Badger Culling

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Richard Drax

Monday 27th March 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, and to see my hon. Friend the Minister on the Front Bench. I start by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a farmer, but I do not have any livestock. However, I represent one of the country’s greatest agricultural constituencies and, unfortunately, one of those that has been most affected by bovine tuberculosis. Sadly, I speak with some experience on this subject.

My constituency is home to one of England’s largest cull zones, spanning the whole of the north Cotswolds. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hard work and effort displayed by my farmers, who have committed a great deal of time and money to maintaining and protecting their badger cull zone in the face of numerous attempts at sabotage. To all those who say that farmers are not in favour of the culls, I simply say: why did they go to such considerable effort and expense if they did not believe that culling works?

The only real way to control TB in badgers is for scientists to invent an oral vaccine that could be incorporated into a bait to be fed to badgers. That method was successful in eradicating rabies in foxes on the continent. An oral vaccine for badgers has been “just around the corner” ever since I became a Member of Parliament in 1992. I urge the Minister today to redouble the Government’s efforts to find such a vaccine, because that would be the ultimate solution to this unpleasant problem.

This is an unpleasant problem. TB is a nasty disease, whether in cattle or badgers. Badgers who contract it either go to the bottom of the sett and die a long, slow, painful death from the disease, or lie semi-comatose at the top of the sett, with up to a third of their body covered by lesions. In that state, the animal is highly infectious to other badgers, so no wonder TB spreads from badger to badger.

It is important that we eliminate TB in badgers to prevent that cruel death among badgers. TB is also in cattle; not only does the disease cause them a great deal of pain, but they become less productive. When the disease is detected, they have to be slaughtered, so there is considerable economic loss to both the taxpayer and the farmers. In the past 10 years, a total of 314,000 cattle were slaughtered, costing the taxpayer and farmers more than £500 million; that will be £1 billion by the end of the decade. One need only see the emotional effect on farmers in my constituency of seeing the cattle that they have bred and cared for prematurely slaughtered. I think Opposition Members often forget the effect that this dreadful disease has on farmers.

[Richard Drax]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Does he agree that those who oppose the cull look at the badger as a friendly, lovable animal, which in effect it is not? Factually, the badger is responsible for destroying bee hives, hedgehogs and ground-nesting birds such as skylarks, grey partridges and meadow pipits. [Interruption.] That is true. It is also responsible for the loss of wood warblers, nightingales and stone curlews. Those are facts. The badger is a danger, and like all wild animals that have no natural predator—just like deer and foxes—it should be culled, so that numbers are maintained.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. A reminder that interventions should be brief.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Richard Drax

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is why we are here tonight, and it is what the vote will be about tomorrow. We are all going to vote to trigger article 50. We will then have at least two years of negotiations to find out exactly where we are going to be. Who knows, that might take even longer, but I have every confidence in our Government and in our Prime Minister, who could not have been clearer about the direction in which this country is going. She has said that no deal is better than a bad deal, and I entirely endorse that view. If we have to fall back on WTO rules, so be it, but I am convinced that common sense and pragmatism will ensure, over the next two years, that that will not happen.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend talks about pragmatism. Given our huge imbalance of trade with the European Union, does he agree that it would be hugely in the EU’s interests to strike a better deal with us rather than reverting to WTO rules?

[Richard Drax]

I have already mentioned Airbus, and I cannot think of a better example. It would be crazy for politicians—