(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Knight of Weymouth
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans there are in future years to continue with a cull of badgers as part of the Bovine Tuberculosis Eradication Programme, following the withdrawal by Natural England of the licence to cull badgers in Gloucestershire.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, this debate follows the decision by Natural England at the end of last month to prematurely halt the extended licence to cull badgers in Gloucestershire. I believe that this decision indicates that the overwhelming view of the independent scientists on badger culls was correct: that a cull is costly and impractical and that continuing for the remaining years of the licensed cull risks exacerbating the serious problem of TB in cattle.
The problem has been growing over recent decades. I live in the south-west of England, where dairy farmers have been particularly badly hit. It has cost the taxpayer as much as £0.5 billion over the past decade in testing, compensation and research, with further sums borne by the agricultural industry. It therefore follows that urgent action must be taken. There is a logic in thinking that killing badgers should be a part of that. Badgers are undoubtedly involved in transmitting TB to cattle and it therefore seems obvious that fewer diseased badgers will lead to less disease in cattle. However, infection is also passed from cattle to cattle, from cattle to badgers and between badgers. The Government are therefore right to pursue other measures as part of their eradication plan for bovine TB, such as pre- and post-movement testing for cattle.
However, in continuing with culling, the Government ignore the most important part of the science: that the social behaviour of badgers produces a much more unpredictable effect due to the effects of perturbation. I am very happy to stand corrected by the real experts in this debate—the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Trees—but in layman’s terms, perturbation is brought about by the territorial behaviour of badgers. A group of badgers will stick to a territory around a sett if they detect other badgers at their boundary but will extend their range in the absence of other badgers.
The randomised badger culling trials carried out by the previous Government, devised by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who I am delighted to see in his place, had clear and undisputed findings. First, localised small-scale culling of badgers in the RBCT increased bovine TB. Secondly, 100 square-kilometre areas receiving widespread culling had lower cattle TB rates than those with no culling. The benefits took several years to emerge but persisted four years after culling ended. Thirdly, land adjoining the widespread culling areas experienced rapid increases in cattle TB. These detrimental effects faded over time but never turned into benefits. The trials, as with the current pilot culls, tried to reduce these effects using natural impermeable boundaries such as rivers.
These findings informed the current government policy. The licensing criteria are intended to produce large-scale, long-term, rapid and efficient culls, as the trials agreed that small-scale, short-term, slow and inefficient culls will increase cattle TB. By extrapolating the RBCT effects to a 150 square-kilometre circle, it followed that Government-led cage-trapping of badgers could reduce local cattle TB over a nine-year period by 12% to 16% below what it would have been with no culling. However, because background TB levels are rising, this 12% to 16% relative reduction over nine years actually represents a slowing of the rate of increase of cattle TB, not an absolute fall. On average, farmers would probably experience as much TB as they do today, or more. Farmers on adjoining land would almost certainly experience increased TB risks. To get this limited impact, the licence required 80% confidence of culling 70% of the badger population in the area.
When the policy was announced in October 2012, more than 30 of the leading scientists in this area wrote to the Secretary of State. At the very end of their letter, they said:
“Implementing these criteria entails substantial challenges, both for government and for farmers and, as a result, beneficial effects on cattle TB cannot be guaranteed. For example, licensees will be required to cull a minimum number of badgers (to avoid net increases in cattle TB) without exceeding a maximum number (to avoid causing local extinction, which would breach the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats). Setting such minimum and maximum numbers is technically problematic, especially when local estimates of badger numbers—”
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, before the Division I was reading an extract from a letter to the Secretary of State from 30 scientists sent in October 2012. I will continue:
“Setting such minimum and maximum numbers is technically problematic, especially when local estimates of badger numbers are very imprecise. Furthermore, shooting the required number of badgers sufficiently rapidly and with due regard to public safety is likely to be challenging in the face of public protest and potentially inclement weather”.
So the Government were warned by the leading scientists.
What do we now know about how the pilots have gone? In Somerset, 65% of the estimated population of badgers was culled in the pilot area. In Gloucestershire, it was just 39%. Based on the science that the Government used to design these pilots, this means that the cull was not sufficiently effective to reduce cattle TB, and in Gloucestershire is likely to have caused more harm than good. Will the Minister therefore tell us when we will get any statement on the record from the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Defra’s chief scientist and the Chief Veterinary Officer, and their analysis of whether the pilot culls have increased or decreased the incidence of bovine TB in Gloucestershire, Somerset and neighbouring areas?
Will the Minister also take this opportunity to explain one other curiosity? The licensing is for trapping and shooting and for free shooting. The data show a sudden increase in the more expensive trapping and shooting halfway through the initial six-week pilot. The extension was stopped at the same time as the cage-shooting season ended, with three more weeks to run for free shooting. This suggests that those carrying out the cull voted with their feet and abandoned free shooting. Is this true? Do the Government expect free shooting to be widespread if they push ahead with a cull over the next few years? Will he publish a new cost-benefit analysis accordingly?
It looks like an effective farmer-led cull is very difficult, due to weather and protesters, as scientists predicted, and due to badgers moving the goal posts, which no one predicted. If an ineffective cull is what we have ended up with, it will make matters worse, so what should we do? The answer appears to be vaccination of badgers. Thanks to FERA trials on the safety of an injected vaccine, we know that it reduces the transmission of the disease among badgers. We do not yet know the effect on cattle, but we could, through the evaluation of vaccination pilots.
The case for piloting vaccination is profound. It plays to the perturbation effect, not against it. Vaccinating an area reduces disease in the badger population in that area while keeping badgers alive. Those badgers then keep out other potentially diseased badgers, thus creating an area where the situation is improving, which also blocks further spread of the disease in badgers.
There are normally three broad arguments against badger vaccination. The first is cost. This objection is because it needs cage-trapping. Given that that is what culling now seems to favour, that element is cost-neutral. Unlike culling, there is negligible policing cost. The pilot culls have cost considerably more to police in Gloucestershire than expected, for example. The remaining element is the cost of the vaccine, offset against the cost of disposing of badger corpses. It is also clear from voluntary vaccination programmes that there is considerable public support. Many come forward to volunteer and some are funding vaccination.
Secondly, people say that we cannot wait for a vaccine to take effect; that it is too slow, with no effect on animals already infected. To that I say: ask the scientists. The annual mortality of badgers is 25% to 35%. Hence, vaccination would work pretty quickly compared to the cull impact of 16% over nine years.
The final argument is that vaccination does not remove infected badgers. The evidence is that, with culling, the reduction in infected badgers is much slower than the overall reduction in the badger population due to perturbation. We know that culling will not reduce the overall level of infection because the overall level of reduction is offset by background levels of rising TB. However, vaccination would at least reduce transmission between badgers without the increase in transmission created by the perturbation effect induced by culling.
To summarise, I am assuming that we mean vaccination by injection; I think there are issues attached to oral vaccine that have to be addressed. There is long-term potential attached to a cattle vaccine, but that is more complex and not something that we can proceed with as quickly as we need to. The Government should look closely at the pilots that they have carried out and then be led by science. This will tell them that culling is impractical, due to perturbation. It may have worked against non-native invasive possums in New Zealand with very different social behaviour, or in Ireland, where much lower badger density leads to much less of a perturbation effect. But the evidence from England is great and consistently shows that it does not work. The efforts and resources spent on culling badgers should be replaced by a vaccination pilot. I look forward to other contributions and to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing this debate and his speedy overview of the issue. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to eradicate this terrible disease and its impact on our wildlife, our farmed animals and our farming community. I want to focus on the cull pilots, which were introduced nearly two years ago to the day. They were set up to test three things: first, the effectiveness of removing the target percentage of badgers; secondly, the safety of culling by free shooting; and thirdly, the humaneness. Let us remind ourselves that free shooting has not been trialled anywhere else in the world for badgers, and therefore I understand the decision by the Government at that time to introduce those pilots—although even before we had the changes in the pilots, with the introduction of cage-trapping and the extension periods to both, I certainly had some sympathy with the view that the boundaries of the pilots were beyond the parameters of the randomised badger culling trials and therefore could not be used as a gauge for the likely outcome of the pilots in analysing the impact of reducing the incidence of TB in cattle.
Given the evidence that we have had of those pilots, it is hard to conclude anything other than that they have failed the efficacy test that was set in 2011. The licence issued specified,
“the killing of no less than the specified minimum number of badgers in a single period of 6 weeks during the Open Season”.
During the period of the two pilots, both of the cull periods were extended: in Somerset, from 42 to 63 days and in Gloucestershire, from 42 to 93 days, with a week intervening in between. Cage trapping has been introduced to supplement free shooting and of course the initial number of badgers has been revised and brought down by the Government. Even with those changes, though, it was still impossible for the cull to reach that 70% of the population that the cull licence required it to achieve.
It has clearly been the right decision for the Government to set up an independent panel to assess the outcome of the two pilots, particularly in the light of their commitment to support evidence-led policy. We all therefore eagerly await the outcome of the IEP. In advance of that, however, I have three questions for the Minister. First, what is the expected time for the delivery of the report from the independent expert panel, given the extension to the pilots and any impact that that might have on the subsequent decision by the Secretary of State about whether to roll out culling in up to 10 further areas?
Secondly, it is critical that we have confidence that the assessment of the humanity of these pilots has been done on the basis of the badgers that were killed by free shooting as opposed to those killed by cage-trapping. Will the Minister therefore confirm that there will be full disclosure of how the data were collected and assessed at the time of release, so that we can be assured of the methods used to kill the badgers?
Thirdly, given that the costs of cage-trapping are significantly higher than those for free shooting, and that the duration of the cull has increased the costs for policing, does the Minister now accept that a new impact assessment is necessary prior to the Secretary of State deciding whether or not to allow the rollout of these culls, so that we know what the net cost/benefit is, both to the taxpayer and the farming community?
The Government have made it clear that they will not do nothing on this important issue, and I applaud them for that. As we await the reports from the IEP, and as the future of licensed shooting is in doubt, I urge the Government to redouble their support for the vaccination programme and to set up a high-level working group to take leadership on this issue and bring together the key players of the NFU, the Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust in order to give best-practice guidance to those in the farming community and landowners who want to take forward voluntary vaccination as a means to tackle this appalling disease.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, for bringing forward this debate. As noble Lords will be aware, I have an interest in this topic, having been involved in the debate about badgers and TB in cattle since my 1997 report on the subject, which led to the establishment of the randomised badger culling trials that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to.
As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, the randomised badger culling trials showed that large-scale, persistent culling of badgers—removing a large proportion of the population—had a modest effect in reducing TB in cattle. The best estimate, which is only a rough guide—confirmed recently by Professor Charles Godfray and 10 top expert scientists in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society—is that the reduction expected after nine years could be 16%. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, the evidence from the randomised badger culling trial was that it made things worse in the early years, and worse for farmers around the edges of the cull areas.
Nevertheless, the Government decided to go ahead with pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset. It is worth reminding ourselves of the purpose of the pilot culls. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, it was not to test whether killing badgers controls TB in cattle but to test whether or not it is possible to kill enough badgers by free shooting, as opposed to cage-trapping, and to kill them humanely and safely. This was stated very clearly in a letter to me from the then Minister of State for Agriculture and Food, David Heath, which said that,
“the pilot is not a scientific trial but rather a test of our assumptions about practical areas of uncertainty”,
and that it would,
“give us sufficient information on both the effectiveness and humaneness of controlled shooting to be able to make a judgement on its acceptability as a culling method”.
However, this is not what the current Minister of State or the Secretary of State say. Quoted on the BBC website, George Eustice said that the pilots,
“will make a difference to disease control in the area”.
Likewise, Owen Paterson said that the aim of the pilots was to,
“achieve the earliest and greatest possible impact on bTB in the area”.
I am confused. Does the Minister agree with David Heath or with George Eustice and Owen Paterson? Are Defra Ministers clear about the purpose of the pilots?
We now know that the pilots have been a complete fiasco. As has been said, there was confusion about the number of badgers in each area, as well as the target proportion to be shot, and the farmers completely failed to meet the target numbers in the allotted time period. Back in October 2012, just before the pilot was due to start, the number of badgers estimated to be in each area went up by a massive 400%. In October 2013, during the cull, the number shot down by 35%.
We know that the Secretary of State accused the badgers of moving the goal posts, but there is another possible interpretation: it might just be that Defra did not have a clue about how many badgers there were in those areas. As has been said, the target of the pilot was to remove more than 70% of the badgers but less than 100%. The 70% target was set because in the randomised badger culling trials this was the proportion that had to be removed to achieve the modest positive benefit to farmers.
Part of the way through the pilots, when it was clear that the target of 70% would be missed, it was magically changed to 53%. Those badgers seem to have moved the goal posts again. Could the Minister please explain to us why the target was changed part of the way through the pilots, and on what scientific basis? Furthermore, why was the maximum proportion to be killed in Gloucestershire lowered from 90% at the start of the pilot to 70% part of the way through? Does the Minister agree that this change means that any farmer who was efficient enough to meet the initial target would have ended up breaking the law by the end of the pilot?
I was quoted some months ago in the press as saying that the pilot cull was a “crazy scheme”. It seems to have got even crazier. However—now I come to my key point—as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, Defra has established an independent expert panel, chaired by Professor Ranald Munro, which will advise it on the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of controlled shooting. I understand that the panel is due to report very soon. If it concludes that controlled shooting is not effective or humane, will Defra abandon its plans to roll out further controlled shooting? I have one further question, which has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter: in the light of the experience of the pilots, will Defra re-evaluate the cost/benefit analysis of the policy?
I could seek answers to many more puzzling questions about Defra’s plans for shooting badgers to control TB in cattle, but I would be very pleased if the Minister would give direct answers to the questions that I have already posed: what is the purpose of the pilots; why was the 70% target changed; will Defra follow the advice of its independent expert panel; and will it do a new cost/benefit analysis in the light of its experience of the pilots?
In concluding, I emphasise that the focus on killing badgers is misplaced. We all agree that TB is a dreadful problem for farmers, particularly in the south-west, and that something has to be done to bring it under control. However, there is no point in doing something if it is the wrong thing. The sad fact is that there are more effective and cheaper ways of controlling TB in cattle. We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, about the idea of vaccination. However, in the short term, before vaccines became effective, putting in place rigorous measures to prevent transmission of the disease between badgers and cattle, and among cattle, would be a more effective policy in achieving a 60% reduction than trying to kill badgers. If Defra were to turn its attention to this solution, farmers, scientists and conservationists would all be relieved, and badgers would be able to take a rest from their task of moving the goal posts.
The NFU has told me that in 22 years, 25% of cattle herds in Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire have never had TB. There may be a clue in trying to understand why those 25% have never had TB. Surely that could give us an indication of what those farms are doing differently that helps to prevent their cattle from getting the disease. That would be a more fruitful approach than the pointless exercise of trying to kill badgers.
Lord Trees (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for bringing this subject forward for debate. I want to try to look at the problem rather holistically, which is a challenge in under 10 minutes, but I will try. Let us be under no illusions: bovine tuberculosis is a major threat to the health of domestic animals and wildlife in Britain today. This is a disease that was almost eradicated from Britain 40 to 50 years ago by means, directed at cattle, that were essentially the same as those we use now—TB testing of cattle and the removal of reactors, although a good many other measures have been put in place that mean that the controls on cattle are even tighter than they were then. A key factor that has changed in the past few decades is the emergence of badgers as a major wildlife reservoir of this infection. There is epidemiological evidence that something like 50% of outbreaks in cattle are related to badger infections.
We are faced now with a problem of infection in badgers and in cattle on a substantial and increasing scale. If I could show the Committee maps of the spread of the infection, noble Lords would see that there has been a relentless spread in the geographical distribution of bovine infection from the original hotspot in the south-west of England, when it was nearly eradicated, to the current situation where bovine TB is threatening the dense cattle populations of Cheshire and Lancashire.
Although there is an understandable focus on the adverse impact on cattle and badger health and welfare, we should not forget that there is another victim of this disease—the cattle farmer who suffers huge stress and distress every time their herd is tested and animals are removed from the herds that they have built up over many years. We do not concern ourselves enough with the human toll that this disease is having. It is a fact that the suicide rate in farmers is the highest of any professional group. Although one certainly cannot claim that this is all due to TB, the fact is that an already vulnerable group of people is being subjected to excessive anxiety and uncertainty. That is the situation that we are facing. When the average city dweller pours their milk over their cornflakes each morning, they may not understand the hard work, worry and commitment that go into producing that daily milk.
What are the options to deal with this disease? Ideally, an effective vaccine for cattle is the solution but for various reasons, which have been made clear most recently by a letter from the EU Commissioner Tonio Borg, it is likely to be some 10 years before a vaccine is accepted and licensed in the EU to be deployed in the UK. Experience shows that in the absence of a vaccine for the target domestic species—in this case, cattle—and where there is a wildlife reservoir of infection, control measures need to address the wildlife reservoir as well as the domestic animal. In the case of bovine TB, there is a wildlife host, the badger, that is present in very high numbers—10 to 15 setts on a farm is not unusual—is in close direct and indirect contact with cattle on grazing areas, in forage crops such as maize and indeed in farm buildings, has no natural predators and is excreting substantial amounts of Mycobacterium bovis into the environment. In this situation, and in the absence of a cattle vaccine, measures directed at the wildlife host, as noble Lords who spoke earlier accepted, are essential as well as stringent measures directed towards cattle.
What are the options vis-à-vis badgers? As your Lordships are aware and as has been mentioned, a vaccine for badgers is licensed for use by injection. It has various limitations, including the fact that a high coverage of the population is necessary to reduce infection and transmission. Something over 40% has been suggested, which is feasible but difficult in a wild animal population compared with a controlled domestic animal population. Animals that are already infected will not be stopped by vaccination from excreting bacteria, and susceptible young animals are constantly being born into the population. Moreover, the animals have to be cage-trapped and restrained to allow injection—itself a stressful procedure for a wild animal. This is one rational approach, and it was advocated by noble Lords who spoke earlier, but it has to be said that the effect on bovine TB incidence is unproven. It is also a very costly measure, as things stand. The current vaccination trial in Wales, which has completed two years, shows that it costs more than £600 to vaccinate each badger. With a population of probably 250,000 to 300,000 badgers in Britain, you need only do the mathematics to determine the cost of vaccinating at least even a proportion of that population.
Still, if interested parties could work together effectively and economically to deliver a vaccine, that would be hugely helpful and doubtless the cost could be reduced. It would require a co-ordinated approach by many different groups, including those working in conservation. In that context, the Welsh Government have offered grant support to private groups to subsidise the cost of vaccination by 50%, and certain conservation groups are seriously considering that option. It is regrettable, however, that so far neither the RSPCA nor the Badger Trust has taken up the invitation to commit funds to achieve badger vaccination.
The Duke of Montrose (Con)
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Can he help the Committee by telling us at what age young badgers catch TB and at what age they can be vaccinated?
Lord Trees
I am not sure whether the data are available but they may be. I am sorry that I cannot answer the question; I would hate to do so without preparation.
The dynamics of infectious disease in general show that reducing the density of the population will reduce infection transmission. This does not require the complete elimination of a population—far from it. However, if the population density is lowered so that the rate at which a primary infection creates secondary infections falls below 1, the so-called parameter R0—the reproductive rate—the infection will subside. We know that in a number of areas the R0 for bovine TB is only fractionally greater than 1; in fact, estimates range between 1 and 1.2. Reducing that to less than 1 may be achievable with modest reductions in the badger population.
The use of contraception is a possibility to reduce badger-population density and would be a humane way of doing so, but research is at an early stage. I am told that it will be some years before we might have a deployable contraceptive method. As well as contributing to the control of bovine TB, a reduction in the badger population would benefit other species that appear to be adversely affected by predation by badgers, such as hedgehogs, ground-nesting birds and some rare species of bumblebee.
That brings me to culling. This has been used to reduce many wild animal populations, including badgers, in various circumstances. We currently cull deer, foxes, grey squirrels, seals, magpies and rodents, among others. No one likes killing animals—I certainly do not—but the majority of us accept that culling animals in certain circumstances is justified, provided always that it is done humanely. Members of this House are complicit in the extermination of rodents within these very walls.
If the culling of badgers can be done humanely and with a sound scientific basis, ruling it out at this stage as one of the tools in the control of bovine TB is premature. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has said, we need to see the report of the independent expert panel on the current trials to evaluate their humaneness and safety, and to understand why the culling rate was less than intended and what factors were responsible for it. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned, a key meeting of experts in 2011 accepted that a reduction in TB incidence of around 16% could be achieved by culling badgers under certain circumstances, and that included allowing for the perturbation effect. One may think that 16% may not sound a huge amount, but if the infection rates from badger to badger, badgers to cattle and cattle to cattle can be reduced by just a relatively small amount so that the infection parameter R0 can be tipped below 1, the disease will be driven to extinction, which is a goal that we all seek.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to follow the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and what I thought was the most interesting contribution to this debate so far, with great respect to other noble Lords who have spoken. The fact that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, published his report 16 years ago and now stands up and says that actually 75% of the farms in the south-west of England have got problems with TB indicates something that the noble Lord, Lord Trees, brought out so clearly.
I declare an interest as a minority partner in a small farm which has been affected, where we have had to face the problems of very inadequate science. The tests produce false positives or false negatives, and perfectly good cattle have gone for slaughter, having given the impression that they had TB when they did not. This is a closed herd and I am in absolutely no doubt that the TB comes from the badgers and that the badgers have led to the increase in the problems with TB. Only on Thursday our neighbour had a reactor and that is a frequent event. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, brought out well the appalling pressure that is on so many farming communities and the number of people who are going out of dairy, some for economic reasons, but others because the problems of TB are so great for them.
I declare another interest, because the first culling area is in my old constituency of Bridgwater and West Somerset. I recall that it was not so bad in west Somerset for a time and then there was an exercise in Devon, which had a particular problem with TB. There was trapping of badgers and testing them for TB, and some very misguided animal rights activists got hold of the trapped badgers and transported them to west Somerset and released them there. I am in no doubt that that significantly contributed to the serious aggravation that they now face.
The other thing is that there is certainly no shortage of badgers. The problem that my noble friend the Minister has to face is how well we can actually count the badger population, but there is absolutely no doubt in my own observation of the number of setts, that there has been a significant explosion. I have to say, as the Minister who took through the Wildlife and Countryside Act back in the early 1980s, that when one sees how the populations of animals that have no natural predator and which are protected have exploded, to the detriment of a lot of other wildlife species, it is necessary to find some way of controlling numbers in these areas.
There is one point about vaccination that did not come out. I was told—I do not know if this is right—that there has to be annual vaccination. If true, that just adds to the extraordinary difficulties. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, suggested that the solution was vaccination. I think he will concede, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and the comments he made from his own professional background, that the idea that vaccination is the solution to the problem seems highly unlikely. Obviously we await the findings of this report with great interest—I as much as anybody, because of west Somerset.
If I might dare to presume to advise my noble friend who will be answering this debate, I would suggest that he does not answer any of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, at this stage. He should give no guarantees or undertakings from the ministerial Bench at this stage, when he has not even seen the report and what possibilities and qualifications there may be in it. It would be much fairer not to answer those questions at this stage, but to say that the report will be looked at absolutely objectively, that it is a very important report and everybody will need to study it. He should not be asked pre-emptively for assurances of one sort and another in advance. I hope the noble Lord does not think that that is an aggressive remark—I understand his concern—but that seems to me to be the fair answer for the Minister to give.
This is an issue from which nobody can take any pleasure. There are a lot of people around the country listening to discussion of these issues who are desperate. There has, so far, been no successful progress on dealing with this appalling problem that has caused such tragedy, including suicides and family break-ups of every kind. At this stage we should try not to score points, but to see how we can work together to find a better way forward.
Lord Krebs (CB)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord King, for those comments. I just want to emphasise that Defra has set up an independent expert panel, which will advise on the safety, humaneness and efficacy of controlled shooting. My question to the Minister is: if the expert panel finds that these conditions have not been met and that free shooting is not effective and not humane, will Defra continue with the policy? It is not a matter of prejudging the outcome of the panel’s results but of asking a conditional question. If the answer is, “We would go ahead even if the panel says that free shooting is not effective and not humane”, that is interesting to know. It is surely something that Defra must have thought about ahead of time.
Lord King of Bridgwater
With great respect, if the noble Lord reads in Hansard what he said the first time around, he will find that what he was asking for was considerably more direct. He was asking for guarantees of certain specific answers. The Minister may disregard what I said but my advice would be not to answer that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)
My Lords, we must not underestimate the scale of the devastation wrought on our farming industry and rural communities by the worsening bovine tuberculosis epidemic; I think most noble Lords who have spoken today have acknowledged that. It is unacceptable that in the 10 years to 31 December 2012, more than 305,000 cattle were compulsorily slaughtered as reactors or direct contacts in Great Britain. Moreover, a further 22,512 cattle have been slaughtered up to August this year solely because of bovine TB. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, over the past 10 years the disease alone has cost the taxpayer more than £500 million. It is estimated that it will cost another £1 billion in the next decade unless we can use all the available tools to intensify the action that needs to be taken.
In the face of such a grave problem, difficult decisions must be made. There is no single solution—no silver bullet—so we must use every possible means at our disposal. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, strict controls on cattle movement must be applied, loopholes closed and measures tightened, a point I will come back to later. However, that alone will not reverse the inexorable spread of this devastating disease. The wildlife reservoir in the high-risk areas cannot be ignored, and it needs addressing urgently. That is why the Government have developed an ambitious and comprehensive strategy for combating the disease, with the aim of achieving bTB-free status for England within 25 years while maintaining a sustainable livestock industry. I thank my noble friend Lady Parminter for her comments on our intention to eradicate the disease.
The strategy emphasises that robust cattle controls must be combined with tackling the reservoir of disease in badgers, drawing on demonstrably successful approaches from around the world. It includes a comprehensive set of controls focused on the different disease risks in different areas of the country. The strategy also covers the development of new tools to control bTB such as diagnostic tests, alternative badger controls and, indeed, vaccination. Tackling the reservoir of disease in badgers is a key element of the strategy and we are committed to making it work. In this matter we must be guided by the experience of other countries which have successfully rid themselves of this terrible disease.
We have clear evidence from the randomised badger culling trial on the role of badgers in the spread of the disease in endemic areas. Work by Professor Christl Donnelly, to which the noble Lord, Lord Trees, referred, suggests that up to half of all cattle herds found to have TB in the high-risk area of England contracted the disease directly or indirectly from infected badgers. The evidence also shows that, carried out in the right way, badger culling will make a significant difference in reducing the incidence of TB in cattle. Other countries, such as the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, have eradicated or greatly reduced the levels of bTB by culling infected wildlife in combination with tight cattle controls.
The results of the RBCT have been used to estimate that culling over an area of 150 square kilometres could reduce new herd incidence of bTB by an average of 16% over nine years: enough to stop the incidence of bTB continuing to increase and even begin decreasing it. We proceeded with pilots this summer to test the assumption that controlled shooting is a safe, humane and effective means of reducing badger numbers. These four-year pilots are closely managed and monitored by the licensing authority, Natural England. The independent panel of experts is now considering the information collected during the pilots. Its report to the Government in the New Year—to answer my noble friend Lady Parminter—will inform the decision on the wider rollout of badger control in those parts of England most severely affected by this disease. The report will be made available to Parliament and the general public. We have always been clear that these were pilots from which we will learn lessons in advance of taking any decisions. We expect to be in a position to take such a decision by the end of February.
Turning to questions raised by noble Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked why the cull had been cut short in Gloucestershire. The decision that the licence for the extension should end was taken following discussions between the cull company in west Gloucestershire, Natural England and the NFU. The end of the cage-trapping season was agreed by the cull company and Natural England as a sensible point to stop activity. The decision was based on the decreasing number of badgers seen by contractors over the preceding weeks, which made achieving a further significant reduction in future weeks unlikely. Given that this was the first year of controlled shooting of badgers, it was uncertain how the winter would affect badger behaviour, but it was deemed likely that even fewer badgers would be seen due to the onset of cold weather, when they tend to stay underground for longer.
The noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Krebs, referred to perturbation. The RBCTs concluded that larger areas would offer greater benefits. The Gloucestershire area is 311 square kilometres and the Somerset one is 256 square kilometres. These are very substantially larger than those in the RBCTs. In the pilot culls, we were able to emphasise hard boundaries around the cull areas: sea, significant rivers and dual carriageways, each of which produces a significant challenge for badgers to cross. We are also conducting biosecurity measures, including vaccination, in the buffer zone around the cull areas. These are some of the lessons of the RBCTs on which we have been able to capitalise.
The noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Krebs, and my noble friend Lord King referred to population estimates in the context of a prospective rollout of culling in future years. Estimating badger populations is difficult, as is the case for all wildlife populations. However, the fact that it is difficult does not mean that we should avoid tackling disease in wildlife. When looking at lessons learnt in the pilots, we will look at how the efficacy of culling could be best assessed in future. In the RBCTs, as many badgers were removed as possible rather than having a fixed target. This approach, repeated each year for a number of years, resulted in an estimated 70% removal rate. This was not based on an estimate of the badger population in the area; instead, an estimate of the reduction of the badger population was made based on field signs and road kill over four years.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, said that in Gloucestershire, the proportion of badgers killed was not more than 40%. It is worth saying that the most effective culls during the RBCTs had removal rates of between 64% and 76%, with an average of 70%. However, three areas had initial culls of lower effectiveness, with removal rates of below 40%. Those areas with low reductions caught up in subsequent years so that the reduction in population at the end of culling was comparable to those areas with good initial culls.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked about the advice from the Chief Veterinary Officer. That advice was that a further increase in the number of badgers culled over the initial six-week period would improve the disease-control benefits achieved even further and enable them to accrue earlier. It was his view that a further significant reduction of the badger population in the first year would increase the likelihood of disease benefits in cattle over the full four years of the cull. A copy of his advice to the Secretary of State on the case for extending the culls in both Somerset and Gloucestershire was made public on 18 October.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked about costs. The costs of the pilots must be put in the overall context of tackling the disease. Each TB outbreak costs an average of £34,000 and if left unchecked the disease will cost the taxpayer, as I said earlier, approximately £1 billion over the next 10 years. We must start tackling TB in wildlife to bring the disease under control and begin reducing the bill to taxpayers. We will know more about the costs of the pilots once the final figures have been disclosed and scrutinised.
The costs of the police efforts in Gloucestershire, for example, are likely to have been higher than expected. However, the uncertainty around costs provided an additional reason for the decision to proceed cautiously with two pilots before considering wider roll-out, where many of the current costs will not apply. The pilots will enable us to test our and the farming industry’s cost assumptions for areas where there is uncertainty, such as policing, and take these into account in a decision to roll out the policy more widely. As planned, costs will be reviewed after the conclusion of the pilots when all the information is available.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked about vaccination. As noble Lords know, there are practical difficulties in using the injectable badger vaccine, including the cost and the fact that each badger must be trapped by a trained and licensed operator. Crucially, the vaccination does not cure already infected badgers and provides only limited protection to a proportion of uninfected badgers. Furthermore, unlike culling, we do not know what effect vaccinating badgers has on TB in cattle. Developing an oral badger vaccine remains a top priority for the Government. It is still at research stage and we cannot say when it will be deployable in the field, but we are progressing with this work as fast as possible and any additional spending will not speed the process up.
My noble friend Lady Parminter and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked what we will do with the independent expert panel’s advice. The independent panel was established to provide a robust scientific peer review of the analysis of the data gathered during the pilot culls to support an assessment of the humaneness and efficacy of controlled shooting. When the panel has finished reviewing the output of this monitoring, it will submit its assessment and conclusions to Ministers. The panel will not be making recommendations about the humaneness of controlled shooting, but its conclusions about the robustness of the data will enable Ministers to make informed decisions about its use as a culling method in future years.
Measures are in place to ensure that the evidence base resulting from the pilots is robust. This is the first time a cull of this nature has been carried out and there are lessons that we can learn from the pilots. The panel’s report will be published in due course after it has been submitted to Ministers, along with the supporting evidence, and in deciding how to proceed we will consider it extremely carefully.
I have a number of other answers that I would like to have given noble Lords and I undertake to write with various answers. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, spoke about the Welsh Government providing funding for vaccination. We are providing the same amount of funding as the Welsh Government to help start-up vaccination in the annual TB testing area, and the fund will also be used to subsidise training and competence certification for staff and volunteers of voluntary and community sector organisations wishing to become lay badger vaccinators.
Although we have much to learn from this year’s experience, conducting two pilots has been a significant achievement and is another major step towards halting the spread of bovine TB. In helping us to achieve this, local farmers and landowners have undertaken the pilots in both areas, often in difficult terrain and weather, and in the face of a sustained campaign of harassment, intimidation and widespread criminal activity. I pay tribute to those undertaking the pilots for not wilting in the face of this and for showing commendable restraint in the manner in which they have conducted themselves throughout.
Controlling the disease in wildlife has to remain a key part of our TB strategy. No country has successfully dealt with TB without tackling the disease in both wildlife and cattle. Unless we tackle bovine TB in badgers, I fear that not only will we never eradicate it in cattle and free our livestock farmers of a huge burden but that we will see the disease in cattle and that accompanying burden continue to grow and spread until the disease is endemic throughout the whole of England. This Government are resolved to prevent this happening and to achieve freedom from TB in 25 years.