Badger Culling/Bovine TB
Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Kerry McCarthy(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am intrigued that an hon. Member from Scotland has secured this debate, because I did not realise that it was a problem in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman must have few problems with his own constituents to have time to bring forward this debate.
As well as the emotional stress for the farmers involved, the cost to them is tens of millions of pounds. Add that to the costs to the taxpayer and this is a really serious problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) said, the only legal vaccine for badgers is the injectable BCG vaccine. It is in such short supply that it is needed for human use and therefore the vaccination trial in a quarter of the area of Wales has had to be curtailed. I hasten to add that I believe DEFRA is right to budget tens of millions of pounds to try and achieve an oral vaccine for badgers. That is the nirvana and when we get that, we will really make progress.
My constituents in the new badger cull area in Gloucestershire, with whom I have worked very closely and to whom I pay tribute, have had to go through an incredibly rigorous process to get the licence from Natural England. They are responsible for all the training and recruiting of firearms experts—forgetting all the equipment. I say to Opposition Members that they would not go to that huge amount of trouble and expense unless they really believed that a badger cull was the answer, so I think the Government are exactly correct in their 25-year vaccination strategy. We have to use all the tools in our box.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I met people from Natural England a few months ago and they very much gave me the impression that the process was little more than a rubber-stamping exercise and they took their steer from DEFRA as to whether they would go ahead. It came across to me as a political decision rather than, in any way, an academic exercise.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I invited the hon. Lady, when she was the shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister, to come to my constituency and meet some of these farmers, and I invite her to come and meet some of the people who have been involved in this licensing programme. She will find out the hours, days and weeks they have had to spend on this to get a licence. She will be amazed.