The case was appealed to the Court of Appeal, where it was heard by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf; the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips; and Lord Justice May in February 2005. In addition to acknowledging the limitations stated in the Parliament Act 1911, the court found that "the greater the scale of the constitutional change proposed by any amendment, the more likely it is that it will fall outside the powers contained in the 1911 Act." Fundamental constitutional changes could therefore not be passed using the Parliament Acts, including extending the duration of Parliament and abolishing the House of Lords. However, the Parliament Act 1949, as a "relatively modest and straightforward amendment" to the 1911 Act that did not "extend to making changes of a fundamentally different nature to the relationship between the House of Lords and the Commons", was found to be within the scope of the Parliament Act 1911. The 1949 Act and, consequently, the Hunting Act were therefore held to be valid legislation and the appeal was dismissed.
