Badger Cull

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the badger cull.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, in a debate on this very important issue, because I know that you take a close interest in it.

I am amazed that five years after the badger cull started we are still debating it. If you will bear with me, Sir David, I remember speaking on this issue on 5 June 2013. I quoted Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the randomised badger culling trial. He was interviewed on the “Today” programme on 12 October 2012, and said:

“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle.”

I have found no scientists who are experts in population biology or in the distribution of infectious diseases in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try to support their argument.

I also quoted Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and President of the Royal Society, who said:

“It is very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense…I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Another former Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, also refused to back the cull. More than 30 scientists signed a letter that was published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and states that

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

The letter ends by saying,

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

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It may have been in that letter that the experts concluded that the badger cull was unscientific, ineffective and inhumane. I have seen no evidence since the experts reached that conclusion that it is anything but unscientific, ineffective and inhumane.

[Chris Williamson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, because the last five years have clearly demonstrated the predictions that the scientists made all those years ago, but the Government have proceeded in the teeth of the evidence. One would think that, as legislators, we should seek to embark on evidence-based policy and legislation, rather than taking a punt in the dark, as the Government seem to have done.

The cost of the cull has already exceeded £50 million and is rising, but there has been no breakdown of it since 2015. The irony is that there is a humane, less expensive alternative. It costs about £200 to vaccinate a badger compared with £1,000 to shoot a badger. The Zoological Society of London says that badger vaccination is a viable alternative. The Government initially ruled it out, but I believe they earmarked about £130,000 for the badger edge vaccination scheme. When we compare that with the tens of millions of pounds that they have wasted on this cruel policy in the teeth of scientific evidence, one wonders why they took that line of action.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. When will the Department carry out a full cost-benefit analysis that compares badger vaccination with badger culling? When will Sir Charles Godfray’s review of the Government’s TB policy be published? Will it consider the use of vaccination as an alternative to shooting?

Some horrific video footage has been obtained from the badger cull area in Cumbria. A caged badger was shot and took almost a minute to die, writhing in agony. The shooter then flagrantly disregarded the biosecurity guidelines, took the badger out of the cage and failed to bag it up—little wonder that the Government’s policy has not been particularly successful in reducing the spread of TB. That is just one small example—I will come on to others in a moment.

The contractors are paid about £30 to £50 for each badger they kill, but of course the shooters have access to thousands of trapped, caged badgers, and a live badger can fetch about £500 on the black market. We know that there are badger baiting and dog fighting gangs, so ruthless individuals would be quite happy to purchase a live badger for their perverted pastime. Given that there is no effective monitoring—the horrific video footage clearly demonstrates that—who is to say that that is not happening? The Government’s policy therefore potentially creates more wildlife crime in our country. They need to step up and take a different approach.

We know that the badger population is under threat. Between June and August, we had the highest temperatures on record—we will all remember it, won’t we? Experts tell me that it is therefore likely that large numbers of badger cubs and sows died during that very hot weather due to heat exhaustion and lack of food and water. Natural England has not undertaken any detailed or accurate population survey of badgers for more than a decade. It is important that we know what the state of the badger population is at this point in time.

About 50,000 badgers are killed every year on the road, and many die as a result of building development. The combination of the cull and other pressures is leading to the potential collapse of the badger population in certain parts of the country. Let us remember that badgers have inhabited our country since the ice age, so it would be a tragedy if they were eliminated in certain parts of it. I hope the Minister will respond to that point.

The Government claim that the badger cull reduces bovine TB in cattle, but the Zoological Society of London begs to differ. It says that there is no robust evidence at all that the policy is working. Indeed, the proportion of infected herds is about the same as it was in 2013, so the policy has been a spectacular failure. Will the Minister commit to releasing all the cull data held by DEFRA for independent verification? I would be interested to hear his response to that point.

In my opinion, we need better biosecurity, more reliable testing and movement controls. That is the real issue. We know that the TB skin test, which is the primary method of detecting TB in cattle, is not 100% successful. In fact, on average, one in four of the tests failed to detect TB. There are more accurate tests available, but the problem is that farmers are expected to meet the cost. Will the Minister commit the Government to funding the more accurate tests, rather than relying on the pretty inaccurate testing system that is currently being used, which contributes to the problem? I have already mentioned biosecurity. Slurry, which can contain TB bacteria, continues to be spread widely on farms, with few, if any, biosecurity controls. Millions of cattle continue to be moved across England with insufficient movement controls. New outbreaks of bovine TB were therefore pretty inevitable, and that is what happened in Cumbria and the Isle of Skye relatively recently.

TB fraud is also a major problem. Cattle are moved illegally, ear tags are taken out and cattle passports are altered. The enforcement controls are completely inadequate, so will the Minister explain what the Government are doing to address the inadequate biosecurity? Will he also outline what steps he is taking to address illegal cattle movements?

I was absolutely amazed to see reports in the media that infected carcases are being sold for human consumption. Several supermarkets have banned such purchases, as have several burger chains. However, The Daily Telegraph reported that a spokesperson for DEFRA, which makes £10 million a year from selling infected carcases, said:

“All meat from cattle slaughtered due to bovine TB must undergo rigorous food safety checks before it can be passed fit for consumption.”

I do not think that many people will find that particularly reassuring. I am sure that many people, if they were aware of that, would be incredibly alarmed. Is the Minister happy to continue selling carcases infected with TB for human consumption?

The Sunday Times recently reported on growing concerns about the sale of raw meat products as pet food, claiming that it could lead to an increase in TB in cats, which, in turn, could infect their owners. DEFRA does not monitor TB in domestic animals. Do the Government have any plans to investigate the scale of TB in domestic pets?

Before this cruel cull started, experts said that the policy does not make sense, that the cull is not the answer to TB in cattle and that culling risks increasing cattle TB. It seems to me that the last five years have proved that the Government’s policy is completely wrong-headed. Cicero reputedly said:

“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”

I just hope that, when the Minister gets to his feet, he will prove that he is not an idiot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pursuing me on that point, which he has rightly spotted. However, I point him to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North raised about the cost-benefit analysis of culling versus vaccination. Clearly decent testing needs to be part of the mix. It is about the combination.

[Chris Williamson]

I am interested in the point that the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) made about vaccination. I am not an expert, but my understanding is that when someone is vaccinated, they are vaccinated once and that protects them. I do not know whether badger physiology is different in some way, but as my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has pointed out, it would be useful to get that cost-benefit analysis. If the Government would come clean, we would all be in the picture as to the reality of the situation.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree with his points.

I will conclude, as the Minister has an awful lot to respond to and I would like him to get to his feet in a moment. As my hon. Friend said, there is no logical reason for the badger cull to continue, or even exist, other than an ideological one: to make the Government look busy when they are failing farmers and rural communities on bovine TB. There are less cruel ways to eradicate bovine TB than killing badgers on a massive scale. Whether it is more accurate and frequent testing of cattle, badger and cattle vaccinations or more rigid control on cattle movements, the solution should be focused on cattle, not innocent badgers. DEFRA’s priority should be to look at the other ways in which bovine TB is transmitted, rather than scapegoating badgers and perpetuating unnecessary animal cruelty. I would be grateful if the Minister could answer the points about the Godfray review in particular. An awful lot of people are waiting for the evidence base. DEFRA sitting on the report for as long as it has creates the impression that there is something in it that it wishes to hide.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

That is a very good point and precisely why we have focused our vaccination efforts in the edge area, where we are not culling badgers. The culls are being rolled out predominantly in the high-risk area where we know the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population is a persistent problem, and are using vaccination in the edge area to ensure that we are not vaccinating badgers only to cull them.

We are also looking at cattle vaccination. We have been developing work to do a so-called DIVA test, which can differentiate TB-infected from vaccinated animals so that it would not affect our trade. Cattle vaccination deployed in the hot spots could help to give immunity to our herds, and clearly cattle vaccination is easier to deploy than badger vaccination, because a herd of cattle can be run through a crush and vaccinated—we do not have to capture wildlife to do it.

Our strategy is incredibly broad. No one single intervention will give us the magic solution to tackling this terrible disease. It is a difficult disease to fight, so we need to use a range of interventions. The badger cull is just one part of our strategy, but there are no examples anywhere in the world of a country that has successfully eradicated TB without also addressing the reservoir, the disease and the wildlife population.

TB was first isolated in badgers as long ago as 1971. In 1974, a trial was conducted to remove badgers from a severely infected farm, with the result that there was no breakdown on that farm for five years afterwards. Between 1975 and 1978, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funded extensive work that demonstrated conclusively transmission between badgers and cattle in both directions. Subsequent work in Ireland reaffirmed that finding. In the Krebs review, which hon. Members cited, it was observed that between 1975 and 1979 TB incidence in the south-west fell from 1.65% to 0.4% after the cull—a 75% reduction.

Subsequently, therefore, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, more extensive work was done in three exercises. One was in Thornbury, where the TB incidence fell from 5.6% in the 10 years before culling to 0.45% in the 15 years after culling, which was a reduction of 90%. In Steeple Lees, there were no breakdowns for seven years after badgers had been cleared. In Hartland, the incidence dropped from 15% in 1984 to just 4% in 1985, which was a reduction of more than two thirds.

[Chris Williamson]

I am interested in the Minister’s comments. Will he comment on why the weight of scientific evidence before the Government embarked on the latest cull, including from people involved in the randomised badger culling exercise, suggested that it would not work? No credible scientific evidence supported the Government, yet they ploughed on regardless. Indeed, the number of herds infected with TB has not diminished either. If anything, the situation has got worse, because we now have TB in Cumbria and the Isle of Skye. Surely controls on movements and better biosecurity would be far better than continuing with this cruel cull.

[George Eustice]

I do not agree, for reasons I will come to.

There were claims that those trials in the ’70s lacked a control or a comparison, which was a fair point. That is why the randomised badger culling trial took place. Despite the challenge of a foot and mouth crisis right in the middle of it, the RBCT concluded that, in the four years after culling, there was a significant reduction in the incidence of TB. The RBCT supported what the previous trials had shown. In fact, 18 months after the culling ended in the RBCT, there was a 54% reduction in the incidence of the disease. People say that there is no scientific evidence, but I can give them all the evidence they want.

On the current trials, we now have some peer-reviewed evidence conducted on the first two cull areas. It compares the cull areas with control areas where there was no cull. That detailed analysis of the first two cull areas, over the first two years only, was published by Dr Brunton and her colleagues in 2017. It showed a 58% reduction in the disease in cattle in the Gloucestershire badger control area, and a 21% reduction in Somerset after two years of badger control, compared with the unculled areas. As I said, that is a peer-reviewed piece of work. The Animal and Plant Health Agency published raw data, as we do every year, in September 2018, showing that there has been a drop in TB incidence in the first two cull areas, where the number of new confirmed breakdowns has decreased by about 50% in both areas. In Gloucestershire, the incidence rate has dropped from 10.4% before culling began to 5.6% in the 12 months following the fourth cull. In Somerset, it has dropped from 24% to 12%. Dr Brunton and her colleagues carried out further detailed analysis into the third year of the cull in the first two areas, and it will be published shortly.

A wealth of consistent evidence, from the 1970s onwards, shows that badgers are a reservoir for the disease, that there is transmission of the disease between badgers and cattle, and that a cull of badgers in infected areas where the presence of the disease in the wildlife is known to contribute to that can lead to substantial reductions of between 20% and 50% in incidence. That picture has been consistent for at least 40 years.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again, but he did not really answer my question. The body of scientific opinion before the Government embarked on the cull was opposed to it and said that it would not work or, if anything, would make matters worse. I do not think that he has addressed that point.

[George Eustice]

A number of scientists said that it was not logistically possible to sustain a cull over a large area and to remove the number of badgers necessary. We have demonstrated that that is possible. It is a difficult and contentious policy, but it is possible to do that. No credible scientist has said that badgers are not implicated in the spread of the disease. Sometimes scientists debate the extent to which badgers have a role, but no one doubts that—the evidence shows this clearly—a cull of badgers in infected areas leads to a reduction in the incidence of the disease. Arguments tend to be about the logistical possibilities of delivering such a policy but, as I said, we have been able to demonstrate that that can be done, difficult though it is.

Let me deal with some of the hon. Gentleman’s other points. One was about vaccination and, as I said, that is part of our plan, and we envisage doing more of it in future, potentially as an exit strategy once we have seen a reduction in the badger population. That brings me to his claim about the possibility of a collapse in that population. It will never happen because we have always had provision in the licensing for an absolute maximum that must never be exceeded in any given cull year. Everything we do is absolutely compliant with the Berne convention. Furthermore, we are doing this only in high-risk areas, so we never aim to remove the entire badger population or to cause a collapse in it; we simply aim to suppress numbers while we get to grips with that difficult disease.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned cull data. That is published each and every year. Usually in or around December, we give the House a written ministerial statement and an update on all the figures from the previous year’s cull. We shall do so again this year, in the normal way, as we have done in all previous years.

[George Eustice]

I cannot give any undertakings about when exactly that will take place but, typically, we do it in December, once we have collated all the data. The hon. Lady will have to be patient and wait for the data to come out. However, we publish that every year and we are absolutely transparent about it. Every year, we also publish details about incidence and prevalence of the disease—I know that there has been an argument about whether incidence or prevalence is the right figure to use, but incidence is the correct one for measuring the role of wildlife in the introduction of the disease to cattle herds.

On costs, again we publish the figures every year. The 2018 costs will be published shortly, but those for previous years have already been published. Last year, the total cost of the cull was about £4 million, which covers policing, licensing and all the monitoring work done by Natural England.[Official Report, 12 November 2018, Vol. 649, c. 1MC.] I do not recognise the figure given by the hon. Member for Derby North of £1,000 or £2,000 a badger; it is probably in the region of a couple of hundred pounds. The costs have reduced substantially, as policing costs have come down as we have rolled out the cull but, in reality, cost per badger is the wrong way to look at it; we have to view it in the context of the fact that the disease already costs us £100 million a year—if costs are what worry us—and that if we want to get it under control, we have to use all the tools in the box.

Finally, I confirm that we received the Godfray review on 2 October and, as the Secretary of State said at DEFRA questions a couple of weeks ago, it will be published shortly. “Shortly” means what it says, which is that Members probably do not have long to wait. I can confirm that it will be published in its entirety and that we have not requested any edits or alterations. It is an independent review, led by Sir Charles Godfray, who will publish it shortly, along with his conclusions.

I should point out that Sir Charles Godfray’s review is of our strategy, so it looks at every component, including the role of badger culling, vaccination, diagnostics and whether they can be improved, biosecurity, compensation and behavioural change. It reviews every feature in our original strategy and gives some pointers about other areas that we could advance in future. I think it is a good report, and I am sure that hon. Members look forward to reading it.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way for what will perhaps be the final time. My conclusion from what he says is that it is pretty clear that the only way in which the badger cull will be brought to an end is with the election of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Government.

[George Eustice]

All I can say is that I have explained why we think the badger cull is critical. I know that it is contentious, but it is the right thing to do, and sometimes Governments have to the right and responsible thing. We have this mess today because the last Labour Government put their heads in the sand, meaning that we had 15 years of total inaction during the early part of this century. The disease got out of hand, and we are now trying to get a grip of it and to roll it back.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

No, I have given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I have finished.

[Chris Williamson]

I am disappointed that the Minister did not give way at the end. I think it is very unfair to characterise the situation as being the fault of the previous Labour Government. Let us remember that it was the previous Labour Government who—rather controversially—actually backed the randomised badger cull tests from which the conclusion was drawn that the way to tackle bovine TB was not through a badger cull.

I repeat that the body of evidence from the scientists involved in the randomised badger cull tests showed that carrying on with the badger cull could have made matters worse. We have seen over the last five years of this horrific cull, which continues, that, even putting the appalling cruelty to one side, it is simply not working. It is all very well for the Minister to get up and say that various peer-reviewed reports have implied that it has worked, but the evidence speaks for itself. How can the Minister stand there and say that it has worked when the proportion of TB in cattle herds is virtually the same as at the start of the cull, and when it has even spread to other areas?

The Government are looking in the wrong direction. I heard what the Minister said, but I implore him to go back and look again at pursuing a different route, at the cattle movements, at the fraud that takes place, at biosecurity and at doing proper testing and supporting farmers in doing so, rather than expecting them to stump up for the bill. This is an appalling state of affairs. I repeat that there is no scientific evidence to support the Government’s position. Public opinion is overwhelmingly opposed to the badger cull, which does not serve the farming community in any way, shape or form and certainly does not serve the interests of wildlife in our country. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the comments made and adopt a more sensible and humane approach to the bovine TB situation in this country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the badger cull.

Winter Flooding (Preparation)

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this timely debate.

Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I have constituents who have been affected by flooding. There is a sizeable community in my constituency that, although it has not been affected by flooding for some time, is in desperate need of flood defence work to protect it from the increasingly severe weather that we are experiencing. I regret that some of the funding that was earmarked by the previous Government was cut. Consequently, the flood defence works that should be in place or be well on the way to being in place have been delayed. Hopefully, those works will be completed before there is an extreme weather event in my constituency, which would have a devastating effect on the community in the Chester Green area of Derby North.

The title of this debate is “Preparing for flooding in winter 2014-15” but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said clearly, we must prepare for flooding in the longer term, although this winter is the most pressing concern. When the Minister responds, will he tell us what the Government are doing to encourage farming practices that reduce soil erosion? Some modern farming practices have significantly contributed to the flooding that communities around the country have experienced. The Government must look at that issue and enter into discussions with the farming industry to see what can be done to diminish those practices.

The main purpose of my contribution is to talk about the important role that the fire and rescue service plays in tackling flooding episodes. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) said that the fire and rescue service in her area was the only agency to roll up its sleeves, with its customary can-do approach, and do a good job. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Wansbeck and for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) that the fire and rescue service should be given a statutory duty to enable it to take a lead during flooding events, and to ensure it has the wherewithal to respond to floods—flood response is an increasing part of its activity. We refer to the fire and rescue service as the fire service, but increasingly its role is to deal with flooding events.

I was formerly the shadow fire Minister, and prior to entering this House I served on the Derbyshire fire and rescue authority, so I have seen at first hand the work that fire and rescue services do to tackle flooding episodes. They erect temporary flood defences—an innovative approach to diminishing the impact of flooding—where there are not permanent flood defences. They evacuate vulnerable residents—my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck said they did that in his constituency—and, importantly, they protect critical infrastructure. Much work has been done to protect critical infrastructure during some of the terrible flooding events that we have seen around the country.

I remember that when flooding episodes were widespread across the country two or three years ago, North Yorkshire fire and rescue service had to use all available hands to prevent a hospital from being inundated. It used high-volume pumps and so on. The scale of the emergency meant that it had to leave motorists stranded in rising floodwater so that it could protect the hospital from being flooded out. Usually, when there are major incidents, the adjoining fire and rescue service will send firefighters in to assist. I think the problem on that particular occasion was that the adjoining fire and rescue service was dealing with its own flooding episode. There is a message there, which I hope the Minister will take back to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, namely that reducing the number of firefighters is potentially counter-productive in many ways, not least of which is in dealing with flooding events such as the one I have just described. I believe that last winter, 70% of fire and rescue services were called upon to help with the winter relief efforts.

Like other hon. Members, I have already said that climate change is leading to more extreme weather events. Therefore, the role of the fire and rescue service will increasingly be to deal with the consequences of those events. I think that the hon. Member for Winchester touched on the cost of failing to deal with them; I hope he will forgive me if he did not, but I thought I heard him speak about the potential cost of failing to protect crucial infrastructure. It is absolutely colossal when we consider some of the power plants that have been under threat of being inundated, and hospitals, which I have already mentioned. This situation will only get worse, so we need to recognise the central and crucial role that the fire and rescue services play.

I know that the previous Labour Government invested significantly following earlier floods—I think it was after the floods in 2007—and put in place one-off expenditure to enable fire and rescue authorities to purchase additional equipment. However, that was about seven years ago and there has not been a similar injection of funding since. Maybe it has not been necessary, because that earlier injection gave the fire and rescue authorities the wherewithal to purchase that equipment. However, the equipment is now getting older.

One-off injections are not good enough. We need the statutory duty I have mentioned to enable fire and rescue services to plan for this increasingly important part of their activity. Because there is not such a statutory duty, and in the context of diminishing budgets, that understandably means that when the chiefs of fire and rescue services are planning their budget obligations, dealing with flooding will inevitably take a lower priority, because they are obliged to deal with their statutory obligations. That is why it is essential that, when it comes to planning at local level, a statutory duty is applied.

There is also a lack of consistency. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck has made this point already, but how can it be right that in Scotland and Northern Ireland, firefighters have a statutory duty to deal with flooding, and yet firefighters in England do not?

Other hon. Members have already mentioned the Pitt review. Recommendation 30 of the review was explicit on this point. It said:

“The Government should review and update the guidance Insurance for all: A good practice guide for providers of social housing and disseminate it effectively to support”—

I beg your pardon, Mr Bone: I am reading out the wrong recommendation. I thought I had highlighted the one I wanted to read out. I will just have to gloss over that for a moment. I was going to read that out with a great flourish. However, I can assure you, Mr Bone, that somewhere in the review there is that recommendation. I may intervene on the Minister later, if he will allow me, when I have scrutinised my notes properly; this is the problem when we prepare our notes in a hurry. There was a recommendation in the Pitt review that explicitly said that a statutory duty was needed.

For all the reasons that I have outlined, it would help in planning, in ensuring that there is necessary investment, in developing the integrated risk management plans, in training, in providing personal protective equipment and all the other necessary factors if we ensure that we have a coherent approach to tackling flooding in this country. And when the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he can explicitly respond to the point about statutory duty, because a lot of Members feel it is important, and to my point about farming and the importance of reducing farming practices that are contributing to increased flooding in our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this important debate, which is of great relevance and interest to Members of all parties and the communities that they represent.

I start by reflecting on what we have seen and the impacts on constituencies described by hon. Members. Last winter saw record levels of rainfall and the stormiest period for at least 20 years. Record river flows, sea levels, wave heights and ground water levels in many locations across the country led to the flooding of more than 8,300 homes and caused damage or disruption to businesses, infrastructure, transport and utilities.

I have seen first hand the damage caused by last winter’s flooding and the devastating impact on people’s day-to-day lives. My sympathies continue to go out to those affected, in particular those who are still unable to go home because buildings can take a long time to dry out. The Government have led a major recovery effort to help people to get back on their feet, including committing more than £560 million of recovery support funding. Many organisations were involved in responding to the exceptional weather, including the Government and their agencies, in particular the Environment Agency, the emergency services and the military, as well as many voluntary organisations and transport and utility companies.

While efforts were generally effective, we acknowledged at the time that some aspects of the response and recovery required improvement. The shadow Secretary of State described a chaotic situation, but we have heard from many hon. Members that the response in their local communities was good. However, we must learn from the cases where it was less good, as we did for previous events and will continue to do. The shadow Secretary of State described the experience in 2007 under the previous Labour Government and the constant need to learn lessons and move on.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dan Rogerson]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he wants to highlight the relevant bit of the review now that he has found it.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful for the opportunity to correct my earlier mistake. I meant to read out recommendation 39, which states:

“The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty.”

[Dan Rogerson]

The Pitt review certainly recommended that we consider that, but the advice of the chief fire officer is that such a change would not be right at this point. The hon. Gentleman makes that point consistently in Parliament and with my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government. We have heard today about the huge contribution made by the fire and rescue services. There was no shortage of resource and they were a big part of the recovery process, which is a good sign that current arrangements are proving successful. DCLG can continue to keep the matter under review, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will raise it with Ministers from that Department.

Badger Culls (Assessment)

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Caton. We should not, however, be having this debate, because the cull actually flies in the face of scientific opinion. Furthermore, having the cull takes no notice whatever of public opinion and blatantly disregards the will of the House. Only earlier this year, on 13 March, after a debate in the main Chamber, the majority in favour of abandoning the badger cull was 218, yet the Government are ploughing on regardless. They seem to have forgotten that they are elected by the British people, and not by the National Farmers Union.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman draws our attention to the vote in the House. I do not think that he was in Parliament at the time, but the House voted in favour of the Iraq war, which then proceeded, even though the people were against it.

[Chris Williamson]

That may be true, but on badger culls scientific, parliamentary and public opinion are at one, yet the Government are completely disregarding all those areas of clear opposition to their direction of travel on the issue.

As I was saying, the Government and all of us present are elected by the British people and not by any single issue group. Ministers seem to be behaving as if they were the parliamentary wing of the National Farmers Union. The NFU, however, does not even represent the vast majority of the farming industry. According to the NFU’s own website, it claims some 55,000 members—

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

rose—

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Williamson]

I will give way in a moment. According to a document published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, “Agriculture in the United Kingdom”:

“The number of commercial agricultural holdings in the UK has remained stable between 2010 and 2013 at 222 thousand”.

So just under 25% of the farming industry is represented by the NFU, yet the Government, or Ministers at least, seem to be doing the NFU’s bidding, even though it represents only a minority interest in the farming industry.

[Neil Parish]

I was under the illusion that I was in the Chamber to debate the badger cull, not the National Farmers Union.

[Chris Williamson]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will come on to that and explain why I am referring to the NFU. Despite public, parliamentary and scientific opinion, the NFU is clearly the only interest group to think that the badger cull is a good idea. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Government seem to prefer the views of a pressure group that represents a small proportion of the overall farming industry to the views of science, the public and, overwhelmingly, the House of Commons.

To be clear, last year’s cull was a catastrophic failure. It failed to reach its target within the specified six-week timetable, so what did the Government do? They extended the timetable. The cull still failed to reach its target, which was for some 5,000 badgers to be killed, and it only managed to kill 1,861, making matters worse.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. Does he agree that one of the most dismal scenarios that we can have is that of the Government setting their face against the evidence? They not only do not look at the evidence, but try to close it down. On this occasion, for example, they got rid of the independent expert panel that might have been able to tell them whether their cull was being successful.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about that point, and I will be coming on to it.

As a consequence of not reaching the target of 5,000 badgers, the Government are likely to have made matters considerably worse because of perturbation, about which they were warned. DEFRA has not only failed in its own terms on effectiveness, but certainly failed on the test of humaneness as well. The independent expert panel, which the Government disbanded, as the hon. Lady said a moment ago, said about year one of the pilot badger cull:

“It is extremely likely that between 7.4% and 22.8% of badgers that were shot at were still alive after 5 min, and therefore at risk of experiencing marked pain. We are concerned at the potential for suffering that these figures imply.”

When it was clear that the cull was failing on every possible measure, the previous Secretary of State, unbelievably, blamed the badgers for “moving the goalposts”. In truth, the Government have moved the goalposts and Ministers are behaving like the three wise monkeys. The DEFRA independent expert panel confirmed last year that the cull was unsuccessful in terms of humaneness, as I have mentioned, and ineffective. The figures speak for themselves. The chief scientific adviser to Natural England also made negative comments about the cull, describing it as an “epic failure”.

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. No one should be in any doubt that farming communities are suffering as a result of bovine tuberculosis, but is his case not simply that the evidence does not support this method of trying to eradicate bovine TB?

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in his summary of the position. Of course bovine TB is a dreadful illness, but the way in which the Government have gone about tackling it is precisely the wrong thing to do and is likely to be making matters worse. I do not understand why they are ignoring the overwhelming scientific view that the badger cull should be abandoned and a different approach taken.

I was referring to the opinion of the chief scientific adviser to Natural England, who described the cull as an “epic failure”, and was about to ask, what did DEFRA do in response to such overwhelming criticism? It simply changed the methodology. That was described by one badger expert, Professor Woodroffe, as “very crude”. She went on to say that the Government targets

“are all rubbish because they are based on rubbish data”,

and that

“with the data that is being collected, it will be impossible to know how effective this year’s culls have been.”

The Government did not like the conclusions of their independent expert panel, so they moved the goalposts again by disbanding it, but the new Secretary of State says that the outcome of the latest culls will determine whether there will be a roll-out across the rest of the country.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Is he aware that the BBC is reporting today that a journal of the British Ecological Society has offered to assess the trials independently, in the light of the fact that the independent panel has been disbanded?

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. It is important that there is independent assessment of the culls, as there is a real fear of a lack of trust if there is no independent assessment of their effectiveness. We cannot leave it to the Government to determine whether culling has been effective because, as we have seen, they simply ignore the wealth of evidence put before them.

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

I am following closely what the hon. Gentleman is saying. On the subject of assessment, is his conclusion that the cull should not have proceeded or that it did not take place on the right criteria? The public would like to hear what he and his right hon. and hon. Friends propose for controlling a vicious disease that has an impact on wildlife and domestic animals, as well as a huge impact on cattle, which I am sure many hon. Members will go on to discuss.

[Chris Williamson]

I do not think the cull should have started in the first place, because of the wealth of scientific opinion that I have already outlined. I will come on to the alternative way forward.

I ask the Minister, where is the transparency? The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been talking about the importance of transparent Government, but there is no transparency whatever in this process. Ministers and the National Farmers Union need to get real. The main route of transmission of TB is cattle to cattle. That has been independently verified by numerous experts. Ministers need to end this wild goose chase. To respond to the hon. Lady, we need mandatory annual and pre-movement testing for all cattle, and should impose significant movement restrictions. There also needs to be rigorous biosecurity for dairy farms around the country. That has happened in Wales, where the Welsh Government have gone further and have introduced badger vaccination, a move that the Government would do well to adopt, to address the dreadful disease of TB.

I have a number of questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer when he responds. The public would like to know—it is in the interests of transparent government that they do—who monitored the latest cull; perhaps he will take a note of that question and respond to it. Will he also say when details about the cull will be published and by whom—will it be Natural England or DEFRA? How will humaneness, safety and efficiency be assessed? Those factors were assessed in the first year of culling.

Will a decision on a third pilot be reserved until after the results are assessed, or has that matter already been decided? Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could come clean on that. Indeed, will there be a third pilot or will the Government go straight to a roll-out? We need to know that as well.

Were any badgers tested for TB during the latest cull? If so, how many tested positive? Last year, a relatively small proportion of badgers killed tested positive. What proportion of badgers killed in this year’s culls were cage-trapped? We need to know that, because, as I understand it, part of the rationale behind the cull was to determine the effectiveness of free shooting.

Why was a different methodology for calculating the number of badgers used in year two from that used in year one? Why does the methodology applying to Somerset differ from the one applying to Gloucestershire? That just does not make sense—how can there be different methodologies from one county to the other? Surely that calls into question the bona fides of the Government’s process.

Finally, does the Minister agree with his own Department’s guidance to Natural England that the badger culls need to remove at least 70% of the local badger population within six weeks to avoid the risk of increasing cattle TB rates? If he does, can he explain why the targets set for this year’s pilot culls have been changed?

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a farmer, although I do not keep any stock so I have no financial interest in this debate.

We have again found ourselves having a debate about an incredibly important scientific issue before the scientific evidence has been fully analysed and published by the Minister’s Department. The debate is premature and speculative and will be incompletely informed. The second year of the culls ended on 20 October, and we have not yet seen the results of either of the trials in Somerset or Gloucestershire, so how can we have a reasoned and fully informed debate assessing those trials? I suspect that the debate will be centred on rumour and uninformed results.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman once only.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the Government’s decision to disband the independent expert panel? Surely it would have provided the comfort blanket of impartial evidence.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The Government have said that that they will fully audit the results. When they are fully audited and analysed and properly published, I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman and others will want to examine them in great detail and return to the House with comments.

One point of fact is the dreadful disease that bovine TB is and the pain it causes to badgers, cattle and farmers. Significant attention has been given to the relatively small number of badgers being culled in these trials, but less attention is given to the 314,000 cattle that have been slaughtered in the last 10 years at a cost of £500 million to taxpayers. Indices of TB in cattle show that it increased ninefold between 1997 and 2010 in England, which now has the highest incidence of TB in the whole of Europe. The cost will rise to more than £1 billion over the next decade if nothing is done to eradicate TB from our communities.

It is important to remember that culling is simply one aspect of the Government’s comprehensive strategy to eradicate TB within 25 years. I hope that no one speaking in the debate will disapprove of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

Yes. The hon. Lady raises a point that my hon. Friend the Minister might well like to deal with. The quicker we can get a reactor off a farm the better, because it is infectious while it is there.

While there is a reservoir of disease in the wildlife and particularly in badgers, we have to cull, and we have to cull in the areas where the badgers have TB and the cattle do. That is why the hot spots are where we target the culling. That is why we targeted Gloucester and west Somerset. That is absolutely right. We will be able to use vaccine in other areas, because in other areas, where there is little TB in the cattle, there is likely to be little TB in the badgers also. Therefore, vaccinating badgers in those areas could well be very successful. The point has been made many times that if a badger is infected with a disease, we will not cure it by vaccinating it. That is why we have to take the very difficult decision of culling infected badgers.

I congratulate very much the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who may have been lambasted by many, but who actually stuck his neck above the parapet and said, “Yes, we will do the thing that is necessary, which is to cull badgers in infected areas.”

The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) opposed the policy from the beginning, so he would oppose it whether or not it was successful. That was never an issue with him, because he has opposed the whole thing, but what do we say to my constituent, David, who is at Ennerleigh farm in Washfield? He has been farming there for generations. Over the last 10 years, he has lost 350 cattle that have had TB. It has been a slow decline all the time—more and more reactors. He needs the pool of wildlife that has that infection to be dealt with, as do farmers across Devon, across the west country and in Wales, because, as has been said, the disease is spreading. If we do not deal with it in those hot spots, we will, in the end, have to cull more badgers, for the simple reason that the disease will have spread, the badgers will get it, they will then disease the cattle and the whole thing will get worse and worse. We cannot go on like the last Labour Government did—prevaricating and prevaricating and doing absolutely nothing.

The current Government have taken the difficult position. We have looked at the cull areas. We have looked at hard boundaries to ensure, as far as possible, that we use major roads, rivers and so on to try to prevent as much perturbation as possible. The system is not perfect. We would accept that and we have learned lessons from last year as far as the humaneness is concerned. As for traps, it is absolutely within the rules for traps to be used, and as for those activists who go out and trash the traps so that we cannot catch the badgers, that is absolute madness, because if we want to cull a badger in the most humane way possible, getting it in a trap so that we can dispatch it at point-blank range will always be the best method of culling.

We have worked so hard to get this going, and the farmers of this country, who keep the cattle, deserve to have the disease brought under control, because this is not only about the meat that we eat and the milk that we drink. It is about the countryside that we see out there and the cattle out in those fields. If we do not get rid of the disease in the wildlife, those cattle will have to stay indoors because it is too dangerous for them to go out, and I do not exaggerate. That is why this Government are making the right decision. I look forward to these pilot culls being successful. We are, again anecdotally, seeing the disease reducing, reactors reducing and outbreaks of TB in Somerset in particular—

[Chris Williamson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

No. You want me to finish by 20 to four, Mr Caton, so I will keep going.

We have seen, anecdotally, a reduction. If we can hold our nerve and ensure that we carry out the culls in a humane way, we will reduce the number of infected badgers in the countryside, in those areas with a high number of TB cases. If we use traps wherever necessary, carry out controlled shooting and ensure that we carry out the cull properly, we will see TB, first, reduce in this country and, eventually, we will eradicate it. If we do not take this action, we will never eradicate the disease. Farmers need to see a good future not only for them, but for their families. Farming is about generations of farmers, generations of cattle and generations of breeding of cattle. That is all being destroyed by this disease, and unless we take this firm action, we will not eradicate the disease.

Badger Cull

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on allowing it to proceed.

It is important that we acknowledge that the badger cull has been a catastrophic failure. It has failed farmers, it has failed taxpayers and it has failed the wildlife in our countryside. It failed to reach the 70% target that it needed to reach to be effective. As Members have said, the experts say that for a randomised badger cull to be successful, it should take about two weeks. The Government set a timescale of six weeks, but they did not even manage it in that period and had to extend it. It certainly failed on that score.

The cull failed DEFRA’s own perverse humaneness test. The test says that it is humane if it takes an animal only five minutes to die. I do not think that that is humane, but the Government failed that test as well. As other Members have pointed out, according to leaked reports, one in five badgers took considerably longer than five minutes to die. Of the 1,861 badgers that were killed in the cull, 335 took considerably longer than five minutes to die. The Government therefore failed the humaneness test.

The Government failed to stop the spread of the disease because of perturbation. All the expert evidence says that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said in her intervention, the Secretary of State himself acknowledged that the 70% target must be met, otherwise the cull would be a failure because of the problem of perturbation. The Government did not manage that, so on that basis, they have made the situation worse and spread TB even wider.

The Government have failed the value-for-money test as well. The Conservative think-tank, the Bow Group, has said that it cost £4,121 to kill each badger.

The Government have failed to acknowledge that vaccination works. They have failed to acknowledge what has happened in Wales. They have failed to accept that in Northern Ireland, where there has been no badger cull, the level of bovine TB has been reduced. We know that it is cattle movements and biosecurity measures, alongside vaccination, that will make the biggest contribution.

The Government have also failed to meet their commitments. Government Members have talked today about seeking cross-party consensus. The Government have failed to seek that consensus. The Opposition have offered an open hand to find a consensus. Hopefully, after today, we will find one, but the Government have so far failed to deliver on that.

The Government have certainly failed to listen to the public. Some 304,202 people signed the e-petition against the badger cull. The Government have failed to listen to scientific opinion, as I have pointed out. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), who is not in his place, spoke about the importance of proceeding on the basis of scientific evidence and said that we needed to wait for the report to be available. The overwhelming scientific consensus before the cull was that it would not work, but the Government felt that it was satisfactory to ignore scientific opinion. When it suits them they ignore scientific opinion, and when it does not they call for more scientific evidence to be made available.

Ministers cannot say that they were not made aware that the badger cull would be a disaster: hon. Members lined up to point out the folly of proceeding with it; the scientific world told them not to cull and that there was no scientific basis for proceeding with it; and the public were overwhelmingly opposed to it. The Government’s own former scientific adviser said it was a fiasco, and many other choice words have been used by scientists to describe it.

It is important that from today we move forward with some sort of unity and consensus. I am delighted that some Members who previously voted for the cull have now changed their minds in the light of the catastrophe that has befallen us in the randomised badger culling areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) talked about the importance of reaching a consensus, which is what the overwhelming majority of the British public want. We know that the current situation is putting the police in an impossible position. I have heard numerous reports—even while I have been sitting here listening to the debate, people have been e-mailing me—of those monitoring badger culls being harassed and even having shots fired at them. We cannot allow that to happen. We have to find an alternative way forward.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Would the hon. Gentleman mind looking at whether there is a difference in the policing costs for Gloucestershire and Somerset?

[Chris Williamson]

Policing costs are a significant contributory factor to the overall cost of the badger cull, but we live in a democracy and people have a right to monitor the badger cull and protest against it. We do not live in a dictatorship and those costs have to be factored in.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Is it not important to acknowledge the distress the cull has caused to the wider community overall?

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. That distress is not confined to people living in towns and cities; it is felt by rural communities and by many farmers. Dairy farmers have approached me to say that they are extremely distressed by the badger cull and do not feel that there is any justification for it. I see the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) shaking his head, but I can assure him that that is a fact. They are fearful that this folly will make matters worse for them. They want to proceed on a scientific basis and see this disease eradicated. They do not want to see badgers suffering and they certainly do not want to see the situation made worse as a consequence of the folly we have seen so far.

I hope that there can be a rapprochement between those on the Government Front Bench and Opposition Members, and that we can find consensus. To achieve that, the Government must abandon this cull.

Flooding

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I will raise that issue with the Environment Agency, which I found very responsive to individual schemes. If my hon. Friend would be kind enough to give me more precise details, I will try to get an answer for her.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pickles]

The hon. Lady only has to look around to see how effective the new schemes have been. We have continued producing schemes. A number of Members have stood up and recognised what has happened. To be frank, I am pretty partisan and I am doing my best to be restrained. I point out politely that the last Labour Chancellor announced that if the Labour party won the last election, capital schemes would be cut by half. I do not believe for one moment that flood defences would have been exempt from that. After all, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, who has many fine qualities, has not been able to give a commitment that she would match the spending plans of the coalition Government.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Pickles]

Oh no, I don’t think so—not for a while.

Councils have the discretion to extend the relief. Since April, they have had the ability to waive the council tax exemption on empty homes to get them back into use, and to use the money to support front-line services or keep council tax down. The Leader of the Opposition supports that policy. However, I believe that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central has his doubts about it. It would be helpful if, in his summation, he made those doubts clear or demonstrated that he is at one with his leader.

The Government have been clear that we can give councils local flexibility. Councils can continue to use their discretionary powers to offer council tax relief to people whose homes are empty through no fault of their own. If councils are raising extra funds by waiving the exemption, they have a moral obligation to fund council tax relief for flooded homes for as long as it takes for families to get back into them. It would be most unfortunate if councils were portrayed as making money from misery.

To support home owners and businesses, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is providing a repair and renewal grant of up to £5,000 per household.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pickles]

Certainly part of the amount that I have just announced with regard to businesses will be, although the rate rebate will not be available. This is perhaps a good opportunity for me to apologise to my right hon. Friend because I am afraid my office did not inform him of my visit to his constituency, which was made at short notice. I deeply regret that because he is a most diligent constituency MP, and I know he had been at the site the previous day. That was a good example of how adaptable firefighters have been: the use of the underpass as a balancing pool was a work of absolute genius, and it undoubtedly saved that important pumping station.

[Chris Williamson]

rose—

[Mr Pickles]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. I indicated that I might mention firefighters, but I think I will save that for a little later. He spoke earlier about a moral obligation on local authorities, but are the Government not under a moral obligation to reinstate the significant cuts that they made to the flood defence scheme when they came to power, particularly in view of the Prime Minister’s statement at the press conference he called on 11 February, when he said that the Government

“will build a more resilient country for the future”?

What does that mean if not reinstating those cuts?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I start by concurring with everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn). He was entirely right when he drew a comparison between his constituency and what was happening in Somerset. As I think the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) acknowledged, to some extent farming practices are responsible for the extent of the flooding we have seen. In addition, however, the Government’s own ideological obsession with deregulation is responsible, and I will tell the House why. As hon. Members may know, maize cultivation is now a significant feature of the British countryside in many areas, and it is used for animal feed and—as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West pointed out—for biofuel.

The problem with maize cultivation, however, is that it has a significant impact on land’s capacity to hold water. When Labour was in office we recognised that, and back in the mid-2000s, I think, we implemented soil conservation measures to take account of that, linking subsidies to farmers to that sort of conservation necessity. When this Government came to power, with their obsession with deregulation, they specifically exempted maize cultivation from all soil conservation measures. That seems absolutely crazy. That crop causes the most floods and does the most damage, yet it is completely unregulated—it is a crazy example of barmy deregulation. As well as investment in flood defences and dredging in certain circumstances, it is vital that the Government make clear the importance of that issue, and take the necessary steps to ensure that sustainable land use is a feature of ensuring—as the Prime Minister said—that the Government secure a sustainable country for the future.

Let me say a little about my constituency, which thankfully was spared the floods on this occasion. According to recent data, 3,372 homes in my constituency are at risk of flooding, and 1,370 are at significant risk. It was really just luck that the rain fell where it did, because had it fallen on the River Derwent catchment area, my constituents would be counting the cost of flooding to their homes. I remember back in the 1960s when around Christmas the homes at risk in my constituency sustained the sort of flooding that we are seeing in other parts of the country today.

We know that funding for the “Our City Our River” flood defence scheme in Derby was substantially cut by this Government when they came to office. That has caused considerable anxiety for my constituents, and made it difficult for many of them to obtain flood insurance. The Prime Minister said that money was no object and that the Government would invest in securing a sustainable country for the future, so I hope that the funds necessary for flood defences in my constituency will be made available. It is no good simply saying, “Well, they can be completed by relying on the private sector and using the funds that it will put in place”. We need to get the private sector to the table, and meanwhile the rain might fall and the floods may arrive.

We know that there are a number of climate change deniers on the Government Benches and in the Cabinet itself—indeed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a climate change denier—but it seems obvious to me, from the events of the past few months, that climate change is happening. We are seeing more extreme weather events, and, as I have already pointed out, Derby has been lucky.

It is important to acknowledge the heroic and innovative work undertaken by our fire and rescue services. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has referred to some of that excellent work and other hon. Members have mentioned it in their contributions too. Firefighters have been tireless in their efforts to rescue people and to protect certain areas from being inundated. Without their efforts, residents in areas afflicted by these awful floods would have experienced even more devastation. The Pitt review, which was published some time ago, called clearly for a statutory duty to be imposed on fire authorities to tackle flooding and to be the lead bodies in these circumstances. Recommendation 39 of the Pitt review states:

“The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue, with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty.”

I hope the Minister will indicate whether the Government are considering implementing that recommendation.

In addition to adapting to the growing problem of severe weather events and increased flooding, I hope we will see investment in renewable energy. We need to find ways of generating energy in a more sustainable way. We also need to reduce demand for energy, as that would have the twin benefit of tackling fuel poverty. Investing in an energy efficiency regime to tackle fuel poverty would make an important contribution to reducing demand for energy. Finally, in addition to reducing development on floodplains, the Government ought to consider making developers responsible for any damage caused to flooded properties for, say, 20 years after homes have been built.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

Sites such as that in my hon. Friend’s constituency need an environmental permit from the Environment Agency and planning permission from the local authority. There is an environmental permit in place for that site. Any planning considerations would be a matter for the local authority.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Further to the question from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) about the flushing of foxes, we know that there is a lot of support on the Government Benches for the repeal of the Hunting Act 2004. Will the Minister say what discussions have taken place inside DEFRA to promote amendment of the Act, specifically with regard to the flushing of foxes to guns?

[George Eustice]

As the hon. Gentleman said, there is a range of views on the issue on both sides of the House. That is why the coalition agreement said that at some point we would have a free vote on the full repeal of the Hunting Act. I made it clear that we have had a submission from some Welsh farmers and we have said that we will look at that, and when we are ready to respond, we will do so.

Flooding (Somerset)

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for praising the work of the emergency services. He may not be aware that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is sitting next to him, is recklessly cutting the number of firefighters: there will be 5,000 fewer in England by 2015 than there were in 2010. Will he ask the Secretary of State to stop those cuts and will he recommend that the Pitt review, which suggested that a statutory responsibility should be given to fire and rescue services, be implemented without further delay?

[Mr Paterson]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes to look in the mirror and reminds himself that his Government left us borrowing £400,000 a minute. I want publicly to praise all those in the fire services: they have supplied specialist vehicles that have been of great succour to those on the levels, and I really admire the work that they have done around the country. The fire services have been key during this very difficult period—over Christmas, the new year and right through January—and I am very grateful to them for the splendid job that they have done.

Badger Cull

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir.

I make it clear for the record that I am a long-standing trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports. I want the cull to be abandoned because I do not believe there is any justification for its continuation. Indeed, prior to the recent cull, there was a debate in the main Chamber in which we implored the Government not to proceed. We made it clear that there is no evidence to support a cull. I said that the cull was likely, according to the scientific evidence, to make matters worse.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says that there is no justification for the cull, so why is it that the Republic of Ireland only got control of tuberculosis once it started culling badgers? This is about badgers infecting cattle with TB, and we need to react strongly. I entirely reject what the hon. Gentleman says.

[Chris Williamson]

I will develop my argument, but the hon. Gentleman is misquoting the statistics relating to Ireland. If we dig a little deeper into the situation in Ireland, it is pretty clear that north of the border, where I believe culling has not taken place, the situation improved considerably more than it did in the south of Ireland.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does not the evidence show that, even with the cull, the targets cannot be achieved? More importantly, would it not be better to use the Scottish system?

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will address his point if I have time.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that this debate is on so-called control of mainland badgers? Will he please address the intervention by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)? This is about scientific evidence; the scientific evidence from Lord May and the breadth of scientific opinion in this country are against the cull.

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

May I develop my argument a little further, because I have only just started? I have read only the first couple of lines of my speech, and I have already had five people seeking to interject. Please let me develop my argument before making further interventions.

As I was saying before I was intervened on, the Government disregarded the scientific evidence and my and other hon. Members’ assertions that the cull would make matters worse. They disregarded public opinion. The scientific views of a range of eminent individuals have been completely disregarded by Ministers; we have been confronted by Ministers who from day one have simply been gung ho for the cull and determined to proceed, irrespective of the evidence. It seems to me that Ministers are impervious to reason. Disregarding scientific evidence and public opinion so cavalierly is no way for a Government to make policy.

[Mel Stride]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

May I carry on a little longer?

As we know, the cull has been a dismal failure. The policy is an absolute shambles. Instead of accepting the Government’s mistake, we have seen the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs indulging in shameless propaganda to try to justify the unjustifiable. The Independent reports him as saying:

“These lovely black and white creatures you see on the telly and you put in your newspaper. They don’t relate to these miserable, emaciated sick animals spewing out disease.”

There is no evidence for that.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on 10 October, the Secretary of State said that

“some of the animals we have shot have been desperately sick—in the final stages of disease”.—[Official Report, 10 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 281.]

In a written answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the Minister said:

“The Secretary of State’s comments about sick badgers relate to the comments made to him by contractors and farmers during the culls.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 714W.]

So there is no evidence at all. We are simply getting scaremongering nonsense from the Government. The cull has been a very costly failure.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate.

Scotland is virtually clear of TB in cattle. Is there not an awful lot to be said for the argument that the Government down here, whose experiment has been a folly, should look at the Scottish situation instead of continuing a cull that nobody recognises as being of any use?

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is right that the Government should look at evidence from elsewhere in the United Kingdom—and, indeed, listen to the expert scientific evidence.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He mentioned my parliamentary question, but does he also share my concern that the Government appear to have done so few post-mortems on badgers that we do not know what the results are? Does he further agree that, in light of the shambles around the current culling policy, there is a real danger that the Government will go down the route of gassing? Gassing is incredibly inhumane. The real answer, which is also cheaper and more effective, is to vaccinate badgers. That is what we should do.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will address her point a little later.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

I will carry on before taking a few more interventions.

What I find so scandalous about the whole process, apart from the fact that the Government have disregarded scientific and public opinion, is that the Government have withheld information about the humaneness of the cull. We were assured by Ministers that of course the cull would be humane. We had crocodile tears from Government Members in the debate earlier this year, when they said how concerned they were about animal welfare and that of course the procedure would be humane.

[Ian Paisley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

I will give way in a moment.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is withholding information about the criteria on which the humaneness of the cull has been based. Surely if the Government have nothing to fear, they will release that information—but of course they have been singularly unwilling to do so.

Public safety has been compromised by the cull. Monitors who are there to watch over the cull have been intimidated by some of the people employed to do the culling. Shots have been fired over the heads of monitors—shots have been fired in the United Kingdom over the heads of people going about their lawful business of monitoring the activities of a cull set up by the Government. They have had shots fired over their heads! That is appalling and disgraceful, and it should be condemned by Ministers, but we have not heard any condemnation from the Government. On at least one occasion, people monitoring the culls have had their vehicle rammed by people who favour the cull.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is some scientific evidence in favour of a cull, as well as strong arguments against a cull? Is it not the case that the Labour party in Wales, which is now in government, was in favour of a cull when it was in coalition with Plaid Cymru? It was only when they won an overall majority that they changed their mind and ceased their battle in the High Court. Why is the hon. Gentleman trying to politicise the matter when his colleagues in Wales were determined to fight in the High Court for the right to go ahead with a cull? What has changed since then?

[Chris Williamson]

The fact is that the Welsh Government rejected any suggestion of a cull and are going ahead with a vaccination programme, which I hope this Government will accept for England. It seems a more appropriate way forward, rather than proceeding in the current manner. I am about to come on to some of the scientific evidence, which clearly refutes the assertion just made by the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies).

Public safety has been compromised and costs have spiralled out of control, but the Government say that the policy is based on the previous randomised badger cull from, I think, 1998 to 2006. The conclusions of that cull showed that, far from actually making things better, it actually resulted in a 29% increase in the incidence of TB outside the cull area. I will quote from paragraph 9 of the independent scientific group on cattle TB’s final report, which is a weighty tome that runs to some 200 pages:

“After careful consideration of all the RBCT”—

randomised badger cull trials—

“and other data presented in this report, including an economic assessment, we conclude that badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the…control of cattle TB in Britain.”

There we have it. The scientific evidence from the randomised trials could not be clearer. It is there in black and white. I invite the Minister to read it. It was actually produced for the Government, and I simply do not understand why they have been so unwilling to take account of the evidence before them.

The cull has been utterly unsuccessful. It was supposed to kill 70% of badgers, but it has managed only 39% even though it was extended from six to 11 weeks. Cattle have been put at greater risk. Ministers say they are standing up for the farming community and that they want to eradicate this terrible disease, but they are embarking on a programme that is making matters worse. They knew it would make matters worse, because the evidence from the scientific report told them so.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He mentioned the science and scientific assessment, and he will be aware that Lord Krebs, in the Grand Committee debate on Monday, described the trials as a “complete fiasco.” There is a critical question that the Minister needs to be asked today. Without prejudging the findings of the independent panel, which was charged with assessing the cull’s effectiveness and humaneness, if it finds that the cull was neither effective nor humane, would the Government stop the cull?

[Chris Williamson]

One would certainly hope that the Government would. I am going to refer to Lord Krebs in a moment, and I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

Professor Woodroffe, who is a leading expert in such matters, said:

“It’s very likely that so far this cull will have increased the TB risk for cattle inside the Gloucestershire cull zone rather than reducing it.”

Scientific evidence from a few years ago and contemporary scientific opinion both say that the cull is making matters worse. Yet the Government still want to proceed with more culls.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a most impassioned speech, albeit one with which I do not entirely agree. Leaving aside the substance of his arguments, perhaps he could address one particular question. One criticism of the trials in Somerset and Gloucestershire is that, according to his argument, insufficient badgers were killed. Had a larger number been killed, would he be congratulating the Government on their success?

[Chris Williamson]

I have fundamental objections to the cull. All the evidence demonstrates that it is likely to make matters worse. Even if the 70% target had been reached, scientific opinion suggests that a cull is not the way to proceed. I urge the Government to follow the route taken by the Welsh Government and to embark on a programme of vaccination.

The Secretary of State seems deluded. Even though the scientific evidence stated that the cull would make matters worse and even though only 39% of badgers, rather than the 70% that was claimed necessary to have the required impact, were killed, the Secretary of State said in a written statement:

“The extension in Gloucestershire has therefore been successful in meeting its aim in preparing the ground for a fully effective four year cull.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 34WS.]

It is unbelievable. The Secretary of State is absolutely gung-ho. The evidence does not matter; he will simply argue that the cull has been a success when, even by the Government’s own terms, it has been a catastrophic failure. The target was culling 70% of badgers, but only 39% was achieved. That is barely half.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Chris Williamson]

The culls are making matters worse, and yet Members are straining at the leash to intervene to support the badger cull. I will give way to the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), whom I know is an inveterate supporter of killing badgers.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. The hon. Gentleman gives the impression that the evidence is completely one-sided. Does he accept to some extent the evidence of the British Veterinary Association? We have accepted its evidence in other debates, such as on circus animals. It is concise and focused on this. Does he accept that there are at least some scientists out there who take a contrary view and that the matter is not as one-sided as he maintains?

[Chris Williamson]

I of course concede that some small percentage of individuals—pseudo-scientists, some might call them—[Interruption.]

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Weir. The British Veterinary Association has just been referred to as a group of “pseudo-scientists”. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman may like to withdraw that statement.

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

That is not a point of order. Interventions as points of order are not going to help matters. Many people want to speak in this debate, so I urge hon. Members to control themselves.

[Chris Williamson]

I actually said that some might say that they are—[Interruption.] I urge hon. Members to check Hansard, where they will find that I said that some might refer to it as pseudo-scientific evidence. Irrespective of the fact that some veterinary surgeons argue that the badger cull is justified, many other vets actually take a different and contrary view.

[Mel Stride]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

I will not give way at the moment.

I wonder what on earth the Secretary of State is doing. I am reminded of Einstein’s definition of madness, which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Lord Krebs, to whom the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) referred earlier, seems to agree with me. He oversaw the randomised badger culling trials in the 1990s and has labelled this cull a “complete fiasco”, saying that it has been “even crazier” than anticipated. After the schemes in Somerset and Gloucester missed their targets, he said that

“there is no point in doing something if it is the wrong thing.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2013; Vol. 750, c. GC144.]

It could not be clearer. I am not saying that the Secretary of State is mad, but he is deluded if he thinks he can pull the wool over the British people’s eyes. The cull in Gloucestershire failed to meet the Government’s target of a 70% kill rate—it only managed 39%, as we know.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I wish to take up the hon. Gentleman’s point about doing the same thing over and over again. My guess is that there are about 365,000 badgers in this country, and they would need to be vaccinated annually. I would like to support vaccination, but how on earth will we vaccinate 1,000 badgers a day just to keep the population healthy?

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is exaggerating slightly. That will be necessary only in the hot spot areas. However, I will explain in a moment why vaccination is a far better and less costly route.

The Secretary of State’s attitude to the badger cull is deluded. We know that the Government’s cull has failed, we know that it makes matters worse, we know that it is cruel and inhumane and we know that vaccinating badgers is cheaper and more effective. The vaccination of badgers in Wales seems to be working. How it will work in the future remains to be seen, but we think it will work better than the cull.

The magazine Farming Monthly National said:

“Out of nearly 1200 badgers caught in Wales for vaccination, none showed any signs of illness.”

That is revealing, given that the Secretary of State said that badgers are “spewing out disease”. When he was probed on that claim, it turned out to be anecdotal hearsay from the National Farmers Union, which represents only 18% of farmers, and the people who were employed to do the culling. There is no evidence for his claim.

In a written answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, the Government said:

“TB testing in culled badgers is not being undertaken as a routine procedure”.

They went on to say that

“the numbers of badgers found to be carrying TB is not known at present.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 714W.]

They do not even know whether any of the badgers that they have killed so far were carrying TB. They are ignoring all the evidence. It seems that the Government are blind to this matter.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even if we killed every badger in the UK it would not eradicate TB?

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a moot point whether badgers are responsible for infecting cattle with TB. Vaccination is a far better route, with biosecurity measures and restrictions on movement.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Chris Williamson]

I am about to conclude my remarks. I simply say that I hope that the Government listen to the debate.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has been generous in taking interventions. I want to make one quick point. During his opening remarks, he presented the issue as a red versus blue one, but it really is not. It is a black and white issue, not a red versus blue one, as many Government Members feel as strongly about it as he does.

The case against vaccination has always been based on its cost as much as anything else, but the cost of policing the cull has spiralled to four times the original prediction. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the cost of not vaccinating looks increasingly serious?

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I am delighted that Government Members are as passionate as I am about wanting to—

[Mel Stride]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

I will not take any more interventions, as I know other people want to speak. I know that some Members on both sides are passionate about this issue. It is important that we have cross-party support, and I hope the Minister will listen to Government Members.

On the cost, there is considerable evidence making it clear that vaccination is a less expensive way of dealing with this problem. When we take into account the cost not only of culling, but of policing the cull, which would obviously not be necessary in a vaccination programme, we see not only that the cull is useless and failing, given the context in which it was introduced, but that it is an expensive failure and much more costly than vaccination.

I hope the Minister will give us an assurance today that, having listened to the scientific evidence, public opinion, parliamentary opinion and Government Members, the Government will abandon the cull. If he will not give that commitment, I hope he will, at a bare minimum, give a commitment to do what I am about to set out. Given the controversy over the cull, I call on the Government—

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on the point about the controversy?

[Chris Williamson]

If the hon. Gentleman will let me finish on this point, he will, I hope, be able to come in before the end of the debate.

I hope the Minister will support an independent and systematic review by the likes of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons or the Royal Society. Such a review could evaluate all the scientific, social, economic, ecological and ethical aspects of the Government’s policy. If Ministers are so sure—

[Mel Stride]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Williamson]

I am about to conclude.

If Ministers are so sure of their position, they should have nothing to fear from a thorough appraisal of this controversial policy. Such an appraisal would provide the evidence base on which policy decisions could subsequently be based, and it would certainly command public confidence. That is something the Government should consider seriously, and I hope that, when the Minister responds to the debate, he will at least give an assurance on supporting such a review, if he will not give the assurance that the overwhelming majority of the British people want and abandon the cull altogether, as the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion urges.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

We believe it is a valuable tool in the fight against wildlife crime, not only domestically but internationally, where there is great and worrying evidence of large-scale organised criminality that is affecting the survival chances of some of the most iconic species. I am delighted that we, along with the Home Office, have been able to continue the funding of the unit and we hope that it will continue its great work.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

T5. Last year the Secretary of State said that there would not be a Commons vote on repealing the Hunting Act 2004. Will he reassure the overwhelming majority of the British public who support retention of the Act that there will be no vote at any time in this Parliament?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is declared coalition policy to have a free vote on this issue at the appropriate time.