Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

Nuclear power is a vital part of our work to build a secure, affordable and clean energy system to keep the lights on in the decades ahead. The Westinghouse facility in my hon. Friend’s constituency has a crucial role to play, providing the fuel that powers our nuclear fleet, as well as employment to many in his constituency.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

12. What assessment she has made of the effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on investor confidence in the UK power sector.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

16. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on levels of overseas investment in the UK energy sector.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)]

The Government have engaged extensively with investors since the EU referendum, sending a clear message that the UK remains open for investment and business. I am very clear that the UK is an attractive environment for investment in energy. My Department will continue to take the steps needed to deliver secure, affordable and clean energy for families and businesses across the UK.

[Mary Creagh]

As one former leadership contender to another, I commiserate with the Minister over the events of the past week and wish her well in the reshuffle today.

The manufacturers organisation the EEF told the Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, that the decision to cancel the carbon capture and storage competition in the autumn statement came as a huge shock and damaged investor confidence in the industry. We also heard from Siemens, which has invested £160 million in the wind industry in Yorkshire, that the referendum result means it is facing a whole new set of unanswered questions. What steps is the Minister taking to bring confidence to investors in low-carbon industries?

[Andrea Leadsom]

In fact Siemens has recommitted to its investment in Hull, which is great news for that area. I had a meeting a few days ago—it seems like a year ago—with the Offshore Wind Industry Council to talk about confidence in investment. Its members all remain committed to the UK, and EDF has reaffirmed its commitment to the UK.

Specifically on CCS, as I have said many times in this Chamber, we remain committed to looking at what our future strategy for CCS will be. The fact that the competition did not make the cut in terms of taxpayer value for money at the last spending round does not mean that we are ruling out CCS. We believe that it continues to play an important role in the future of our decarbonisation strategy.

EU Referendum: Energy and Environment

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question; I was going to talk about investment anyway. She is absolutely right to mention the importance of investment in securing our clean energy. Like her, I appreciate the impact that the European Investment Bank has had on supporting clean energy in this country and I would hope that our membership of it will continue. I cannot give her any commitments, however. I shall wait to see how this emerges as part of the negotiations, but I share her view on how important it is.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I commend the Secretary of State’s decision, in the midst of the post-Brexit turmoil, to publish the fifth carbon budget. I congratulate her on that. The Environmental Audit Committee has heard this morning from the National Audit Office that a 10% achievement gap has already opened up in the fourth carbon budget between 2023 and 2027. Will she acknowledge that the Treasury’s decision in the last spending review to cancel the carbon capture and storage competition will do little to encourage investor confidence in that area?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady is right: we have always known that we had an issue with the fourth carbon budget, and there is more work to be done. That is why it was a reasonable achievement to get cross-Government approval for the fifth carbon budget, and I thank her for her comment on that. There is still a lot of work to be done. There are policies to be decided on, and we will bring forward the emissions proposals by the end of this year in order to address those policies that are going to be needed in the 2020s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. Oppositions, being Oppositions, often fire questions at Governments and this is a particularly difficult time for a Government to answer all the questions. We are about to change Prime Minister, there will probably be a substantial reshuffle in the Government and Ministers will then get down to dealing with the consequences of what the British people have decided.

Many of the points made by the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) were, “What’s going to happen with regulations?” and, “What’s going to happen with things we have signed up to?” I do not believe this Parliament is going to go through every piece of European legislation we have passed over the past 40 years and decide whether we want to keep it or not. The most likely outcome is enabling legislation that rolls everything we have agreed with the EU into UK legislation, with this Government and future Governments at their leisure then being able to pick through what they want to do. That is the most sensible approach. It may mean that we get rid of some legislation in some areas and in others we strengthen it. Whatever the outcome, this Parliament will make sure it picks what is best for our country. We must bear in mind that quite a lot of the legislation has been agreed with 27 other states. Some of it may not be that applicable or relevant to us, but there may be things where we want to improve standards. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said, our environmental record on clean air and everything else predates our joining the EU, and the UK has often been more vociferous in these areas than many EU states.

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Gentleman said that most of our air quality legislation predates the EU, but of course the Clean Air Act 1956 was all about stopping people burning things in London and creating the big smogs—it made no mention about diesel particulate matter, because diesel cars had not been invented then.

[Mr Syms]

Of course, things move on. My basic point is that just because we are out of the EU does not mean this Parliament cannot make sensible decisions about how to protect our citizens from things such as the hon. Lady mentions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms).

We have heard today that environmental problems do not respect borders. I would like to posit an alternative argument to the one just advanced by the hon. Gentleman, who said that everything was pretty much okay. I say that things are not that okay and that Britain’s membership of the EU has been instrumental and crucial to the improvement of UK air quality, the cleaning up of water pollution, the management of waste, and the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. It has also given us a global platform on which we can show global leadership in tackling climate change.

Earlier this year, the Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair—I can see several colleagues from it dotted around the Chamber here today—carried out an inquiry into the effects of EU membership on UK environmental protection. We heard from a wide variety of witnesses, including business people, academics, politicians and non-governmental organisations. The overwhelming majority told us that the environment was better protected as a result of our EU membership.

We do not have to look too far to find examples of that protection. In the 1970s, the Thames was biologically dead. It may not look any cleaner from the Palace of Westminster than it did in the ‘70s, but it serves as a great reminder of how EU membership has cleaned up our environment. We can now see seals and dolphins—I have yet to see one from my window. Otters are now in the high end of the Thames. That success story has been repeated up and down the country, as once dead rivers have been brought back to life. Where once it was dangerous to swim, now it is safe for people and wildlife alike. The EU water framework directive has cleaned up our beaches and our rivers, and the marine strategy directive has encouraged us to set out that ecologically coherent network of marine protection zones. It has not been an easy task and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), for his work in this area.

[Geraint Davies]

Does my hon. Friend and colleague agree that one of the things that we found in the Committee’s study was, in essence, that the European Union is a union, which therefore has minimum standards that are ratcheted up? It does not allow individual members to undercut other members on the environment, which means that there is a platform across Europe, and across the globe as well, of best practice.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but of course the setting of those minimum standards does not prevent individual member states from going above and beyond them. Vitally for business, it also provides a common baseline and a harmonised market for products. That is absolutely crucial for UK businesses as we move forward into the uncertainties of a Brexit world.

EU membership is also key for air quality. Successive Governments have dragged their feet on this very difficult issue. Since 2010, the UK has been in breach of EU legal air quality limits in 31 of its 43 clean air zones, and one of those is in my constituency of Wakefield. Although London tends to get all the attention—as a cyclist in London I am certainly aware of the very high pollution levels—constituencies such as Wakefield with the M1 and M62 crossing by it have severe burdens of cardiovascular disease and lung disease as a result of the breaching of those limits.

EU legislation has allowed UK campaigners to hold the Government to account. The High Court has ordered Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to come up with new air quality plans. In April, those Ministers were back in court over allegations that their plans were still insufficient to bring the UK’s air quality in line with EU minimum standards. There is a series of question marks about what will happen to air pollution standards in the brave new Brexit world.

On biodiversity, the nature directives have preserved some of the most treasured places, plants and species in our country. Many of our best-loved sites, such as Flamborough Head, Dartmoor and Snowdonia, are protected by the EU.

[Caroline Lucas]

The birds and habitats directives are the real jewels in the crown of our environmental protection. Does the hon. Lady agree that, even if we do keep them in British legislation—as I hope we do—what we must do is ensure that there is a proper enforcement mechanism? That is what the EU has provided us with, and we will need to create a new enforcement mechanism that is as rigorous as possible.

[Mary Creagh]

I do not think that anything can be guaranteed in this world. The first step is to hear from Ministers, but it is said that today is like the last day of term. I wish the Under-Secretary well in whatever future role he is called on to play in the Government. He has been an excellent Minister, and he has appeared before the Environmental Audit Committee many times. I do not think that anything should be taken for granted. As a passionate pro-remain campaigner, I took part in many debates during the EU referendum campaign, and I heard many different versions of Brexit depending on whom I was debating with.

In an interview with The Guardian, the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) described the birds and habitats directives as “spirit crushing”. He said that if we voted to leave, “they would go”. We will have to see whether his version of events is the same as that of the new Prime Minister. He also said that leaving the EU would free up both common agricultural payments and up to £2 billion in “insurance and incentives” for farmers. Nowhere in that do I hear anything about the need for protecting species, wildlife, and plant life. There is no mention of the vital services provided by soils and bogs or of the need for the restoration of bogs and peatlands, which we recommended just a month ago in our excellent report on soil, and which was echoed this morning by the Adaptation Sub-Committee report of the Committee on Climate Change. So, we have seen otters, hen harriers and bitterns making a comeback, and the referendum result could put all that progress at risk.

The EU has also played a key role in promoting investment in sustainable businesses and technologies. Investors need clear policy signals emanating from strong legislative frameworks, and, to be fair, those frameworks are provided by the Climate Change Act 2015. However, our Committee has received some mixed messages from the current inquiries into both the Department for Transport and the Treasury. In particular, I posed a question on the cancellation of the carbon capture and storage competition, which has had a massive debilitating effect on investor confidence. We do not want to get into a position where consumers are not spending and investors are not investing, because that is absolutely disastrous not just for the economy, but for the UK’s environmental progress.

Twenty years ago, in 1997, the UK sent almost all of our household waste to landfill. Now we recycle almost 45% of it, although I was disappointed to see those numbers slightly dip last year. The Treasury introduced the landfill tax escalator in response to the EU landfill directive. Over the past five years, according to the Environmental Services Association, the waste and resources management sector has invested £5 billion in new infrastructure thanks to this long-term policy signal. Those policy signals are vital as is the need to keep investing in infrastructure if we are to meet those 2020 waste targets—if they still apply in UK law. [Interruption.] A sip of gin to keep me going. A slice next time, please.

I shall end on the topic of microplastic pollution. The Committee is concluding its inquiry into microplastics—tiny particles of plastic, which can come from larger particles of plastic that are broken down, or from products such as shaving foams, deodorants, toothpastes and facial scrubs. Unfortunately, it seems to be the higher-end products that have not been cleaned up as quickly as the mass volume scrubs. We are finding that the particles have washed down the sink, passed through sewage filtration systems and ended up in the sea. Anyone who has had a dozen or half a dozen oysters recently will have consumed about 50 microplastic particles. For those of us who like seafood, that is something to reflect on. Bon appétit.

Over a third of fish in the English channel are now contaminated with microplastics. As an island nation we must take the problem of microplastic pollution seriously. The way to solve the problem is to work with our partners in the EU. Those are not my words. It is what the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told our Committee when he gave evidence just before the referendum on 23 June. If the EU takes action to address an environmental problem, it creates not only a level playing field for businesses, but an opportunity to market environmental solutions.

Brexit raises a series of questions. There is the issue of the circular economy package, which is the EU’s drive to get us to reduce waste, recycle more and have a secure and sustainable supply of raw materials, such as paper, glass and plastics. That would have driven new, green jobs in the UK economy. The decision to abandon all that has left investors reeling.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), the shadow Secretary of State, about Siemens’ decision to freeze its investment in the wind industry in Yorkshire, Hull and the Humber and we face a protracted period of uncertainty. When the Under-Secretary of State appeared before our Committee as part of that EU inquiry, he told us that the vote to leave would result in a “long and tortuous” negotiation. That has not even begun yet.

The period ahead is fraught with risks. The UK risks not being regarded as a safe bet, and investors may no longer wish to invest their cash in UK businesses. Significantly, contracts are no longer being signed in London because the risk of London no longer being part of the European single market means that people want contracts to be signed in a European country so that if something goes wrong, contract law will be enforceable across all the countries of the European Union. That will have a very big effect on our financial and legal services.

[Geraint Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in the emerging recycling market across Europe, with us being at arm’s length and possibly facing tariffs, regulations and so on, people will invest in Europe rather than in Britain?

[Mary Creagh]

That is the point I was making. When looking at where to put new foreign direct investment, investors will look again and go to the area of least risk. Those risks are reflected in the economy.

We found out from our inquiry that the environment and the UK’s membership of the EU had been a two-way street. It forced us to take action much more quickly on waste and on water, but it also acted as a platform from which we could project our own British values, particularly in relation to climate change. DECC Minister Lord Bourne told the Committee that the UK’s voice was louder in Paris because we were part of a club of 28 countries. I worry about the global agreement reached at Paris and the possible damage to achieving those climate change targets as a result of our withdrawing from the European Union.

In the 1970s the UK was the “dirty man” of Europe. Economically, we were the “sick man” of Europe. Since then we have cleaner beaches, we drive more fuel-efficient cars, we have more fuel-efficient vacuum cleaners, and we can hold the Government to account on air pollution. Environmental problems do not respect borders, and require long-term solutions—much longer than the five-year term of a Government or, in some cases, the two-year term of a Treasury Minister.

EU membership has allowed the UK to be a world leader in tackling environmental problems with our brilliant science base and our pragmatic civil service to provide good nuts-and-bolts solutions to many of the challenges we face, and created British business as a world leader, whether through its retrofitting diesel buses in China or helping the Indian Government with water management for the Ganges delta. These are knowledge and services that our country can export proudly because we have been clean in the European Union. The result of the referendum has caused a great deal of political and economic uncertainty. I hope we will get some reassurances from the Government about the threats that it poses to our common home, and the actions that any new Government will take to ensure that we leave a better future for our children.

Flood Defences (Leeds)

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

We heard in the meeting with Leeds City Council’s leaders that, had the flooding happened on a weekday, 27,000 office workers would have been trapped in the city centre with no road or rail exits. Does my hon. Friend agree that we would not tolerate that lack of resilience in any other large city in the country? It is totally unacceptable for this country’s third-largest city to be left so vulnerable.

[Rachel Reeves]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

I want to turn now to the economic effects on Leeds of the floods. The workforce in Leeds total 470,000 people, with a huge number travelling into the city from the surrounding areas every day. If the flood had happened on a working day, thousands of people would have been unable either to get to work or to get out of the city, resulting in huge amounts of congestion and countless working days being lost. The disruption to mobile telecoms infrastructure was bad on Boxing day, but it could have been worse. Significant risks have been identified at key infrastructure sites, including the Vodafone site off Kirkstall Road, which provides important communications to the council, the police and the national health service, and the power substation on Redcote Lane in Kirkstall, which powers 50,000 properties. Both were disrupted on Boxing day and for days afterwards. Leeds is also the regional centre for emergency and specialist healthcare, hosting the largest teaching hospital in Europe, and it relies on that infrastructure on a daily basis. For that reason as well, the city needs to be accessible by road and by rail.

Flooding

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

May I begin by paying tribute to the council workers, police, fire officers, Environment Agency staff and the Army who sacrificed Christmas with their families to protect other people’s families in the grip of flooding? May I pay particular tribute to the Penny Appeal, a charity based in my constituency which, with boxer Amir Khan, brought much needed biryani to Cumbria and the lake district before Christmas?

We know flooding is the greatest risk that climate change poses to our country. Those are not my words; they are the words of the Committee on Climate Change. The 2015 national security risk assessment says that flood risk is a tier 1 priority risk alongside terrorism and cyber-attacks, so I want to look at the Government’s record on flood defence spending, outline the impact of flooding in my constituency and look to future resilience.

The 2007 floods were the largest civil emergency since world war two. Tragically, 13 people lost their lives and 40,000 homes were flooded, 1,000 in Wakefield. The Labour Government commissioned Sir Michael Pitt to ensure the lessons of those floods were learned, and his key recommendation was that flood defence spending should rise by more than inflation each year. We acted on that recommendation, and in three years flood defence spending rose from £500 million in 2007 to £670 million in 2010. As Labour’s shadow Environment Secretary from 2010 to 2013, I watched in horror as the coalition Government cut flood defence spending by nearly £100 million in 2010—a 27% cut in capital funding.

I asked the House of Commons Library to research what the impact of that decision was over the last five years. It calculated that, had spending continued as Pitt recommended from that 2010 baseline, flood defence spending should have been £3.468 billion over the last 5 years, but under the coalition Government it has been just £3.228 billion. That is a flood defence funding gap over those five years of £240 million.

Despite what colleagues on the Conservative Benches are saying, the consequences of that funding gap are stark. In Leeds, the UK’s third largest city, a planned flood defence scheme was cancelled in 2011. That scheme covered the Kirkstall area of the city, which was under water two weeks ago. We have a smaller scheme that will be ready in 2017 and will only protect against a one-in-75-year flood, not the one-in-200-year event under the original plan. So when the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions today that no flood defence schemes were cancelled, he was wrong.

There is a north-south divide when it comes to funding to deal with flooding. The annual budgets of northern metropolitan councils have been disproportionately cut. Cuts to Wakefield council alone between 2011 and 2016 are predicted to reach £149 million. Maintenance of highways and bridges and drain and gully clearance have all had to be cut—invisible cuts but very visible when the waters rise.

I am very pleased that after the 2007 floods I got £15 million for flood defences in Wakefield. Thanks to that investment we were not impacted by these recent floods, but flooding did hit a number of houses and businesses in Calder Vale and Horbury Bridge. When I visited them on Saturday, people told me they were concerned about the availability and affordability of flood insurance, and they were not claiming on their insurance because they were worried they would not be able to get insurance in the future—and some were simply uninsured.

The deal, or statement of principles, we had with the insurance industry was based on flood defence spending rising by more than inflation each year, as recommended by Sir Michael Pitt. The new scheme does not cover businesses or homes built after 2009. This needs to be looked at urgently.

If flooding is a part of a national security risk, we need to see the resilience review the Minister is going to undertake, reporting to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Flooding

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as floods Minister. He is right, and the same paper from Dieter Helm arrived in my inbox today—I have read it and I think it makes some excellent suggestions. We have appointed Dieter as chair of the Natural Capital Committee for another term so that he can look at catchment-specific solutions. That is a very important part of how we become more resilient as a country.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

In 2011, the £180 million flood defence scheme that was planned for Leeds which would have protected businesses in Kirkstall was cut by the Secretary of State’s predecessor. The new scheme planned for Leeds, which will be completed by 2017, will protect only the city from a once-in-75-years event, and will do nothing for businesses on the Kirkstall Road. Will she look again at that resilience review, and ensure that the £60 million scheme for the Kirkstall Road is included?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I point out that the Labour party’s proposal going into the 2010 election was to halve the amount that it would spend on capital spending. We increased spending on flood defence from £1.5 billion to £1.7 billion in that period. I have already said that I will look at the Leeds scheme to ensure that it is sufficiently resilient for the new conditions that we are facing, and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and her colleagues to discuss that further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am certainly very happy to look at that, and today I have launched plans for clean air zones in five cities outside London to make sure we are in compliance with air quality limits.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

One reason why emissions are so high in this country is the systematic fitting of defeat devices—the cheating software—by Volkswagen. Enforcement action is under way in the United States. Can the Secretary of State update the House on what action the British Government— her Department, the Environment Agency or the Department for Transport—are taking in this area?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady is right to say that the American authorities are taking action. My right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary is looking carefully at this, as well as ensuring that vehicles are appropriately tested. We have reached agreement at European level to ensure that what is being emitted from cars are the real emissions. That will help us to deal with our air quality issues.

Climate Change and Flooding

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree with my hon. Friend, as I often do. I want to say a little more about what I saw in the constituencies, and then I will answer his point.

Anyone who has been to Carlisle and Cockermouth or seen the television coverage will have been dismayed at the horrific scenes. We have seen people out on the pavements with their entire belongings, people’s homes saturated, people in temporary accommodation. There is an issue with the availability of temporary accommodation in the area. Some have been lucky enough to move into holiday cottages, but there is not much in the way of private rented accommodation to move into. We spoke to people about their massive flood insurance bills, and the thing they raised with us time and again was the excess on their policies. Now that more floods have happened, their premiums are going to go up, or they might not be able to insure their homes at all.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government’s new Flood Re scheme does not cover the insurance costs of businesses, and does she share my regret at the lack of solidarity in that scheme?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Small businesses mentioned that to us. The Government’s logic was that businesses could shop around in the market, but those that were hit by flooding in 2005 and 2009 and have been again now will struggle to find insurers. It is enough to put them out of business or at least force them to close for renewal and refurbishment for several months at a time.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not sure that was worth waiting for. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs to talk to the Environment Secretary, who acknowledged in last week’s statement that there was a risk. Obviously, individual episodes do not make a pattern, but a clear pattern is emerging of extreme weather events in the UK and abroad.

Between 1997 and 2010, flood defence spending increased by three quarters in real terms, but in the 2010 spending review, the coalition Government announced a 20% real-terms cut. Flood spending was slashed by £116 million in 2011-12 and again the next year, and it was lined up for further cuts in 2013-14, before floods in the Somerset levels forced on the Government the realisation that they had gone too far. After those floods, the Prime Minister assured us that

“there will always be lessons to learn and I’ll make sure they are learned.”

But he has not shown many signs of having learned those lessons. Last year, flood and coastal erosion risk management expenditure was above £800 million, but this year it has been cut to less than £700 million—a 14% real-terms cut of £115 million. How quickly those images of the Somerset levels faded from his mind.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does she share my regret that, although the Prime Minister said money was no object, as soon as the television images of the Great Western main line under water had faded from public consciousness, money actually was an object?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. It seemed that money was no object in the short-term clear-up exercise, although there were delays in people getting the money promised to them. The Government are trying to speed up that process this time, by giving the money to local authorities, but council leaders have raised concerns that they simply do not have the resources and staff for that administration. I hope the Environment Secretary will provide some clarity on that.

Last week, the Environment Secretary was still assuring the people of Cumbria that the Government would learn the lessons, and the Prime Minister, on a fleeting visit up north, told them:

“After every flood, the thing to do is sit down, look at the money you are spending, look at what you are building, look at what you are planning to build in the future and ask: ‘Is it enough?’”

I am not convinced that it is enough. In June, the Committee on Climate Change gave flood adaptation a double-red warning, and the Environmental Audit Committee gave the Government a red card for climate adaptation. The Prime Minister did not have to wait for the floods to ask, “Are we doing enough?” The experts had already provided the evidence that we were not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I can confirm that, as the Chancellor said in the autumn statement, we will increase our current maintenance expenditure of £171 million a year in real terms. In a climate in which we are having to reduce Government budgets, we are increasing, in real terms, both flood capital spending and flood maintenance spending. That shows where our priority lies.

[Mary Creagh]

In his report following the devastating 2007 floods, Sir Michael Pitt said that flooding was the greatest risk that our country faced from climate change, and that flood defence spending needed to rise by more than inflation each and every year. Can the Secretary of State explain why, in real terms, we will be spending exactly the same in 2015-16 as we were spending in 2009-10?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The reality is that between 2005 and 2010 Labour spent £1.5 billion on flood capital, whereas between 2010 and 2015 we spent £1.7 billion, which is a real-terms increase and not a cut. In this Parliament, we are investing £2 billion, which is a real-terms increase and not a cut.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

We have to get the balance right between land that is used for energy, which we need—let us not get away from that—and land that is best used for food production. Those decisions are often best taken at local level. Nevertheless, I am conscious of the need to make full use of good agricultural land for food production.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The Minister’s complacency and definitional hair-splitting on the issue of food insecurity, at a time when half a million people were fed in this country by food banks will go down very badly outside this place. This week, his ministerial colleague in the other place said it was difficult to make the causal connections between the benefits squeeze and the soaring use of food banks, yet the Trussell Trust says that 45% of the people who need the help of its 300 food banks have come because of benefit delays or benefit changes. Which of those statements is true?

[Mr Heath]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady fails to understand the terms that she obviously fed to her Back Benchers to ask me about. Food security is a well understood concept. We are talking about feeding the world. We are not talking about food prices in the UK, but food prices in the UK are a very serious issue and not, I think, a matter on which to try to score political points. I am grateful to the various charities which help those who find themselves in difficulties. It is important that we support that in every way we can. I notice that the hon. Lady, with some fanfare, issued a policy review last night, “Feeding the Nation”, which supports virtually all our policies. I give her just one word of advice. If you are going to mention one of our great British cheeses, get the name right: it is single Gloucester, not single Gloucestershire.

Common Fisheries Policy

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Before I begin, I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating the shadow environment Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), and his wife Lucy. He celebrated his first father’s day yesterday with the arrival of a beautiful baby daughter.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and congratulate him on his real achievement in reforming the common fisheries policy, 2014 to 2020. The deal was the culmination of three years of difficult negotiation and I congratulate him on surviving what he calls the “darker moments” of that process. We on the Opposition Benches have consistently called for ambitious reform of the CFP. These reforms are a good start. They end the disgraceful practice of discards, they decentralise and regionalise the CFP and allow member states to support small-scale fisheries, such as those in Devon and Cornwall, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk; and they take a scientific approach to setting sustainable fishing levels away from the discredited system of total allowable catch with a transfer to maximum sustainable yield by 2020.

We welcome the time scale for banning discards starting with pelagic fish on 1 January 2015, but the package still allows for exemptions to the discard ban of up to 5% in certain circumstances. How does the Minister see the discard ban working in practice? We also welcome a firm time scale to implement maximum sustainable yields by 2020 at the latest, and by 2015 “where possible”. Will he assure the House that the UK will adopt the earliest possible implementation date, and when will that be?

We welcome the requirement for the Commission to report annually to the Council of Ministers and European Parliament on progress towards delivery of maximum sustainable yield. Given past criticisms of the CFP, transparency is important.

The reforms acknowledge the need for further work on marine protected areas, particularly in biologically important areas. The final document states:

“In order to facilitate the designation process, Member States should identify suitable areas, including areas that form part of a coherent network, and, where appropriate, they should cooperate with one another, preparing and sending joint recommendations to the Commission.”

Has the Minister had any contact with any other EU member state on a joint marine conservation zone? If he has not, does he anticipate co-operation with any other member state on such a zone to ensure maximum ecological benefit for both countries from the designation? Will he tell the House what contact he or his officials have had with the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries on the establishment of the UK’s marine conservation zones?

The reforms contain provisions to support small-scale and artisanal fisheries—a measure that he and my Labour colleagues in the European Parliament lobbied hard for. Small-scale fishing vessels make up 77% of boats in UK waters, but they have access to only 4% of the quota. What changes will the reforms bring to those small-scale fleets and their communities? Will they help to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, and contribute to direct and indirect job creation in our coastal areas?

In a Westminster Hall debate in December 2012, the Minister assured Members that he would publish the details of who owns the UK’s fishing quota. When will the list be published? What steps does he envisage the EU taking to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to ensure a level playing field between the EU and third countries?

This is a good day for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, campaigning groups and the 860,000 people who signed up to Channel 4’s Fish Fight campaign. I again congratulate the Minister and his team, and devolved Ministers, on the long hours they put in. I congratulate the fishing industry on its co-operation. After three years of negotiation, we look forward to these good reforms being implemented at last.

Badger Cull

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead.

We begin with a question: is culling badgers the most effective way to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis? Labour Members believe that it is not. The consensus among scientists who are not on the Government payroll is also that it is not. They call it a “costly distraction” and a “crazy scheme”, and they urge the Government to change course. Labour Members will be led by those scientists; we were in government and are now in opposition. This is a cull based on hope, not on science. We have warned the Government for two years that the cull will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife. In government, we were open to the idea. Having asked the question, “Will culling work?” we conducted a 10-year-long, £50 million randomised badger culling trial, which concluded that it will not work. If it will not work, the alternatives, however difficult, must be explored.

I want to begin by explaining why this cull is bad for farmers affected by bovine TB—the biggest animal disease challenge that this country faces. It is bad for farmers because the cull would cost them more than it saves them; bad for farmers because the science does not stack up; and bad for farmers as tourists holiday somewhere else having decided that the sound of gunfire and protest is not conducive to vacation relaxation. I know the toll that this terrible disease takes on farmers and their families personally, emotionally and financially. Controlling it is imperative to protecting farmers’ livelihoods. The European Union requires us to have a national strategy for eradication.

Badgers carry TB. They transmit it to cattle, but the infection also passes among cattle, from cattle to badgers, and among badgers. We know this because during the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic, when no testing was carried out on cattle, TB in badgers increased by 70%. The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB and four scientists from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency say that that was due to a substantial transmission of TB from cattle to badgers. The roots of infection and transmission of the disease are still poorly understood.

This cull is bad for farmers because of the large costs and the small benefits.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has said twice that the cull is bad for farmers. If that is the case, why have they gone to such considerable trouble, expense and risk of adverse publicity in carrying out these culls?

[Mary Creagh]

I understand the desperation that farmers are in. However, the Government have presented culling as the silver bullet—the thing that will stop this disease—and it is not. I will explain why it presents further risks later in my speech. This is not just about the cull; it is about what happens when the cull stops.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is hoping to catch the eye of the Chair later in the debate to make his speech or whether he feels that he has just delivered it.

[Mary Creagh]

In government we spent £20 million on delivering a vaccine. That contrasts rather unhappily with this Government’s investment. In 2009-10, under Labour, investment in a cattle vaccine was £3.7 million and investment in a badger vaccine was £3.2 million. By 2014-15, that will fall to £2 million for a cattle vaccine and £1.6 million for a badger vaccine. I am not going to take any lessons from the hon. Gentleman about the investment needed in vaccines given that we spent that money. We have delivered the badger vaccine; his Government have cancelled five of our six badger vaccine trials. If they had not been cancelled, we would now be a lot further down the road of understanding how that badger vaccine works in the field.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I want to make some progress.

The cull method—free shooting—is untested. The number of badgers removed may be lower than that in Labour’s RBCT. Nobody has shot a badger legally in the UK since 1973, so it is an untested method. If it happens, it risks making TB worse.

We do not know how much this cull is actually costing the farmers involved, so we rely on the Government’s cost-benefit analysis. Culling makes TB worse by spreading the disease in the first two years. The benefits across the whole culling area appear only after year 3, but in the ring area—the edge of where the cull is carried out—there are never any benefits. Do the farmers whose land lies alongside the cull zones realise that? I think not.

Labour’s culls showed that culling badgers is estimated to reduce the incidence of TB in cattle by 16% after nine years—84% of the problem is still there. Sixteen per cent. is the best-case scenario based on the TB rate being twice as high in the cull area as it is in the land outside. However, if background TB rates are constant across the whole area, that benefit reduces to just 12%. Moreover, this is not an absolute reduction; it is a 16% reduction from the trend increase. Therefore, after nine years there will still be more TB around than at the beginning. There is 16% less than there would have been without a cull.

I want to look at how that 16% reduction is achieved. The cull depends on killing at least 70% of badgers in the cull area, yet last year the Secretary of State was about to start the culls without knowing how many badgers needed to be shot. His officials started counting the badgers only in September, just weeks before the cull was due to start. They relied on farmers to count the setts, and that did not work.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I remind her that, as a result of the destruction that the disease is causing in Shropshire, I set up the all-party group on dairy farmers during the previous Parliament. It became one of the largest all-party groups, with a membership of more than 250 MPs, 70 of whom were Labour Members. We all worked constructively on a report that stated the need for a cull. It will be very interesting to see how many of those Labour MPs change their minds this afternoon, but there was a consensus among them at that time that a cull was the only viable option.

[Mary Creagh]

I have not read that report, but today’s report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on a badger vaccination to control TB does not mention culling. [Interruption.] It is extraordinary that a report on bovine TB does not mention—

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

It is about vaccines.

[Mary Creagh]

I know it is about vaccines, but it is extraordinary that it does not mention the Government’s main control strategy.

I want to return to the badger numbers. Last year, the farm industry estimated that there were 1,800 badgers in west Gloucestershire and 2,700 in west Somerset. The Government’s figures then rose: they estimated that there were between 3,000 and 4,000 badgers in west Gloucestershire and between 3,000 and 5,000 in west Somerset, and that is why the culls stopped.

This year we have a different set of figures: it is estimated that there are between 2,500 and 4,000 badgers in west Gloucestershire and roughly between 2,000 and 3,000 in west Somerset. If we are dealing with ranges of figures, that causes a problem. We are licensing people to kill 70% of the badgers, but if the numbers are at the lower end of the range, the licensed marksmen could kill 100% of the badger population and still not meet their licensing criteria. That is a really difficult position to put farmers in.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that free shooting is being adopted because it is simply the cheapest way to kill? If the Government are committed to a culling strategy, there are more effective alternatives. Free shooting is cheap—we are getting killing on the cheap.

[Mary Creagh]

That is right. The free shooting method is being adopted because cage trapping and shooting is much more expensive—it is 10 times more expensive. Of course, there is a risk to the taxpayer if anything goes wrong in the cull areas. A bond has been laid, but we do not know how much it is. We are completely in the dark about the risk to the taxpayer should the Government have to step in to conclude the culls.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend comment on the impact of the partial genocide of badgers in England while vaccination is being carried out in Wales? Will English badgers be running across the border to seek refuge in Wales?

[Mary Creagh]

I commend the approach of the Welsh Assembly Government and I am glad that the preliminary results look very positive.

I want to return to the 16% or 12% reduction. The cull depends on killing 70% of badgers in the cull area. When I asked about badger numbers in July 2011, I received the answer that

“there is no precise knowledge of the size of the badger population”.—[Official Report, 17 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 815.]

That was a year before the culls were stopped last year. Why did Ministers not ask that question? Will they say in their speeches how confident they are of the current numbers, given the risks of localised extinction in the cull areas?

Ministers state that reductions in TB will result from following the RBCT method, yet that method was totally different because it used caged trapping and shooting, not free shooting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) mentioned. The Secretary of State used the 28% reduction figure in October last year when he announced that the culls would be delayed. That is another example of him cherry-picking the data and it ignores the perturbation effect.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I am going to explain perturbation, so I will get that over with if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

Perturbation is where badgers are displaced by the shooting and leave their setts, spreading TB to neighbouring areas. Labour’s trial culls revealed that culling increases TB in badgers by a factor of 1.9 because of perturbation—that is 90%. Ministers affirm that the cull will have hard boundaries to avoid perturbation, but they ignore the fact that the RBCT also had hard boundaries where possible.

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady has skated over the reason why farmers, contrary to her assertion, are strongly in support of the policy: the number of reactors has increased by a factor of eight in 10 years. That is driving some farmers in my constituency close to suicide. Does she not understand those central, crucial human issues?

[Mary Creagh]

I understand the human issues very well, but the farming community is divided on this matter. I have received a letter from cattle farmers in Gloucestershire who say that they are

“opposed to the badger cull”.

[Mr Heath]

That one.

[Mary Creagh]

I do not know whether there is just one. I am assuming that there are more than one.

The farmers have given me permission to read out the letter. It states that the consultation by DEFRA’s Animal Health and Welfare Board and

“the published reports from these events show no consensus for a badger cull. They also show that farmers are concerned about the indiscriminate shooting of large numbers of badgers”.

There is also a letter from the British Veterinary Association in The Independent today that criticises the support for the cull. I think that it is fair to say that the veterinary community is also divided on the issue. That is problematic, because it is never good to have a policy that divides the country so bitterly.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mary Creagh]

I will make progress, then I will take some interventions.

There is huge concern among scientists over the lack of rigour in the design, implementation, monitoring and efficacy of the culls. The proportion of badgers that are infected with bovine TB is not, as the Secretary of State claims, significant. In the RBCT, it was one in nine or about 12%.

I come now to another significant difference between the pilot culls and Labour’s RBCT.

[Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and apologise for missing her opening remarks. She is right that perturbation is a key issue, but she is not right to say that the Independent Scientific Group trials were based on hard boundaries. The fact is that the areas had to be exactly 100 sq km, otherwise they would not have been comparable. The boundaries therefore had to be accepted largely as they were. The difference with the current culls is that they do not have a maximum size, so the zone can be chosen to meet whatever good hard boundaries can be found and steps can be taken to minimise perturbation. The net benefit should therefore be much higher than was achieved in the ISG trials.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mary Creagh]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend knows that I am a great campaigner for the countryside, but following the points made by Conservative Members, let me say that there are many people in this country, as well as farmers, who love our countryside and care about our farm stock, but who care about the animals that have lived in the countryside for thousands of years. We do not have the evidence for this cull, and that is what those people resent. As Chair of a Select Committee, one’s watchword is, “If possible, build policies on the evidence.” This policy is not based on any evidence.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Let me come back to the perturbation side of things. My understanding from the scientists who conducted the cull is that hard boundaries were used where it was possible. We all know that badgers can swim through rivers and cross roads, and we know that the biggest impact on the badger population is being run over on roads. Again, the efficacy of the hard boundaries has yet to be proven.

Labour’s culls took place over eight to 12 days; the proposed culls will take place over six weeks. That matters, because when Labour’s culls took place over more than 12 days, the level of TB in badgers increased by a factor of 1.7, showing that slow culls, which this Government are licensing, increase TB in badgers. If the methodology changes, so too do the predicted results. These culls risk making TB worse. Slow culling makes TB worse in badgers, and perturbation makes TB worse in cattle on neighbouring farms.

The Government say that the cull will work, but they have downplayed the risks of making things worse, and I think they have downplayed the risks to neighbouring farmers, too. If the culls are marred by protests, culling is likely to be driven under ground and become more localised, which will make bovine TB in cattle worse, as the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) mentioned. If it is driven underground and happens on a localised basis, the one thing we know is that it will drive the badgers away and increase the problem for the neighbouring farm. That is why illegal killing of badgers is so incredibly selfish of farmers, because it is effectively spreading the infection around the neighbourhood. Farmers are frustrated; I understand that. They believe that this cull is the solution, but they also want a science-led solution. This is not that solution. That is why the badger cull will be bad for farmers.

Let me deal now with why the badger cull will be bad for the taxpayer. What has been the cost to the taxpayer so far? It has been over £300,000 for licensing activities carried out by Natural England, while sett monitoring has cost £750,000. An independent expert panel to monitor the cull has cost £17,000, and surveying the reserve site in Dorset will add to the total. Since April 2012, six DEFRA staff have been working on the cull. This cull has already cost the taxpayer well over £1 million—before it has even started.

What will be the costs to the taxpayer if the cull proceeds? The estimated cost of humaneness monitoring is £700,000, and badger post-mortems another £250,000. The policing costs for each cull area are put at £500,000 a year. There is a strong steer from the police that they will need to send armed officers to police any night-time demonstrations, taking up scarce police resources.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree with me that the true cost to the taxpayer has nothing to do with these small costs that she mentions, but relates to the fact that 189,500 cows have been killed unnecessarily which costs the taxpayer up to £1 billion a year in compensation to farmers?

[Mary Creagh]

The Secretary of State said at the weekend that he wants to roll out a further 10 areas a year for the next two years. He, for one, has already made up his mind on the efficacy and humaneness of these so-called pilots. Assuming he gets his way, that is £5 million a year for the police alone. I think that the police costs are material—

[Jesse Norman]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mary Creagh]

No. Police costs are material, because at a time when the police face 20% cuts, asking armed response vehicles to go out into the countryside will take further resources away from the cities, where there tends to be more gun crime, for example, than there is in the countryside. Monitoring all this is very problematic for police forces. When I spoke to someone from the Devon and Cornwall police, I was told that they had only a tiny number of response vehicles to monitor the area from the end of Cornwall all the way up to Exeter, yet they are already facing a huge challenge.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mary Creagh]

I am going to make some progress.

If farmers pull out of the cull and the bond does not cover the cost of completing it for four years, the taxpayer will pay once more. The Government talk about the costs of TB, as did the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), but in a parliamentary answer to me in September 2011 the then farming Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who is in his place, said that the cull would lead to five fewer herd breakdowns a year in each cull area. In 2010, there were more than 2,000 confirmed herd breakdowns in England. If the cull were rolled out with 10 cull areas a year, it would prevent just 50 herd breakdowns a year. The taxpayer costs of culling will not be recouped by a reduction in the costs of bovine TB, so this cull will go on being bad for taxpayers until Ministers cancel it.

[Jesse Norman]

On the issue of police security, will the hon. Lady unhesitatingly condemn any illegal harassment of farmers who take part in any cull?

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely; there is no place for illegal activity. It is interesting that the Government are ignoring the advice of the scientists—not animal rights extremists—who went out, faced down those animal rights extremists and stood in isolated fields across the country to deliver this cull. The scientists did that in the name and the cause of science—and they have said that this cull will not work. They are not in any way soft about this issue, and it is worth re-emphasising that point.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I understand that the Government are rightly insisting on vaccination on land adjoining the culling areas, but the hon. Lady has not mentioned the costs of that. To do that job properly, this will have to be rolled out over at least four years.

[Mary Creagh]

That is right. Vaccination has to take place every year because of the life cycle of the badger. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. I know that a fund was made available for vaccination, but it is not clear how much of it has been spent. I think it was supposed to be match funded by farmers. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on that.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I want to make some more progress before giving way again.

Let me move on to deal with the effect on badgers. The so-called pilots were supposed simply to test the humaneness, safety and effectiveness of the free shooting of badgers. No information has been made public about how wounded animals that retreat underground to die can be included in the humaneness assessment. We do not know what proportion of badger carcases will be collected for post-mortems to see whether they were killed quickly. Observers will measure the animals’ vocalisations and the time between shooting and death to measure that humaneness. As we know, however, the Secretary of State has already made up his mind that culling is the way forward, so that is a purely academic exercise.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

If, as the hon. Lady suggests, culling is an inhumane approach to badgers, why does she believe that the British Veterinary Association and the British Cattle Veterinary Association are four-square behind the Government’s policy?

[Mary Creagh]

I have mentioned the letter in today’s edition of The Independent, and I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has seen it. I am not sure that those bodies are four-square behind the policy. The Government themselves do not know whether culling is humane. That is why the pilots are allegedly about humaneness. The hon. Gentleman’s Government do not know whether culling is humane.

If the Government’s numbers are wrong or marksmen kill more badgers than they are licensed for, badgers could be wiped out locally. If too few are killed—under 70%—TB will increase. I have talked about the range of badger population numbers; localised extinction could happen. The police’s national wildlife crime unit raised concerns back in 2010, as I know from freedom of information requests, that the publication of maps detailing badger setts could be used for “badger persecution”—their phrase, not mine—and that pesticides for poisoning badgers could be misused. There has already been one report of alleged pesticide misuse in Gloucestershire, which I understand the police are investigating. Will Ministers confirm whether the cull will proceed in Gloucestershire if wildlife crime is found to have been committed?

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I have the highest regard for the hon. Lady and we have worked well together in Yorkshire on a number of issues, but I am concerned about the Opposition’s negative argument. If the badger cull does not go ahead, we would like to know the alternatives. Our Select Committee report, published today, speaks for itself.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am coming on to that point in my speech. Her report certainly talks about the need for a proper strategy and a coherent policy, and I am not sure that that is what we have got from this Government.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has correctly identified an issue about which hundreds of my constituents have written to me, namely animal cruelty. Given the lack of evidence and the absence of consensus on the matter, and in the light of the huge public concern, the cull surely cannot go ahead. It is extraordinary that Government Members have not reflected the concern felt by their own constituents.

[Mary Creagh]

I know that there is a great deal of public concern. Any policy must be socially, environmentally and politically deliverable, and the Minister’s decision to pursue the cull will test the limits of those requirements.

In Gloucestershire, the police and crime commissioner is against the cull and the county council has said that culling will not take place on its land. Serious practical difficulties are posed by free shooting near footpaths and camp sites with bullets that can travel up to two miles. If the cull goes ahead, it will not end well. It will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mary Creagh]

Twenty Members wish to speak, so I want to make some progress.

If it is not the most effective way of stopping TB, why is the cull going ahead? There is a very simple answer: it is a simple solution to a complex problem. The alternatives—stricter controls on cattle, faster and more TB testing, and more restrictions on cattle movements—promise yet more hardship and expense for hard-pressed farmers, and for the Government. The Government believe that vaccinating badgers—the approach taken by my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government—is too expensive, but owing to the high cost of policing the expected protests against the shoots, the expense of the cull now exceeds that of vaccination.

The UK’s top badger expert. Professor Rosie Woodroffe, has analysed the numbers. The Government estimate that badger vaccination would cost £2,250 and that the cull will cost £1,000 per square kilometre per year, so at first sight the cull is cheaper than vaccinating. However, when the Government’s estimate of the cost of policing the cull—£1,429 per square kilometre per year—is added, vaccination becomes the cheaper option. What a pity for farmers that DEFRA Ministers cancelled five of Labour’s six badger vaccination trials. Early results from the remaining site near Stroud show a 79% reduction in TB transmission to unvaccinated badger cubs, which means that they are almost certainly less infectious to cattle and to other badgers. Two or three years of vaccination would give badgers full immunity as the old badgers died off.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has given us a tremendous number of statistics, for which I am grateful. Will she now tell us how many farmers she has consulted, and will she give us a few statistics relating to the number of cattle that have already been destroyed?

[Mary Creagh]

I am in touch with farmers all the time, and I have had a meeting with the National Farmers Union. I have met farmers in Derbyshire and, indeed, all over the country.

The wildlife trusts, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the National Trust are all vaccinating badgers on their land. The Zoological Society of London and the wildlife trusts are pushing for volunteer involvement in badger vaccination, which would greatly reduce the costs. According to a report published today by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, for which I pay tribute to the Committee and its Chair, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh):

“The vaccine has been available for 3 years but the government should now produce a clear strategy for using it.”

That is a pretty damning indictment of what the Government have been doing for the past three years. As a result of Labour’s investment, we now have a cattle TB vaccine and a DIVA test to differentiate infected and vaccinated cows.

The Select Committee report is critical of the Government’s approach to cattle vaccination. It says that the debate on cattle vaccination is unclear, and that

“the government must accept a great deal of the blame for this”.

It says:

“The quality and accuracy of the information that Defra has put into the public domain has been insufficient and inadequate.”

The Government have delayed field trials of the cattle vaccine after misinterpreting EU rules, and they must now undertake those trials as soon as possible.

I must make it clear, however, that neither a vaccine for badgers nor a vaccine for cattle will work on its own. We need a coherent policy framework to tackle all aspects of this complex disease. The Independent Scientific Group has suggested several key principles that could form the basis of such a framework. Page 175 of its report states that

“the movement of TB infected cattle...poses the greatest threat to the disease security of uninfected farms and particularly so in the case of farms in low disease risk areas”.

According to the report, cattle movements

“are also likely to make a significant contribution to the local spread of infection in high risk areas.”

Page after page of the report lists different control strategies for low-risk and high-risk areas, some of which were implemented by the last Government and some of which are now being adopted by the present Government.

We welcome, for instance, the risk-based trading strategy on which the Government have embarked. There must be transparency in the marketplace to prevent farmers from unknowingly importing infected cows into their herds. However, the Government have not investigated, for example, the 40% of farms in high-risk areas in the south-west that have consistently avoided bovine TB. What are those farmers doing to protect their farms? How are they trading, what is their biosecurity, and what are their husbandry practices? Can they be replicated? What can we learn? Until we get to the bottom of that, we will not find a solution.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

As I think the hon. Lady is beginning to make clearer, it is not a case of either vaccinating or culling. The Government have introduced a package of measures, including security measures. At the heart of the vaccination question, however, is the challenge of how to persuade 26 other European Union member states to import the meat from vaccinated cattle when there are questions to be answered about the efficacy of the BCG vaccine and the efficacy of the skin test.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

We now have the DIVA test, which enables us to differentiate vaccinated and infected cattle, and we know from the Select Committee’s report that its efficacy rate is 65%. Our priority must be to stop the spread of infected cattle into low-risk areas, and the spreading of the disease. The Government are about to embark on a risky and untested cull which, as I have said, will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made the important point that even in infected areas there are farms that manage to remain disease-free. We need to learn lessons from that, but some Government Members have clearly made up their minds already. They are not interested in the facts; they just want a cull.

[Mary Creagh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is nothing more dangerous than an idea if it is the only idea you have.

This so-called science-led cull has been disowned by the scientists who faced down animal rights protesters to bring us the randomised badger culling trial and a world-class scientific result. The cull will cost more than doing nothing. If it works at all, its effect will be marginal. It carries a real risk of making TB worse in both cattle and badgers. The original Independent Scientific Group said:

“Concentrating solely on the badger dimension in what is clearly a multidimensional and dynamic system of disease spread would be to fail to learn the lessons of previous experience .”

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mary Creagh]

No, I will not. I am about to end my speech.

Any solution will require us to work closely with farmers. It will need to be technically, environmentally, socially and economically acceptable, and it will require the consent of taxpayers. Complex problems require complex solutions, and this cull is not the solution.