Badger Cull

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I come to the debate as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports. Only this morning, I helped to launch the report by Team Badger, which has effectively exploded all of the myths that are being put forward by the Government to justify this unjustifiable cull of badgers in our country. Ministers seem to have come to this decision with a sense of predetermination. Since the election in 2010, the Government have been determined to institute a cull of badgers, and were not interested in alternatives.

The problem is that the scientific evidence does not back the Government’s stance on this matter. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) stole my thunder a little bit. The Secretary of State referred to a number of international comparisons in his contribution at the beginning of the debate, and I was going to refer to the rabies situation on the continent of Europe. It is clear that continual culling of the fox population was singularly unsuccessful, and it was only when vaccination was tried that rabies was all but eliminated there. We have had a licensed vaccine for badgers since 2010 in this country, and I simply do not understand why the Government are so reluctant to use it.

One reason for the spread of bovine TB is bad and lazy husbandry in certain circumstances. It is important to say that, because farmers need to step up to the plate. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) made the point that some farms in infected areas are TB-free. How do they manage to achieve that? Better standards of husbandry, improved biosecurity and reduced cattle movements would have a significant impact in reducing this scourge.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) nearly had me in tears when he made the case that he was all worried about badgers dying in agony. One wonders whether he is a member of the ministry of truth. What does he think will happen to badgers who are shot by marksmen? We know from veterinary expert opinion that they will die in agony. I think that DEFRA itself has acknowledged that badgers will be dying in agony as a result of the cull. We will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman—who I do not think is in his place at the moment—who claimed that he was concerned about badger welfare. DEFRA has made the argument that, somehow, killing badgers is good for their welfare. What a ridiculous and ludicrous argument. It must think that the British public are absolutely bonkers.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The Opposition have called Members to the House for this debate, and the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Front-Bench team have proposed the motion:

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

This is the biggest animal health crisis is Britain and it is costing £1 billion, with 28,000 cattle slaughtered last year—and the Opposition have no policy, no alternative. Do they have a feasible alternative that they would like to put forward?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have suggested short interventions, and if Members want to pass judgment on others, it would be better if they had been here at the beginning.

[Chris Williamson]

If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place and listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, he would have heard her set out the alternatives. There are alternatives, and that is the point that we are making. The Government are taking the wrong course of action. It is not just me saying that as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports; this is the scientific evidence. Let me quote some of the scientific evidence for the record.

Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the RBCT, said on 12 October 2012 on the “Today” programme:

“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle. I have not found any scientists who are experts in population biology or the distribution of infectious disease in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try and get the argument they want.”

Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and president of the Royal Society, said:

“It’s very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense.”

He added:

“I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

The recently retired Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, has also refused to back the cull.

A letter published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and signed by more than 30 scientists, including Professor John Bourne, former chairman of the ISG, Professor Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London, Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, Dr Chris Cheeseman, formerly of the Food and Environment Research Agency, Professor Denis Mollison, former independent scientific auditor to the RBCT, and Professor Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College, states:

“the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it”.

The letter ends:

“culling badgers as planned is very unlikely to contribute to TB eradication.”

The Government are taking the wrong course of action. Government Members have spoken as though they were somehow the friends of the farmer, but they will make matters worse and cause incredible suffering to the badger population. They are enraging the vast majority of the British public and they are wasting police money. They have cut the police service to the bone and yet they want the police to waste resources policing the culls—estimated at about £2 million per cull. This is absolutely bonkers. It is criminal and it should stop.

I urge the Secretary of State, having heard the cogent argument put forward by my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, to pause for a moment, to think what he is doing, to consider her words, to consider the scientific evidence, to think again and to take a different course of action.