EAST Lancashire MP Gordon Prentice was today telling the government to bring back last year's bill to ban hunting with dogs and force it through Westminster by the autumn.

The Pendle back bencher made his appeal at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party to discuss the issue of banning hunting in the House of Commons today.

Countryside Minister Alun Michael was meeting rank and file party MPs in advance of making a statement on what the government intends to do over hunting tomorrow. On Monday MPs overwhelmingly voted for an outright ban on hunting with hounds.

But yesterday the House of Lords strongly supported a "middle way" option expected to include the banning of hare coursing and stag hunting and the licensing and regulation of fox hunting. Anti-hunt campaigners, including Mr Prentice, expect the government to try and secure a compromise based on this middle way -- the route favoured by Blackburn MP and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

But Mr Prentice believes this would be a disaster -- and told Mr Michael this at the closed meeting today.

He said: "There are two ways out of this dilemma. The first is to bring back the hunting bill which was blocked before the last election and to force it through the House of Lords using the Parliament Acts to make it law by October.

"Some people say the bill is flawed but I was on the committee that considered it in detail and do not believe it is so. Neither does the former minister who was in charge of it Mike O'Brien.

"The second option is to start from scratch and spend two years debating it before anything happens. We will be mocked and ridiculed if that happens. We need to bring back the bill and get a total ban on the Statute Book as soon as possible."