MPs were tonight set to vote overwhelmingly to outlaw fox-hunting, amid claims that many scores of North Yorkshire jobs are at stake.

The Commons was debating the Hunting Bill, which gave MPs the option of backing a ban on the bloodsport, licensing it or keeping existing self-regulation.

Most Labour MPs were voting for a ban - though some, including Home Secretary Jack Straw, were supporting the Middle Way group's licensing proposals.

Frank Houghton Brown, master of the Middleton Hunt, said today that he directly employed nine people whose jobs would be threatened by a ban, and there were many more who worked with the horses ridden by huntsmen and women whose employment was also threatened.

He said that with more than 20 hunts across North Yorkshire, scores of people were at risk of losing their jobs.

But Tommy Woodward, a former Ryedale hunt saboteur and now an animal rights campaigner, said jobs need not be lost if hunts switched to drag hunting.

"I personally do not give a damn if jobs that are involved in cruelty are lost, but it's up to them to ensure they are not lost."

Mr Houghton Brown claimed that public opinion did not support a ban. "A majority may not support fox hunting. I do not support football but that doesn't mean I want to ban others from playing it."

But Mr Woodward claimed: "Of the people that have an opinion on this issue, the vast majority want it banning."

Neither men had much sympathy for the "Middle Way" compromise, with Mr Houghton Brown claiming that it would simply create an "expensive quango".

Mr Woodward said MPs needed to decide either to allow hunting or ban, rather than sit on the fence.

Tory MP Peter Luff, who co-chairs the Middle Way group, was confident today that at least 150 MPs would back its "compromise" solution.

But Labour backbenchers were certain to vote through a ban.

The legislation will go to the Lords, where it is expected to run into trouble.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would vote for a ban if he were in the Commons today.

But he may fly to Belfast instead to seek to break the deadlock in the Northern Ireland peace process.

He missed the vote on Worcester Labour MP Mike Foster's 1997 Private Member's Bill to outlaw fox hunting, which failed to get through the Commons.

The latest legislation was likely to be blocked in the Lords at the time of the General Election, expected in May.

Ministers believe the spectacle of unelected peers, many of them

Conservatives, defying the will of the Commons will stir apathetic Labour supporters into voting.

Mr Straw was prepared to invoke the Parliament Act to overrule the Lords after the election.

If Labour's majority in the Commons is significantly cut at the election, then the Middle Way group's proposals could gain further ground.

But Mr Foster rejected these proposals. "The Middle Way is not a compromise. It's an option that would allow hunting to continue," he said.

Updated: 11:04 Wednesday, January 17, 2001