THE ban on hunting which will affect the lives of thousands of people throughout the country is unlawful, the High Court heard yesterday.

With less than a month before the ban comes into force on February 18, the Countryside Alliance launched a legal action to the save the sport.

The case led by Sir Sydney Kentridge QC, on behalf of the alliance, is to establish the legal vehicle open to the House of Commons to impose new laws without the authority of the House of Lords.

The Speaker of the Commons, Michael Martin, invoked the Parliament Act 1949 to rush through the hunt ban after peers consistently refused to accept the Commons majority in favour of the ban.

Sir Sydney challenged this use of the Act and questioned the validity of the legislation which as “not truly an Act of Parliament”.

The Parliament Act 1911 allowed MPs to exert their will, however, as long as certain conditions were satisfied.

Sir Sydney asked Lord Justice Maurice Kay, sitting with Mr Justice Collins, to rule that the Parliament Act 1949 had “no legal effect” and that the Hunting Act was therefore invalid.

The challenge is being brought in the names of John Jackson, chairman of the alliance, Patrick Martin, of the Bicester Hunt in Oxfordshire, and Mair Hughes, 46, a farrier’s wife from South Wales.

The crux of the alliance’s case is that an Act of Parliament requires the consent of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Sovereign. The Parliament Act 1911 had the consent of all three but laid down specific conditions on its use. But the 1949 Act, which amended these conditions, did not.

It was matter of fundamental constitutional importance that the Commons had no power to increase its own powers and to derogate those of the House of Lords, Sir Sydney said.

Under the terms of the 1911 Act the Lords could delay or veto decisions taken by MPs on three successive occasions within a two-year period before the will of the Commons was enshrined in law. Under the 1949 Act, however, the Lords veto was restricted to two within one year.

“The 1911 Act gave the House of Commons very great new powers, but they were only and always conditional powers,” Sir Sydney said. The House of Commons, “without the consent of Parliament as a whole - including the House of Lords,” could not change those conditions in order to increase its own power, he said.

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, for the Government, said there was “no doubt” that the 1949 Act was passed in accordance with the correct procedure under the 1911 Act. It was therefore a valid Act which had lawfully amended the effect of the 1911 legislation. Under it a Bill could now become law if it had been rejected by the Lords in two — not three — sessions. The relevant time period which had to elapse before a Bill could complete its process through the Commons without the consent of the Lords had also been reduced from two years to one.

The Hunting Act was therefore “the law of the land”. The hearing continues today with a judgment possibly on Friday.

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