A fox-hunting row has broken out between Conservative backbenchers over the support of several new female MPs for maintaining Labour’s hunt ban.

David Cameron has promised a free Commons vote on repealing the ban, but set no date for the vote.

Many traditional Conservatives oppose the ban, but a group of party MPs, first elected last year, is fighting hard to keep it.

The group, tagged “the blue foxes” includes several women elected as part of Mr Cameron’s push to change his party’s image.

They are trying to prevent a Commons vote on the ban by signalling they would vote to maintain the prohibition.

Combined with the votes of most Labour and Lib Dem MPs, they might be enough to ensure the ban was maintained.

A leading member of the set, Caroline Dinenage, the MP for Gosport in Hampshire, told a newspaper that fox hunting was unacceptable in a modern country.

She said: “I don’t hold with the idea that just because it’s traditional we have to continue to do it.

“If that was the case, we’d still have bear-baiting and be sending small children up chimneys.”

Her remarks were attacked by a fellow Conservative.

Simon Hart, the pro-hunting Tory MP and former chief executive of the Countryside Alliance said the ban should be lifted.

Mr Hart criticised Mrs Dinenage for comparing hunting to bear-baiting. He said: “That sort of remark is straight out of the animal-rights textbook. It is puerile and unbecoming of an MP to say that.”

Mr Cameron has called the hunt ban “a mistake” and signalled that he would like to see it repealed. The Coalition Agreement with the Liberal Democrats pledges a free vote on the issue during this Parliament.