n MRS Williams blames the "unelected" House of Lords for causing so much time to be spent on the hunting issue as though the Lords have no role in our constitution and therefore no right to take a different view from the government (Letters, Friday, April 1).

She clearly has little understanding of what is meant by "the checks and balances" of a bicameral system of democracy.

There would have been zero parliamentary time spent on hunting had the Government not decided to make it an "issue" in the first place.

The reason so much time was spent on it is that, while essentially trivial, it involved new criminal legislation - which is emphatically not trivial.

It is a fundamental role of the Lords to guard against "elective dictatorship", and particularly so when, as in this case, a legislative proposal is aimed at a cultural minority for reasons that are clearly more to do with prejudice, political spite and reward for large financial contributions to the Labour Party than anything else.

The Hunting Act seeks to criminalise an activity that has been part of the fabric of rural life for centuries and which involves hundreds of thousands of dissenting but otherwise model citizens. Make no mistake, we have not heard the last of it yet

To remind your readers - this government deemed it appropriate to spend more than 700 hours of parliamentary time on hunting and just seven on whether to wage war in Iraq.

It's high time they were given another spell in opposition to sort their priorities out.

PETER PRESLAND,

Secretary,

Hunting for Tolerance,

Birmingham.