Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend mentions other badger culls. The most obvious nearby country that has had one is the Republic of Ireland, where the number of cases went down from 44,903 in 1999 to only 15,612 last year. There are clear lessons to be learned from other countries—my hon. Friend is absolutely right—but the circumstances here are not entirely the same. That is why our strategy encompasses a whole range of other activities involving the vaccination of badgers, the vaccination of cattle and a strict cattle movement regime, which has been a key to success in other countries.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The scourge of bovine TB, as the Secretary of State rightly calls it, is unfortunately increasing in Northern Ireland. With that in mind, and given that we have only a catch, test and release scheme and would love to have a scheme that actually dealt with the badger, will he consider calling his counterpart in Northern Ireland and setting up a national conference, which he could chair, to address the removal of this plague from our land?

[Mr Paterson]

I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, so the hon. Gentleman knows that I respect the protocols of devolution. We have regular discussions at ministerial and official level on matters agricultural. He is absolutely right, however, to raise the contrast between what has happened in Northern Ireland, where diseased badgers have not been removed, and the dramatic reduction in southern Ireland.