Badgers: Bovine Tuberculosis

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing this debate and his speedy overview of the issue. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to eradicate this terrible disease and its impact on our wildlife, our farmed animals and our farming community. I want to focus on the cull pilots, which were introduced nearly two years ago to the day. They were set up to test three things: first, the effectiveness of removing the target percentage of badgers; secondly, the safety of culling by free shooting; and thirdly, the humaneness. Let us remind ourselves that free shooting has not been trialled anywhere else in the world for badgers, and therefore I understand the decision by the Government at that time to introduce those pilots—although even before we had the changes in the pilots, with the introduction of cage-trapping and the extension periods to both, I certainly had some sympathy with the view that the boundaries of the pilots were beyond the parameters of the randomised badger culling trials and therefore could not be used as a gauge for the likely outcome of the pilots in analysing the impact of reducing the incidence of TB in cattle.

Given the evidence that we have had of those pilots, it is hard to conclude anything other than that they have failed the efficacy test that was set in 2011. The licence issued specified,

“the killing of no less than the specified minimum number of badgers in a single period of 6 weeks during the Open Season”.

During the period of the two pilots, both of the cull periods were extended: in Somerset, from 42 to 63 days and in Gloucestershire, from 42 to 93 days, with a week intervening in between. Cage trapping has been introduced to supplement free shooting and of course the initial number of badgers has been revised and brought down by the Government. Even with those changes, though, it was still impossible for the cull to reach that 70% of the population that the cull licence required it to achieve.

It has clearly been the right decision for the Government to set up an independent panel to assess the outcome of the two pilots, particularly in the light of their commitment to support evidence-led policy. We all therefore eagerly await the outcome of the IEP. In advance of that, however, I have three questions for the Minister. First, what is the expected time for the delivery of the report from the independent expert panel, given the extension to the pilots and any impact that that might have on the subsequent decision by the Secretary of State about whether to roll out culling in up to 10 further areas?

Secondly, it is critical that we have confidence that the assessment of the humanity of these pilots has been done on the basis of the badgers that were killed by free shooting as opposed to those killed by cage-trapping. Will the Minister therefore confirm that there will be full disclosure of how the data were collected and assessed at the time of release, so that we can be assured of the methods used to kill the badgers?

Thirdly, given that the costs of cage-trapping are significantly higher than those for free shooting, and that the duration of the cull has increased the costs for policing, does the Minister now accept that a new impact assessment is necessary prior to the Secretary of State deciding whether or not to allow the rollout of these culls, so that we know what the net cost/benefit is, both to the taxpayer and the farming community?

The Government have made it clear that they will not do nothing on this important issue, and I applaud them for that. As we await the reports from the IEP, and as the future of licensed shooting is in doubt, I urge the Government to redouble their support for the vaccination programme and to set up a high-level working group to take leadership on this issue and bring together the key players of the NFU, the Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust in order to give best-practice guidance to those in the farming community and landowners who want to take forward voluntary vaccination as a means to tackle this appalling disease.