Bovine TB and Badger Control

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am happy to talk to anyone on the subject. We need to resolve it. We cannot go on carting off 26,000 cattle a year at a cost of nearly £100 million. We have to work together, and I am very happy to work with the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) if she is prepared to listen to me.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I believe that the plan was ill-conceived from the outset, but today’s announcement was not about the science, it was about incompetence. The Government have had plenty of time, and this is not an uncontroversial issue. It has been scrutinised to death from this side and that, yet they came up with the figures on how many badgers there are very late in the process. What we need a cull of is Ministers who waste public money—we have had the west coast main line, and now this. How much has been wasted this year, and how much more will the cull cost next year?

[Mr Paterson]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman with a full reply in writing on the costs. I can give him a breakdown of what we have spent on compensation, the trials and the vaccine. He needs to understand, from his urban perspective, the absolute devastation that bovine TB causes to our rural communities and those involved in the cattle industry. We have to resolve the problem, and we must face up to the fact that —[Interruption.] Just listen to my answer. We have to bear down on disease in cattle and in wildlife.