Foxes

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his support for our localist agenda, which we believe is very important. He is correct to put these matters in perspective, although, obviously, if you have had two children bitten by a fox, you tend to take the matter seriously.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on his appointment and I wish him well with his new responsibilities. The Opposition recognise that what happened was a terrible event for the family concerned and we send our good wishes to the children for a full and speedy recovery. As the Minister is, according to the Defra website, responsible for relations with local government, is he planning to have any contact with the local authorities affected by this issue? At the moment, there appears to be no information on the Defra website about this, so can he ensure that advice, information and expertise from within his department will be available to those who want it?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words and I welcome her to her new role on the Front Bench. We shall talk to local authorities, but I repeat that we believe that these matters are best left to them, rather than being dealt with by direction from the centre. Advice on how to deal with foxes is available from Natural England. I can also assure her that we have commissioned research from the Food and Environment Research Agency into what I gather is referred to as immunocontraception. Currently, that is being trialled on wild boars, but it could have relevance for the control of other mammals.