Why Are Taxpayers Still Funding An Illegal Bloodsport?
Hunting with dogs was banned in 2005. Twenty years on, the people breaking that ban have quietly claimed more than £2.4 million in taxpayer money.
Read that again. A criminal pastime has been subsidised for two decades.
A new report by Protect the Wild and Grantham Against Bloodsports (GAB) exposes what the hunting industry would rather keep behind a hedge: public money flowing directly into the pockets of groups still chasing wildlife across the countryside.
And according to Glen Black, one of the report’s authors, the figure uncovered is “likely only a fraction” of what hunts have actually received. Because of course it is. When an industry survives on secrecy and dead foxes, transparency isn’t exactly on the agenda.
Two Decades of Public Subsidies for Illegal Bloodsports
GAB has spent more than twenty years digging through public records and FOI responses, a job that shouldn’t fall to volunteers in the first place, and handed Protect the Wild a stockpile of documents, spreadsheets, and evidence.
Their findings?
At least £2,451,885.32 in taxpayer contributions to hunts and hunt-linked groups since the ban.
~£2 million: farming subsidies and business rate relief
Nearly £500,000: COVID support grants
All of it: money extracted from the public to prop up an industry that openly violates the Hunting Act
The subsidies may have been dressed up as “land management” or “business relief,” but the outcome is the same: public funding underwriting a tradition built on domination, wildlife persecution, and the confident expectation of impunity.
The Belvoir And Quorn Hunts: A Masterclass In Taking The Public For A Ride
Some hunts didn’t just benefit, they gorged.
Belvoir Hunt received:
£74,540.78 in subsidies
£81,821.50 in rate relief
£39,500.14 in COVID grants
And that’s only the money we can trace. Add in support funnelled via the Melton Hunt Club and the total from Melton Borough Council alone climbs to nearly £200,000.
The Melton Hunt Club itself collected an additional £121,101.61 in farming subsidies between 2006 and 2022. You’d be forgiven for thinking the Hunting Act had a “don’t worry lads, we’ll still pay you” clause.
“This issue may seem unassuming at first,” Black says, “but the details should highlight why this is such a vile practice. Hunting is illegal… very few, if any, hunts abide by the Hunting Act. Why are they allowed to claim financial benefits that directly support hunting wildlife and breaking the law?”
Why indeed. You try applying for public money while repeatedly engaging in criminal activity and see how fast the door hits you on the way out.
But hunts apparently operate under a different legal physics, one where illegality is tradition, and tradition excuses everything.
Illegal Activity? No Problem, Here’s More Public Money
Protect the Wild notes that some of the groups receiving taxpayer funds have members implicated in illegal hunting, sometimes repeatedly.
Take John ‘Ollie’ Finnegan, former Quorn huntsman:
▫️Charged with illegal fox hunting alongside whipper-in Rhys Matcham in 2021 (case dropped because prosecutions are notoriously difficult)
▫️Convicted in 2022 for a separate incident, magistrates noting a “pattern of offending”
▫️Fined a token £656
▫️Back hunting almost immediately
▫️Fined again last year for illegal hunting in East Cheshire
When ordinary people show a “pattern of offending,” they face escalating consequences. When huntsmen do it, they face a minor fine and a fresh season.
Then there’s the Belvoir Hunt terrier man and his son, who admitted to grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm after attacking two hunt monitors. The hunt denied liability, of course, but still paid £50,000 to the injured charity workers, a settlement that says more than any press statement.
Yet the financial support continued. This isn’t just a public subsidy. It’s a reward system for ignoring the law.
The Bottom Line: Stop Funding Supremacy With Public Money
GAB’s conclusion is deliberately understated: “No financial support should be provided to any hunt or landowner found guilty of illegal activity on subsidised land.”
The real question is why any public money was ever used to sustain an industry whose entire mindset is rooted in domination, entitlement, and the belief that wildlife exists to be chased for entertainment.
Hunting isn’t heritage.
It isn’t conservation.
It isn’t land management.
It’s a social club built on exploitation, and taxpayers have been footing the bill.
If government departments are serious about the rule of law, about public trust, or even about basic consistency, ending financial support for hunts shouldn’t be controversial.
It should be the bare minimum.