[furball]

Originally Posted by Phang

and the Lords did not add to the debate on the third in a useful way so far as I was ever able to tell.

I assume you're not going to try to substantiate that? Having read through Hansard a couple of years ago while researching an essay on the Hunting Act, I was pretty impressed by the eloquence of many of the Lords' speeches. Much better than the House of Commons.

Just because you disagree with what someone says don't mean that they're not saying anything useful.

Originally Posted by Phang

Besides which, I seem to recall it took about five years for any semblance of a Hunting Act to come about precisely because they let the Lords pontificate at length about how jolly fun it all was.

Er....you seem to be recalling wrongly.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

After New Labour came to power in 1997, another private member's bill, introduced by Michael Foster MP, received a second reading with 411 MPs voting in support, but failed due to lack of parliamentary time. The Burns Report in 2000 concluded that hunting "seriously compromise the welfare of the fox", but (in line with its remit) did not draw any conclusion on whether hunting should be banned or should continue. In a later debate in the House of Lords, the inquiry chairman, Lord Burns also stated that "Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty. It is a complex area."[1] Following the Burns inquiry, the Government introduced an 'options bill' which allowed each House of Parliament to choose between a ban, licensed hunting, and self-regulation. The House of Commons voted for a banning Bill and the House of Lords for self-regulation. The 2001 General Election was then called and the Bill ran out of parliamentary time.

Following a series of evidence hearings (details below) in 2002, on 3 December 2002, Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael introduced a bill to allowing licensed hunting in 2003. The Commons passed an amendment proposed by Tony Banks to ban hunting entirely, but the bill was rejected by the House of Lords.

The identical Bill to that passed by the House of Commons in 2003 was reintroduced to the Commons on 9 September 2004. It received Royal Assent as the Hunting Act 2004 on 18 November 2004 when the Speaker of the House of Commons invoked the Parliament Act, with the Bill not having received the approval of the House of Lords who had preferred an Act that regulated hunting with dogs.

I make that 3 years, fairly efficient for Parliament when the Parliament Acts have been invoked. If you bring up the Foster Bill....well, I'm sure you don't need explained to you the difference between a Private Member's Bill and your average government bill.