©
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2004
Taken from the news section in
www.onestopenglish.com
Parliament brings end to 700 years
of hunting.
Patrick Wintour
Last week the British Parliament decided to
end almost 700 years of fox-hunting in
England and Wales. Early next year it will be
illegal to hunt foxes with dogs. Pro-hunt
supporters immediately promised to protest
against the decision and on the same day
1,000 people demonstrated outside Windsor
Castle where the Queen was meeting the
French president, Jacques Chirac, and Tony
Blair.
Mr. Blair wanted to delay the ban on fox-
hunting until after the next general election in
the UK. Many people in the countryside want
to continue hunting foxes but many people
living in towns and cities are against it. There
are 318 registered hound packs in England
and Wales. About 8,000 people do jobs
connected with hunting, and the ban might
also cause problems for 15,000 to 16,000
other people, such as hotel owners. Now the
government and the police must prepare for
the possibility of protests over the next three
months.
There was a long debate in the British
Parliament between pro-hunters and anti-
hunters. The government tried to find a
solution and wanted to delay the ban until
2006 or 2007. But some Labour MPs thought
that the government was trying to avoid the
promised ban on hunting. After a long
discussion, the lower house of the British
Parliament, the House of Commons, voted to
delay the ban until July 2006.
But a few hours later the upper house, the
House of Lords, voted against the 18-month
delay. This meant that the House of
Commons had to use an old law, the
Parliament Act of 1949, to block the decision
of the House of Lords.
Tony Blair said he was sorry about the result
of the vote. He explained that he wanted to
find a middle way between people with very
strong opinions on both sides of the argument
about fox-hunting. "There are people who feel
very strongly that fox-hunting is an essential
