Bovine TB Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Ben Bradshaw
Main Page: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)Department Debates - View all Ben Bradshaw's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(13 years ago)
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Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State be clear with the House about what level of mortality she expects shooting to achieve, because the very clear advice that we received over many years as Ministers was that shooting would not achieve a level of mortality high enough to make any difference to the disease at all? She is allowing only a very short six-week period for the pilots, which cannot be credible.
Mrs Spelman
The science determines the level of mortality that must be achieved for the controlled reduction to be effective, and a 70% reduction in the badger population is what the RBCT trial showed had to be achieved. One key point of the six-week pilot is to confirm our assumption that controlled shooting will achieve that level of reduction in the badger population.