Bovine Tuberculosis

Lord Plumb Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

That is an interesting question. Although bovine TB is present in other wildlife, such as deer, badgers are the main species responsible for transmitting the disease to cattle because of their specific ecology. Evidence from the RBCT demonstrates conclusively that badgers contribute significantly to bovine TB in cattle. While deer in Britain are generally considered to be a sentinel or spillover host of infection in cattle, rather than a source of the disease in cattle, current evidence suggests that TB infection from deer is not a significant disease risk to cattle.

[Lord Plumb]

My Lords, as a farmer, my question is based on some history. I will be very brief. In 1944 we eradicated TB on my farm. In 1964, as a junior officer in the NFU, I had the privilege of announcing that we had totally eradicated bovine TB from this country. Since then, of course, history has shown us a different picture. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, posed a large number of questions, and I noted all of them. Those questions were posed more than 10 years ago, and we have gone through that period of time with few decisions being taken. To say, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, that farmers are dishonest is an insult to the farming community and I cannot accept it. That is not the reason. All the farmers concerned, particularly those who have been held up for 12 years, have been unable to sell one beast off their farms over that time. They do not see this problem as scientists see it; they see it as men who are concerned with the welfare of animals and they do not want to see their herds suffering, as they are doing and have done throughout this period.

My question is exactly the same as that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby. Surely we have to move towards vaccination. However, if the current vaccine is effective for only one year, that is a very expensive mechanism for doing the job. Surely to goodness we are in an age when an oral vaccine can be found to cope with this situation. It can be put in either the water or the food so that the affected animals are removed. Perhaps that would be a better way of dealing with the matter than the ways that have hitherto been thought of.

[Lord De Mauley]

I can only say to my noble friend that we are pursuing vaccine options as hard as we can and as a high priority. We have been investing significantly in developing TB vaccines for both badgers and cattle for a long time. I have mentioned a licensed injectable vaccine that can be and is being used on badgers but, as I have explained, it is extremely expensive and needs to be repeated annually. As my noble friend says, we need an oral vaccine, which we are still searching for. We will continue that search and expect to spend another £15.5 million over four years.