Alun Michael last night appealed for "respect" as countryside campaigners scuffled with police in Parliament Square.

Protesters blockaded Westminster as the Commons debated the future of hunting with hounds.

The rowdy scenes prompted Labour MPs and ministers to attack violent countryside supporters of field sports.

Reading MP Martin Salter interrupted the debate to tell the chamber that "a lighted flare was thrown by pro-hunt supporters at the Labour MP for Milton Keynes South West (Phyllis Starkey)".

"Is this their idea of free speech and a genuine expression of protest?" he asked.

MPs also spoke out strongly against the government's compromise deal which would allow hunting with hounds to continue in some areas.

The bill, which anti-hunt MPs hope to amend, was given its second reading by 368 votes to 155 - although scores of Labour MPs spoke out against anything short of a total ban.

Former frontbencher Gerald Kaufman said the bill as it stood would "arouse outrage in the Labour movement".But there were loud calls for the pro-hunt lobby too. Baroness Mallalieu, the president of the Countryside Alliance, warned the government that it faced "a serious amount of trouble" if it refused to back down on plans to restrict hunting.

"We don't want an unjust bill, which does not have the support of the community to which it applies and I think we are looking at a serious amount of trouble if that happens. I think it would be rather serious," she said.

"Communities feel they have been very badly let down. They have shown enormous restraint and if they feel they have been treated unjustly, having put their arguments, they will feel excluded."

The rural affairs minister hit back at the demonstrators.

"Given the amount of time I have taken to listen again and again to such groups it is disappointing that they are not showing similar respect to the processes and to parliament," he told MPs.

Appealing against a "tribal" conflict over hunting legislation, Michael told campaigners that it was time for parliament not protestors to have the last word.

"In a free society everyone has the right of peaceful protest. But I would remind the Countryside Alliance and their supporters that the process I have undertaken has involved them at every stage and has been every bit as open and transparent as they asked," he said.

"It is now for parliament to look at the outcome of that work and take the decisions.

"I ask the Countryside Alliance and their supporters, including the more extreme wings and some Tory MPs, to show the respect to parliament that I have shown to them over the last few months."

Amid accusations of riding roughshod over rural feeling and cries of betrayal from Labour MPs ministers are in hot pursuit of compromise on a heated manifesto issue that has dogged the government since 1997.

The rural affairs minister urged MPs and peers to back the government's compromise deal which would allow licensed hunts to continue in some areas.

Michael is chasing an end to the stalemate between the Commons and Lords on hunting.

MPs - with a large majority on the Labour backbenches - back a total ban on hunting with dogs.

Nearly 200 MPs have already signed a motion saying only a total ban on hunting will be acceptable.

It is a stance that pits the Commons against peers and has dominated the parliamentary agenda for several sessions.

Michael has signalled that the government will force the legislation through even if Labour backbenchers amend it to end hunting with hounds.

"What we want to do is to have the bill scrutinised and improved, but at the end of the day, if it came to that, we have made it clear, there is a manifesto commitment, that we will enable parliament to reach a conclusion on this issue," he told Sky News.

"The more sensible the conclusion, the more people who accept that it (the Bill) is actually based on principle and therefore should be allowed to pass through, the better, because that increases the acceptance."But the point is at the end of the day that this can't go on. It has gone on for years, it has taken up parliamentary time, there are far more important things to be dealing with than hunting, and therefore we need to bring it to a conclusion."

Any decision to use the Parliament Act to secure the legislation will lead to bitter recriminations between ministers and a largely pro-hunt House of Lords.

And anti-hunt campaigners are gearing up to mobilise MPs against a compromise deal viewed as soft on cruelty.

Under the proposed legislation hare coursing and stag hunting are to be hit with an outright ban.

Other sports such as falconry, fishing, or shooting will remain unrestricted.

Hunters with hounds will be licensed if they can "show that firstly there is utility, it is actually necessary in order for them to deal with pests, with the health of animals, the protection of crops".

And secondly hunts will "have to show that there isn't another way in which they could get rid of the pests or control numbers which is less cruel" before obtaining clearance from a tribunal.

Anti-hunt campaigners reckon that proposals could allow up to 90 per cent of hunts to continue.

The Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals will oppose a bill, that unamended, will outlaw 27 hare coursing clubs and three deer packs, but, in principle, allow the country's 201 fox hunts, 80 hare hunts and 23 mink hunts to continue under official licence.

The compromise proposals on foxhunting could also lead to volunteers policing licensed hunts to ensure that meet the tough licensing tests on "utility and cruelty".

Countryside campaigners and Conservatives are angry over plans to give cash hand outs to anti-hunting groups and organisations.

The bill could see funding to allow the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the League Against Cruel Sports or the International Fund for Animal Welfare to contest hunt applications.

Conservative rural affairs spokesman, James Gray, believes the planned subsidies to animal welfare and rights organisations are "disgraceful and absurd".

He argues that to make grants to one side is unfair. "I want to know who these animal welfare groups are," he said.

"I assume it is going to be the RSPCA, the league and IFAW, but if so how much are they going to be paid and why? This could not have anything to do with the £1 million paid to the Labour Party before the last election by the Political Animal Lobby, IFAW's sister organisation, could it?"

The Countryside Alliance is outraged at what it sees as a bias in favour of animal welfare campaigners.

"It really is outrageous that so-called animal welfare groups should be paid by the taxpayer to object to registration while hunts are expected to pay to for the privilege of being registered," said director of the Campaign for Hunting, Simon Hart.

Anti-hunt groups are holding out for a total ban and consider the move to licensed hunts as costly - and possibly unworkable.

"There is a real possibility that this system could be a bureaucratic nightmare. Certainly it has the potential to be very costly but our aim is to see an outright ban on hunting," said the RSPCA.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare has warned that licensed hunts will need to be watched closely.

"Unless our people are out observing, the hunt is a law unto itself," said Lis Key of IFAW.

"The whole set-up will be incredibly difficult to monitor. We have very few resources - and what sort of evidence would our people be expected to obtain?"