When MPs Mark Pritchard, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Joe Morrissey rose in the House of Commons on 7 January, they did so with visible emotion and dramatic warnings. Their shared message was simple and deliberately alarming: if trail hunting is banned, thousands of foxhounds will die.
It is a claim designed to shock, to unsettle, and to place moral responsibility on anyone seeking to tighten the law around hunting.
It is also deeply dishonest.
Because foxhounds are already being killed by hunts, quietly, systematically and in large numbers and they have been for decades.
A Manufactured Crisis
Each MP relied on the same rehearsed talking point: “What will happen to the hounds?”
Mark Pritchard claimed that hundreds of hounds in Shropshire alone would face death. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown spoke of “thousands” of dogs being euthanised. Joe Morrissey went further still, warning that the “blood” of 20,000 hounds would be on the Government’s hands.
What none of them explained is why this sudden concern for hounds has emerged now and why it has never extended to questioning what already happens inside hunt kennels across England.
The implication they want the public to draw is clear: hunting protects foxhounds, and legislation threatens them. The reality is the exact opposite.
What Happens Behind Kennel Doors
Within the hunting world, it is an open secret that foxhounds are killed as part of routine “management”. Packs are deliberately overbred, and surplus animals are culled every year. Estimates from within hunting circles suggest that around one in five hounds are killed annually.
These deaths are not limited to elderly or terminally ill dogs. Young, physically healthy hounds are frequently destroyed simply because they fail to meet performance expectations. They may lack stamina, independence, focus or aggression, traits prized for hunting, but entirely irrelevant to a dog’s quality of life as a companion.
Undercover investigations have repeatedly confirmed this reality. Footage has emerged showing hounds being shot at kennels. Other evidence has shown foxhounds being disposed of through incineration schemes, their bodies treated as waste rather than as once-living animals.
This is not a looming threat caused by reform. It is current practice, carried out year after year, without parliamentary outrage.
The Falsehood of “Animal Welfare”
When pro-hunting MPs speak about animal welfare, they do so selectively. There are no calls from these benches to curb breeding. No demands for transparency around culling figures. No pressure for independent welfare inspections of kennels. No insistence on rehoming healthy dogs.
That silence speaks volumes.
If the welfare of hounds genuinely mattered, the focus would be on why so many are bred only to be killed and why rehoming is treated as an inconvenience rather than a responsibility.
Instead, welfare language is deployed as a shield to protect a tradition that depends on disposable animals.
The Rehoming Myth
Joe Morrissey’s claim that foxhounds are impossible to keep in homes collapses under even the most basic scrutiny.
Foxhounds are dogs. Dogs are adaptable. With training, patience and appropriate support, they can and do live successfully in domestic settings.
The hunting industry itself proves this. Most foxhounds spend their early months living in ordinary homes with puppy walkers. They are house-trained, socialised, handled by families and exposed to everyday environments. Only later are they returned to kennels to begin hunt training.
Rescue organisations have also demonstrated that rehoming is not only possible but also successful. Former hunt hounds have gone on to live calm, affectionate lives as companions—the very existence of these dogs dismantles the claim that rehoming cannot be done.
What is lacking is not ability. It is will.
A System Built on Disposability
Foxhounds are not treated as individuals within hunting. They are treated as units of function. When they perform, they are kept. When they fail, they are removed.
This is why the current debate feels so hollow. The same industry that kills thousands of hounds without protest now demands sympathy by warning that reform may expose its own practices.
The hunting lobby is not frightened that dogs will die. Dogs already die. What it fears is scrutiny, accountability and the loss of control over a system that has operated with minimal oversight for generations.
The Uncomfortable Truth
If hunts had acted responsibly by limiting breeding, prioritising rehoming and respecting the spirit as well as the letter of the law, they would not be able to deploy hounds as political hostages today.
And if MPs genuinely believe this debate is about animal welfare, there is a simple way to demonstrate it:
Visit hunt kennels.
Witness how surplus hounds are dealt with.
Then explain to the public why killing healthy dogs is acceptable except when it becomes politically inconvenient.
Until that happens, the warnings issued in Parliament should be recognised for what they are:
a calculated attempt to defend a cruel and outdated industry by weaponising the lives of animals it already treats as expendable.
