The former MP for Aberdeen South is urging her successor to vote against any changes to the Hunting Act.
Labour’s Dame Anne Begg who was toppled by the SNP’s Callum McCaig at the general election, has written to him after a constituent got in touch.
In her letter to the ex-Aberdeen City councillor, she said she was disappointed to learn he may abstain in next week’s vote, announced yesterday by senior Conservative Chris Grayling.
The UK Government will present amendments to the Hunting Act which would align the legislation in England and Wales more closely with that in Scotland.
The changes would enable farmers and gamekeepers to use more than two dogs to flush out and stalk wild animals for shooting as part of the existing exemption in the Act which allows for pest control.
Dame Anne wrote: “You were elected to take decisions for the whole of the UK whenever such measures come before the Commons, especially on an issue your constituents feel very strongly about.
“Please reconsider your position.”
The former chairman of the Commons work and pensions committee was prompted to act after she received a League Against Cruel Sports postcard from a woman who mistakenly thought she was still her MP.
In her reply, the Labour veteran said one of her proudest moments in her 18 years at Westminster was voting to ban hunting with hounds in the rest of the UK.
She added: “I believe foxes deserve our protection whether they live north or south of the border. If fox hunting is wrong, it is wrong everywhere.”
A spokeswoman for Mr McCaig said: “As with all proposals from the UK Government, SNP MPs will decide our position once we have had an opportunity to assess the detail of what they are going to propose.”
Shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle suggested yesterday the government was planning to “wreck” the Hunting Act – brought in by Labour in 2004 – using a “backdoor device” because it had neither the majority nor the “guts” to try.
But the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted the Hunting Act would remain in place and still prohibit the pursuit and killing of a wild animal by dogs.
The amendments, which come in the form of secondary legislation known as a statutory instrument, must be agreed by both Houses of Parliament to become law.