Fox hunting ended in Scotland this week and the House of Commons is debating whether England and Wales should follow suit.

Today MPs from opposing camps North Wiltshire Tory James Gray and South Swindon Labour member Julia Drown argue their cases.

FOR - James Gray MP

LAST week, the secretary of state for defence announced that we were sending the biggest fighting force since the Gulf war into Afghanistan, but said that Parliament was too busy to have a full debate on the subject.

But on Monday, the House of Commons had spent eight hours discussing fox hunting, and on Tuesday it was the House of Lords' turn.

With street crime at record levels, the health service in meltdown, education in crisis and the country at war, how on earth can we be wasting valuable parliamentary time on what is at best a peripheral issue which would be better left to the individual conscience?

Opinions and passions on the subject of fox hunting often tend to get a bit extreme. I respect the views of those who don't like it, but I disagree with them.

The central question is just this: is killing foxes with dogs more or less cruel than doing so with guns, snaring, gassing or poisoning? All of the evidence is that a quick death by dogs is the most humane method available.

Hundreds of jobs lost in the countryside and real damage to our rural culture and to the landscape itself would also be the consequence of a ban. So it seems to me that the best way forward is that if you believe that hunting is cruel, or has cruel practices involved in it and I and a million countrymen in Britain do not then why not agree to a licensing system designed to remove any such cruelties? After all, here in Wiltshire the local hunts on Salisbury Plain have always hunted under a government licence.

So instead of the ignorant, ideological approach of the Labour MPs who voted to ban something of which they know very little, I would appeal to all reasonable thinkers on the issue to get together and work out a sensible compromise.

AGAINST - Julia Drown MP

HUNTING with hounds is an issue that arouses strong passions on both sides.

I see the obvious enjoyment that many get from hunting and have to balance that against the animal welfare issues.

The authoritative Burns Report states that hunting with dogs "seriously compromises the welfare of hunted animals" and recommends alternative ways of controlling foxes where this is needed.

Given this and given that people can continue to enjoy the camaraderie and excitement of hunting through drag hunting, a ban has to be the way forward.

Like bear baiting and cock fighting (though not as bad as these), hunting with hounds will in time be seen as part of Olde Britain where it belongs.

A large majority of my constituents rural and urban alike want a ban on hunting. Of those questioned in January's MORI poll, 72 per cent came to the same conclusion.

What makes some of my pro-ban rural constituents really angry are hunters claiming they speak for the countryside.

It is rural people who tell me of the havoc caused by hunts, and the damage done to fields and animals.

There are other issues that are more important, but this one will not go away and needs to be resolved.

On animal welfare grounds, hunting wild mammals with dogs should be banned.