Badger Cull

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) to propose the motion, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the hon. Lady will deliver her speech from a sedentary position. I commend her for coming to the House today; we appreciate that she is recovering from surgery. Given that she is speaking from an unaccustomed position and without the usual aid of an ability to bob up and down or otherwise gesticulate, the delivery of her speech will be more difficult than it would be if she were in her customary position. I am sure that the House will bear that in mind and give her all the support she deserves.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I may be able to help the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and the House. Today, I received a response from the Minister who is present, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), which clarifies that the report has just arrived on the Secretary of State’s desk. The pursuant question is why, when it was due to be published in February, it has not been published in time for today’s debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for his point of order. It is not in fact a point of order for the Chair, but it is a point that the House has noted. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) has been helpful in providing information to the House.

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

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I always understood it to be a convention of this House that if any Member quoted from a document in the public domain, the document should be tabled before the debate, to be available to every hon. Member so that they, too, may quote from it. I do not believe that the document is yet in the public domain—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. That rule applies to Ministers; it does not apply to a Back Bencher addressing the House.

The matter is now at an end. The hon. Member for St Albans is referring to the report, which may come up and be debated for the rest of the afternoon; it is not for the Chair to rule on where the report ought to be. The hon. Lady is quoting from it, and I am sure that Members will listen carefully to what she is saying. They will then be able to deal with her points, with or without the report before them.

[Mrs Main]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that passions are running high in this matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) must be psychic, because my next words were to be that no one appears to be disputing the comprehensive but leaked report. Whatever the detail, the dispute is about whether we pursue a failed policy, or adopt a new one.

As Professor Rosie Woodroffe, a scientist at the Zoological Society of London, said, the

“findings show unequivocally that the culls were not effective”.

I know that hon. Members say, “We haven’t seen the reports”, but that is not in dispute, unless the Minister whose desk the report has landed on says that it is not in the report. If so, I look forward to hearing it, but I believe what has been widely reported in the media after being leaked comprehensively.

I hope that the Secretary of State will now focus on other ways of eradicating TB in cattle. If predictions of the findings in the report are borne out, the cull

“has cost a fortune and probably contributed nothing in terms of disease control, which is really unfortunate.”

Those are the words of Rosie Woodroffe.

I am personally disappointed that a DEFRA spokesman has recently said:

“We knew there’d be lessons to be learned from the first year of the pilot culls which is why we’re looking forward to receiving the panel’s recommendations for improving the way they are carried out.”

If the House notes those comments carefully, it cannot hear the sound of any culls being stopped, but simply of them being improved. In other words, we are committed to finding a better killing strategy—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is my phone—someone who obviously does not respect the—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. In these unusual circumstances, this incident will be overlooked. As I said at the beginning of the debate, these are unusual circumstances; no other Member may take this as a precedent.

[Mrs Main]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps it was a badger ringing me up and willing me on.

If the House notes the comments, it will hear talk not of culls being stopped but of their being improved. The Government do not have carte blanche to carry on regardless. Hon. Members may dispute the report and whether it has been leaked, but the Government do not have unconditional support to continue with a failed approach, in particular one that causes suffering to a protected species. As Robin Hargreaves, President of the British Veterinary Association said:

“We have always stated that if the pilots were to fail on humaneness then BVA could not support the wider roll out of the method of controlled shooting”.

There are colleagues who share those views.

The pilot culls were supposed to demonstrate a minimum of 70% of badgers killed within six weeks. Despite the badger population estimates being sharply cut and the culls being extended, both pilots failed to meet the minimum 70%. When both trials duly failed to kill sufficient badgers within the specified period, they were extended on the advice of the chief veterinary officer, Nigel Gibbens. The panel’s widely leaked report, although still disputed today, concerns itself with the initial six weeks. This extended the misery, the cost and, if we accept the time scales based on the original pilot criteria, the range of TB spread due to perturbation.

Do we continue with cruel practices licensed by the Government in order to be seen to be doing something? DEFRA agreed with an expert group the criteria for how the trials could be deemed humane. It was DEFRA’s rules, not some arbitrary figures plucked out of the air. Mark Jones, vet and executive director of the Humane Society International of the UK, said:

“The government’s boast that all badgers were killed cleanly and killed instantly is clearly not true. We fear many badgers may have suffered significant pain and distress.”

Andrew Guest, from the National Farmers Union, said of the revelations: “It doesn't sound good”, but added that it was important that a significant number of badgers had been removed.

Simply getting rid of lots of badgers, regardless of cost, pain or effectiveness, was not the criterion set down by the Government. That is not a good enough reason for this House to support ongoing culls. This House wishes to tackle bovine TB efficiently, effectively and humanely. That is why we need to stop the failed cull policy, not grant any further licences and come up with a better method to tackle TB without inflicting pain and misery on an endangered species. The badger culls were condemned as “mindless” in 2012 by Lord Krebs, who commissioned the 10-year study. The extensions to the culls were criticised by Natural England’s lead scientific director, Sir David Attenborough, and the National Trust.

We acknowledge the devastation inflicted on farmers and cattle by the scourge of bovine TB. This should not be about the House abandoning their plight, but neither can we ignore the plight of the badgers. Monitoring reports from England’s wildlife watchdog, Natural England, apparently seen by The Guardian and perhaps hotly disputed by some hon. Members, show that a third of the badgers were shot in the wrong part of the body. Apparently, badgers are very hard to shoot, although I would not know as I am not a marksman. Two out of nine badgers had to be shot twice, having not died instantly.

Professor Woodroffe, who worked on a landmark 10-year study of badger culling, said the conclusion to be drawn was simple:

“The pilot culls have not been effective.”

She questioned the multi-million pound cost of the culls and argued that badger vaccination would be cheaper and more effective. So our argument today is probably leading us towards vaccination of badgers and/or cattle. The current available vaccine for badgers, which is injectable, has been shown to reduce the burden of disease in badger populations. An oral badger vaccine is not expected until 2015. I know there is some concern that vaccines may not be as effective as we would hope, or be licensed and come on line quickly enough, but if the current shoot-to-kill approach is also deeply flawed we should endeavour to strengthen and prioritise all the non-lethal methods in order to find a humane solution.

Many hon. Members and wildlife lovers believe that is the only way forward, unless we are to decide to keep slaughtering badgers in perpetuity to eliminate a reservoir of TB in badgers, many of which will have been infected by other species or cattle. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth told the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) in DEFRA questions that the Government

“'accepts that there is a range of measures we should pursue, including developing vaccines, and we are doing some work to develop an oral vaccine for badgers as well as on cattle vaccines. We are considering other measures such as contraception for badgers and increased cattle movement controls, so we are covering a range of issues as we try to solve this difficult problem.”—[Official Report, 13 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 998.]

That answer shows that the Minister recognises the value of these other strands of TB control, and I hope that he will commit today to redoubling his efforts on those fronts. Today, we need to urge the Government not only to speed up their work on vaccines, particularly of the oral kind, and redouble their efforts on enforcing biosecurity and cattle movements, but, most importantly, to stop this inhumane slaughter of badgers.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before I call speakers from the Back Benches, may I say that it will be obvious to the House that a large number of Members wish to speak this afternoon and so, as a courtesy to other Members, it would be helpful if Members limited their speeches to about eight or nine minutes? If they do so, everyone will have the chance to be heard.

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[Angela Smith]

The reactive culling in the RBCT did fail. That is not the point. I am talking about proactive culling, which is best carried out over eight to 11 days. Reactive culling is when one kills the badgers in a small area—a hot spot—and does not go back again. The proactive culling is done over a bigger area—that is the important point—annually. It is a much more scientific approach to culling. Reactive culling does not work at all; in fact, it makes the problem a lot worse.

The 70% figure, which is an average, is based on proactive culling. It was demonstrated in the RBCT that it did deliver reductions in cattle TB incidence in the culling zone on a gradual basis. There was, however, a rapid but diminishing increase outside the zone. That is where the 16% figure in the RBCT report comes from. It is often not reported, however, that the 16% figure was based on a scenario that was more optimistic about the potential beneficial impact of culling overall. In fact, the average reduction over nine years was 12%. That is why the Independent Study Group on Cattle TB said that culling could not deliver any meaningful reduction in bovine TB. That is the key point.

Reactive culling reduced badger density by 30% and elevated cattle TB; that is the point that I was making earlier. The problem is that it is not known scientifically where between 30% and 70% removal an effect on TB is achieved, hence the importance of the 70% target. Scientifically, it is the only target that one can use to measure effectiveness.

In summary, the requirement to kill at least 70% of local badgers within six weeks was not an arbitrary target. It was a scientifically driven target. As I have said, the six-week target was set because prolonged culling over more than 12 nights further elevates TB in badgers and is expected to undermine any benefits for cattle TB control. In terms of both the length of the culling period and the targets for numbers killed, the pilot culls failed comprehensively. That prompts questions about the future of culling. If we are to go ahead with more culling, Ministers have to answer this key point: killing effectively, over less than six weeks, will require far more marksmen and far greater resources, so that we can do the work simultaneously. One of the key lessons to be learned from the pilot culls is that we would need much greater resources to do the job, and I am not convinced that taxpayers are prepared to pay for that kind of resource.

It was found in the end that the pilot culling had to make use of cage trapping in addition to free-shooting. That points to the need for much greater resources. If we include policing in the costs, we are looking at more than £4,000 per badger shot in the pilot culls. On the alternative, vaccination costs £2,250 per square kilometre covered. When looking at cage trapping, and whether to vaccinate or cull, we have to remember that vaccination is much cheaper, partly because policing costs are removed from the equation, but also because with vaccination there is no need to dispose of the carcases of badgers culled. We all know that there is a massive army of volunteers ready to help the Government conduct the vaccination. In fact, there is already an initiative to deliver vaccination on a wider scale.

I quickly want to refer to the other important part of the alternative.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Lady will very soon draw her remarks to a close.

[Angela Smith]

Of course I will, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It must be remembered that cattle testing and movement is an important part of all this. Vaccination, cattle movement and testing, and biosecurity make up the package of measures that we need in order to move forward. I am sure that other Members will refer to some of the details.

In concluding, I want to refer to the Bow Group report, an excellent piece of work from the right of the political spectrum. We have the spectacle of a Labour MP recommending a Tory report, but it is an excellent report—thorough, sensible, and evidence-based. It has a number of recommendations, all of which are sensible. I want to focus quickly on three key recommendations. The report recommends that farmers no longer be allowed to move their herds from one of their farms to another without pre-movement testing. That is an important point, because currently they are allowed to do so. They should not be allowed to move their herds to agricultural shows or common land without pre-movement testing.

The report recommends more testing and increased use of the gamma interferon test, alongside the currently used test. I understand that the Government have moved on all this, but the report makes it clear that more needs to be done. Importantly, it recommends field trials of cattle vaccine, as recommended by the European Commissioner only last November, but so far we have heard nothing from DEFRA on when it will move ahead with that.

The Commons has an opportunity today to move on the issue and forge a new consensus. We should build on initiatives already taken by DEFRA on cattle movement and testing, and on biosecurity; and we should carry out vaccination on a comprehensive scale, and drop the culling.