LABOUR MP Mike Foster's Bill to ban hunting with dogs was cruising through the Commons today, backed by an overwhelming majority of MPs and equally so by voters.

But whatever the case for or against hunting, parliament is not really doing its job in passing judgment on the issue if it has ultimately to consign this Bill to the dustbin.

Yet that is its fate.

This is because the government refuses to provide the time for Mr Foster's Bill to proceed beyond the Second Reading it was receiving with huge backing today.

It may be the government has to be pragmatic, fearing that when the Bill got to the Lords the pink-coat lobby among hereditary peers would do all it could to impede it by filibustering and would thus delay its proposed legislation on devolution for Scotland and Wales.

But, especially in the case of a government that pledges to be in tune with public opinion, it also has a duty to respond to the public will and order its priorities accordingly.

Has it done that so far when there seems like a clear attempt by the Government to dissociate itself from Mr Foster's Bill and the massive public and parliamentary backing for it?

Certainly, if it consulted its influential spin doctors, never mind ordinary people outside the House, the government might realise that, by failing to make time for the BIll, it is wasting an evident opportunity to bolster its popularity and to repair the damage done to it by the still-smouldering Formula 1 tobacco sponsorship row.

As it is, the doom awaiting the Bill highlights the flaws in our parliamentary system - when government agenda compilers and a small minority representing vested interests, like the unelected hunting peers, can obstruct the people's will.

That is not democracy.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.