Badger Cull

Mel Stride Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which brings me neatly to the situation in Wales, about which I know something. The Government there have used the same scientific evidence as DEFRA and have begun a five-year badger vaccination programme, starting in parts of Pembrokeshire. More than 700 badgers have been vaccinated since the start of that programme, which is about halfway through the land that it needs to cover. That part of the programme is on track to be finished towards the end of October. I hope that England will be able to learn from Wales and elsewhere to see how the problem can be tackled most effectively.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that until there is an oral vaccine, it is totally impractical to try to vaccinate the badger population? First, they have to be caught. Secondly, the person doing the catching has to be licensed by Natural England at huge cost, and thirdly, the cost is estimated at £2,250 per square kilometre.

[Caroline Lucas]

Trying to kill badgers is also extremely difficult. The original randomised badger culling trial was about killing badgers by capturing them in cages first, but the Government have dismissed that as too expensive. In doing so, they have reduced the likely effectiveness of the policy. It will lead to people trying to shoot badgers, which are difficult to kill outright because of their shape and size. That is extremely costly, and crucially it also spreads the disease even more widely. Vaccinating badgers is not easy, but it is a lot easier than shooting them in the way that the Government propose. It is also an awful lot more effective in stopping the spread of TB. That seems to me a good argument for not going ahead with shooting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I rise to speak against the motion. It strikes me that many who have spoken in its favour have done so having assumed for themselves the mantle of majority support and that the country is behind them, but I can tell hon. Members that my constituents are not behind the motion. I can say that with some authority, because I surveyed some 30,000 households over the summer and one of the questions I asked was whether they were in favour of the Government’s approach to pilot culls to tackle bovine TB, and the results were that 59% were in favour of pilot culls, 27% were against and the others did not voice an opinion.

The reasons why a majority of almost 2:1 of my constituents are in favour of the Government’s courageous policy are simple and have been rehearsed many times during this debate: the huge loss of our cattle—some 26,000 last year; the huge expense to the taxpayer of almost £100 million last year and £1 billion over the next decade, if this is left unchecked; and a cost for every farm where there is an outbreak of £30,000, of which £10,000 is borne by the farmer. This is unsustainable; it cannot be allowed to continue.

As many hon. Members have said, there is a human cost to farmers, their families and the communities in which they live. That cannot be underestimated. One of my most special constituents is Mr Brian Warren, who runs a voluntary organisation called Farm Crisis Network, which provides pastoral support to farmers in distress. I invite any Opposition Member who supports the motion to come to Central Devon, sit down with Brian and listen to some of the stories about the misery that our farmers are going through as a consequence of this scourge. On most occasions, it is nothing short of harrowing.

I wish to deal with a couple of arguments that have been made by those on the other side of the debate. The first is that we somehow claim that our approach will be 100% successful. We do not. The culls will be pilots, from which we will learn. We accept that we will not eradicate bovine TB in the cull areas, but we have to accept that no other approach will lead to quick and certain 100% eradication either. We therefore have to use the proposed approach, along with increased biosecurity. The Government announced as recently as last week that biosecurity would be tightened up. We also have to look to the ongoing use of vaccination and the development of vaccines in future.

The second argument that has been deployed is that our approach will have no effect whatever on TB, or indeed will make it worse. Many Opposition Members have mentioned the independent scientific group and the Krebs trials as evidence, but time has moved on and so has the assessment of those trials. New analysis and new research has challenged some of their conclusions. I refer specifically to the report of one member of the ISG, Professor Donnelly. As recently as last September, she wrote:

“In the time period from one year after the last proactive cull”—

the Krebs trials—

“to 28 August 2011, the incidence of confirmed breakdowns in the proactive culling trial areas was 28.0% lower…than in survey-only areas”—

as used in the trial—

“and on lands up to 2km outside proactive trial areas was 4.1% lower…than outside survey-only areas”.

As time has gone on, the evidence in favour of the effectiveness of culling has hardened.

[Andrew George]

Professor Donnelly has also shown that that reduction still represented an increase in the incidence of herd breakdowns, but at a lower level than would have been the case had the cull not gone ahead. That reduction is at the nub of the justification of the Government’s policy, but it was not an absolute reduction.

[Mel Stride]

In the absence of any other factors, that is correct. However, the pilot culls that are now envisaged for next year will be held on a different basis. The area over which they will be held will be substantially larger than for the Krebs trials, which is an important factor. We have talked much about the effects of perturbation, which will be reduced by having hard boundaries such as coastlines, rivers and motorways.

I turn to the issue of vaccination. It is simply impractical, as things stand, to consider the vaccination of badgers as a sensible way forward. Until we achieve a reliable oral vaccine we simply do not have the resources to go out and trap badgers individually, on an annualised basis, and have trained, registered and licensed personnel to go out and inject them with vaccine. That is simply not going to happen. I laud the Government for spending a considerable sum—some £16 million a year recently—to help develop the vaccines that we need.

It must be reiterated that even if we vaccinate cattle, we still do not have a reliable, licensed and usable test to differentiate cattle that have been vaccinated from those that are carrying TB. The DIVA test is not yet licensed and usable.

I have one or two quick points to make to Ministers. First, one reason why the NFU decided to ask the Government to postpone the pilots was that there was a fairly significant under-estimate of the number of badgers in the pilot areas. I press the Government to ensure that the same mistake is not made next time around, and to ensure that the badger survey that is being conducted, which I believe will be concluded next year, is carried out with great rigour and examined extremely carefully. We need to know what the numbers are.

Secondly, I ask that the Government press hard to ensure that the DIVA test is made available, fully licensed and put in place, so that we can use it if we can move forward on the efficacy of vaccinations and our position with the EU.

Thirdly, I ask Ministers to consider the fact that we need the consent of landowners who own 70% of the land in the pilot areas. In fact, it is important that we achieve well in excess of that, because it is quite conceivable that landowners will be leant upon at various points during the pilot, and that some may drop out of the scheme. We need to get well above that threshold.

Finally, we need to press on. We should recognise the courage and decency of the current Secretary of State and the Ministers who came before him, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice). They have a done a sterling job of standing up for our farmers, their families, our communities and those who believe in the rural way of life.