Badger Cull

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), who made a very thoughtful speech and showed that just as there is no one opinion on this question in farming there is no one opinion on the Government Benches.

I speak as a former Minister of State at DEFRA who tried to address the issue in 2009-10. I saw at first hand the emotional and financial effect on farmers and their families and the pain inflicted by bovine TB. For most people in the country, except to those who watch the BBC’s excellent “Countryfile”, that is invisible. In the Adam’s farm section of the programme, viewers will have heard Adam Henson’s vet confirm that his prize beasts were infected with TB. They will have seen the pain that he felt and how that announcement affected his family. I am sure that that brought the issue home to millions more people than would otherwise have been the case.

[Miss McIntosh]

Does the hon. Gentleman remember that he had the opportunity to respond to the Select Committee’s 2008 report on the incentives and financing that the Government of whom he was a member were giving to farmers for biosecurity measures? We received no answer. Does he regret that now?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I will come on to what the previous Government did at DEFRA when I was Minister of State. The hon. Lady will forgive me, but I do not have the record for 2008. I know that her Committee did sterling work on the subject and I respect the activity in which it was involved.

My former boss at DEFRA, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), states in an article to be published today:

“Some of the facts are agreed. Bovine TB is a terrible disease. It has a huge impact on the farmers affected and they are understandably desperate to find their way out of this nightmare.”

He goes on to say:

“But we all have a responsibility to take action that will work.”

That is the starting point for our disagreement with the Government.

The forced delay to Government plans announced this week shows how difficult the subject is. There is no easy answer and that is why I want to refer to comments made by the Secretary of State on Tuesday. He said in his statement:

“The previous Government took forward the RBCT in a whole series of trials and then stopped and decided to do nothing.”

He went on to say that

“after the trials, the Labour Government stopped dead.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 839-44.]

With the greatest of respect to the Secretary of State, that is entirely wrong. Yes, we decided against a further or widespread cull, but our decisions were based on the evidence of the science presented to the Department and to Ministers at the time. Moreover, my right hon. Friend, who is in the Chamber, implemented the findings of the independent scientific group after the Krebs trials of the 10-year randomised badger cull. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) mentioned, John Bourne’s recommendation was not to cull but to tighten cattle controls. That is the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Select Committee, and that is what was done.

We went further. We set up the TB eradication group, which comprised members of the British Veterinary Association, the NFU, Government scientists, individual farmers, DEFRA officials and others. For the Secretary of State to say on Tuesday that we stopped dead is insulting to the dedicated work done by those people on the issue of bovine TB and that was grossly unfair of him.

We also lobbied the Treasury for every penny we could get for compensation for farmers afflicted by the disease and, critically, we kept up support for the search for vaccines for badgers and cattle. In contrast, one of the first things the coalition did at DEFRA, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), was cancel five of the six vaccine pilot trials. That looks like an even poorer decision today than it did then, and it looked pretty awful when it was announced.

For the Secretary of State to say that we stopped dead was plain wrong. If badger culling was proven scientifically to have worked, I am convinced that the Labour Government, having supported the trials with appropriate controls, would have pulled that trigger to protect cattle, to protect badgers and to protect other wildlife. It did not work then, however, and despite the coalition’s changes, such as harder boundaries and so on, we do not think that it will work now.

Sir John Beddington was quoted by the Secretary of State on Tuesday. He was reported as having said that

“we might expect a 12 to 16% reduction in bovine TB…after nine years”.—[Official Report, 23 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 839.]

That is hardly a vote of confidence. Those figures have been put in perspective in a number of speeches, as well as during DEFRA questions earlier today. I can understand that farmers, some Government Members and others want to be seen to be doing something—anything—and to be doing it now. As we heard in the statement, however, nothing will happen until next year, if then.

As the new Secretary of State has found out, there is no easy solution, no quick fix and no silver bullet. Vaccines and vaccination for badgers and cattle are the way forward. If there is a vote tonight, I will support the motion and I hope that the majority of Members will do the same.