Badger Vaccines

David Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

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

I am delighted to have secured a debate on the important subject of badger vaccinations to prevent bovine TB. I am also delighted that so many hon. Members are here today. I hope that the debate will be measured and grown up, because the subject is truly apolitical and everybody in the room will have an opinion on how best to proceed. Everybody wants to see TB being reduced while the badger population is preserved.

Before I start my speech, may I welcome the Minister to his new role? I have known him for some time and I am elated about his new position. I have always had the utmost respect for his abilities and he will do a huge amount for rural communities such as the Lune valley, which I represent.

We are all acutely aware of the controversy around the ongoing cull and the desire on both sides of the debate to control bovine TB with the minimum disturbance to wildlife. Both sides have offered compelling arguments and I voted in favour of the cull as an interim measure ahead of work on a viable, deliverable and safe vaccine. I hope that the Minister will update us on the progress of the research and development of the oral vaccine. I also want to ask him what steps are being taken with groups such as the Badger Trust towards bringing in volunteers to help with any future vaccination programme.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that any vaccination proposals should be accompanied by improved measures relating to biosecurity on farms and more adequate controls on cattle movement?

[David Morris]

I totally agree. Later in my speech, I will explain some of the technicalities behind what the hon. Lady has just articulated.

I pay tribute at this point to the work of Team Badger in highlighting the need for vaccinations. The group is led by Dr Brian May, CBE, and I know how much time, effort and money he puts into humanitarian and wildlife issues.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I spoke to him beforehand, Sir Alan, and asked his permission to speak.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman not only on securing the debate, but on supporting the cull. I support the cull, as do many others in the House, but many others do not. Does he recognise that bovine TB costs dairy and beef farmers millions of pounds? Should that not be the first reason for trying to continue the cull and for ensuring that badgers are eradicated?

[David Morris]

There is a cost to the issue, as there is with anything of this nature, but as I will explain later in my speech, there is a funding situation that can be annexed to involve Team Badger and various other badger projects.

Today’s debate comes during the badger cull and following the Opposition day debate on 5 June, in which a wide range of hon. Members participated. I believe that 5 June was the start of the process of bringing both sides together, to which I hope today’s debate also contributes. It is pretty easy for all of us to understand the opposition to the cull, but we must not characterise those in favour of it as being cruel. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and farmers have the best interests of the countryside and the agricultural community at heart and want to help in the best way possible and protect badgers at the same time, but they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the spread of bovine TB will be significantly reduced if we cull 70% of badgers in the cull zones. That said, the last major cull from 1997 to 2007 was not deemed to have dealt with the problem to the extent that was hoped and cost £50 million.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that one of the benefits of vaccination versus a cull is that vaccinations have no perturbation effect?

[David Morris]

I agree totally. Vaccination increases herd immunity, while culling increases the spread of disease.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

For the record, I am a member of the British Veterinary Association. May I ask the hon. Gentleman two questions? Does he agree that a vaccine does not cure an infected beast and that, if a beast is infected, it must be culled?

[David Morris]

Despite a massive cull in southern Ireland, of 97,000 badgers, the rates of TB in the north, where there were no culls, are still the same. If a badger with TB is vaccinated, it will not be cured, but if it reproduces, its young will be immune.

[Ian Paisley]

It is important that people understand what the vaccine does. The beast is trapped and tested: if it has the disease, it is culled; but if the test is not positive and it is free of the disease, it is injected. However, it has to be injected for the next five years—caught every year and injected—and that costs about £3,000 per beast.

[David Morris]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying and I understand his argument. In the culling at the moment, however, badgers are being trapped and shot—there is only one sentence for them, if caught, and that is to be killed.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

On the points made by the previous two Members who intervened, the whole debate needs to be centred on the evidence base. Perturbation is of concern—the evidence is that perturbation exists when culling takes place.

[David Morris]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

On the potential for the Government’s policy to make the situation worse, that is likely to happen if the cull levels are as low as they are reported to be. I have to congratulate the Government, however, on their support for a proposed community-led badger vaccination programme on 200 sq km in my constituency, in the Land’s End peninsula, Penwith. The first year of vaccination on contiguous farms is going ahead with the support of Professor Rosie Woodroffe of the Zoological Society of London.

[David Morris]

I would like to see similar programmes rolled out nationally.

I must make some progress. The latest parliamentary report was published by the all-party group on dairy farmers, which was established by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). The group had 250 members, of whom 70 were Labour MPs, and the report recommended a badger cull. Research done under the previous Government suggested that the cull will reduce bovine TB by 16%. Obviously, that is a good thing, but we must work towards eradicating TB completely. From what I can see, a vaccination programme for both cattle and badgers is the only way to ensure that. I do not want to dwell on the need to vaccinate cattle and the problems that that would raise, but it is worth flagging up that, if we can do that in a cost-effective manner, we should.

A BCG is available for badgers, which is not unlike the injection most of us had at school. The concern about it is that the need to trap and tag badgers in order to deliver it effectively can make it expensive, as we have discussed. There seems to be widespread agreement, therefore, that we need an effective oral vaccination, and I again invite the Minister to comment on research and development and the progress in that field. It is worth pointing out that, this week, a National Farmers Union briefing was fully in favour of work on vaccines, while DEFRA is undertaking a survey of the number of badgers in the UK, which shows that there is common ground between both sides, even if that is not obvious at first.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

rose—

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

rose—

[David Morris]

I shall give way to the hon. Lady and then to my hon. Friend.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the Welsh Government on the work that they have done to date on introducing badger vaccines? Will he urge his colleagues in the Government to work closely with the Welsh Government in order to make such progress?

[David Morris]

That is a helpful intervention, and I shall do so at all opportunities given to me.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend has been incredibly generous with all the interventions, so I shall be brief. He mentioned that cost is often cited as the a reason for vaccinations not taking place, but does he agree that, if the cost of policing a badger cull is included, the cost difference is almost negligible? Furthermore, if the good will of all the volunteers who have been campaigning on behalf of badgers were harnessed, and they were turned into vaccinators or those aiding vaccinators, much of the cost difference could be mitigated overnight.

[David Morris]

That is the spirit of the debate—how we proceed and eradicate a problem that has blighted our countryside.

As I said, the DEFRA survey of badger numbers shows that there is some common ground. On the subject of badger numbers, I have heard huge variations in the estimates, which range from 150,000 to 350,000. It is vital to understand how many badgers there are, and I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their work on solving the problem. We cannot understand bovine TB and badgers’ effect on it until we can say for certain how many badgers there are.

The problem will not be solved by Government alone. We must have dialogue between DEFRA, the farmer and Team Badger and its affiliates. Together, they can work to ensure that we never need to consider a badger cull again. Vaccines are expensive, but most of the cost of the vaccination programme is in manpower. I dream of a world in which DEFRA trains volunteers from Team Badger to administer vaccines, while farmers play their part by facilitating the volunteers.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Most people in the Chamber fully support the principle of vaccination, but when talking about funding, do we not have to be realistic? An oral vaccine is the only long-term solution to the problem, so is that not where all the money and funding need to be targeted by the Minister and his team, rather than on the injectable vaccine, which is not really a long-term solution?

[David Morris]

I am all for whichever means of administering a vaccine is found. Yes, its development will cost a lot of money, but, as I shall explain, the way ahead might be a measure that empowers members of the pro-badger community to go into match funding with DEFRA. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

Funding streams for working on better vaccines for animals are available in DEFRA, and Team Badger has indicated that it would be willing to raise money to match what DEFRA puts in. In fact, ahead of any proposed scheme, Team Badger has already set up a website to raise funds and opened applications for volunteers. That represents real progress, but the stumbling block is the cull—it is hard to get people around the table as long as it is going on.

My plea to all sides today, across the political divides—we are all sensible and human—is for us to open genuine dialogue on bringing forward a viable and deliverable vaccination scheme. We are all agreed on our desire to create a viable vaccination programme in order to avoid future culls, so let us concentrate on doing that. People will still disagree about the rights or wrongs of the present cull, but for the purposes of this discussion I hope that we can put our differences aside. That is not to say that people will not vigorously argue and debate it, but ensuring that we are in a position to avoid culls in the future is the bigger issue and what must be fixed.

We are in an age of the big society, with Government determined to bring more volunteers and charities together with Departments. In the case of badgers, we have some amazingly well organised and professional charities and lobby groups. It is vital that DEFRA makes full use of those groups, which could be the magic wand that enables us to deliver a vaccination programme cost-effectively. Furthermore, if the lion’s share of research and development, and of delivery of the programme, is undertaken by groups such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Team Badger, the taxpayer will be in a much better position. When the Government do not have the budgets that they once had, this must be welcome.

To recap, here are the questions that I hope the Minister will answer. How far are we from a deliverable oral vaccine? Can we work on a cattle vaccine without falling foul of European Union rules? Will he commit to creating a dialogue around those things that we agree on? Will he support fundraising efforts by groups such as Team Badger and others? Is DEFRA open to the idea of a big society badger vaccination programme undertaken by volunteers?

I appreciate that the issues are easy to flag up, but much harder to address. I firmly believe, however, that with the right work, public will, dialogue and effort on all sides, we can do this. We must remember that the prize at stake is that none of us would have to go through the heartache and division of further badger culls again.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I want to make some progress or I will not get to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale.

Laboratory studies have demonstrated that vaccinating badgers with BCG can reduce the risk of infection and transmission of the disease. A four-year safety field study of wild badgers showed a statistically significant indirect protective effect in unvaccinated cubs born into vaccinated social groups, but vaccinating a large enough proportion of badgers to reduce transmission of disease and bring about a reduction of TB in cattle would take time to achieve and be costly to deliver, at between £2,000 and £4,000 per sq km per year.

In practice, it is inevitable that not all badgers in an area will be trapped and vaccinated. There is no evidence that vaccination protects already-infected badgers, and there is a risk that badgers from neighbouring unvaccinated areas may act as a constant source of infection. Nevertheless, computer modelling indicates that sustained badger vaccination campaigns could be beneficial in lowering TB incidence in cattle, but quantifying that contribution is likely to need a large-scale field trial, and it would take some years to collect the results.

[David Morris]

I would like to put it on the record that should what I am proposing come together, I would like my constituency to be its first trial area.

[George Eustice]

That has been noted, and we will take it on board—[Interruption.] I do not want all hon. Members asking for their constituencies to be a trial area. Vaccination is a potential additional tool to reduce geographical spread of the disease, particularly on the edge of areas. My hon. Friend’s constituency is in not an edge area, but a low-risk area.

Vaccination could complement badger culling by providing a buffer to limit the impact of perturbation. It may also form part of an exit strategy from culling—for example, by vaccinating remaining badgers with the aim of establishing herd immunity in previously culled areas.