Attitudes to Hunting 2016

A new national poll commissioned by the animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports finds that majority of the British public are in favour of keeping a number of activities banned in the Hunting Act illegal: fox hunting (84%); deer hunting (88%); hare hunting and coursing (91%); dog fighting (98%); and badger baiting (94%).

Polls of four marginal constituencies - Bolton West, Nuneaton, Thanet South, and Yeovil - also find similar proportions in favour of keeping various activities banned under the Hunting Act illegal:

Projections were also made for all Parliamentary Constituencies across England and Wales. The projections made use of ONS data and 2015 voting patterns to produce projections from the national poll to show how people might think in a specific constituency. These are estimates of the expected level of opinion given the characteristics of the local population, on the assumption that the opinions of the people there are the same as people of similar demographic characteristics across England and Wales; no direct measurement at constituency level was made, and there is no attempt to account for specific local circumstances that may affect public opinion there.

• Download the national tables (PDF)
• Download the constituency tables (PDF)
• Download the constituency projections (PDF)

Technical Notes:

National poll: Ipsos interviewed a nationally representative quota sample of 1,986 adults in Great Britain aged 15+. Interviews were carried out face-to-face, in home, using CAPI (Computer Aided Personal Interviewing), as part of the Ipsos Omnibus (Capibus). Fieldwork was conducted between 2nd and 11^th August 2016. The results have been weighted to reflect the known profile of the adult population.

Constituency polls: Ipsos conducted telephone polls in four separate constituencies - Bolton West, Nuneaton, Thanet South and Yeovil. The data for each constituency has been weighted to be representative of each constituency in terms of demographics.

A quota sample of 800 adults aged 18+ was set for each constituency. Interviews were carried out by telephone, using CATI (Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing). Achieved samples were 801 in Bolton West, 802 in Nuneaton, 823 in Thanet South and 803 in Yeovil. Fieldwork was conducted 6th July to July 26th in Bolton West, Nuneaton, Thanet South and to July 27th in Yeovil.

Constituency Projections: Projections have been made from the national survey to indicate the expected distribution of opinions in each constituency, given the demographic and political characteristics of that constituency, estimating the opinions of each group of the population from the answers given by similar respondents in the national survey. The projection relies only on the following characteristics of individuals and their local areas which were measured in the survey and for which reliable figures exist on the differences between constituencies:

1. rurality: whether respondents live in a rural or an urban area (as defined by ONS)
2. how they voted at the 2015 General Election,
3. age
4. gender,
5. educational attainment

The analysis makes the assumption that after weighting for these factors, correcting for other differences between constituencies would make no additional impact on people’s views. In practical terms, the projection is calculated by weighting the dataset from the national survey to match the rural/urban profile and political and demographic characteristics of the individual constituency on those chosen variables. In other words, knowing the age, gender and educational profile of the constituency, what proportion of its adult population live in rural areas and how it voted at the 2015 general election, we calculate what we would expect opinion in that constituency to be assuming that the opinions of people there are the same as those of similar people by age, gender, education, 2015 vote and rurality, at the national level across England and Wales. Aside from the Speaker’s seat (Buckingham), the smallest effective base size for these projections is 154 for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and the largest is 1,528 for Stroud.

It is important to note that the survey makes no direct measurement at constituency level, and no attempt is made to account for any specific local circumstances that may affect the state of public opinion in these projections.