Debate contribution: Hunting with Dogs Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Phillip Brett on 26 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Phillip Brett

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

26 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Hunting with Dogs Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5583114

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I warmly welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. It has been an example of the best of the Assembly, with Members passionately arguing for the causes that matter to them and their constituents. I speak as someone who has taken considerable interest in animal welfare and as a member of the Assembly's all-party group on animal welfare. I also do so with a degree of personal reflection. The Member for South Antrim and I do not sit on the same Bench, nor do we always agree, but, in our previous life in local government, we worked together on important animal welfare issues, and I was delighted that he and I were able to ensure the banning from council property of circuses that use wild animals. That was the right thing to do then, and engaging seriously with the Bill is the right thing to do now. Let me be clear from the outset that I wholeheartedly support the principle of the Bill. I do so because Northern Ireland can no longer be an outlier in the United Kingdom when it comes to the hunting of wild mammals with dogs. We should not be behind England, Wales or Scotland on a basic question of animal welfare. Hunting an animal for fun or defending that practice simply because it is tradition is not acceptable in a modern society. Traditions matter; rural life matters; countryside communities matter; but no tradition is beyond moral scrutiny. Where a practice involves cruelty, suffering or the deliberate pursuit of wild animals for sport, the Assembly has a responsibility, today, to say, "That is wrong". That is the central issue at the heart of the Bill. It is not whether we respect the countryside; of course we do. It is not whether farmers have the right to protect livestock; of course they do. It is not whether there are legitimate issues of pest control, conservation and land management; of course there are. The central question is whether the deliberate hunting of wild mammals with dogs for entertainment should continue to be lawful in Northern Ireland. My answer to that question is that it should not. It is morally wrong and is out of step with public expectations, with modern animal welfare standards and with where Northern Ireland should be. For too long, animal welfare here has been behind. We have seen that in debates on puppy farming, enforcement sentencing, rehoming and the ability of people convicted of animal cruelty to own or keep animals in the future. The public expect better. They expect the Assembly to act when cruelty is identified. They expect us not to merely condemn cruelty with words but to legislate where legislation is required. That is why the Bill matters. It matters because it asks us whether we are prepared to draw a clear line and whether we are willing to stand up for animal welfare and ensure that Northern Ireland does not lag behind the rest of the United Kingdom. It matters because it asks whether tradition should be allowed to excuse a practice that, in my view, the majority of the people of Northern Ireland now regard as outdated. However, supporting the principle of the Bill does not mean that the Bill is perfect. It is not. I want to be fair and clear about that. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered and legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. Mr Frew has very well articulated many of them. We need to ensure that farmers can continue to protect livestock; that humane and necessary pest control can continue where required; that lawful shooting, working dogs and legitimate countryside activity are not caught up in unintended consequences; and that enforcement is practical, proportionate and resourced. Those are not minor matters; they go to the workability of the legislation. They matter to farmers, landowners, dog owners, rural communities, enforcement bodies and animal welfare organisations alike. However, those concerns are exactly why the Bill should proceed to detailed scrutiny. They are not reasons to reject the principle of the Bill; they are reasons to improve the Bill. Second Stage is about principle. The principle before us is whether Northern Ireland should continue to allow wild animals to be hunted with dogs for sport. I believe that the answer to that question is no. I recognise that some people will see this debate as a clash between urban and rural life, but it should not be framed that way. Many people in rural communities care deeply about animal welfare, many farmers have a profound respect for animals and the land, and many people who live and work in the countryside have a practical understanding of management, conservation and responsible land stewardship. The debate should not become an anti-farmer, anti-rural or anti-countryside debate; it should be about drawing a clear and moral legal line between necessary, humane animal management and the pursuit of wild animals for sport. That is the distinction that I make with the Bill. We can support farmers and still oppose cruelty, we can respect rural life and still say that hunting for entertainment is wrong, and we can protect legitimate countryside activity and still support the principle of the Bill. The Bill needs further work. The exemptions, definitions and evidential threshold must be made clear, along with the guidance for enforcement bodies. I believe that the proposer of the Bill will work constructively with those who are genuinely interested in clarifying, improving and strengthening legislation. That is how good law is made. However, there is a clear difference between those who raise practical concerns in good faith and those who seek to sow confusion in order to prevent any change from taking place at all. Legal opinions can be commissioned for a wide variety of issues. They tend to give the answer to the question that the questioner, and those who are paying for the legal advice, are seeking. Genuine scrutiny should be welcomed, and genuine concerns should be listened to, but confusion should not be used — I will not allow it to be — as a tactic to block progress on the issue. If Members or stakeholders believe that there are areas of the Bill that need to be clarified, the right response is to engage with the Committee process, propose amendments — given Mr Frew's record to date on the issue of amendments, I have no doubt that there will be many coming forward — and test the drafting to improve the legislation. The wrong response is to exaggerate uncertainty, create fear or pretend that any imperfection in the Bill is a reason to oppose it. We should be clear: the need for further work is not an argument against the principle of the Bill, it is an argument for us all to do our job properly. If the Bill passes this stage, I will expect the Committee to take evidence from welfare organisations, farmers, landowners, rural organisations, veterinary voices, enforcement bodies and those with experience of how similar laws have operated in England, Scotland and Wales. We should learn from other jurisdictions, not simply copy and paste. Where loopholes have existed elsewhere, we should close them. Where enforcement has been difficult elsewhere, we should improve the drafting.

Where legitimate rural activity needs to be protected, we should do so plainly in the Bill.

I also want to address the argument that tradition should carry divisive or decisive weight in this discussion. I understand that traditions form a part of identity, culture and community, but the Assembly has a duty to address practices by the standards of today, not simply by the habits of the past. There is a difference between respecting rural heritage and defending cruelty. There is a difference between protecting legitimate countryside activity and allowing the deliberate pursuit of animals for entertainment. The Bill, if properly amended and scrutinised, should be capable of making that distinction. Some will say that we have bigger priorities, including health, education, the economy and front-line public services. Of course we do. Every Member in the House deals with those issues every day, but caring about hospital waiting lists does not mean that we cannot also care about animal cruelty. Caring about the economy does not mean that we cannot also care about welfare standards. A society is judged not only on how it treats people but on whether it is prepared to prevent avoidable cruelty. That is what this comes down to: avoidable cruelty. No one is saying that farmers should be left unable to protect livestock. No one is saying that genuine pest control should be impossible. No one is saying that rural communities and their traditions should be ignored. What we are saying is that the deliberate pursuit of wild mammals with dogs for entertainment should now end. We are saying that Northern Ireland should no longer stand apart from the rest of our United Kingdom on basic animal welfare issues. We are saying that tradition is not a sufficient defence for cruelty. We are saying that the proper way to deal with legitimate concerns is to improve the Bill, not to block it from progressing. The question today is not one of whether every clause is perfect. The question is one of whether the principle is right, and I believe that it is. I believe that Northern Ireland should no longer be an outlier on these islands; I believe that hunting wild mammals with dogs for fun is morally wrong; and I believe that tradition alone is no longer a defence for cruelty. There needs to be a balanced approach, and my approach is to support the principles of the Bill: to end cruelty and protect legitimate countryside activity, ensuring that Northern Ireland no longer falls behind the rest of the United Kingdom. I will be supporting the passage of the Bill today.

1,650 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:41 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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