TB in Cattle and Badgers

Phil Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Phil Wilson (in the Chair)]

Order. Quite a few Members want to speak. The hon. Lady has been good at giving way, but I hope she will come to the end of her speech at some point.

[Ruth George]

I will do, Mr Wilson.

[Ruth George]

Absolutely. We would not want that to happen in Derbyshire either.

In 2014, 20% of culls were supervised by Natural England staff, but by 2018 the organisation was able to monitor only 0.4% of them. That gives rise to safety concerns, particularly if protests are involved. Without even responding to their own report, last month the Government extended the badger cull to a total of 40 areas, including around Bristol, Cheshire, Devon, Cornwall, Staffordshire, Dorset, Herefordshire and Wiltshire. It was not extended to Derbyshire, however. That delighted the thousands of supporters of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and its vaccination programme, but not the Derbyshire farmers, 700 of whom had signed up to the cull in their area.

With infections increasing so much recently, and no other Government policy forthcoming, farmers feel that the badger cull is their only option to escape the real fear of TB. As has been said, however, there is conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of the cull, and it is disappointing that Professor Godfray’s team was specifically asked not to evaluate whether ongoing culls are reducing TB in cattle. A recent report from the Animal and Plant Health Agency stated explicitly that the data cannot demonstrate whether or not the badger control policy is effective.

The Downs report shows some reduction in infections during and immediately after the cull, but infection rates are now rising again and TB is spreading among cattle. Professor Godfray stated that the only feasible alternative to control badgers is vaccination, and that leads me to the work of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust—the largest volunteer-led vaccination programme in the UK, supported by the National Trust, the National Farmers Union, Derbyshire County Council, the Badger Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Derbyshire police and local badger groups. Derbyshire’s police and crime commissioner is also a strong supporter, especially after assessing the resources that policing protests against the cull would involve. DWT is supported by more than 100 volunteers, and that number is continually increasing. I thank the small band of professionals and all the volunteers who dedicate a substantial amount of time in the evenings and early mornings to trap and vaccinate badgers. They have vaccinated 742 badgers so far, including 218 this year.

[Phil Wilson (in the Chair)]

Order. Is the hon. Lady coming to the end of her speech? She has been speaking for 25 minutes, and I want to be fair to other Members who wish to take part in the debate.

[Ruth George]

Am I okay to finish by 10 am, within four minutes?

[Phil Wilson (in the Chair)]

You are eating into the time of other Members—that is what I am saying. If you could come to a conclusion, it would be good.

[Ruth George]

Right. This is a much more popular debate than I had envisaged for 9.30 on a Wednesday morning, so I will make progress, Mr Wilson.

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has vaccinated badgers over an area of 120 sq km, and that area is expanding since the wildlife trust reached an agreement with Natural England to start work on national nature reserves in the Derbyshire dales. Government funding has been just £280,000 through the scheme over four years, given the much lower cost of vaccinating badgers instead of culling them. Derbyshire presents the ideal opportunity for a large-scale vaccination programme of the kind recommend by Professor Godfray. It has no cull, an expanding vaccination programme and a highly experienced professional vaccination team. Such research is vital to help to inform the Government about their bovine TB policy and the opportunity significantly to increase badger vaccination across the country.

There is currently no clear strategy or clarity about where vaccinations should take place or at what scale. Vaccination has not been pushed as a viable option to culling in any meaningful way, whereas the Government have been vocal in support of culling. There needs to be a level playing field. The current funding model provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs provides only 50% of the funds needed to run a badger vaccination programme, and that is preventing other organisations from establishing programmes. If such a model is to be extended, it must be offered proper financial support.

The people of Derbyshire and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust seek assurance from the Government that the cull will not come to an area with such a high success rate in vaccination—that it did not this year is a positive step. When will the Government publish their response to the Godfray report? Will consideration be given to monitoring the disease status of badgers, as well as badger populations, within cull areas? As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, that already happens in Northern Ireland. Why is there no systematic testing of culled badgers for TB? A key factor for farmers in my area is for them to get access to the tests they need to ensure that their herds stay as risk-free as possible. I look forward to hearing speeches from other hon. Members, and to the Minister’s response.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Phil Wilson (in the Chair)]

Order. We need to introduce a four-minute time limit on speeches, and we may have to reduce that if people do not stick to it.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson, and I congratulate the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on securing this important debate. Like other colleagues, I thought her speech was incredibly well balanced and truly reflected the nature of her constituency.

The hon. Lady’s constituency is very different from mine. As hon. Members will recognise, I represent an urban constituency and I therefore would not pretend for a nanosecond to understand fully and appreciate the concerns felt by other colleagues who might represent more rural constituencies. That said, I was one of the few Conservative MPs who spoke and voted against the badger cull when it first came before the House, and I have been a long-standing opponent of the cull ever since.

As I have served as a Minister for three and a half years, this is my first opportunity to speak on this issue since 2015. Although I recognise—especially looking around the Conservative Benches this morning—that I am probably in a minority on this side of the Chamber, I believe it is important that I speak. In my first speech on the issue I spoke of my appreciation of the devastating effect on farmers, which has been reflected in the debate today. It is important that the issue does not become one of farmers versus badgers. We have enough division as it is, and it is important to reflect on that.

Because of my deeply held views on animal welfare I have had the pleasure of working on the issue alongside various charities and organisations. It is important to recognise that they, too, have worked tirelessly to raise awareness of badgers and bovine TB and to provide the Government with scientific evidence that could protect both badger and cattle numbers. The evidence is clearly important, and I have worked with those, such as the Save Me Trust, who have worked for years to try to show that the scientific evidence used by the Government is flawed. Working with a farmer in Devon, the trust has helped to implement a different strategy to tackle TB in cattle, called the Gatcombe method, developed by veterinarian Dick Sibley. The method focuses on maintaining standards in cattle herds such as cleaning up the birthing of calves, cleaning up excrement as soon as it is dropped, and not pumping cow slurry on to the feeding fields. That has given the farmer an officially TB-free herd for three years, without the need to slaughter badgers.

Success in tackling bTB is not limited to that farm. We have already heard that Welsh herds are 94% free of bTB, and that it is dropping significantly without the culling of badgers, so surely there is an alternative for tackling the disease in English farms. As the Save Me Trust makes clear, the reason badgers have not been culled at the farm is that the likelihood of badgers passing TB on to cattle is low. According to the randomised badger culling trial, 5.7% of bTB outbreaks have been caused by badgers, but other scientific studies have put the figure at less than 1%. As has been mentioned, the RBCT estimates that 80% of badgers culled in England do not have bTB; so they were culled unnecessarily.

We need to look at other methods and take a more holistic approach to tackling bovine TB. I appreciate that that would require investment of time and money. I think that it is something the Government can support. A suggestion that was put to me was a Government-led grant programme, for farmers to invest in aerobic digesters to remove bTB from slurry, protecting cows and the wider environment from contamination, and, better still, providing biogas to be turned into electricity.

If we are to eradicate bTB it is clear that the current system for testing cattle needs to be improved. At present the skin test is ineffective and many infected cows remain in herds. Experiments with blood tests have shown TB organisms in cattle—

[Phil Wilson (in the Chair)]

Order.