Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work he did in this area as Minister. Yesterday I met our stakeholder forum, which involves people from the commercial sector right the way through to local charity and voluntary groups. We can do much better on managing woodland in this country and we are taking the steps that will enable us to do that so that it can be more productive, better for biodiversity and better for local economies too, through initiatives such as Grown in Britain.

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

4. What assessment she has made of the benefits and costs of extending the Cheshire badger vaccination programme to include the borough of Stockport.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

The deadline for applications for the badger edge vaccination scheme, which supports privately-led vaccination in the edge areas of England, which includes much of Cheshire, is 27 February. Decisions will be based on published criteria such as the size of the area, the location, value for money and operational readiness.

[Sir Andrew Stunell]

Sadly, I must report an outbreak of bovine TB in Stockport in my constituency that is just north of the Cheshire area for which bids can be accepted. May I press the Minister to extend the area from which valid bids will be accepted, to take account of the northern spread of this pernicious disease?

[George Eustice]

We are aware that there is a particular problem in Cheshire, and that is why we have introduced six-monthly surveillance testing. The boundaries of the so-called edge area are reviewed regularly on epidemiological grounds. The TB advisory group last considered this issue at the end of last year and decided that there was not a case for increasing testing at that stage. The matter will be considered again later this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady on whisky, and I was also pleased to celebrate Burns night with a Macsween haggis. We have seen fantastic exports of haggis, which are up; we exported £5 million-worth to 28 countries. It is a fantastic night to celebrate, and we are working with the whisky industry, and all other industries, to promote Scottish products.

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

T9. I thank the Secretary of State for her response on dairy farmers, but may I impress on her the damage that fluctuating and falling prices are doing to the industry and farmers in my constituency? Can she absolutely reassure us that she is treating this problem with the seriousness it deserves?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are taking this issue very seriously and are working hard on it. We have just made the announcement about the groceries code adjudicator; we are working closely with HMRC and the Rural Payments Agency; and we are also working on our new countryside productivity scheme, which will be open to dairy farmers to help improve productivity and bring in the capital investment these farms need. We are working hard on this issue, because we know how difficult it is. I have met dairy farmers in Cornwall, Nottinghamshire and Norfolk to discuss it.

Badger Cull

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Hazel Grove is in the northern part of Cheshire or the southern part of Greater Manchester, and Cheshire is on the frontier zone of the northern spread of bovine TB. We are officially an edge risk area. In Cheshire there were 143 outbreaks in 2013 and 829 animals were destroyed as a result. Based on DEFRA’s figures for the average costs, dealing with bovine TB in Cheshire therefore cost something over £4 million, and more than £1 million—more likely £1.5 million—of that cost fell on farmers. The House will therefore understand that I share a lot of the concerns that have been expressed by those representing agricultural areas, albeit mine is a suburban one, but of course I also get a very large number of e-mails and letters from those who are concerned about the culling of badgers.

I want to focus on the efforts I believe it is right to put into preventing the spread of the disease northwards. I have asked the Minister questions about this and I am working with Cheshire Wildlife Trust and the Cheshire NFU on how we might do that. It is feasible to have a vaccinated zone across Cheshire that acts as a barrier to the spread of infected badgers to the north and hence causes a reduction in the transmission of the disease to cattle.

At the end of last year I visited a badger vaccination project being carried out by Cheshire Wildlife Trust with the full support of the NFU, and with a 50% contribution to the cost by the Department, and I want to thank the Minister for the £250,000 fund that is in place for similar projects around the country. One of my questions to him will be whether he can do more on that front, because having a vaccinated zone in Cheshire is a pretty good guarantee of preventing the spread of the disease further north.

I also want to thank the Minister for the support that the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency, which is funded by the Department, is giving to the road-kill testing of badgers in Cheshire. That project is being run by the university of Liverpool, and I hope that it will provide us with more evidence on the prevalence of the disease among badgers, as well as assisting us in reducing that prevalence.

I thank the Minister and his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), for the steps that they have taken to improve data sharing. One of the absurdities of the situation up to about 18 months ago was that data protection legislation was being used to prevent adjacent farmers from finding out about outbreaks. In Cheshire, where herds are frequently moved from one farm to another to exploit grazing opportunities, farmers were at risk of moving animals into an area adjacent to one in which infection had been detected. I am pleased to say that a little more data sharing is now in place, but I ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that data transmission is now at an appropriate level. I am meeting representatives of Cheshire NFU tomorrow morning, and I expect them to tell me how it is on the ground, so he might want to make sure that he has got his story straight.

I am very keen to ensure that we succeed in stopping the spread of bovine TB further north into Cheshire and beyond. That is why I very much encouraged the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and the NFU to work together on vaccination. I want to point out that vaccination is not quite as simple as we in the House sometimes make it sound. There is a narrow calendar window during which the badgers can be vaccinated. They spend the winter months in their setts and are inaccessible. There is a narrow period of time during the day, too, when vaccination can take place. It has to be early in the day and they have to be trapped as they come out overnight.

The trapping is not simple: we do not want to catch rabbits or foxes; we want to catch badgers. The trap has to be laid in a particular way, and the bait has to be under a suitably heavy stone that neither rabbits nor foxes can move, but that badgers can, in order to shut the trap. I am impressed by the care and thought that goes into the capture of the animals, and by the professionalism that is needed to do it.

The day I visited a farm in the south of Cheshire, eight or nine traps had been laid, and they yielded four badgers. One professional gentleman had spent a whole day setting the traps, vaccinating the animals, releasing them and clearing the traps, and he got just four badgers. It is slow, complicated work, and of course that process has to be repeated each year. I am not decrying the process; I am simply saying that there is not a solution to this problem that can be achieved by waving a magic wand.

Will the Minister give the House an undertaking that those of us who live in edge risk areas—the frontier zones, as I call them—will have all the support that is needed for an intensive vaccination programme to prevent the spread of the disease northwards? Will he ensure that the data sharing relating to outbreaks is at a level that will really prevent the possibility of herds being unwittingly moved back into infected areas?

I also want to raise a point that was put to me by the Cheshire Wildlife Trust. In carrying out the vaccination programme in south Cheshire, the trust discovered more or less the same thing that had been discovered in the culling areas—namely, that there did not seem to be as many badgers as people were expecting. Does the Minister think that the assessment of the density of the badger population, on which the whole culling exercise seems to have been based, is a realistic one? Is he satisfied that the calculations that spring from that assessment have been made on a sound basis? If, when we get to the capture of animals—or in the case of culling, the destruction of animals—the animals simply are not there, the whole calculation becomes different. For those of us in the edge zone—the high risk zone—the solution on offer is not culling but the creation of a cordon sanitaire. The problem is not easy to resolve anywhere, but we believe that there is a specific solution that will do exactly that, at least in our area, and I would like the support of the Minister in achieving it.

Natural Capital (England and Wales)

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I want to make just a few brief comments. I add my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) on all the work she did as Secretary of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As I was a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government at the same time, I particularly commend her initiative in setting up a regular breakfast meeting of green Ministers across Government, which gave an opportunity for some of the cross-fertilisation of ideas that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) requested. I hope that the Minister can assure us that those cross-governmental ministerial links are being maintained. That is an important part of ensuring that the intention is translated into reality.

I also commend the natural capital committee for its work and the focus it is bringing to this matter. I want, however, to pick up the point about how the governance will be managed. It is good that the committee is reporting to the economic affairs committee of the Cabinet, one of the most senior in the Government and one that is chaired by the Chancellor. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said, however, the meaning and context of that do not necessarily penetrate far into the civil service machine.

If there had not been a request from hon. Members to the Backbench Business Committee, the subject would not have come before Parliament to be debated and discussed at all. Will the Minister give us some idea of how he believes the Government will manage the governance of the process? Will they ensure that when recommendations are made those involved are given serious professional support by the civil service in making presentations to the economic affairs committee and that the recommendations do not come in as item 13 on a busy day but get some serious consideration with proper ministerial input?

There is no doubt that to do what has been asserted in the natural environment White Paper and subsequently by the natural capital committee does not require merely that an existing Government process should carry on while just being slightly better. Doing that needs a fundamental and complete shift in Government thinking, and that is not likely to be delivered by an external committee reporting to a Cabinet committee. It requires clear ministerial direction and, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North said, that is needed across Departments of every type and shape.

I hope that the Minister can give us those assurances. I know for a fact that the Government’s intentions are excellent. We have laid some good foundations, but if we want some good outcomes I believe that getting the governance right will prove to be the key to success.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The fact is that we are going from 7 billion to 9 billion people. There has been complacency in this country over recent years, because there was unlimited, safe and easily accessible food to be bought abroad. We want to make sure that we have an extremely efficient, high-tech agricultural sector producing food. I take food security extremely seriously and welcome large, efficient farmers.

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

7. What progress his Department is making on the establishment of marine conservation zones.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

We are analysing all the responses and evidence submitted following the recent consultation before making final decisions on designating the first tranche of marine conservation zones later this year.

[Sir Andrew Stunell]

I thank the Minister for that reply. He will know that the Select Committee was getting a bit frustrated about this, and the Government’s response to the Committee did not improve the situation. Does the Minister understand that there is real frustration about the slow speed at which this is going and the apparently arbitrary way in which the Government have selected the zones? Will he reassure the House that they are serious about delivering the policy?

[Richard Benyon]

I assure my right hon. Friend that I share his frustration. I inherited a system that created huge expectations but which did not match the evidence required to make these zones work. We are now seeking to make sure that they are evidence-based, affordable, fit in with what happens locally in the seas and part of a coherent package.

Pollinators and Pesticides

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am responsible for a large number of things in my Department, but the scheduling of House business is not one of them. In my previous post, I might have been able to give the hon. Lady an answer, but in my current post I cannot. To be honest, now would not be the best time to have that debate because we are just reaching what we hope will be a conclusive meeting of the Council of Ministers. After that, we will have a much clearer idea of the outcomes and how they will be effected in the UK.

We recognise that there is still a need for targeted conservation action for our most threatened species. Natural England’s species recovery programme is designed to help with projects to support priority species, such as the short-haired bumblebee. Many Members have made the point that we are talking not just about the honey bee, but about many other native bee species and other non-bee pollinators. My noble Friend Lord de Mauley has announced that he is considering the development of a more holistic health strategy to cover all pollinators. He has been meeting interested parties, such as Friends of the Earth, to explore what added value that approach could bring.

We will continue with our wider work to understand and counter the various factors that harm bees and other pollinators. DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser and Ministers have met a number of interested parties to discuss that work, including non-governmental organisations. We will seek to host discussions with other stakeholders over the summer.

As I have said, there are many things that we do not yet understand about the reductions in pollinator populations. There are many major factors, including the varroa mite, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), foulbrood and the undoubted effects of climate change and environmental and ecological changes in this country. That is why some experts are very unclear as to the quantifiable effect of pesticides. The British Beekeepers Association keeps an open mind on that, as do we. We want to know what the connections are and to see the evidence.

Let us return to the issue of pesticides. As we heard in the debate, the European Commission recently adopted a ban on the use of three neonicotinoids on crops that are “attractive to bees” and on some cereal crops. The ban also covers amateur use, so the Government do not need to bring in an extension.

It is documented that we did not support action, the reason being that we had urged the Commission to complete a full assessment of the available scientific evidence, taking into account new field research that we had carried out. Let us talk about that because it is a serious issue. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North asked whether we reject laboratory evidence, but of course we do not; it is extraordinarily important. However, we would like some coherence between what we see in the laboratory and what we see in field trials. That does not make field trials the only thing that matter, but such a correlation is not presently there.

From laboratory tests we are clear that neonicotinoids have a toxicity for bees. We do not know, however, what the exposure is in a natural environment, and the two things go together. Many things are toxic but do not create a deleterious effect in the field simply because the exposure is too low. That is where we must do a lot more work, and that is exactly where we are commissioning it. We were clear that the work done by FERA was by no means a satisfactory field trial. We never pretended that it was; it had to be done quickly to meet a timetable—set not by us, but by others—to give at least some indication of whether that correlation was there. Incidentally, I will not accept criticism of FERA scientists on that basis. They are extremely good and do their work in a totally dispassionate and independent way on the best scientific principles. They were asked to do a quick piece of work—which they did—and that is why it was not peer reviewed, as would be normal practice. We felt it was important to put the matter in the hands of the Commission, which was about to make a decision on a highly contentious subject.

I make no apologies for recognising that there is, of course, a strong imperative to look at evidence that suggests a toxic consequence and, where possible, to take a precautionary approach to these matters. However, a precautionary approach is not as two-dimensional as sometimes suggested and must take into account the consequences of the action in question. The hon. Member for Glasgow South mentioned the economic consequences, and of course that is a factor, although not an overriding one.

Of far more concern is a point also raised by hon. Members about alternative pesticides that are fully legal under EU law and that it would be perfectly proper for people to use, such as pyrethroids, organophosphates or carbamates, because the potential is that they would be even more damaging to the pollinator population. That concern does not mean that we should not take action against neonicotinoids if the evidence is clear that they are causing problems in field conditions, but it was not unreasonable to say that the paucity of field-trial evidence was astonishing.

I do not have portfolio responsibility for this matter, but when I looked at it with a view sympathetic to what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North was saying, I was amazed at how little evidence there was in field conditions, which I think exposes a failure of the scientific world to address the problem. I hope that we can play our part in persuading others across the European Union to take a more rational view of where we concentrate our research so that we get the evidence we need, and that is what we are trying to do. Although our assessment is that the risk to the bee population from neonicotinoids, as currently used, is low, we may be wrong and evidence may come forward from trials that shows otherwise. If such evidence is there, we shall, of course, accept it, but we need more complete evidence than we currently have.

The European Commission has committed itself to a review of evidence by 2015, which we want to be founded firmly on a strengthened scientific evidence base. We will play our part in that and are currently talking about the design of field trials that might be in place during the moratorium period, so that we can gather evidence, not just on the honey bee, but on other bee species as well. The FERA research was on the bumblebee rather than the honey bee. It is important that we understand how other species are affected.

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I take a great deal of pleasure in knowing how much my hon. Friend knows about the subject and how sincerely he takes it to heart, but does he understand that some of my constituents see the careful words he has just spoken as indicating that the Government are ducking and weaving? May I ask him, in the nicest possible way, whether the Government will be in a position to take a decision when the further research is done or whether they will want still more research to be that little bit more certain?

[Mr Heath]

Let me be very clear—I am not the world’s greatest scientist, although I have a scientific degree—that we cannot have scientific certainty; we can have only a balance of probabilities based on evidence. We think that the evidential basis for the decision is weak because we do not have evidence from field trials. If the evidence suggests that laboratory results are replicated in field conditions, we will want to take a decision, because we want to protect our pollinator populations. That is important.

I have very little time left because the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North needs to respond to the debate. She asked three questions, including one on the precautionary principle. I hope I have explained our approach on that. She asked about the research and the difference between laboratory and field studies, and about the EU directive on the sustainable use of pesticides, which I believe the Government will implement in full. More work needs to be done on pesticides across the board. It is a misrepresentation to say that the wicked seed companies are pulling the wool over the eyes of the rest of the world. We need transparency of evidence so we know exactly what is happening during the regulatory process and beyond. We are speaking to those companies to ensure that they provide the greatest possible transparency.

The hon. Lady asked what changed between the abstention and the decision to vote no. The answer is that we pressed and pressed again on the need to commission the evidence that we believe would have given a sound basis for the decision, but we did not secure agreement. That is why we are in the position we are in.

The Government are determined to do everything we can to protect our bees and pollinators. They are essential not only to our economy, but to our environment and our ecology. We will take all necessary steps to do so.

Badger Cull

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I was going to come on to deal with that question but I will touch on it now. Clearly, an effective badger vaccine has a valuable role to play, once the disease is under control. I have discussed this at length in the Republic of Ireland, where they have got the disease well on the way down. Once it can be got to those really low levels—this answers the question from the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty)—there is a definitely a role for a badger vaccine. There is no question about that, but the vaccine has to work.

My worry—I am jumping ahead a bit in respect of Wales here—is that at the moment there is nothing to be gained by vaccinating a diseased animal. Such an animal can continue to be a super-excreter and can continue to spread disease. That is the problem I have with the Welsh experiment. We are very interested in it and we will watch it carefully, but from my travels—I was particularly struck by the Irish experience, and they have done a lot of work on this—I know that the lesson is, “You have to get the disease down to a certain level to get healthy badgers, and then you protect them.” We all want to see healthy badgers living alongside healthy cattle, and the real lesson from Ireland is that the average badger there is now 1 kg heavier than before the cull was begun there. So the Irish have achieved where we want to go; they are getting a healthy badger population, which is exactly what we want, but that is the point at which vaccinations can be deployed. I am not entirely convinced that the Welsh Government are on the right track—I think they are going in too early, because they have not got a grip on the disease—but we wish them well.

Sadly, vaccination is incredibly expensive. The cost of vaccination in Wales stands at £662 per badger or £3,900 per square kilometre per year. Even if the practical difficulties could be addressed, we know that a large-scale programme of badger vaccination would take longer to achieve disease control benefits compared with a programme of culling on a similar scale.

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

May I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to one area of healthy badgers, just to draw on his point about vaccination? Cheshire is on the frontier in terms of the disease spreading north. I am working closely with Cheshire Wildlife Trust and the National Farmers Union to see whether there is the possibility of having a vaccinated band of badgers across Cheshire to prevent that northern spread. Will he work with those two organisations and me to see what can be practically achieved?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that useful question. I know that he is already talking to my hon. Friend the Minister of State about it. It is certainly worth examining the approach of creating rings, but the lesson from other countries is that we have really got to get the disease reservoir down first and then we can create a band. The problem is that with the level of disease we are talking about we cannot gain an advantage by vaccinating a diseased animal that is already a super-excreter—it can go on excreting disease in huge volumes. Another of my questions revealed that 1 ml of badger urine produces 300,000 colony forming units of disease, and it takes very few—a single number of those—to infect a cattle by aspiration. Such an approach will not have the effect, so what my right hon. Friend is talking about is well worth looking at, but in parallel with that we have to get the disease down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

We always need to be aware of welfare issues in farm animals. This country has nothing to be ashamed of in the standards we have, compared with those of many others. We continually press at European level for common agreement on levels of farm animal welfare, and we will continue to do so.

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

18. Dairy farmers in Hazel Grove are on the front line of the spread of bovine TB from the south, and they are astonished that DEFRA will not release information about infected herds in their area. Will the Minister take a second look at the reply he gave to me in a written answer and meet my farmers to discuss the issue?

[Mr Heath]

I will certainly be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these matters if that would be helpful, because I understand entirely the concerns of farmers in his area, which are shared by people across the country who face the devastating scourge of bovine TB.

Animal Welfare (Exports)

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The point was dealt with earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and the explanation she gave about exemptions for particular species in regions and areas covers that. I was not setting out my position; I was putting on the record the RSPCA’s position, out of gratitude for the briefing and information they supplied me, so that it is in the public domain for anyone listening, watching or reading afterwards. They will be able to weigh that up in the mix and decide whether it is something that they want to support.

On Ramsgate versus Dover, the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire suggested that the decision may well have been a commercial one taken by the ferry operators because they did not want to inflame or outrage public opinion and were aware of the power and influence of the animal welfare lobby against live exports. The perverse outcome is that instead of the animals being transported on vessels that are quicker and better equipped to carry cargo, and having better animal welfare facilities available much nearer the port, the animals have to go to the port of Ramsgate in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Thanet. It is clearly not as suitable and it does not have the facilities. Clearly, the vessel she described was not built for this particular trade. The perversity of the outcome leaves a bad taste; it is a success for those lobbyists who chased the trade from Dover, but the animals have to go through the additional journey time, the additional discomfort and so on. I am not sure that that counts as animal welfare. It certainly does not address animal welfare concerns as I would understand them. I look forward to hearing whether the Minister has anything to say about that.

The second issue is the incident in September. Yesterday, I had a meeting with the NFU and I have also received a briefing from it, for which I am grateful. I know that the NFU has written to the Minister, asking a number of questions. Who made the decision to unload? Who decided to kill the animals and which ones to kill? What were the reasons for the kill? Why were the animals unloaded on to an uneven surface? Why were there open drain pits and animals drowning, not just being shot? Were they shot in the right part of the head? What were the skill levels of those involved, who were clearly moved by compassion and tried to do the right thing? When we see the photographs of the blood, the animals and the discomfort, we see that this clearly was not done in a way that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire would recognise; it was not done in the professional way that we would all expect. In that instance, there are serious questions to which I hope the Minister will be able to respond. I know that there is an inquiry going on and that he might very well be constrained in how much he can share with us, but a commitment to ensure that that is in the public domain as quickly as possible so that we can return to the subject will, I am sure, be welcome.

I hope, too, that the Minister will make comparisons between the trade from the south-west and Wales to Ireland and the trade to the continent. I do not hear the noises from Wales—I do not hear about protests at Holyhead or people complaining about the live trade there, so I assume that that trade works in the way that the Department and industry want it to work in contrast with the way it is operating at Ramsgate.

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying and he is setting out his case very clearly. Does he agree with many of my constituents that the important thing is to establish what happened and ensure that it never happens again?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

That is a very good question to conclude the points I am making to the Minister. As I said in my opening remarks, there are two distinct questions. One is about live exports as a trade. Although I do not eat meat and poultry—my cards are on the table—that is a matter of choice and if the trade is legal, which it is, and if people are making a living out of it and there are jobs and economies at stake, I would go along with it. What happened at Ramsgate is a whole different ballgame, and the concerns about Ramsgate’s suitability as a port were well expressed by the hon. Member for South Thanet, in whose constituency the port is situated. In that instance, those questions are very valid.

As I have said, trade is legal and we found out from the exchange between the hon. Member for South Thanet and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East that we are talking about 0.5% of UK trade in sheep. Regulations are supposed to cover the facilities, the transportation, the haulage companies and the principle of animal welfare. The questions are therefore about the relevance of the rights, their validity, their monitoring and their enforcement. There are many questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer, although we recognise that he will not be able to answer all of them. I look forward to even better reassurances than those that I was able to give when I was sitting in his place.

Bovine TB and Badger Control

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

There are a number of figures, but I think I had better write to the hon. Gentleman to give him a proper reply. There will be some figures for the policing, which was touched on, and for work on the cull itself and compensation. I will return to the big figure: we spent nearly £100 million last year, and unless we get a grip on the disease, that will look like a round of drinks compared with the figure of £1 billion to which we are heading.

[Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. May I remind him that bovine TB is gradually spreading north through Cheshire, and may I draw his attention to the initiative of the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, which says that it will run a voluntary inoculation campaign? That has attracted the attention and support of local farmers. Can we use this pause to get behind that initiative and see whether it provides a way forward?

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my right hon. Friend. Similarly, in my patch in Shropshire—I was there only 10 days ago with my hon. Friends the Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and for Ludlow (Mr Dunne)—a trial of injecting badgers is being conducted. Those trials are interesting; we will look with interest at the results, and I commend them. However, is it seriously a practical proposition to inject each of the nation’s 250,000 to 300,000 badgers every year, knowing that we cannot mend a diseased badger? Once a badger has the disease, we cannot get rid of that by injecting it. These are interesting trials; they may have some merit and I am not dismissive of them, but they are not a long-term answer.