Badger Cull

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I have mentioned the letter in today’s edition of The Independent, and I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has seen it. I am not sure that those bodies are four-square behind the policy. The Government themselves do not know whether culling is humane. That is why the pilots are allegedly about humaneness. The hon. Gentleman’s Government do not know whether culling is humane.

If the Government’s numbers are wrong or marksmen kill more badgers than they are licensed for, badgers could be wiped out locally. If too few are killed—under 70%—TB will increase. I have talked about the range of badger population numbers; localised extinction could happen. The police’s national wildlife crime unit raised concerns back in 2010, as I know from freedom of information requests, that the publication of maps detailing badger setts could be used for “badger persecution”—their phrase, not mine—and that pesticides for poisoning badgers could be misused. There has already been one report of alleged pesticide misuse in Gloucestershire, which I understand the police are investigating. Will Ministers confirm whether the cull will proceed in Gloucestershire if wildlife crime is found to have been committed?

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I have the highest regard for the hon. Lady and we have worked well together in Yorkshire on a number of issues, but I am concerned about the Opposition’s negative argument. If the badger cull does not go ahead, we would like to know the alternatives. Our Select Committee report, published today, speaks for itself.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am coming on to that point in my speech. Her report certainly talks about the need for a proper strategy and a coherent policy, and I am not sure that that is what we have got from this Government.

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[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“notes that bovine tuberculosis (TB) has, as a consequence of the lack of effective counter-measures, spread from a few isolated incidents to affect large parts of England and Wales, resulting in the slaughter of 28,000 cattle in England alone in 2012 at a cost of £100 million to the taxpayer; is concerned that 305,000 cattle have been slaughtered in Great Britain as a result of bovine TB in the last decade and that the cost is expected to rise to over £1 billion over the next 10 years; recognises that to deal effectively with the disease every available tool should be employed; accordingly welcomes the strengthening of bio-security measures and stringent controls on cattle movements; further welcomes the research and investment into both cattle and badger vaccines, and better diagnostic testing, but recognises that despite positive work with the European Commission the use of a viable and legal cattle vaccine has been confirmed to be still at least 10 years away; further notes that no country has successfully borne down on bovine TB without dealing with infection in the wildlife population, and that the Randomised Badger Control Trials demonstrated both the link between infection in badgers and in cattle and that culling significantly reduces incidence; looks forward to the successful conclusion of the current pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset; and welcomes the Government’s development of a comprehensive strategy to reverse the spread of bovine TB and officially eradicate this disease.”.

Today’s debate is about getting to grips with Mycobacterium bovis, a bacterium that can affect all mammals including humans and has proved to be extremely resistant to all manner of attempts at eradication. It is a subject on which, over many years, there has been a great deal of agreement between the political parties. That was certainly the case in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when a combination of political consensus and concerted action meant that we had the disease effectively beaten. In 1972, tests revealed only 0.1% of cattle in the country to be infected. I very much regret that as the issue has become politicised our grip on the disease has weakened, with the result that more than 60% of herds in high-risk areas such as Gloucestershire have been infected. The number of new cases is doubling every 10 years. I hope we can all agree that bovine TB is the most pressing animal health problem facing this country. The significance of the epidemic for our cattle farmers, their families and their communities cannot be overstated.

[Miss McIntosh]

The statistics show that the spread and increase in the United Kingdom is almost unique. Does my right hon. Friend attribute anything to the fact that we were, for very good reasons, the only country to have given the badger protected status in the 1970s—no other EU member state did so—so its natural predator has not been able to control the increase in numbers and the potential spread of disease through the badger population?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for her question, and I thank her for her report published this morning. We are the only country that I know of with a significant problem with TB in cattle and a significant problem of TB in wildlife that does not bear down on the disease in wildlife. Section 10(2)(a) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 allows the removal of diseased badgers for protection and to prevent disease.

This disease was once isolated in small pockets of the country, but it has now spread extensively through the west of England and Wales. Last year TB led to the slaughter of more than 28,000 cattle in England, at a cost to the taxpayer of almost £100 million. In the last 10 years bovine TB has seen 305,000 cattle slaughtered across Great Britain, costing the taxpayer £500 million. It is estimated that that sum will rise to £1 billion over the next decade if the disease is left unchecked. We cannot afford to let that happen.

If we do not take tough, and sometimes unpopular, decisions, we will put at risk the success story that is the UK cattle industry. The UK’s beef and dairy exporters have worked hard to develop markets, which were valued at £1.7 billion in 2011. Our dairy exports alone grew by almost 20% in 2011. We cannot afford to put such important and impressive industry performance at risk.

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[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on calling this debate on behalf of the Opposition, but I think there will be genuine disappointment in the countryside that the terms of the motion before the House are:

“That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead”,

and yet the Opposition did not suggest any alternatives. Those who genuinely believe that a badger cull should not go ahead must provide alternative ways to control the spread of TB in cattle. So I am very persuaded by what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in setting out his proposals for a package of measures to limit the movement of cattle and increase rigorous testing.

I shall focus my limited remarks on vaccination. I thank all those witnesses, including Ministers, who, in an incredibly short period, gave so generously of their time to respond to our Select Committee inquiry, and to colleagues for accommodating the very tight timetable. We concluded that vaccination is no magic bullet in the search for a solution to bovine TB. As the Secretary of State said, this is a bacterium that affects humans, and I have had family members just one generation ago who suffered from TB with lifelong consequences. In the report, we warn that vaccination is expensive, offers no guarantee of protection and will provide little benefit in the immediate future.

I shall cover some of the points linked to cattle vaccination. We commend the investment by successive Governments—the hon. Member for Wakefield referred to her own, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to current investment—but there are many hurdles to overcome. The European Commission evidence before the Committee, both in writing and orally, clearly set out that there is an indicative timetable of a 10-year period before vaccination will be operational.

There are other issues. We need to change the legislation. We need to negotiate with both the European Union and the World Organisation for Animal Health, which is known as the OIE, so that those cattle that have been injected, and their products, will be admitted in free circulation in other member states. That is the dilemma that many farmers will face. The hon. Member for Wakefield did not address the fact that when a vaccine becomes readily available, we will need to persuade farmers—cost issues aside—that it is in their interests to vaccinate. We need a cross-party approach to ensure that we use all lines of communication in those negotiations with the Commission.

It is important to factor in a cattle vaccine cost of £5 to £6 a dose. The DIVA test will cost an additional £25, which at least will show whether an animal is reacting to the vaccine or is infected. As regards badger vaccination, it is regrettable that there is no evidence to date to show that it reduces the incidence of TB in cattle. We are uncertain as yet of the implications for herd immunity. One of the Select Committee’s key recommendations, which I hope the Secretary of State will pursue, is that an advisory service be set up to help NGOs and charities plan and deploy vaccination. We also hope he will respond to our plea to allow farmers to become trained vaccinators and inject the vaccine. We worked out that only 25% of badgers would face a reduced risk of infection if vaccinated, so we emphasise that Government research is urgently needed to provide confidence in the level of efficacy to enable such a vaccine to be used strategically.

The development of an effective oral vaccine for badgers seems fraught with challenges. The cost is £6 million of research since 2005-06, with another £7.5 million allocated in the next five years, but we must be aware that no vaccine is ready for use yet. We urge the public to be aware that there is a mismatch between the public expectation of having a vaccine available and the current state of scientific evidence. A vaccine must be cost-effective and easy to deploy.

I should also refer to the importance and costs of testing—of the skin test, which costs £3, and the diagnostic blood test, which is £30—and some of the difficulties that we highlighted in our report. It is very difficult sometimes to ascertain, from the skin test alone, whether an animal is infected.

All of us are badger-lovers, but we want a healthy badger population. I repeat that we are the only country to have given the badger protected status, and we must now live with the consequences, mindful of the fact that a badger who suffers TB will be evicted from the sett and die a particularly grisly death.