Badger Culling/Bovine TB

Angela Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) on securing this debate. He laid out very clearly the science behind this policy area and exposed the Government’s wilful abandonment of it. First, they ignored the recommendations of the independent scientific review group. Secondly, they ignored and rode roughshod over the independent group that looked at the review of the first year of culling, and in particular its recommendations on humaneness. They have also ignored the BVA, which has made it clear that culling should not take place on the basis of controlled shooting. Now that farmers are free to shoot on a controlled basis, there will be very little caging and trapping. The Government have ignored all that, and now on top of that we have a significant relaxation of the criteria for the roll-out of culling areas.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the farmers are also casualties of the situation, as the reality is that the culling of badgers is not an effective solution to TB? Does she therefore agree that the Government should at least think again?

[Angela Smith]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. What we are going to hear from the Minister is probably what we have heard in the past: first, that TB was dealt with in New Zealand by culling possums. Well, I will say once again that badgers are not possums, and this is not New Zealand; it is the United Kingdom and the ecology is completely different. Secondly, we will hear that TB has never been tackled effectively without tackling it in the wildlife reservoir. There is new evidence on the table to challenge that concept. It has been established that there is very little evidence of direct transmission between badgers and cattle, so that needs looking at again. Finally, we will hear a point about farmers, and that is exactly where I would agree strongly with the Minister. I agree that this disease has to be tackled, but we are doing farmers no favours by pretending that the policy of culling badgers, which is the linchpin of the Government’s approach to this awful problem, is going to work, because it is not.

What we have not heard at any point from the Minister—I would like him to address this in his closing comments—is answers to questions on two issues. First, at what point will we get a thorough and independent assessment of the outcome of the first two culls in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset? We are in the final year of the culls in those areas. Secondly, how will the Government assess the new research on transmission between badgers and cattle? Wil they look properly at that evidence and make sure that it is thoroughly investigated, and will Parliament be informed of the outcome?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Angela Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is kind to give way. Does he believe that free shooting is acceptable?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I believe that the best way to cull badgers is with traps. Unfortunately in Gloucestershire, protesters have removed and damaged traps, which has made it essential to have free shooting in our armoury, as well as shooting badgers in traps. If there were no interference with the traps, I believe we could—as they have done in Somerset—operate culls on a much greater basis by caging badgers.

I repeat that the 25-year elimination strategy that the Government have announced is exactly right. We must use all the tools in our armoury, including ring vaccination, culls, vaccinations and, indeed, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, tightening biosecurity. On farms, we legally have to do so. Every year DEFRA has tightened biosecurity, the regulations on pre and post-movement of cattle and the regulations on skin testing. Those are the directions in which we need to go, but we need to eliminate this terrible disease.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) on securing this well-attended debate, which shows the importance of the issue.

Scotland, of course, has a very low badger population density. Scotland is also the only part of the UK to be officially TB free, but England, Wales and Northern Ireland have this big challenge. TB is a difficult disease to fight. It is a slow-growing, insidious disease. Diagnostics are difficult because the disease does not show up quickly. The only vaccine we have is the BCG vaccine and, despite decades of research, no one has come up with a more effective vaccine—the BCG vaccine is only partially effective. TB is having a huge impact on our agricultural industry and is causing huge trauma for farmers, with some 28,000 cattle a year being slaughtered.

We have put in place a comprehensive 25-year strategy to address bovine TB, and cattle control is at the heart of that strategy. Several hon. Members have said that cattle control is the answer, but I will explain what we have. We have annual testing in the high-risk area and four-yearly testing in the low-risk area. We have annual testing in the edge area and six-monthly testing in hotspots in the edge area, and we continue to consider rolling that out. We have contiguous testing in the high-risk area where there is a breakdown, and we have radial testing in the low-risk area, going out to 3 km, where we have a breakdown. We are now consulting on greater use of the gamma interferon test so that we can pick up the disease faster. We are also looking at what more can be done in other species. We are constantly trying to refine and improve our cattle movement controls, but I put it to hon. Members that for years we have been doing everything that everyone has said we should be doing.

We continue to work on vaccination. We are spending millions of pounds on trying to develop an oral vaccine for badgers because I believe that could give us an exit strategy from the cull once we have completed a reduction in the population of some areas. We are also continuing to work on cattle vaccination to develop a DIVA test. That work takes time and costs millions of pounds, but we are doing it.

In recent years we have set up an edge area vaccination programme, with a number of volunteer groups taking part. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) said, the World Health Organisation has asked everyone to stop using the vaccine we have on badgers, and we followed the Welsh Government’s lead in doing so. We will resume our testing when those stocks come back on stream.

We are doing a huge amount of work to improve biosecurity. In a few weeks’ time I will launch a cattle health certification standards—CHeCS—accreditation scheme to try to incentivise farmers to do more for biosecurity. We have grants available so that farmers can invest in water troughs that make it harder for badgers to gain access and in fencing to keep badgers away from farmyards. We are constantly trying to improve the management of slurry, and there is already a suite of measures on farmyard manure management. We are also looking at other novel things, such as genetics. Holstein UK is working on whether genetic improvement might be able to breed partial resistance into the dairy herd in particular. I have already asked our chief scientific adviser to find out whether further work could be done to enhance that.

The badger cull is just one part of our strategy but, as I have said before, there is no example anywhere in the world of a country that has eradicated TB without also addressing reservoirs of the disease in the wildlife population. A number of hon. Members have raised questions about the science. 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. Between 1975 and 1978 the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funded extensive work that demonstrated conclusively that there is transmission and a link between badgers and cattle, and subsequent work in Ireland has reaffirmed that finding.

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

There were claims that those experiments lacked a control, which is why the randomised badger culling trial took place. Despite having the challenge of the foot and mouth crisis smack in the middle of it, the RBCT concluded that in the four years after culling there was a significant reduction in the incidence of TB. The RBCT supported what the previous trials had shown. In fact, 18 months after the culling ended in the RBCT there was a 54% reduction in the incidence of the disease, so I am afraid that hon. Members who say that we have not followed the science have themselves not read the science. The science and the veterinary advice are clear.

[Angela Smith]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I will not give way.

This is an evidence-based policy. We cannot remove and eradicate TB without addressing the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population. I would not sanction a cull of badgers unless it were necessary. Apart from anything else, it is incredibly expensive but I am also not the sort of person who wants to kill wildlife for fun. I would not sanction this unless it were necessary, and I believe that it is necessary.

I urge hon. Members to show some sense of perspective. I live next to Bushy Park and at this time of year, every year, a sign goes up on the gates saying, “We are afraid that the park will be closed for the next few weeks because we are having a deer cull.” Nobody bats an eyelid. They go somewhere else to have their picnic. We do not get protesters running around the park at night. Is that really so different? The level of scrutiny that we put on the culls and the requirements that we attach to licensing are incredibly thorough. We have rules on the distance that hunters have to be before they can take a shot and on precisely the type of rifles that they should have. We have rules saying that the badger must be stationary before a shot is taken. We are doing our utmost to ensure that the badger culling and shooting are done in the most effective way, more effective than for any other wildlife.

In conclusion, I believe that this is necessary. It is an evidence-based policy, which is why we continue to roll out the cull.