Animal activists hail Holyrood move to firm up anti-hunting laws

The bill will stop hunters using packs of hounds to flush out wild mammals unless they have a licence, and also pre-emptively prohibits trail hunting. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Animal welfare campaigners have hailed the decision by the Holyrood parliament to toughen anti-hunting laws as a wake-up call to Westminster.

Màiri McAllan, the Scottish government’s environment minister, said chasing and killing a wild mammal with a dog had “no place in modern Scotland”, as MSPs voted 90 to 30 for the hunting with dogs bill, which aims to close loopholes 20 years after a ban on foxhunting was first put in place, in 2002.