This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
Listen
Scottish Executive publishes report on economic impacts of a ban on fox hunting
26/06/2000
A report, conducted by the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, looking at the economic impacts of a ban on fox hunting with dogs was published today by the Scottish Executive.
The Report was commissioned by the Scottish Executive to produce an independent assessment of the economic impact of the Private Member's Bill to ban all forms of hunting of wild mammals.
The report examined expenditure associated with hunting and the impacts on Scottish employment. The remit of the study was restricted to impacts on mounted fox hunting, Scottish Hill Packs and gamekeepers employed on sporting estates.
There are 10 mounted hunts in Scotland - five of which are located in the Borders - which kill an average of 543 foxes per year. 357 households in Scotland have members that subscribe to one or more hunts and play an active role as followers at hunt meets.
Under the Bill, the activities of the 10 mounted hunts would cease with the loss of 19-20 FTE jobs directly employed. Expenditures to Scottish businesses by the hunts would fall by £0.26 million.
The estimate of 114 FTEs possible jobs lost on estates due to a ban is subject to less precision given the uncertainty associated with the effect of the Bill on the control of the fox population and its impacts on gamebirds. In the short-term, the impact would be much lower. In summary, respondents indicated that the Full Time Equivalent job loss could be 160-172 FTE jobs associated with mounted fox hunting.
MOUNTED FOX HUNTS
357 households contained 633 people who hunted. They owned 1641 horses - of which 56 per cent were kept principally for hunting. If a ban were introduced, 47 per cent said that they would adjust but not give up riding and 35 per cent of households said that all household members would give up riding completely. In the other households some members would give up and others adjust.
The expenditure of each subscriber in Scotland would be reduced by £10,738 on average by a ban. In total, this amounted to £3.23 million on inputs and £0.53 million on labour.
Subscribers employed 264 people - 56 full-time - and a large number of part-time and seasonal staff. The impact of a ban was to reduce FTE household employment by 72-83 FTE jobs. Respondents said that 222 employees would be affected by a ban, with 28 full-time staff and 152 part-time staff made redundant. In order to indicate the total employment impact, part-time employment was converted to full-time equivalent jobs (FTEs) by scaling up the hours worked to a full-time equivalent.
The main employment effect of a ban is on those most directly connected with the hunts or the follower households.. Impacts beyond these in the Scottish economy would be small. The total longer-term adjustment could be a net loss of 160-172 FTE jobs. There may be some difficulty for specialised employees to find new jobs, although the report did not explore the alternative employment opportunities in the sector in any detail.
The cut in subscriber household spending on suppliers connected with hunting was derived from a business survey. The longer-term adjustment, based on a fall in turnover of businesses, produced an FTE loss of 56 jobs.
Subscribers indicated that of the £4.36 million they spend on hunting, 17 per cent would be re-injected into the Scottish economy if hunting were banned. This re-injection would produce 17 FTE jobs.
The impact of a ban on the costs and output of farmers over whose land the hunts meet were found to be minimal. Further adjustments in the Scottish economy would produce 30 more job losses. This reflects the knock-on effects of reduced spending by hunts and households, and their employees.
GAMEKEEPER EMPLOYMENT
The study of impacts on gamekeeper employment used 905 Scottish Landowners Federation (SLF) members as its 'population'. Overall, their responses indicated a reduction of £1.97m in expenditure entering the Scottish economy - including labour - resulting in a loss of possibly 114 FTE jobs.
The SLF landowner population will understate the total Scottish sporting sector since not all landowners are SLF members. There would be other economic impacts of a reduction in sporting activity if participants' expenditure on suppliers is reduced. This effect was beyond the remit of the study.
There are five hill pack members of the Scottish Hill Packs Association. They use hounds and terriers to assist shooting of foxes and other vermin. In 1998/99 there were 182 subscribers and 873 foxes were killed. Activities would not be affected under the amendments proposed by the sponsor of the Bill
BACKGROUND
Information for the study was obtained mainly through interviews with representatives of the mounted fox hunts, hunt subscribers, landowners, Scottish Hill Pack Association members, and businesses supplying the sector. Interviews were used in preference to postal surveys, which are more likely to produce biased and inaccurate responses. Where possible, indirect (knock-on) economic effects on the Scottish economy were measured using the 1996 Scottish Input-output tables.
News Release: SE1870/2000
26 Jun 2000