Economic Impacts of a Ban on Hunting with Dogs in Scotland.

2. Mounted hunt subscribers and followers

2.1 Background

We begin by examining the expenditure of mounted subscribers and followers. It is this group that provides the demand for hunts (Figure 1.2) and are the hunts’ main source of income.

Injections into the economy by households involved in mounted fox hunting take two forms. Either they are directed at the hunts (annual subscriptions by hunt members, cap fees levied at each meet, fees levied at other activities) or they are associated with keeping horses for hunting, and travelling to and taking part in the hunts. In addition, some individuals may make donations to support hunt activities.

For the purposes of estimating household expenditures we need to identify the relevant population of households involved in fox hunting. Three types were identified, as follows:

• Subscribing households. These were defined as households consisting of one or more hunt members where one or more members subscribe to a hunt. The impact of a ban on their expenditures was tracked through the sample survey of subscribing households.
• Non-subscribers households. These are households where one or more members attend meets on an occasional basis. Since they are not subscribers, it was assumed that hunting was not their prime interest in keeping horses and that a ban on hunting would not change their total horse-related expenditure. They were therefore excluded.
• Non-subscribers who attend as non-mounted followers. These are treated in the same way as the other non-subscribing households. Their hunting-related expenditures would be even smaller and are ignored.

Of these groups only the subscribing households are taken as relevant to the study. The ten hunts provided us with address lists of all their subscribers. There were 815 subscribers in total. 363 households were identified by the hunts from their list of subscribers as active, that is, where one or more household members attended hunt meets. In many cases a household had more than one subscriber, and some household members subscribed to more than one hunt. Non-active subscribing households were excluded from the survey sample because their expenditures associated with hunting would be minimal. Their impact on the incomes (and indirectly on the expenditures) of hunts is accounted for through the surveys of the hunts themselves.

Of the 363 subscribing households six had addresses in England and were permanently resident there. Of these a number were around Carlisle and Cumbria and travelled to Scotland to hunt. Since the remit restricted the study to impacts in Scotland these were removed from the population of households, leaving 357.

2.2 Active subscribing households

Table 2.1 refers to 357 subscribing households. It gives raised (aggregate) and mean data derived from the sample of 77 households interviewed. 663 people in subscribing households subscribe or hunt regularly. A further 111 ride but do not hunt. These subscribing households accounted for 14,215 days hunting on average in 1998/99.

Table 2.1 Active subscribing households (1998/99)

2.3 Effects on riding activities

It is not known precisely what the implications of a ban on hunting with dogs will have on the activities available to those who wish to ride. For example, hunter trials and point-to-point races are highly integrated with foxhunts. If hunting were banned it is not clear whether these activities would be retained under a different form of organisation. It is not known whether eventing or cross-country might expand, or whether drag hunting may develop.

Rather than pre-suppose with ban scenario for the options open to those currently hunting, we left respondents to draw their own conclusions about how they would adapt to changed circumstances. However, the drag-hunting scenarios were explored in more detail because this has been proposed as the nearest alternative to hunting with dogs.

2.4 Retention and disposal of horses

Changes in riding activities would have implications for the retention and replacement of horses since horses used for hunting would not necessarily be suitable for riding activities other than hunting. Respondents were asked what they would do with their horses were a ban to be imposed. They were specifically asked to indicate how many horses they would expect to own or keep a year after a ban came into operation.

The Scottish subscribing households own or keep a total of 1,641 horses, either on their properties or at livery (Table 2.2). This averages 4.6 per household. Of the 1,641, 913 are kept principally for hunting and another 134 are brood mares used for breeding hunters. When asked about the effect of a ban, were it to be instituted, 25% of households indicated that they would dispose of all horses and 53% said that they would reduce the number kept. That left 22% who intended to retain all their horses.

Table 2.2 Impact of a hunting ban on the horse numbers of subscribing households

In total, subscribing households said that the total number of horses kept following a ban would be reduced by 793 within a year, a reduction of 48%. The majority would be sold or given away but respondents indicated that they expected 320 (41% of the disposals) to be destroyed.

2.5 Labour costs and employment

Many household members ride as well as hunt (e.g. point-to-point, eventing, pony clubs, hacking). In such cases, and where staff are employed, it is difficult to allocate a proportion of their wage costs to hunting. Rather than attempt an arbitrary allocation, we asked respondents to include all their horse-related expenditure and employment unless a clear distinction could be made between hunting and non-hunting expenditures. We then asked what employment they would envisage if a ban were imposed. The difference is that attributable to the ban on hunting.

Table 2.3 — Table 2.5 summarise the employment data. Overall the subscribing households employed 56 full-time and 208 part-time employees linked to their overall riding activities. There was a predominance of part-time and casual employment, which was often seasonal and amounted to relatively few hours per week. Hourly wage rates were generally low. This typically reflect the supply of young people interested in looking after horses, the benefits from opportunities to ride, and an element of training that occurs in some employment contracts.

Table 2.3 Subscribing household’s employment: effect of a ban on employees

Table 2.4 Subscribing households’ employment: effect of a ban on annual labour costs

Table 2.5 Subscribing households’ employment: effect of a ban on FTE employment

In total 264 people were employed in some form in the sector, of which 222 would be affected by a ban. Expenditure on labour would fall by £530,954. Of the 222, only 42 were classed as full-time, the rest part-time seasonal and casual. Most of the jobs involved were where employees worked for only a small number of hours annually and earned less than £1,000 per year. The mean wage bill per part-time employee was £2,047 per year. The ban affected employment either through reductions in working hours or redundancies. The responses suggested that 28 full-time and 152 part-time employees would be made redundant.

Converting the employment data to Full-time Equivalents (FTEs) posed some problems. Scaling up the hours worked to an annual equivalent did not appear valid. The annual wage so derived was in some cases so low that to calculate FTEs on that basis was misleading. Instead we imputed a wage rate of £3.00 per hour (the juvenile minimum wage) and converted on this basis. The current FTE employment was calculated as 118, but again not all of this is associated with hunting. Table 2.5 gives the with ban employment situation from which the hunting contribution to employment can be measured. The net effect of the ban is to reduce household employment by 82.7 FTEs. If a higher wage rate were used for the conversion (say the adult minimum wage of £3.60), the total FTEs would fall to 72.

2.6 Expenditures by households on suppliers

Households were asked to indicate their expenditures associated with keeping horses in the 1998/99 year. In general the data consisted of all the horse-related expenditure of the household in order to avoid any arbitrary allocation of costs to fox hunting. This reflected the fact that an allocation of some costs (e.g. vehicles, horses and buildings) as between hunting and other riding would be arbitrary since the capital items were used for a range of horse activities. However, if a respondent could separate out hunt-related expenditure (e.g. livery of hunters, fuel and oil, clothing, telephone) only the hunt-related costs were included. In some cases households did not pay for inputs because they were free transfers from a related business (typically a farm). Where this occurred expenditures were imputed but no impacts beyond the household were assumed. These transfers were important only in the context of a hunting ban when any reduction in transfer was assumed to result in reduced expenditure (and increase the disposable surplus) in the household budget.

Table 2.6 lists the costs on a per household basis³. Average expenditure was £17,393 per household. Major cost items were feed, horse purchases and vehicle purchases, with significant costs for farriers, clothing and equipment. Forty-four percent of the total costs were on vehicles and horse purchases (£7,623). In order to estimate which expenditures are actually related to hunting, respondents were asked to indicate how these 1998/99 expenditures would have differed had a ban been in place. Annual expenditure would have fallen to £6,655, 38% of the current level. Most items fell by 30-40% although there were some variation. Expenditure on maintenance of premises, heat and light and horse purchase were less affected. Larger effects were observed with expenditure on entertainment, livery, hunt subscriptions, vehicles and clothing. The net withdrawal of household expenditure from the economy following a ban was calculated as £10,738, plus £1,487 on labour: a total of £12,225 per household.

Table 2.6 Effect of a ban on the expenditures of subscribing households (means, 1998/99)

When the expenditures on suppliers (including the hunts) are raised from the sample, the net withdrawal over all hunting households following a ban is estimated at £3.83m. Of this, £3.23m was spent on firms located in Scotland. With labour costs (£0.53m, Table 2.4) included, the total expenditure was £4.36m, of which £3.76m was in Scotland (Table 2.7)

Table 2.7 Effect of a ban on expenditure by subscribing Scottish households

As a check on the reliability of the data, the changes in expenditure of households which had different plans for their horses were investigated. Where households stated that they would keep all their horses the mean change in total expenditure (labour and inputs) was £5,860. Where households planned to reduce their horse numbers the savings in expenditure averaged £14,026. Those disposing of all their horses cut expenditure to almost zero. Such analyses suggest a good degree of consistency in the data; i.e. that respondents’ costs reflected their stated reductions in horse numbers.