PENDLE MP Gordon Prentice is to take a leading role in the battle to ensure there is a total ban on fox hunting.

Along with former Shadow Foreign Secretary Gerald Kaufman he is determined to get the government's compromise proposals amended to the complete outlawing of chasing wild mammals with hounds.

And then he will press the government to force such a plan through an unwilling House of Lords using the Parliament Acts if necessary.

Mr Prentice failed in a bid earlier this month to get the government to abandon its plan for two indicative votes on the issue in the Commons and Lords followed by new legislation in favour of reintroducing the anti-hunting Bill which ran out of time before the General Election in June last year.

After MPs voted for a total hunting ban and Peers for a 'middle way' of licensing and regulating hunting, Countryside Minister Alun Michael promised a compromise proposal in the Commons last week. But this is not enough for Mr Prentice and many fellow Labour backbenchers who extracted a promise from Mr Michael that if the Commons amended the Bill into a total ban, the government would back it and force it into law despite the Opposition of the Lords.

Mr Prentice has put down a motion for the first meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party after the Commons Easter Holiday congratulating Mr Michael for his proposals and agreeing that if they are amended by MPs into a total ban on hunting it will be forced onto the Statute Book.

He said: "My view is the same as it always has been. We need a total ban. "We must stop this prevarication which is only opening the government up to ridicule.

"I intend to take leading part in ensuring that we do get a total ban on hunting with hounds.''