Badger Cull

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the badger cull.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, in a debate on this very important issue, because I know that you take a close interest in it.

I am amazed that five years after the badger cull started we are still debating it. If you will bear with me, Sir David, I remember speaking on this issue on 5 June 2013. I quoted Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the randomised badger culling trial. He was interviewed on the “Today” programme on 12 October 2012, and said:

“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle.”

I have found no scientists who are experts in population biology or in the distribution of infectious diseases in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try to support their argument.

I also quoted Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and President of the Royal Society, who said:

“It is very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense…I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Another former Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, also refused to back the cull. More than 30 scientists signed a letter that was published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and states that

“the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it”.

The letter ends by saying,

“culling badgers as planned is very unlikely to contribute to TB eradication.”

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It may have been in that letter that the experts concluded that the badger cull was unscientific, ineffective and inhumane. I have seen no evidence since the experts reached that conclusion that it is anything but unscientific, ineffective and inhumane.

[Chris Williamson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, because the last five years have clearly demonstrated the predictions that the scientists made all those years ago, but the Government have proceeded in the teeth of the evidence. One would think that, as legislators, we should seek to embark on evidence-based policy and legislation, rather than taking a punt in the dark, as the Government seem to have done.

The cost of the cull has already exceeded £50 million and is rising, but there has been no breakdown of it since 2015. The irony is that there is a humane, less expensive alternative. It costs about £200 to vaccinate a badger compared with £1,000 to shoot a badger. The Zoological Society of London says that badger vaccination is a viable alternative. The Government initially ruled it out, but I believe they earmarked about £130,000 for the badger edge vaccination scheme. When we compare that with the tens of millions of pounds that they have wasted on this cruel policy in the teeth of scientific evidence, one wonders why they took that line of action.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. When will the Department carry out a full cost-benefit analysis that compares badger vaccination with badger culling? When will Sir Charles Godfray’s review of the Government’s TB policy be published? Will it consider the use of vaccination as an alternative to shooting?

Some horrific video footage has been obtained from the badger cull area in Cumbria. A caged badger was shot and took almost a minute to die, writhing in agony. The shooter then flagrantly disregarded the biosecurity guidelines, took the badger out of the cage and failed to bag it up—little wonder that the Government’s policy has not been particularly successful in reducing the spread of TB. That is just one small example—I will come on to others in a moment.

The contractors are paid about £30 to £50 for each badger they kill, but of course the shooters have access to thousands of trapped, caged badgers, and a live badger can fetch about £500 on the black market. We know that there are badger baiting and dog fighting gangs, so ruthless individuals would be quite happy to purchase a live badger for their perverted pastime. Given that there is no effective monitoring—the horrific video footage clearly demonstrates that—who is to say that that is not happening? The Government’s policy therefore potentially creates more wildlife crime in our country. They need to step up and take a different approach.

We know that the badger population is under threat. Between June and August, we had the highest temperatures on record—we will all remember it, won’t we? Experts tell me that it is therefore likely that large numbers of badger cubs and sows died during that very hot weather due to heat exhaustion and lack of food and water. Natural England has not undertaken any detailed or accurate population survey of badgers for more than a decade. It is important that we know what the state of the badger population is at this point in time.

About 50,000 badgers are killed every year on the road, and many die as a result of building development. The combination of the cull and other pressures is leading to the potential collapse of the badger population in certain parts of the country. Let us remember that badgers have inhabited our country since the ice age, so it would be a tragedy if they were eliminated in certain parts of it. I hope the Minister will respond to that point.

The Government claim that the badger cull reduces bovine TB in cattle, but the Zoological Society of London begs to differ. It says that there is no robust evidence at all that the policy is working. Indeed, the proportion of infected herds is about the same as it was in 2013, so the policy has been a spectacular failure. Will the Minister commit to releasing all the cull data held by DEFRA for independent verification? I would be interested to hear his response to that point.

In my opinion, we need better biosecurity, more reliable testing and movement controls. That is the real issue. We know that the TB skin test, which is the primary method of detecting TB in cattle, is not 100% successful. In fact, on average, one in four of the tests failed to detect TB. There are more accurate tests available, but the problem is that farmers are expected to meet the cost. Will the Minister commit the Government to funding the more accurate tests, rather than relying on the pretty inaccurate testing system that is currently being used, which contributes to the problem? I have already mentioned biosecurity. Slurry, which can contain TB bacteria, continues to be spread widely on farms, with few, if any, biosecurity controls. Millions of cattle continue to be moved across England with insufficient movement controls. New outbreaks of bovine TB were therefore pretty inevitable, and that is what happened in Cumbria and the Isle of Skye relatively recently.

TB fraud is also a major problem. Cattle are moved illegally, ear tags are taken out and cattle passports are altered. The enforcement controls are completely inadequate, so will the Minister explain what the Government are doing to address the inadequate biosecurity? Will he also outline what steps he is taking to address illegal cattle movements?

I was absolutely amazed to see reports in the media that infected carcases are being sold for human consumption. Several supermarkets have banned such purchases, as have several burger chains. However, The Daily Telegraph reported that a spokesperson for DEFRA, which makes £10 million a year from selling infected carcases, said:

“All meat from cattle slaughtered due to bovine TB must undergo rigorous food safety checks before it can be passed fit for consumption.”

I do not think that many people will find that particularly reassuring. I am sure that many people, if they were aware of that, would be incredibly alarmed. Is the Minister happy to continue selling carcases infected with TB for human consumption?

The Sunday Times recently reported on growing concerns about the sale of raw meat products as pet food, claiming that it could lead to an increase in TB in cats, which, in turn, could infect their owners. DEFRA does not monitor TB in domestic animals. Do the Government have any plans to investigate the scale of TB in domestic pets?

Before this cruel cull started, experts said that the policy does not make sense, that the cull is not the answer to TB in cattle and that culling risks increasing cattle TB. It seems to me that the last five years have proved that the Government’s policy is completely wrong-headed. Cicero reputedly said:

“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”

I just hope that, when the Minister gets to his feet, he will prove that he is not an idiot.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

A number of scientists said that it was not logistically possible to sustain a cull over a large area and to remove the number of badgers necessary. We have demonstrated that that is possible. It is a difficult and contentious policy, but it is possible to do that. No credible scientist has said that badgers are not implicated in the spread of the disease. Sometimes scientists debate the extent to which badgers have a role, but no one doubts that—the evidence shows this clearly—a cull of badgers in infected areas leads to a reduction in the incidence of the disease. Arguments tend to be about the logistical possibilities of delivering such a policy but, as I said, we have been able to demonstrate that that can be done, difficult though it is.

Let me deal with some of the hon. Gentleman’s other points. One was about vaccination and, as I said, that is part of our plan, and we envisage doing more of it in future, potentially as an exit strategy once we have seen a reduction in the badger population. That brings me to his claim about the possibility of a collapse in that population. It will never happen because we have always had provision in the licensing for an absolute maximum that must never be exceeded in any given cull year. Everything we do is absolutely compliant with the Berne convention. Furthermore, we are doing this only in high-risk areas, so we never aim to remove the entire badger population or to cause a collapse in it; we simply aim to suppress numbers while we get to grips with that difficult disease.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned cull data. That is published each and every year. Usually in or around December, we give the House a written ministerial statement and an update on all the figures from the previous year’s cull. We shall do so again this year, in the normal way, as we have done in all previous years.

[Kerry McCarthy]

If my recollection is correct, it is common for the figures to be released on the very last day of the parliamentary term before we adjourn for Christmas. Will the Minister give us an assurance that they will be published a little earlier this year, so that we have time to reflect on them before we disappear for our Christmas holiday?

[George Eustice]

I cannot give any undertakings about when exactly that will take place but, typically, we do it in December, once we have collated all the data. The hon. Lady will have to be patient and wait for the data to come out. However, we publish that every year and we are absolutely transparent about it. Every year, we also publish details about incidence and prevalence of the disease—I know that there has been an argument about whether incidence or prevalence is the right figure to use, but incidence is the correct one for measuring the role of wildlife in the introduction of the disease to cattle herds.

On costs, again we publish the figures every year. The 2018 costs will be published shortly, but those for previous years have already been published. Last year, the total cost of the cull was about £4 million, which covers policing, licensing and all the monitoring work done by Natural England.[Official Report, 12 November 2018, Vol. 649, c. 1MC.] I do not recognise the figure given by the hon. Member for Derby North of £1,000 or £2,000 a badger; it is probably in the region of a couple of hundred pounds. The costs have reduced substantially, as policing costs have come down as we have rolled out the cull but, in reality, cost per badger is the wrong way to look at it; we have to view it in the context of the fact that the disease already costs us £100 million a year—if costs are what worry us—and that if we want to get it under control, we have to use all the tools in the box.

Finally, I confirm that we received the Godfray review on 2 October and, as the Secretary of State said at DEFRA questions a couple of weeks ago, it will be published shortly. “Shortly” means what it says, which is that Members probably do not have long to wait. I can confirm that it will be published in its entirety and that we have not requested any edits or alterations. It is an independent review, led by Sir Charles Godfray, who will publish it shortly, along with his conclusions.

I should point out that Sir Charles Godfray’s review is of our strategy, so it looks at every component, including the role of badger culling, vaccination, diagnostics and whether they can be improved, biosecurity, compensation and behavioural change. It reviews every feature in our original strategy and gives some pointers about other areas that we could advance in future. I think it is a good report, and I am sure that hon. Members look forward to reading it.