Badger Cull

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

May I begin by saying how much I regret that the Secretary of State is not in his place? I regret even more the fact that he left the Chamber chuntering into the microphone that he had had enough of this debate.

I should declare some interests at the outset: I am the proud Member of Parliament for England’s most remotely accessible constituency from Westminster; I am married into a dairy farming family; and I am proud to represent scores of farmers. I have not seen for a long time as big a mailbag as has come in against this proposed cull. Today’s debate will take many forms and touch on many issues. In many ways, the Government are to blame for that, because this should have always been and should always be a scientific debate. There is no doubt that it should be an environmental debate and a debate about animal welfare, but those debates should always be based on science if they are to carry the weight and meaning that we want them to.

Before I go through the scientific evidence, I wish to pay tribute to all the organisations that have argued against what is clearly a scientifically flawed set of proposals used to support a cull. I also pay tribute to those figures with a high public profile who have used that to forward the aims of this cause. We live in an era characterised by a rampant, feckless celebrity culture that has begun to disfigure our society, where infamy, rather than fame found through any positively worthwhile achievements, leads to instant riches and celebrity status. This has led to the creation of a wealthy, C-list zombie class who do not believe they are subject to the laws of this country. So I applaud those who have used their profile for a cause that is not self-serving, lucrative or glamorous. They deserve our respect; they have rocked this Government.

The science is clear, and Lord Krebs has left no doubt on the efficacy of the proposed cull and its ability to address the problem of bovine TB. He has rightly said that

“'bovine TB is a serious problem, and it deserves serious science to underpin policy.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 October 2012; Vol. 740, c. 148.]

He has also pointed out that the proposed cull will result, after nine years, in 84% of the problem still remaining in place. That means that there will be a 16% reduction in the trend increase of bovine TB, and so, after nine years, there will still be more bovine TB around than there was at the beginning. It could not be clearer that this proposed cull simply will not work.

DEFRA’s own figures show that fewer cattle have been slaughtered because of bovine TB each year from 2008 to 2011, so it is clear that the Government are cherry-picking data in an attempt to support a flawed case. The question must be asked: why? The answer is really hard to fathom. In one respect, I think it is a genuinely confused attempt to help. One myth I would like to dispel is that this is being done at the behest of the National Farmers Union. We have all noticed the Government’s nudges and winks over recent weeks in an attempt to blame the NFU for the proposal, but that simply will not wash. The NFU is an important, effective organisation that is duty-bound to represent the many disparate interests of farms and farmers of very different sorts. Clearly, there is more than one voice of farmers on the issue of bovine TB and the cull.

Farmers want solutions to bovine TB, as we all do. My constituency will never forget the devastating consequences of foot and mouth disease. It was not just an animal welfare disaster and an economic catastrophe; it was a very real human tragedy, as lives were ruined and generations of work were destroyed. Nothing like that must ever be allowed to happen again, so on the issue of bovine TB farmers are well within their rights to look at the Government and wonder why they have been led down the garden path and sold a false prospectus. There can be no doubt that they have been, and they are sick to death of the goalposts for ever moving as the Government continue to drop the ball. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the proposed cull was a sop from a shambolic Government—the political equivalent of magic beans. This shambles is not the fault of farmers and it is not the fault of the NFU.

I am sick and tired of redundant notions of rurality running riot across this House and within all political parties. In some parts of this House, rural areas are seen in the mind’s eye as consisting of corpulent farmers chewing a blade of grass and resting on a gate post; they are seen as simply a playground for those who have wealth and have left urban areas to gentrify rural areas with large homes and Range Rovers. Those who think that never see the young farmer struggling to stay afloat, and rarely consider what it means for people to have literally no access to public transport and, as a result, to schools, hospitals and other services, which their taxes pay for just as much as anyone else’s. Those who think that never see the struggling villages, which are fighting every day to stay alive and have never known affluence, or the pensioners, parents and children who occupy this forgotten country. That must change. As the economic squeeze worsens, as the public sector and the state retreat further, and as areas of market failure become ever more prominent, all of us need to pay urgent attention to the plight of ordinary people in this forgotten England, because they need our help and they have little or no interest in the colour of our respective rosettes. So I commend those Government Members who will support today’s motion.

This Government have done little or nothing for the people I am talking about, and show no signs of doing so. The cull was also a sop based on a redundant and clichéd misconception of farmers and rural life, which can now be seen through. That, in part, has led to farmers receiving anonymous threats about what will happen to them and their property if a cull takes place. That is a despicable state of affairs, and I hope that the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Government in general will join me in urging that the full weight of the law be brought against the people who have made those threats.

For the sake of bovine welfare, for the sake of badger conservation, for the sake of rural businesses and the rural economy, which, in so many ways, relies upon dairy farming, and for the sake of everyone in this House, on either side, who cares about rural England, the Government should urgently begin bringing forward sensible proposals to tackle bovine TB, not pointless, scientifically disproven, dog-whistle policies.