Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post. She and I served on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for a number of years in the previous Parliament, so she has had a good grounding for the role that she takes on. The disease is costing us £100 million a year to fight. Doing nothing is not an option; we cannot put our head in the sand. That is why we need to pursue a broad comprehensive strategy. There is no evidence that any country in the world has managed to eradicate bovine TB without also tackling the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment she has made of the efficiency of the Rural Payments Agency in making basic farm payments on time.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We are expecting payments under the 2016 basic payment scheme to be considerably improved from last year’s. The Rural Payments Agency received more than 86,500 BPS applications for 2016. A record proportion of these claims—over 80%—were received online, which will enable the RPA to process them more quickly. The agency is currently focused on paying 90% of farmers by the end of December.

[Mr Robertson]

The Minister will be aware that this is not a new problem; it has been going on for a long time. Non-payment or even partial payment causes a great deal of hardship to farmers. Given that the situation has been going on for so long, what more can he do to make sure that there is an improvement in the forthcoming year?

[George Eustice]

As my hon. Friend knows, we had tremendous challenges in year 1. This was an incredibly complex common agricultural policy with all sorts of additional auditing and recording requirements, and which carried with it complexity and caused problems for payment agencies right across the European Union. On his question about what we are doing to improve things, now that we have gone through last year’s difficult task of getting all the data on to the computer system, and now that we have 80% of claimants applying online, we believe that we are in a good position for the coming year because all the difficult work was done last year.

Badger Culling/Bovine TB

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Monaghan]

I will come to the skin test shortly, but I think that there are more appropriate alternatives to it.

Returning to the point about public funds, it is instructive that the UK Government have never published the total costs of culling to the taxpayer or farmers. However, we know that the first two years of the two pilot culls in Somerset and Gloucester cost the taxpayer more than £14 million; that includes policing costs. That equates to £5,766 per badger killed and compares with an estimated cost of just under £700 per badger vaccinated in Wales.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Part of the trial culls is taking place in my constituency of Tewkesbury. This may be anecdotal, but the farmers there assure me that the incidence of bovine TB in those areas has been reduced since the trial culls began.

[Dr Monaghan]

It must be anecdotal because it certainly does not appear to be borne out by the scientific evidence.

In 2016, the UK Government admitted that the full costs of culling in 2015 had not been worked out but that policing costs alone for three areas were just under £2 million. The additional costs to farmers of the cull repercussions have never been released. In January this year, it was reported that the European Commission had provided the UK Government with half the Commission’s entire budget of €62 million to tackle bovine TB: €31m, then worth £23 million, went on just four programmes. That money, earmarked for dealing with and controlling TB in cattle, as opposed to badgers, is obviously now at risk because of Brexit. In sum, the UK Government’s current policy wastes an estimated £20 million per month and will generate a cost of approximately £2 billion to the taxpayer by the 2038 target. In addition, the UK Government no longer collect data on humaneness. One wonders why. What are the actual costs, Minister, and what do data show on humaneness?

I am arguing not that we should do nothing, but that the UK Government should abandon the TB skin test as the primary means of identifying infection and new herd breakdowns and should adopt modern methods and technologies to address this disease. Specifically, the UK Government should adopt gamma interferon tests—that is, blood testing—and robust systems of biosecurity. Combined with a co-ordinated badger vaccination policy in high-risk areas for bovine TB in England and restricted movement, that course of action would be a more progressive and intelligent option than the relatively crude skin testing and redundant killing of badgers and would realise results within months. It would also be more humane.

Flooding

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. As I have said, the A591 is a national priority. For the first time ever we have Highways England working on it to ensure that that happens as soon as possible.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Although I am absolutely certain that most members of the Environment Agency did work very hard over the Christmas period, does the Secretary of State agree that institutionally the agency is often found lacking when it comes to flood prevention? It seems to lack dynamism, a cohesive approach and the determination to follow through with schemes, which the agency itself often identifies and which local people identify. In Tewkesbury we are well aware of the problems associated with flooding. I have to say that in my area there is a frustration about the operation of the Environment Agency.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. As I said, I was in Yorkshire on Boxing day. What I saw on the ground was some fantastic staff from the Environment Agency working around the clock to protect lives and save people. That is vital. Of course, any organisation needs to learn and get better at doing things. We have a new chief executive, Sir James Bevan, who was with me in Yorkshire on Boxing day. He is clear that he wants to put people in homes and that that is the agency’s No.1 priority. He is going to ensure that any issues raised by MPs are taken seriously and addressed.