Badger Cull

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am surprised to be speaking so early in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing the debate. He said that he is amazed that we are still debating this issue after five years. I must admit that, as I was preparing my notes, the phrase that sprung to my mind—it is a moot point whether Einstein actually said it—was:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

That seems to be what is happening with badger culling. We do not have the scientific evidence to support it, as the hon. Gentleman set out.

The hon. Gentleman correctly highlighted the cost of the cull to date, and the fact that there are cheaper alternatives, such as vaccinations. He also correctly highlighted that the Government have now committed to carrying out some vaccinations in edge areas. However, I would like the Minister to explain how there will be proper controls on that, how the effectiveness of the vaccinations in each area will be compared with the effectiveness of culling, and how the Government will make sure that there is no cross-contamination so that the different methodologies can actually be compared.

It was quite disturbing to hear about the poor practice in Cumbria. My research has highlighted real concerns about the shooting and inhumane treatment of badgers and the suffering that they undergo as a consequence. We need to hear what the Minister has to say about the monitoring of the rules and compliance with them. I also agree with the call from the hon. Member for Derby North for the Minister to say how we will deal with the possible terminal decline of the badger in certain areas because of the level of culling deemed necessary to allegedly eradicate bovine TB.

The UK Government’s initial 10-year randomised badger culling trial was actually terminated, with the independent scientific group that monitored it concluding that it was not effective. There was then a change of Government and the new Government pounced on some of the figures that showed that bovine TB could be reduced and decided to permit the cull. However, the quoted possible reduction of 12% to 16% was over several years, demonstrating that the cull is not effective when measured against the effort required. It seems to me that it was a strange policy choice by the UK Government. It is stranger still that the cull is now a shooting exercise, rather than using a more humane method.

As we heard from the hon. Gentleman, as the years have gone on, the costs have accumulated and cull areas have become more extensive across England and Wales, but the disease still exists. However, proper scientific evidence of the effectiveness of culling does not exist. Culling is being rolled out further, but the evidence, if it exists at all, has not got any stronger. As the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has observed, the fact that culls are being operated so differently from the original trials means there is no way to assess their effectiveness. We do not really have any baseline figures against which to properly gauge them, so they seem a futile exercise.

The independent scientific group set out key parameters that should be followed—having boundaries that are impermeable to badgers to ensure a controlled area, and areas of between 150 and 500 sq km, for example—but those are not being adhered to in the current exercise. Again, independent guidance has not been followed, so we really do not know how effective culling is.

Scientific evidence from Ireland suggests that direct contact between badgers and cattle may not be the mechanism for bovine TB transfer, and that badgers actually tend to avoid areas where cattle are present. That means more work is required on the thesis that it is contaminated environments that allow a lot of the transfer of bovine TB. Clearly, the environment remains contaminated even if badgers are culled. We need to do much more research on that aspects rather than continue the culling exercise.

The UK should be able to assess the cost and success of culling against the cost and success of vaccinations. I appreciate that in recent debates—there have been a number on this issue—Members have highlighted that there has been a shortage of vaccinations at times, but that does not seem to be the case at the moment. There have also been new developments, such as oral bait for badgers, which seems to be more cost-effective. All that ties in with the hon. Gentleman’s call for the Government to conduct transparent cost-benefit assessments and release the data so that we can have confidence and scrutinise what goes on.

Fortunately, the risk of bovine TB in Scotland has historically been very low, and there is no evidence of a wildlife reservoir of bovine TB. In October 2009, Scotland was added to the list of European Union member states and regions that have been declared free of bovine TB. The European Commission attributed that to the success of Scotland’s livestock industry working in conjunction with the Government. The Scottish Government recognise the need for confidence on the issue and have introduced a stringent package of measures, including tissue sampling during farm visits, an epidemiological risk assessment, the tracing of cattle, contiguous herd assessments and the need for two consecutive tests with negative results to retain bovine TB-free status.

That aligns with the RSCPA’s call for better cattle husbandry, high biosecurity and improved testing to mitigate cattle to cattle transmission. Its point on cattle husbandry ties in with what the hon. Gentleman said about the need for strict enforcement of controls on the movement of cattle to ensure that they are not moved illegally, that proper source to source tracing is carried out and that people cannot change cattle tags or falsify records. That is clearly important for stopping cattle to cattle transfer.

I hope the Minister will explain how scientific information will be collated, co-ordinated, assessed and interpreted in a completely neutral manner—neutrality is important—and how relevant expert opinion will be taken where required. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

It is a pleasure to respond to this debate, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing it. I am aware that this issue is contentious. The badger is an iconic species. It is a protected species in our countryside. I completely understand that many people have strong feelings about the policy and the approach we are taking. As I and the Secretary of State have said before, none of us wants to cull badgers for any longer than is necessary. However, to answer his question, the reason why we still have these debates is that the Government are of the clear view that it is necessary to have a badger cull as part of a coherent strategy to eradicate TB. We believe that that is firmly underpinned by the evidence—I will return to that because the hon. Gentleman and others raised questions about the science.

The badger cull is just one part of our wider strategy to eradicate TB. The absolute heart of our strategy has always been regular cattle testing and removal. In the high-risk area, we currently have annual testing; we have four-yearly testing in the low-risk area; we have pre-movement testing; we introduced compulsory post-movement testing; we have radial testing in the low-risk area, where we get a breakdown; and we have contiguous testing in the high-risk area on the farms surrounding a breakdown. All of these measures mean that we are regularly testing our herds and regularly removing reactors to that testing.

Diagnostics, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, are important. We recognise that TB is a difficult disease to fight. It is difficult to detect because it is a slow-moving, insidious disease, and none of the diagnostic tests is perfect. However, one thing we have done is make greater use of the interferon gamma test—the blood test—to remove infection from herds when it is picked up. We are also deploying that test more proactively in areas where the cull has taken place so that we can bear down on infection in cattle. We have also introduced a more severe interpretation on inconclusive reactors to the skin test. Diagnostics are important and part of our strategy is to improve testing. We are supporting a number of initiatives to improve testing, but at the moment we are using the more sensitive blood test in conjunction with the skin test to improve our detection rates.

A number of hon. Members mentioned biosecurity, which is important—biosecurity is a key part of our strategy to eradicate TB. A few years ago, I introduced a new accreditation scheme—the cattle health certification standards scheme, or CHeCS. We encouraged farmers to sign up and to take steps to manage risk to their herd, both in terms of risk-based trading for the cattle that they bring on to their holding and in terms of protecting the herd and their farmyard from badger incursion, for instance using fencing. We recently changed the compensation regime to incentivise farmers to sign up to the biosecurity scheme, meaning that if they do not sign up to it they face receiving lower compensation for cattle reactors that they bring into their herd.

We have always been clear that vaccination, which a number of hon. Members mentioned, could have a role, particularly in the edge area, and possibly as a way of getting an exit strategy from the cull once we have borne down on the population. We have been supporting vaccination pilots in the edge area—the so-called badger edge vaccination scheme, or BEVS, which we restarted this year once vaccines became available again.

The difficulty with vaccination, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) pointed out, is that we have to catch badgers regularly to top up the vaccination. It is not the case that we can inject them just once. Vaccination does not cure badgers that have the disease, so the scheme has limitations, but we have always maintained that it could have a role to assist in an exit strategy. That is why we continue, for instance, to fund work to try and get an oral bait vaccine that we could deploy in the badger population.

[Alan Brown]

How do we measure the vaccination in the edge areas as opposed to culling, which has already been happening? The Government must ensure that they correctly compare two different methodologies and that there is not cross-contamination, as it were, given the movement of badgers.

[George Eustice]

That is a very good point and precisely why we have focused our vaccination efforts in the edge area, where we are not culling badgers. The culls are being rolled out predominantly in the high-risk area where we know the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population is a persistent problem, and are using vaccination in the edge area to ensure that we are not vaccinating badgers only to cull them.

We are also looking at cattle vaccination. We have been developing work to do a so-called DIVA test, which can differentiate TB-infected from vaccinated animals so that it would not affect our trade. Cattle vaccination deployed in the hot spots could help to give immunity to our herds, and clearly cattle vaccination is easier to deploy than badger vaccination, because a herd of cattle can be run through a crush and vaccinated—we do not have to capture wildlife to do it.

Our strategy is incredibly broad. No one single intervention will give us the magic solution to tackling this terrible disease. It is a difficult disease to fight, so we need to use a range of interventions. The badger cull is just one part of our strategy, but there are no examples anywhere in the world of a country that has successfully eradicated TB without also addressing the reservoir, the disease and the wildlife population.

TB was first isolated in badgers as long ago as 1971. In 1974, a trial was conducted to remove badgers from a severely infected farm, with the result that there was no breakdown on that farm for five years afterwards. Between 1975 and 1978, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funded extensive work that demonstrated conclusively transmission between badgers and cattle in both directions. Subsequent work in Ireland reaffirmed that finding. In the Krebs review, which hon. Members cited, it was observed that between 1975 and 1979 TB incidence in the south-west fell from 1.65% to 0.4% after the cull—a 75% reduction.

Subsequently, therefore, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, more extensive work was done in three exercises. One was in Thornbury, where the TB incidence fell from 5.6% in the 10 years before culling to 0.45% in the 15 years after culling, which was a reduction of 90%. In Steeple Lees, there were no breakdowns for seven years after badgers had been cleared. In Hartland, the incidence dropped from 15% in 1984 to just 4% in 1985, which was a reduction of more than two thirds.