushing to guns was the most humane method of controlling them.   I don’t understand …

BRIAN MAY: You have got to stop pretending this is about farming.  

OWEN PATERSON: Please let me just finish.  I was talking to people who have got long experience of farming in the hills near here and they have a very real problem.  You have guys with four or five hundred sheep and they will only call out the hounds if, as I’ve said, something like 15 or 20 lambs are taken.  Now that is quite significant but well over …

BRIAN MAY: Are you saying fox hunting is basically like Rentokil, you’ve got a fox problem and you call out the fox hunters?

DM: Let him finish, Brian May.  That is a point and it is a point I made earlier, Owen Paterson, there is recreational hunting, is there not?

OWEN PATERSON: No, Dermot, that is banned, that carries on, the hunting ban carries on.  All this is, is a technical management issue where the current limit – which is wholly arbitrary – of two hounds, it came from nowhere, nobody knows where that limit came from, is being changed to Scottish arrangements.  It’s fine for Brian to use inflammatory language but life is tough in the hills, it isn’t the Wind in the Willows and you have to manage wildlife, you have to manage the foxes and this is the most effective method, as has been proven in Scotland.  I really don’t see why farmers near me should be penalised in comparison to their compatriots in Scotland where there is absolutely no controversy about this method of controlling foxes.  

DM: Last quick thought about what happens in Parliament, Brian May.  Presumably you and your people, your supporters, are talking to MPs about this and there are plenty on the Conservative benches who might oppose it?

BRIAN MAY: Yes, I think it is very important that we have seen that a lot of Conservatives are with us now and we applaud that.  We need people to write to their MPs, if you are at home and you agree with me please do write to your MPs because they listen, they look at their mail and we need … And especially in Scotland, write to your MPs there.  

DM: And let me ask Owen Paterson, do you think you’re going to get this through?

OWEN PATERSON: Well I hope so.  I mean so much emotion comes into this issue and I do understand people like Brian have very, very strong feelings but what I find sad is that people don’t come to the countryside and talk to farmers and the people I talked to yesterday who have lifelong experience of trying to manage livestock in pretty wild terrain, blocks of spruce, 2000 acres in size, where the only practical method is to use this age old method which is to flush hounds out to guns and that has been proven to work. There are other alternatives which are getting worse and I wish people would take the emotion out of this.  The ban continues, 95% of prosecutions under the current law will continue.  This is purely a technical measure helping better management in the hills enabling our very hard working sheep farmers to be on the same footing as their compatriots in Scotland.

DM: All right, Owen Paterson, thank you very much indeed. Brian May, very good to see you, thank you both.