Bovine TB

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for early sight of his statement.

I agree with the Secretary of State on one thing: there is no doubt that bovine TB is one of the most important issues facing farmers today. It is a scourge and a threat to their livelihoods, and to those of the communities they serve. The ultimate solution to the problem will take time, a carefully considered use of the resources available and an understanding of the best scientific advice. Sadly, none of these things featured prominently in the announcement the Secretary of State has just made. Consistent with his inept handling of this shambles, he has put prejudice before science, secrecy before transparency, conflict before consensus and posturing before good policy.

Furthermore, he has completely ignored the will of the House, which only three weeks ago voted overwhelmingly to oppose his plans, to cancel the culls, and to seek alternative ways of dealing with the problem. Let me remind him that the result of the vote was 219 to 1, which by anyone’s estimate constituted a huge rejection of his policy and of the way in which he has handled the issue. He talks of a strategy, but there is no strategy here. This is an unscientific fudge with which he is trying to save his face.

The Secretary of State announced that the failed culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset would continue, although the IEP report said that they were ineffective and inhumane. He had planned to extend the cull to 10 further areas this year, and to 40 in due course. Does he still plan to do that, and if so, when? He said that

“culling needs to be part of the answer as there is no other satisfactory solution available at the moment.”

That is nonsense. Will he acknowledge that in Wales, where there has been no culling but there has been a vaccination programme, there has been a 48% decrease in the number of cattle slaughtered because of TB since 2009?

The Secretary of State said that

“the pilots showed that, in the majority of cases, shooting was accurate and can be a humane control method with minimal times to death.”

The fact is that the IEP report said that it was not accurate in up to 22.8% of cases, enough for the panel to conclude that it was inhumane. How can the Secretary of State possibly justify the continuing use of a method of killing—free shooting—which has been found to be inhumane by independent scientific advisers?

There seems to me to be no plan for independent oversight of the culls. If that is so—and perhaps the Secretary of State will clarify his intentions—I believe it to be a grave mistake. How can he justify it, given that the culls are very likely to increase TB risks to cattle unless they can kill more badgers more rapidly than in the pilots? What confidence can there be that that is being achieved if there is no independent oversight?

When I wrote to the Secretary of State on 17 March offering to work with him on the development of an evidence-based cross-party programme, he wrote back that he would publish his TB strategy shortly, and would then ensure that his officials briefed me on its contents. I should be grateful for such a briefing, but I am afraid that that attitude is symptomatic of the approach taken by the Secretary of State throughout this sorry episode. Rather than engaging meaningfully in a search for a proper, long-term solution, he ignores scientific evidence, makes a decision based on his own prejudice, and then offers retrospectively to tell me and other Members what the policy is, and expects us to agree with him.

These are the facts. The IEP report shows that the Secretary of State’s disastrous culls are neither effective nor humane. It says that his plans will make the problem worse, not better. The two pilot culls failed to achieve their own success criterion of culling 70% of badgers in the six weeks. Against sound scientific evidence, they were extended, and then spectacularly failed again to cull the target number of badgers. The culls should be ended, not extended. They have not worked.

Does the Secretary of State accept that there is a scientific consensus that the risk posed by ending these failed culls is lower than the risk that continuing them will spread the disease through perturbation? Given that consensus, why is he proceeding with them? What assessment has he made of the total cost to the taxpayer, and to hard-pressed farmers, of continuing the culls with any semblance of humaneness? If he proceeds as described, his culls can no longer be called evidence-based policy, if they ever were. What he has announced today is simply an open season on badgers in the culling areas. Will he confirm that the Government will agree to hold a full debate on the Floor of the House and a binding vote, in Government time, on the future of the cull programme and the report of the independent expert panel?

I believe that today’s statement falls far short of what farmers and the broader community deserve. Labour has made a series of reasonable, rational cross-party requests of the Government, none of which has been met so far, although the Government continually state that they want to deal with the issue on a cross-party basis. Labour will continue to work with farmers, wildlife groups and leading scientists to develop an alternative strategy to eradicate bovine TB. It would include tackling TB in badgers, focusing on vaccination; enhanced cattle measures, including compulsory pre and post-movement testing; a comprehensive risk-based trading system; and more robust biosecurity. We have said consistently that the culls are bad for farmers, bad for the taxpayer, and bad for our wildlife. The Secretary of State’s humiliating climbdown on the roll-out of his disastrous badger cull programme means that Labour’s proposals are the only way out of this mess.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and congratulate her on her use of alliteration.

I remind the hon. Lady that between 1998 and 2010, under the Government she supported, the total number of herd breakdowns tripled from 1,226 to 3,634 and the number of cattle slaughtered rose sixfold, from 4,102 to 24,000. I also remind her that when we adopted a bipartisan approach back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, we all but had this disease beat, with a prevalence of 0.01%. All that I ask is for her to work with us and follow the example of other nations with a severe reservoir of—[Interruption.]