Badger Culling/Bovine TB

Debate between Laurence Robertson and Paul Monaghan

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Monaghan]

I will come to the skin test shortly, but I think that there are more appropriate alternatives to it.

Returning to the point about public funds, it is instructive that the UK Government have never published the total costs of culling to the taxpayer or farmers. However, we know that the first two years of the two pilot culls in Somerset and Gloucester cost the taxpayer more than £14 million; that includes policing costs. That equates to £5,766 per badger killed and compares with an estimated cost of just under £700 per badger vaccinated in Wales.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Part of the trial culls is taking place in my constituency of Tewkesbury. This may be anecdotal, but the farmers there assure me that the incidence of bovine TB in those areas has been reduced since the trial culls began.

[Dr Monaghan]

It must be anecdotal because it certainly does not appear to be borne out by the scientific evidence.

In 2016, the UK Government admitted that the full costs of culling in 2015 had not been worked out but that policing costs alone for three areas were just under £2 million. The additional costs to farmers of the cull repercussions have never been released. In January this year, it was reported that the European Commission had provided the UK Government with half the Commission’s entire budget of €62 million to tackle bovine TB: €31m, then worth £23 million, went on just four programmes. That money, earmarked for dealing with and controlling TB in cattle, as opposed to badgers, is obviously now at risk because of Brexit. In sum, the UK Government’s current policy wastes an estimated £20 million per month and will generate a cost of approximately £2 billion to the taxpayer by the 2038 target. In addition, the UK Government no longer collect data on humaneness. One wonders why. What are the actual costs, Minister, and what do data show on humaneness?

I am arguing not that we should do nothing, but that the UK Government should abandon the TB skin test as the primary means of identifying infection and new herd breakdowns and should adopt modern methods and technologies to address this disease. Specifically, the UK Government should adopt gamma interferon tests—that is, blood testing—and robust systems of biosecurity. Combined with a co-ordinated badger vaccination policy in high-risk areas for bovine TB in England and restricted movement, that course of action would be a more progressive and intelligent option than the relatively crude skin testing and redundant killing of badgers and would realise results within months. It would also be more humane.