Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on publishing a timeline to bring forward legislative measures to end trail hunting.

The Hunting Act 2004 makes it an offence to hunt a wild mammal, such as Foxes, with dogs except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions in the Act.

The aim of Trail Hunting is to simulate traditional hunting as practised before the Hunting Act came into force. The trails are laid along a route that might be taken by the traditional quarry, through hedgerows and woods, along ditches, across fields, to simulate the natural movement of the wild mammal, e.g., a fox, as much as possible.  The most common method of laying the trail is to drag a scent infected sock or cloth along the ground. The scent occasionally lifted for a distance and dropped again, thus allowing the hounds to cast (search for the scent if they lose it). The Huntsman and followers often do not know where any of the trails have been laid, so that the days hunting will mimic its realistic form.

The Government made a manifesto commitment to ban Trail Hunting as part of a set of measures to improve animal welfare. Work to bring this forward is at a very early stage and there is not yet an agreed timetable.