Boxing Day hunts passed peacefully in the district yesterday amid a hot debate whether they will continue in their present form.

Around 50 riders, including children, joined the Pendle Forest and Craven Hunt, pictured, which started at Gargrave village green. The start of the five-hour hunt was watched by a crowd of about 150 people.

People also took to the fields during a beagle hunt at a meeting of the Airedale hunt, which started at the Devonshire Arms, near Bolton Abbey.

But the nature of hunting with hounds could change forever after a new Hunting Bill was launched by the Government earlier this month.

The Bill would ban hare coursing and stag hunting, but allow fox hunting if individual hunts can justify it and satisfy a cruelty test.

It was passed by a House of Commons vote of 368 to 155 but will meet fierce opposition in the Lords in the new year.

Michael Bannister, of Coniston Hall, Coniston Cold, who is joint master of the Pendle Forest and Craven Hunt, said: "Hunting is very much a tradition and people love it. My view is that hunting will continue and a licence will be needed.

"The Government doesn't want to abolish hunting.

"Hunting is also a great conservationist event. Conservation killing has to be done and in my opinion it is more humane than catching an animal in a snare or gassing them, because they may not die straight away with those methods."

But today Keighley Labour MP Ann Cryer branded fox hunting as cruel and said she would continue to fight against it. She said if the practice was banned, people could still enjoy horseriding.

"You don't have to be chasing foxes to do it. You don't have to break down farmers' fences to do it. You don't have to be killing small creatures and I think the whole thing is getting very nasty."

Hundreds of demonstrators attended a protest opposing the Whaddon Chase Fox Hounds Hunt in Winslow, Buckinghamshire yesterday.

The protest was organised by The League Against Cruel Sports. It is estimated that 250,000 people were taking part in Boxing Day hunts around the country.

A poll, published by the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance, found 41 per cent of 1,000 people surveyed said the Bill struck a "balance between civil liberties and animal welfare".

But pressure is mounting for a ban, according to The League Against Cruel Sports.

Annette Crosbie, of One Foot In The Grave fame and the league's new president, said action by Boxing Day protesters was "unfortunate but necessary". She said: "You have to make that kind of gesture, because simple reason and logic doesn't really get you anywhere, which is what the Countryside Alliance realised rather quickly".