Badger Culls (Assessment)

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Simon Hart

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman must have been reading my notes, because I make that point very well. As he said, these two trials are entirely at the farmers’ expense, and there would be very little cost in policing them were it not for the activity of the protesters. If we set the cost of culling against the cost of what the farmers are providing, there is no doubt about it: this cull is very considerably cheaper than the cost of vaccination, which is not yet proved to be working either. I would be interested to know, when the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) speaks, whether she thinks vaccination is working in Wales.

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

The reality is that the Labour Government in Wales fully recognise that they cannot measure the impact of vaccination yet, and what reduction there is of bovine TB in Wales is just the same outside the vaccination area as it is inside, so the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) can point to no evidence that the alternative Labour method is working in Wales.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I had better make some rapid progress, Mr Caton, or else you will call me to order for not making my six-minute deadline. Let me make one or two brief points.

As I said, it is welcome that vaccination is taking place in certain parts of the country to try to prevent the further spread of this awful disease, but the simple fact is that vaccination does not work for an already infected badger. If it does not work, that infected badger, by going to the bottom of its sett, continues to infect the whole of that sett. It also must be remembered that vaccination generally works better on young badgers. Young badgers do not emerge from their sett for six months or so, and therefore do not get vaccinated for that first vital six-month period of their life when they are likely to be infected by the infected badgers. The other point to remember about vaccination is that badgers have to be vaccinated every year for five years before it is effective.

I have referred to some anecdotal evidence about how the trials have worked, but I can also give the House some actual evidence of where vaccinating is not working. On the Killerton estate in North Devon, where TB is a huge problem, the National Trust has been vaccinating badgers at an annual cost of £45,000 for the past four years, and there have recently been as many as six additional herd breakdowns due to TB, which seems to show that vaccinating alone is not the solution.

Many people cite vaccination in Wales as an example, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) mentioned, but that is not the whole story. Although TB has been reduced in Wales, the current vaccination programme is only being conducted in 1% of the country and it is only in its second year. It is therefore difficult to see how the Welsh experiment—as he said, the Labour party in Wales does not think it is working—has led to a 25% reduction across the whole of Wales, where other factors must be at play.

Therefore, culling must be part of the solution. No less than the president of the British Veterinary Association has said:

“Badger culling is a necessary part of a comprehensive bovine TB eradication strategy”.

I really hope that the Labour party will think carefully about what one of our foremost experts in the country said about that. Vets are the very people who want to see a humane strategy for tackling this disease, because they of all people know what suffering the disease causes to badgers.

Nobody wants to see animals culled. I am an animal lover. Farmers are animal lovers. This is not an enjoyable solution, but it is a necessary one. Clear evidence tells us that no country in the world has got its TB problem under control without removing it in the reservoir of the wildlife. We have seen that in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, all of which are now virtually BTB-free.

On top of that, evidence also tells us that every time there has been a culling programme in this country—any of the six previous trials, including the Krebs trials— there has been a reduction in bovine TB. I accept that in some of the Krebs trials the reduction was relatively small, but that was related to the number of badgers that were taken out. The higher the number of badgers in an area that are taken out, the higher the reduction in BTB, and that, I think, has been fairly well scientifically proven.

In conclusion—because I think I have exceeded your patience and my allotted time, Mr Caton—it is too early to tell whether the culls have been successful. Anecdotal evidence tells us that they are beginning to have some success. Let us hope, for the sake of the farmers who are affected by this dreadful disease and the cattle that will have to be culled, that they are having some effect. The culls will be rolled out only in the very worst areas of BTB. I am all in favour of ring vaccination around those really bad areas, but let us see it as part of a comprehensive strategy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government for being steadfast in their desire to eliminate this dreadful disease.