Badger Culling

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing forward the debate, and I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who took part in it. We have aptly demonstrated how difficult this issue is, and I gently say that we cannot have a solution to a problem until that solution is available.

Our beef and dairy industries contribute billions of pounds to the UK economy, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) laid out. We want them to continue to do so, and have to ensure that they can—particularly as the UK enters a new trading relationship with the world. As arguably one of the most pressing animal health problems in the UK today, bovine TB represents a constant threat to that success. We heard about the difficulty that we have here.

I appreciate both sides of the argument, as the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) did when he laid out the challenge. Bovine TB continues to be both emotive and controversial, but what is not controversial is that badgers are implicated in the spread and persistence of bovine TB and in its particular prevalence in certain areas of the country, such as the south-west. We have set out how we are going to deal with that.

I would agree with much of what has been said. Badger culling has led to a significant reduction in the disease, but, as the Godfray review laid out, and as I think every single Member has said—both those who farm animals and those who represent those who farm animals—nobody wants to see the cull carry on longer than necessary. However, we need the right tools in the toolbox to ensure that we can deal with the situation, because nobody wants to see the disease take hold, particularly in areas with animals that not only add to our economy, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) laid out so poignantly, are valued members of the family as well.

One of the most poignant things I ever did in this place was to watch a farmer who had had his entire herd destroyed. He had his arm around his 10-year-old and he wept because his father had entrusted the farm to him, and he no longer had the farm to pass on to his son. We need to protect the badger and the farmer, and we need to make sure that we have the tools available to do so.

Every year since the first badger cull in 2013, Natural England has closely monitored and reported on the accuracy of shooting activities through direct observations in the field. Annually, we disclose those details. I am very sorry that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) doubts that, but we need to be transparent, and shooting activities are directly observed. We know that the cull has reduced bovine TB, as demonstrated by the publication of independent, rigorous research and past studies.

National statistics show how a holistic TB eradication strategy is working, but we do not want to see a protected wildlife species culled for longer than necessary, so in 2021 we started phasing it out. The next stage of the bovine TV strategy will include replacing culling with badger vaccination and disease surveillance. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire said, “When?” Well, in 2021, DEFRA awarded funding of £2.27 million for a five-year badger vaccination programme in the TB-endemic area of east Sussex. The project features vaccination by the farming community, because, as has been pointed out, they are the people who know both the badger community and their herds. They are working on the frontline to help develop and refine future developments of the models so that we can vaccinate on a large scale to protect badgers, because that is where we want to get to.

[Mike Amesbury]

On that point, in Cheshire it is farmers, landowners, volunteers and the general public who support vaccination. It is exactly right that that important mix has to be behind the programme.

[Jo Churchill]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The Government have invested over £40 million in vaccines and tests. As set out in the Godfray review—again, this is in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire—our aim is to have a deployable cattle vaccine by 2025. Field trials began last year. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill) mentioned that the challenge is having the sensitivity to make sure that we deal with the matter properly.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

May I share my disappointment that the oral vaccine that DEFRA was keen to roll out proved too unpalatable were it to be made abrasive enough for it to work on the badger, and now we are stuck with having to trap and vaccinate badgers? Unfortunately, some badgers are too clever to get caught. It tends to be the same badgers getting in the traps all the time because they know there is food there.

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed. As every Member said, we need to approach this issue in the most humane way possible.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I am interested in what the Minister said about 2025. The Labour party would need to win the next election to bring in its policy: it sounds like it will not be able to do that by 2025. She also mentioned East Sussex, which is the perfect place for a test because it is not surrounded by infected badgers, but that is not an alternative to the culling regime. The alternative is the DIVA test and a cattle vaccination. Is she sure that 2025 is the date that we will get that?

[Jo Churchill]

That is the date that I have been directed to. As my hon. Friend knows full well, as do I as somebody who worked in the Department of Health and Social Care during the pandemic, these things have a habit of not always coming through. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby said, something might be deemed unpalatable or it may not have the degree of sensitivity we need, but it is right that we try to ensure that the vaccine for both cattle and badgers is where we are getting to, so we can drive down and deliver on what the Godfray review said—that we should replace culling with vaccinations and disease surveillance.

We are developing several schemes and initiatives to make it simpler for those who are suitably trained to start vaccinating badgers. There is no single measure that will eradicate bovine TB in England by 2038. That is why we have to continue to have a wide range of interventions. We need to strengthen cattle testing and movement controls, which the hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned. We have to improve biosecurity on the farm and when trading, and we need to develop that cattle vaccine, in addition to building our support of badger vaccine. Cattle controls and measures continue to be the foundation stones on which our TB eradication strategy is based.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for her positive response and for clearly charting a way forward, which hopefully will address the issue. Has the Minister had the opportunity to speak to the devolved Administrations, in particular Edwin Poots, on this subject matter?

[Jo Churchill]

I was, in fact, due to go tomorrow, but I am now unable to. I dare say those conversations will happen in short order. I know that my Northern Ireland equivalent is looking at this issue at the moment, and it is hoped that we can learn from one another. We can certainly get those conversations where we can all be enabled to make the right decisions as swiftly as possible.

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale pointed out that culling causes badgers to move, and perturbation, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire said. Taking that into account is important. That is why we need a gradual, monitored, evidence-based approach, so we do not risk perturbation and the disease getting a hold. We need the areas that can cull to do so while we build the vaccination capability and a vaccinated population.

The strategy is rooted in routine and targeted testing of herds, movement restrictions on infected herds, rapid detection and removal of cattle testing positive. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) said that it is particularly stressful when a calf is involved. We do have an isolation policy so that a positive cow is pulled out in order that the calf can be born.

Measures such as the statutory testing of cattle, movement between farms and surveillance at the slaughterhouse also apply. Over the last 12 months, we have compulsorily slaughtered more than 27,000 individual head of cattle in England to control the disease. Many of us represent rural constituencies, and we have heard today from virtually every Member about the misery that both sides of this bring to people. The cost to Government of dealing with the disease is about £100 million a year; it is a huge burden for the taxpayer.

One of our top priorities, as I have said, is to develop the vaccine for cattle so that it does not interfere with the TB testing regime. We hope to get that introduced within the next five years. It is expected to be a game changer in providing a strong additional tool to help to eradicate the disease. It is important that we look at the trials that are ongoing at the moment and we get the evidence base. There is not a single answer to the scourge of bovine TB, but by deploying a whole range of policy interventions, we can turn the tide on this insidious disease and, we hope, achieve the long-term objective, which I think everybody shares, of ensuring that we make England officially TB free by 2038—sooner if we can make it, but definitely not much later.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

May I remind the Minister that in North Yorkshire we have very healthy badgers and very healthy cattle? Contrary to what many people think, the badger is not an endangered species; indeed, I think that in our part of North Yorkshire there are probably four or five times as many badgers as there have ever been before. It is the hedgehogs, bumblebees and ground-nesting birds that are feeling the pressure, from the high numbers of badgers, and that is having an effect on the ecosystem as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I did not ask my team how they knew that there were 424,000 badgers in this country, because as far as I am aware, we do not do a census, but we probably do a fair assumption of how many are out there, and we do have one of the highest populations of badgers in Europe. It is important that we protect them, and I think we are all of one mind about that. But it is also exceedingly important that we put our shoulder to the wheel and allow all the tools in the toolbox to be used for the next few years to ensure that we can keep this insidious disease under control.