Badger Culls (Assessment)

Debate between Maria Eagle and Simon Hart

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle]

No. We hear, and we have heard today, that the last Labour Government did nothing to address the problem. That is simply not true. We spent 10 years and £50 million on a large-scale trial in the areas worst affected by TB to develop a credible plan to tackle the issue based on the best available science. That work included testing the case for badger culling. The conclusion was that culls make no meaningful contribution to eradicating TB, and that small-scale, localised culling, which had been the policy of the previous Conservative Government, actually worsened the problem. It may be worth noting that the real rise in the spread of bovine TB began in 1979. Far from doing nothing, the previous Labour Government put in place the evidence base that was needed effectively to tackle that scourge.

In a manner so typical of the Government, they have decided that to pursue prejudice-based policy, with no regard to the scientific evidence, is the way forward. The badger cull pilots are one more example of that disregard for evidence. The culling has nothing to do with piloting or learning anything. Indeed, the Government have just fought two legal battles to preserve their right not to learn anything, and I am not the only person who thinks so. Professor Lord May of Oxford, the former Government chief scientific adviser, has said that the approach to the badger culls has shown that the Government

“are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

In other words, the Government have selectively used evidence to give the illusion of a scientific underpinning for the policy.

The guidance provided to Natural England ahead of licensing the original culls made it clear that the target for culling must lead to the removal of at least 70% of the badgers in the total land area in the application over a period of not more than six consecutive weeks. The two areas where culling took place, Gloucestershire and Somerset, were each granted two extensions in the first year. On timing alone, therefore, both culls failed. In 2013, an independent expert panel was appointed to monitor the culls to assess the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of the pilots. The panel came up with a scientifically robust method for assessing the effectiveness of the culls, which included hair traps and sample testing to provide the best estimate of the local badger population. The results of the IEP monitoring could not have been clearer. The badger culls were ineffective and inhumane. The culls failed.

[Simon Hart]

If there was a methodology improvement that enabled the contractors to hit that target of 70%, would the hon. Lady support it?

[Maria Eagle]

I would support a policy that worked. The evidence demonstrates that a cull has to take 70% of the local badger population out in six weeks, otherwise it will be ineffective. In Somerset, only 48% of badgers were removed, and in Gloucestershire that figure was 39%. That is far too few to make those culls effective.

The IEP was only allowed to cover the first six weeks of the culls. The equivalent figures at the end of the extended time were 50.9% in Somerset and 55.7% in Gloucestershire. The extra time taken is likely to have increased the perturbation effect and hence made the spread of BTB more likely. On humaneness, the IEP reported:

“It is extremely likely that between 7% and 22% of badgers that were shot at were still alive after 5 minutes and therefore at risk of experiencing marked pain.”

Not only were the culls ineffective, but they caused unnecessary suffering for badgers. What was the Government’s response to that unwelcome advice from the experts? It was simple: cut out the experts and carry on with the culls. That sums up the Government’s approach. Instead of listening to the science, they decided to do away with it. That, I believe, is why there is not widespread support in the general population for the policy the Government are pursuing. The new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in last week’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions that she believes in science and evidence, but in her first week in the job, she announced her intention to press on with the culls in defiance of the scientific evidence. She missed a clear opportunity to leave prejudice-based policy behind and to place science firmly at the head and centre of her Department’s policy, and I believe that her decision speaks volumes.

The Government also changed the methodology that was used for the second year of the culls. Tim Coulson, a member of the IEP, which the Government have not used this year, in a recent article for the Journal of Animal Ecology commented:

“A change of protocol half way through an experiment reveals such a limited understanding of the scientific method that I am tempted to speculate that the government no longer wants to know whether the pilots are effective or humane. They just want to cull badgers, regardless of whether the population or humaneness consequences can be assessed.”

That, I am afraid, is my view as well.

We know that the badger culls are not being conducted in the name of science. We can only assume that to go ahead with them is the easiest way for the Government to claim that they have a solution to the problem of bovine TB, despite the conclusion of badger ecologists and scientific evidence that culling makes the problem worse. The Government’s decision to ignore scientific evidence and best practice has not been justified by the Secretary of State. The existing evidence makes it clear that culling is not the solution.

The 2013 targets were based on estimates of badger population size derived from capture-mark-recapture using genetic signatures from badger hair snagged in barbed wire. For 2014, there was no such field estimation of badger numbers. In the second year of the culls, the Government have not only departed from the original methodology but used two different methods to set cull targets for Gloucestershire and for Somerset. Why? For Gloucestershire, the Government relied on last year’s estimate, minus the number of badgers killed last year, plus a fudge factor to account for breeding and immigration. For Somerset, they threw out last year’s estimate and multiplied an estimate of the number of active badger setts by another fudge factor that was meant to indicate badgers per sett. Badgers per sett is a meaningless concept, however, because most badgers use more than one sett, and sett use is likely to change as culling disrupts the badgers’ social system.

The cull targets for the second year of the pilots are apparently derived from numbers that have been plucked out of thin air or worked out on the back of an envelope. Those crude methods for estimating badger populations provided a range for the cull target in Somerset of between 300 and 1,700 badgers, which is rather a wide range. DEFRA chose the lowest figure. Analysis by Professor Rosie Woodroffe, which has been referred to during the debate, has shown that there is a 97.5% chance that the cull will fall short of the 70% mark that the evidence shows would give it a chance of being effective.

Will the Minister tell us what assessment he has made of the comparability of the methods used to assess the effectiveness from year one and year two of the badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset? Will he also clarify the reason why different methods of estimating badger population were used in Gloucestershire and Somerset to determine the numbers of badgers to be removed in year two of the pilot culls? Why did the methodology used to calculate the number of badgers to be culled change from year one to year two?

Will the Minister, in recognition of the importance of having a credible and agreed evidence base, agree to an independent scientific peer review of the methodologies used for determining the humaneness and effectiveness of the second year of the culls? Today, in an open letter from the senior editors, the Journal of Animal Ecology has offered its services

“critically to appraise the methods used and their power to determine the success of this year’s cull”,

and to provide

“a transparent and independent review of the available evidence using our extensive international network of reviewers, comprising scientists with acknowledged expertise in wildlife population monitoring and management, as well as expert statisticians and modellers.”

What possible reason could the Minister have for turning down such an offer? Will he, therefore, accept it? In DEFRA’s calculations of badgers per sett as a means of estimating badger populations, what account was taken of the movement by badgers between setts and the effects of perturbation? Can he confirm that Natural England’s audit addresses only adherence to DEFRA’s chosen methods? As we have seen, those methods are crude, vague, different in Somerset and Gloucestershire and different in years one and two of the culls? Are there any plans to extend badger culling beyond the pilots in Gloucestershire and Somerset ahead of next year’s general election?

What is the Government’s view of evidence from Wales, where there has been no badger culling but where there has been a crackdown on cattle-to-cattle transmission, improved farm biosecurity and a reduction of 18% in new incidents of bovine TB? As hon. Members have mentioned, the Government have continually pointed to international examples of controlling bovine TB in Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland to defend their decision to cull badgers. Do they not appreciate that comparing totally different situations will not yield the insights required for proper evidence-based policy making? Why should data from New Zealand or Ireland be more relevant to England than data from England? Not only are the culls an epic failure, but they are estimated to have cost more than £4,000 per badger killed, according to research undertaken by the Conservative Bow Group. Labour has consistently pledged to put evidence at the heart of policy making, working with scientists, wildlife groups and farmers to develop an alternative strategy to get the problem of bovine TB under control. We need to introduce stricter cattle measures and prioritise badger and cattle vaccinations, but the culls are not the answer.

In March 2014 I wrote to the previous Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), offering to work with him on the development of an evidence-based, cross-party programme. Rather than engaging meaningfully in the search for a proper long-term solution, he ignored scientific evidence, made a decision based on his own prejudice and then offered retrospectively to tell me and other hon. Members what the policy was, expecting us to agree. That is no way to address a disease that will take many years to eradicate. These disastrous culls should be abandoned now, and we should work together across parties to develop an alternative that works.