Badger Culls (Assessment)

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on keeping up the impetus on this difficult subject.

Across the House, the majority of Members believe that we should tackle TB humanely and effectively. That includes the issue of how we deal with what is seen to be a contributory factor to the problem, namely the spread of TB by badgers. I am a convert to the cause and was pleased to lead the debate in March that showed overwhelmingly that the will of the House was to come up with a better way of controlling TB. I do not think that the House ever intended to control it by inflicting cruelty on another species, while potentially making the problem worse.

On 7 July I chaired a panel discussion with members of the Badger Trust and Care for the Wild, the director of the Humane Society International, an ecologist and habitat and species specialist, and Dr Tim Coulson, a member of the independent panel of experts. The IEP was unhappy that it could not continue with its work. On top of that, Dr Coulson said that he had asked Whitehall officials about a meeting with the Secretary of State but that request was not followed up.

On 16 July I wrote to the Secretary of State asking her to meet the IEP. The Minister replied on 16 August—over a month later—stating that meetings would be considered on a “case by case basis” and that the Department was

“in dialogue with leading vets and scientists”.

Why has it not, as far as I know—unless the Minister corrects this—met the IEP? Anecdotally, Dr Coulson has told me that the Secretary of State replied to his request by saying that she was terribly busy and unable to find a date. Has the Department still not been able to do so?

How can the public have confidence in the Government if the culls are not independently monitored? As I pointed out in my intervention on the hon. Member for Derby North, there has been a kind offer of independent monitoring by the British Ecological Society. Will the Government consider taking that up? I would like to hear an answer to that today. I gather that there would be no cost to the Government. If the Government are to have confidence that they can take the public with them on this subject, which polarises opinion and creates strong passions, they should be able to explain their actions in a way the public understand. The public could then at least find a reason to support those actions, even if in their hearts they do not support the idea of some animals having to be killed to control the disease.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for having come to the Chamber very recently, Mr Caton; I have been chairing a committee on prison education.

In DEFRA questions last week I saw a glimmer of light, as the Secretary of State said that she absolutely believed in the appliance of science to most of the topics we were talking about, including losing our birdsong in this country. If we apply that to the situation with badgers, there is a small possibility that someone at DEFRA might be waking up to the idea that we need science and proper independent evaluation.

[Mrs Main]

I hope that I am correct in interpreting what the hon. Gentleman says as meaning that if the Secretary of State was listening to the science, the Government would take a different route. Unfortunately, the science—the results of the trials—does not bear out the hope that there was when the trials were agreed. It is important that we do not have a roll-out based on two failures. We should not consider rolling out any Government policy on the basis of two test runs, whether it is a proposed benefits package or something like the poll tax. Surely we should learn from our failures and not roll out a failure elsewhere.