Ministers admit hunt ban hitch

The government may not be able to ban hunting with hounds before the election after all, ministers conceded last night.

In a series of interviews, Tony Blair and his cabinet colleagues confirmed that MPs would get another chance to vote on the likely backbench bill that would effectively end foxhunting, to the delight of campaigners and the dismay of the Countryside Alliance.

Mr Blair himself said there would be another vote in TV interviews, and blamed the Lords, rather than the government's unwillingness to provide time for backbencher Michael Foster's bill, for the failure of the first attempt.

His colleague Margaret Beckett, leader of the Commons, told BBC News Online that it would be a "complete waste of time" to resubmit a bill before the voting rights of 750 hereditary peerswere abolished at the end of this year.

Both Mrs Beckett and the home secretary, Jack Straw, each intimately involved with the problems raised by the bill, refused to say categorically in media interviews that the ban would be achieved in the present parliament.

Mr Blair, who personally supports the ban but did not vote for it last time, has also indicated doubts.

Some estimates suggest the bill would be lost in the Lords, even when the upper house was reduced to 400 life peers, since some object on libertarian grounds and others because they suspect it will lead to campaigns to ban hunting with guns and even fishing, a sport more popular with Labour voters than foxhunting.

But, interviewed on Sky TV yesterday, Mr Blair was adamant that a fresh vote would take place.

Mrs Beckett told BBC News Online: "It would be a complete waste of everybody's time to try and get a bill against hunting with hounds if you had not changed the House of Lords.

"It isn't just as easy as people seem to imagine. There is a very powerful lobby against the legislation in the Lords - it is an issue that arouses great passions."

However, the anti-hunting Tory MP, Roger Gale, accused ministers of going back on Mr Blair's promise of legislation.

"He is back-pedalling like mad. He has gone high-profile on this himself and now, at the back of the conference, suddenly his hatchet girl is required to say 'we may have said it, but we don't actually mean it'," he said.

"It is painfully obvious that they are running scared."