PENDLE MP Gordon Prentice has urged the government to make extra time for the controversial Bill to ban hunting with dogs.

He has cited as a precedent the help given his illustrious predecessor Sydney Silverman when he successfully abolished the death penalty.

Mr Silverman, MP for what was then Nelson and Colne, introduce the Private Members Bill which got rid of capital punishment in the mid-1960s.

In order to help it become law, the Labour government of Harold Wilson allowed sittings on nine otherwise empty Wednesday mornings to give sufficient time for the controversies surrounding the Bill to be aired without affecting the government's programme.

Mr Prentice has discovered what happened through inquiries with senior Parliamentary figures and urged leader of the Commons Ann Taylor to make the same concession to Worcester MP Mike Foster's Bill to outlaw hunting with hounds.

He raised it on the Floor of the Commons with Mrs Taylor at Business Questions but failed to get any concession.

He is very concerned that the government is doing little to help the Bill and understands that the difference between this and Mr Silverman's Bill - and indeed those to legalise abortion and homosexual acts between consenting male adults also introduced by Private Members Bills - is that the government supported those measures but does not support Mr Foster's. Mr Prentice has been told that the government is neutral in this case. But he is determined to emulate Mr Silverman and try and get helpful treatment for the Bill to outlaw hunting with hounds.

He said: "I have been investigating and understand there is a precedent which coincidentally affects my predecessor Sydney Silverman's Bill to abolish hanging.

"I am totally opposed to blood sports and do not believe that all the people who went on the countryside march on Saturday were backing hunting.

"It is time for the government to be courageous. At second reading there were more than 400 MPs from all parties who wanted to ban hunting. Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory minister, was among them.

I think the government should allow time for this Bill to become law so we can ban fox-hunting, hare-coursing and other hunting with hounds in the same way we have banned other blood sports."

"We have banned in the past cock-fighting, bear-baiting, bull-baiting, ratting and dog fighting.

"There is massive public support and now is the time to allow this Bill to become law so we can ban these barbaric so-called sports."

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