Will Defra get waylaid by the reopening of the hunting debate?

When the new Coalition Government launched its programme a couple of weeks ago, they published it on a website where comments can be made -  http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/ and so I thought I would have a look and leave a short comment about the few lines on waste and recycling.

What is noticeable though is that of only 54 comments left in the Defra section, 47 of them are about the proposed free vote on the repeal of the ban on hunting with dogs.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this debate might be, and goodness knows the last Parliament spent enough time on this previously, I do hope that this lack of balance in the interest recorded on Defra's policy agenda doesn't end up reflected in the amount of distraction that a renewal of the hunting debate might bring.  Ministers and officials surely have more pressing problems than messing about with legislation that doesn't seem to work anyway from what many reports indicate and always generates a polarised debate that seems irreconcilable.

For what it is worth, I was in favour of the ban but regret the waste of Parliamentary time that the last Government spent on it when they could have been doing other more useful work.  Let's not repeat that mistake.

Here is my modest comment on waste (lost in the middle of the rage about hunting)...

Working towards a 'zero waste' economy is a laudable objective and is to be welcomed, and I hope that a starting point will be a clear statement that the Coalition Government will seek to be more ambitious in meeting and exceeding the targets set in the Waste Framework Directive, particularly for higher then 50% levels of recycling and on strong implementation of waste prevention plans and the separate collection of materials for recycling.  Encouraging councils to pay people to recycle could be useful, but only as part of a basket of measures and not necessarily everywhere.