Party calls for ban as Boxing Day meetings prepare to go ahead
Labour has demanded the outlawing of trail hunting on public land, as Boxing Day meets prepare to go ahead.
Several licences have been granted by the government for the meetings, despite a growing movement among public bodies to refuse permission for them to take place on their property.
In trail hunting, which remains legal, dogs and riders pursue an artificial scent on an agreed route. However, the National Trust suspended licences to trail hunt on its land after a video emerged of a huntsman explaining how to use them as a way of holding an illegal foxhunt.
Since then, both Natural Resources Wales and the National Trust have announced an end to trail hunting. Campaigners opposing the events said that they still expected more than 240 hunting days to have taken place on Ministry of Defence-owned land alone this year. Labour said the department had allowed 21 licensed hunts by mid-December.
Other public bodies continue to have a suspension of licences in place, including some national parks, the Church Commissioners and Forestry England. An exemption to lockdown rules allowed trail hunts to take place last Christmas. Labour now wants a tightening of the rules this year.
It follows the case of Mark Hankinson, the director of the Masters of the Foxhounds Association, who was convicted in October of encouraging others to hide the illegal hunting of live foxes behind a “smokescreen” of trail hunting.
Hankinson was...
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