Badger Vaccines

Andrew George Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[David Morris]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

On the potential for the Government’s policy to make the situation worse, that is likely to happen if the cull levels are as low as they are reported to be. I have to congratulate the Government, however, on their support for a proposed community-led badger vaccination programme on 200 sq km in my constituency, in the Land’s End peninsula, Penwith. The first year of vaccination on contiguous farms is going ahead with the support of Professor Rosie Woodroffe of the Zoological Society of London.

[David Morris]

I would like to see similar programmes rolled out nationally.

I must make some progress. The latest parliamentary report was published by the all-party group on dairy farmers, which was established by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). The group had 250 members, of whom 70 were Labour MPs, and the report recommended a badger cull. Research done under the previous Government suggested that the cull will reduce bovine TB by 16%. Obviously, that is a good thing, but we must work towards eradicating TB completely. From what I can see, a vaccination programme for both cattle and badgers is the only way to ensure that. I do not want to dwell on the need to vaccinate cattle and the problems that that would raise, but it is worth flagging up that, if we can do that in a cost-effective manner, we should.

A BCG is available for badgers, which is not unlike the injection most of us had at school. The concern about it is that the need to trap and tag badgers in order to deliver it effectively can make it expensive, as we have discussed. There seems to be widespread agreement, therefore, that we need an effective oral vaccination, and I again invite the Minister to comment on research and development and the progress in that field. It is worth pointing out that, this week, a National Farmers Union briefing was fully in favour of work on vaccines, while DEFRA is undertaking a survey of the number of badgers in the UK, which shows that there is common ground between both sides, even if that is not obvious at first.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I do not want to get drawn too far into cattle vaccination, but the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to perfect the so-called DIVA test that differentiates between the two. It is clear that it will take some time. The European Commission has put a time frame of 10 years on getting to that stage. I would like that to be quicker, but we have to be realistic—there is a lot to be done.

I come back to supporting badger vaccination. DEFRA operates a badger vaccination fund; in the current year, that has prioritised support for vaccination in the “edge area”. The fund offers start-up grants of 50% to fund the first year of vaccinations. Having said that, it is true to say that applications this year have been a bit disappointing. We are now looking to understand precisely why that is, so that we can get it right next year. Coming back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, we are keen to work with all those groups, including voluntary groups, who would like to participate, and to work out how we can get them engaged in that.

I also intend to discuss a plan that the hon. Member for St Ives has on the issue—I have promised to meet him and Rosie Woodroffe. The Department has made a modest commitment to support some vaccination in that regard and he has some ideas; we are keen to pursue that option and look at it.

[Andrew George]

I put on the record my gratitude to DEFRA for the initial funding of the pilot, which is proceeding this week. The intention is to cover the whole 200 square miles of the Land’s End peninsula, and we are increasingly gathering the co-operation of farmers in the area.

[George Eustice]

I know that, and I look forward to discussing the matter further when I meet the hon. Gentleman. The training scheme has become more popular since, as part of the DEFRA-funded badger vaccination fund, we have offered grants of 50% to voluntary and community sector volunteers to train as lay vaccinators. That is another area that we would like to look at.

Finally, I want to say a few words about our work on developing an oral badger vaccine. A badger vaccine could be administered orally through baits. It would be more practical and potentially cheaper, which is why DEFRA continues to fund that. It is not true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said, that we have cut expenditure on that. We are, as I say, still spending about £4 million a year in total on developing cattle and badger vaccines.

There are things that we would need to resolve when it comes to the development of an oral vaccine. We would need to work on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine formulation and make sure that we can deploy the bait to attract the maximum number of badgers. One of the problems is that badgers will not take the bait that is used, so it is important to have the right bait.

Another problem can be that one badger might eat all the bait and another badger might not get any, so there are challenges. We also have to deal with the potential impact and safety for other wildlife. There is still further work to do, but we are committed to taking it forward, and we are clear that that ongoing work will play a role in our strategy.