Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Clwyd Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is always useful to have a bit of information. We are very greatly obliged to the Secretary of State, as we have learned more about her domestic arrangements.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

2. If she will reconsider her Department’s plans to extend the badger cull; and if she will make a statement.

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

The Government are taking action to deliver a long-term strategy to eradicate bovine TB in England and protect the future of the dairy and beef industries. That strategy includes strengthening cattle testing and movement controls, improving biosecurity on farm, and badger control in areas where TB is rife. The veterinary advice is clear that there is no example in the world of a country that has successfully eradicated TB without also tackling the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population.

[Ann Clwyd]

Badger culling in England costs around £7,000 per badger killed; in Wales, the badger vaccination programme costs around £700 per badger vaccinated. Lord Krebs, the renowned scientific adviser on the subject, has continually said that

“rolling out culling as a national policy to control TB in cattle is not really credible.”

Why, then, do the Government persist with a policy that is stupid, costly and ineffective?

[George Eustice]

The cost of doing nothing would be £1 billion in 10 years’ time. As for the cost of running the culls, there were one-off costs initially, but those were halved in the most recent culls last year. The right hon. Lady will also be aware that Wales has had to suspend the vaccination programme because of a lack of availability of vaccine and on the advice of the World Health Organisation. The vaccination programme was also in a tiny pilot area of about 1.5% of Wales. Wales has had success with cattle movement controls just as we have done, and that is the reason it has been able to bear down on the disease in the same way we have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Spelman]

Yes, we are all familiar with the terrible pictures from northern Nigeria. When the Archbishop of Canterbury convened representatives of the middle east Churches, he actually spoke at a prayer vigil, where he highlighted that this is a moment for such evil to be brought to an end. He said:

“It must stop…If it does not stop…in…places around the world, such as northern Nigeria…it will continue to spread.”

The Church is well aware, as I am sure we all are, of the need to make a stand against this evil, so that it does not spread further.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I spent several years as special envoy on human rights to Iraq, so I met many of the beleaguered minority religions of Iraq. I hope that the Church Commissioners will look at the plight of all of them—the Mandaeans, the Yazidis and the Turkmen, to mention just a few. Will the right hon. Lady pay particular tribute to Canon Andrew White, who was known as the Bishop of Baghdad for his work over the many years that he spent in the country, attempting to bring all the warring sides together?

[Mrs Spelman]

The position of the Church of England is indeed to speak up for all religious minorities where they have been persecuted in that region, and those Church representatives could not have put it better in stating that the region is

“in desperate danger of losing an irreplaceable part of its identity, heritage and culture”

in all those religious minorities. The hon. Lady is right: Canon Andrew White has done a remarkable job speaking up for the plight of the Christians in the region. I am regularly in receipt of his email and I recommend that other Members of the House who are interested in the subject read his emails.