The government's refusal to back a total hunting ban has been slammed by one of its former ministers.

Former sports minister Tony Banks said the prime minister's reluctance to back the ban was unrealistic.

"There are clearly problems over political will at the top level," said Banks."Obviously he would have preferred the compromise that Alun Michael had put together," he told the GMTV Sunday programme.

"In Tony Blair's mind there is still the feeling that somehow this is an issue that you can come up with an elegant solution for, that you could end up with something that, as it were, gives everyone what they want. It isn't. I mean this is one of those issues where objectivity is difficult to apply."

The comments by the Labour MP for West Ham followed the government's decision to climbdown last week in the face of a backbench defeat in the latest round of the hunting bill.

Despite the victory for Banks, who has been one of the leaders in the anti-hunting campaign, he predicted the issue was far from being over.

"I know procedure of the House pretty well I think and I know how many obstacles could be put in the way," he said.

"There's all sorts of things that can happen so until I've actually seen Her Majesty's signature on the statute I will wait."

Banks argued that Labour had committed itself to a ban in its election manifesto and that the countryside campaigners would have to abide with the new laws.

"People talk about us criminalising people. No, people criminalise themselves. We pass the laws and if people disobey them, they criminalise themselves," he said.

"It is the duty of the police to carry out the law and equally it is the duty of MPs and the government to carry out the will as well as the ends."