1.1 Remit
In July 1999 Lord Watson MSP announced his intention to introduce a ‘Protection of Wild Mammals Bill’ in the Scottish Parliament. In anticipation of such a Bill the Scottish Executive commissioned this study on the economic impact of a ban on hunting with dogs. The remit of the study was restricted to investigating the economic consequences of a ban as it affected the following:
The key objectives in the remit were to:
There are ten mounted hunts in Scotland:
Nine of the hunts are registered with the Master of Foxhounds Association; the tenth (the Kincardineshire Foxhounds) is unregistered.
Mounted hunts use foxhounds to locate foxes by their scent. The foxes are pursued and normally killed by the hounds or by a terrier. Mounted followers follow the events on horseback. Although one raison d’être of the hunts is fox control, they are part of an established social tradition in certain areas of Scotland.
Figure 1.1 shows the location of the ten hunts and the locations of the households who actively hunt as mounted followers. Whilst there is a concentration of hunts in the southeast (Borders districts shown in orange), the location of follower households is much more diverse. Many followers do not live near the hunts but travel substantial distances to meets. A proportion live in urban or near-urban locations and a small number are resident in England (not shown in Figure 1.1).
1.3 Foot packs and use of dogs by gamekeepers
The Scottish Hill Packs Association consists of four fell foxhound gun packs and one terrier gun pack. The hill packs supply fox control services to farmers and estates, augmenting other fox control activities. Four of the packs are funded by subscription with pack subscribers i.e. farmers and landowners, in return receiving the services of the pack on request. The fifth (The Caithness and District Terrier Pack) is privately funded and receives shooting rights in return for pack services. The five packs are:
The packs consist of foxhounds and terriers. Foxhounds are used to locate the foxes and push them towards the ‘standing guns’ in order that they can be shot. The ‘guns’ or participants are generally local member farmers and/or gamekeepers employed directly by member estates. Terriers are used to locate or flush their quarry from below ground. In addition to foxes, terriers are commonly used by farmers and gamekeepers to control rats, rabbits and mink.
1.4 Estimation of economic impacts
Figure 1.2 gives the structure used for the analysis of expenditure flows and their corresponding impacts on employment. With mounted fox hunting it is the member households that drive economic activity. They take part in hunting and spend on horses, feed, equipment, transport etc. They may also employ staff to look after horses. They represent ‘final demand’ for the services provided by the hunts, and a range of goods provided by other suppliers (e.g. businesses supplying feed, veterinary services).
Figure 1.2 Expenditure flows & employment associated with mounted fox hunting and sport shooting
There are two direct effects of any change in expenditure on the part of hunting households. The first is on the hunts. These are separated out because of their particular importance in the study and are treated as businesses providing services principally to their members. The second direct effect is on the rest of the supply sector. The expenditures of hunts and other suppliers themselves create additional indirect impacts as the effects of the initial household spending permeate through the economy. In addition to the direct and indirect effects of injections or withdrawals of spending associated with hunting, there will be induced effects due to changes in the spending of employees.
Direct effects of changes in household expenditures on fox hunting following a ban were measured through the surveys of followers, hunts and input suppliers. Indirect and induced effects were calculated by manipulation of the 1996 Scottish Input-output table1
There is a parallel structure for sport shooting which is the main driver of activity on sporting estates. The estates and the hill packs are suppliers, along with other businesses, to the shooters. Again there are direct, indirect and induced effects of changes in expenditure by shooting participants that would occur following a ban on the use of dogs. In this case, however, the remit did not focus on the complete impacts of the Bill on the sport-shooting sector, but only on the specific impacts on hill packs and gamekeepers. These were estimated directly from surveys.
1.5 Measuring the impact of a ban on hunting
Most estimates of the economic impact of fox hunting have tried to separate out expenditures and jobs that are linked to fox hunting. This approach is flawed because it necessitates an arbitrary allocation of expenditure in households which engage in horse-related activities in addition to fox hunting. A much more robust method of measuring the impact of a ban on hunting with dogs is to compare the current expenditure pattern (and employment) with the expected pattern following a ban on hunting with dogs. The pattern difference between the two in relevant expenditures and employment is a measure of the economic impact of the ban. The current situation was defined in terms of 1998/99 expenditures. The with ban situation was that defined in the Bill.
We did not present respondents with alternative scenarios that might prevail after a ban was introduced, given the uncertainties about the details of the proposed legislation. Rather it was left to individuals to decide how to interpret the current proposals in the draft bill and how they expected to respond to a ban in terms of their activities and associated spending.
For the mounted hunts we asked respondents to exclude drag hunting as an alternative to fox hunting. We then asked them about the potential of drag hunting as a possible substitute activity to fox hunting.
The remit required that the economic impact of a ban be measured at several geographical scales. It was agreed that one scale should be all-Scotland. The further possibility of splitting Scotland into ‘rural’ Scotland and ‘urban’ Scotland was explored. This was not developed because it proved impossible to find any agreed spatial definition of ‘rural’. For the mounted hunts it was decided to investigate impacts in the area where hunting was mainly concentrated - the three Local Authority Districts of Berwickshire, Roxburgh, and Ettrick and Lauderdale (hereafter called Borders). Five of the ten Scottish hunts are located within this area (depicted in orange in Figure 1.1).
Surveys were undertaken with fox hunting households, hunts, the Scottish Hill Packs, sporting estates and input suppliers to estimate the effect of a ban on expenditure and employment.
The structure of these surveys was as follows:
Personal interviews were used in preference to a postal questionnaire in order to minimise response bias. Postal interviews are particularly susceptible to non-response and to ‘strategic’ bias in which respondents give inaccurate replies in order to distort the overall findings. Particular care was taken in the household survey to obtain accurate responses. Internal consistency checks were placed within the questionnaire and respondents were asked to explain the reasons for their responses at all stages.
Hunts
Either the secretary or master of each of the ten hunts was interviewed
face-to-face. The same measures to minimise strategic bias were used as
with the subscriber households.
Suppliers
A list of the names and locations of all direct input suppliers was
established from the household and hunt interviews. These were classified
into 15 major categories based on the size of the net aggregate withdrawals
of expenditure following a ban, and the expected size of the coefficient
linking business turnover to employment. A stratified random sample of suppliers
was selected from each of the categories of supplier for those where the
sales to hunts plus followers would exceed £500 per annum. Forty-three suppliers
were contacted in order to identify their perceptions of the impact of a
hunting ban on their businesses and to quantify the relationship between
turnover, employment and profit for each business type. A number declined
to co-operate on grounds of confidentiality, and 32 useful records were
obtained. In a few business sectors it proved impossible to obtain information
and the 1996 Scottish Input-output tables were used to estimate employment
in relation to turnover.
From their total membership of 2,406, the SLF identified a list of 905 potential gamekeeper employers (landowners that historically had engaged in shooting activities). A random sample of 170 members was selected from the 905 potential employers. Selected landowners were sent a questionnaire, which was followed up with a telephone interview. The response rate was high with 118 (69%) useable responses obtained. The remainder were impossible to contact within the time period of the study or declined to participate.