A LONG-awaited Bill to ban foxhunting will be unveiled today amid anger from MPs that it holds out an olive branch to huntsmen.

Alun Michael, the Rural Affairs Minister, will publish legislation that bans hunting with hounds in all areas of England and Wales but sets up a tribunal to which local hunts can apply for a licence to continue the bloodsport.

They must pass a double test of “utility and cruelty”, proving that there is a need in terms of pest control and that their hunt will be humane.

Staghunting and hare coursing will be banned outright. But the Government appears to have bowed to the countryside lobby by deciding to keep the new licensing regime outside the criminal courts and by allowing foxhunting to be policed by a civil tribunal system.

Huntsmen are likely to face criminal prosecution only if they engage in acts of animal cruelty or if they persistently breach conditions of their hunting licence.

In a statement to the Commons, Mr Michael will voice his hope that the Bill will satisfy opponents of hunting because it puts the onus on the huntsman to prove that his sport is not cruel. In practice, hunting is only expected to survive in a very few areas.

Labour backbenchers, led by Gerald Kaufman, are furious that it falls short of a total ban. One senior Labour MP said: “It is a silly attempt to have it both ways. As far as we are concerned it is a ban, a total ban and nothing but a ban. If Alun Michael thinks we are going to accept this then he is more mistaken than we feared. He can forget it.”

Labour MPs intend to table amendments to the Bill striking out the tribunal facility.

Mr Michael’s announcement will please more moderate MPs and those in the Middle Way group. The House of Lords will also be more favourably disposed to the tribunal idea than it would have been towards a total ban.It was unclear last night whether landowners such as the Duke of Devonshire, who has made clear he will allow hunting on his land in the event of a ban, would be taken to court if he did so. One government source said: “We don’t want to make any martyrs out of this.”

What is certain is a fresh rebellion from Labour backbenchers. MPs had envisaged the activity would be explicitly confined to upland areas where it is often the only appropriate way of controlling fox numbers. But the Bill does not make the distinction.

The tribunal may also decide to allow the continuation of hunting on economic grounds, a key argument used by countryside campaigners.

Fashionable hunts such as the Beaufort in Gloucestershire, favoured by the Prince of Wales and Princes William and Harry, could possibly continue — though they may find it difficult to justify utility.

Government whips are confident they have a deal that can receive the support of Parliament. The Prime Minister and Mr Michael are to vote for the plan and it is expected that an unofficial “payroll vote” of ministers will also back it.

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