Badger Culling

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will come back to that point. As has already been said, it is amazing what can be done quite quickly when scientists really get behind something. I suspect many would agree with the point made by the hon. Lady.

The argument is frequently polarised: those who believe that culling badgers is the answer and those who disagree both believe that they are following the science. The problem is that the science is not entirely clear; statistics that appear to back both sides of the argument can be found and quoted. It is worth putting on the record that the Godfray review, commissioned by the Government back in 2018, set out this issue in its opening statement:

“The deeply held beliefs of people who cannot countenance culling badgers deserve respect, as do the beliefs of people who argue that sacrificing badgers is justified to reduce the burden of this disease on livestock and farmers. The decision whether or not to cull badgers must be informed by evidence which provides important information on likely outcomes. However, final decisions have to take into account the irreconcilable views of different stakeholders and so inevitably require judgements to be made by ministers”—

and different Ministers will make different judgments.

Labour would stop the culling of badgers. Our bovine TB control strategy would be based on vaccination, testing and better biosecurity measures, and we believe we have public support for that position. However, no one should be in any doubt that we are absolutely determined to put an end to the spread of bovine TB.

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

If we had a vaccine that allowed us to differentiate between a vaccinated animal and an infected animal, that policy would stand up. However, until we have that vaccine, the only alternative is to continue culling, which has proven successful in getting on top of the disease in areas such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin).

[Daniel Zeichner]

I was very pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman walk in because I expected him to make exactly that intervention; we had a similar discussion during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020. As I am sure he will appreciate, the DIVA test is well advanced. He is right to say that we need to make progress, exactly as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) said. Science moves; I am, perhaps, more optimistic about the pace of that movement than others.

The petition has a significant number of signatures. It focuses on the killing of badgers rather than the bovine TB issue, which I shall return to. The view expressed is that the shooting of badgers is poorly monitored and inhumane. Anecdotally, one is certainly told of cases where badgers are not shot cleanly and are left with injuries. According to Natural England’s compliance monitoring report for 2020, badgers were shot at but not retrieved in 11.4% of cases, but only one case of a badger being shot at but wounded and lost was reported; presumably some of the rest may not have been found. As with all such figures, the situation is not clear. I suggest that there is some cause for concern.

Can the Minister say why the number of badgers culled through free shooting rather than cage-trapping has changed so dramatically? According to the figures in the very good briefing prepared by the House of Commons Library, those numbers have increased from rough parity in 2014 to around four in five in 2020, creating a greater risk of inhumane culling. What is the reason for that? It seems that that is directly relevant to the question raised by the petitioners.

The wider question is about the future of shooting badgers in general and the continuance of the cull. I remember when the Government finally responded to the Godfray review while we were sitting on the Agriculture Bill Committee. By complete chance, they responded on the very day that Labour happened to have tabled an amendment addressing this very question—it was one of a number of cases when Government statements appeared miraculously on certain days during the course of the Agriculture Bill’s passage through Parliament. What we took from the Government announcement, the headlines and the spin was that the cull was to end. However, what we have seen since has shown that that was not the whole story.

Despite the points made by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, given that the cull has been going on for 10 years or so, it is worth asking what the Government’s policy on badger culling has done to get this horrible disease under control. One thing we know for sure is that it has killed a lot of badgers—more than 140,000. That is not in doubt. Every year since 2015, the number culled has grown, with more than 38,600 killed in 2020. Last year’s figures are due any time; they are expected to be larger still.

The Badger Trust tells me that in some areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset, badgers are now all but extinct. It also predicts that, by the end of the cull, the number of badgers in England will have been halved. As I reflected on earlier, the sad truth is that some of those badgers will have had unpleasant deaths. There are then the financial costs. Again, the Badger Trust estimates that, between 2013 and 2019, the cost of the cull was around £60 million—although I hear the points made by Government Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s points, because I think that the crux of the question is, “Does the culling of badgers achieve the desired result?” That is one of the points at issue. I find it slightly surprising that there are no tests once badgers have been culled, so we do not really know the ratio of infected to healthy badgers being killed. Perhaps the Minister could explain why those are not done.

Staggeringly—to many of us—the current system is set up so that, in some instances, badgers that have been vaccinated will then go on to be culled. A couple of years ago, I visited the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and its volunteers to see just how badger vaccination works, and to meet a badger. I am grateful to Debbie Bailey and her colleagues for letting me join them—I must say, very early in the morning—to see how it is done. It is painstaking work, carried out by volunteers, and with financial support from the Government. However, as I say, incredibly, those very same badgers, vaccinated at taxpayer expense, are then sometimes shot as part of the cull. Can the Minister explain how that makes sense?

I warned earlier that the statistics can be read in many different ways, but I would also point out that, during the past decade, the number of cattle slaughtered due to TB has remained fairly consistent, at between 26,000 and 33,000 per year. In 2021, the number of cattle slaughtered decreased by only 1% on the previous 12 months to 27,581, with more cattle slaughtered in 2021 than in 2013, the year that the culls started. Herd incidence was at 8.8% in 2021—down only 0.6% on the previous year—and has also remained fairly static throughout the cull, at between 11% and 8.6%.

As I have been at pains to point out, different people will read those figures in different ways. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire will perhaps see them as a great success, while others will look at them and say that there are many other variables, and that there has not been sufficient progress to justify a Government policy costing millions of pounds and resulting in the deaths of close to 150,000 members of a protected species.

I would appreciate it if the Minister explained what she takes from those figures and whether she considers the cull to be a success so far. To mix my metaphors, I would say that the Government have placed too many of their eggs in one basket—each year, ramping up the killing, licensing more and more cull areas, but to insufficient avail. The science around this has long been contested. I think we have heard accounts of that. It has been looked at on a number of occasions.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that, if one looks at New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, where culling the wildlife vector was so effective, we can see how the policy is based on clear science and clear examples, from other countries around the world, of how effective it can be?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I always bow to the right hon. Gentleman’s superior knowledge on this, but my recollection from reading the Godfray review is that other factors were involved as well.

Part of the problem with the whole debate is trying to separate out the different issues with the governance structures, the New Zealand example and so on, so I suspect we are not going to agree on this. But from the evidence I have seen and had explained to me, cow-to-cow infections are far more significant than those from badger to cow. Indeed, the Godfray report described the benefits of the cull to the farming industry as “circumscribed” and raised a range of other potential ways forward.

In 2020, Labour welcomed the Government’s announcement that they were finally planning to phase out culls, with the end date set for 2025. Despite saying that no new licences would be granted after 2022, in late 2021 seven new licensing zones were announced. In answer to a written question, the Minister said the culling of badgers will remain an option

“where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed.”

Can the Minister clarify that the Government do not intend to allow a perpetual culling of badgers by the back door and that the commitment to end the cull by 2025 remains in place?

Our Labour view is that we are more likely to beat bovine TB through better vaccination, better testing and better biosecurity, particularly when it comes to testing pre and post movement of cattle between farms, together, as I have already suggested, with a much bigger push into researching and administering effective TB vaccines for both cattle and badgers.

To conclude, I return to the Godfray review of 2018. Can the Minister say what happened to some of its other proposals? It queried the current governance arrangements, saying that, in its view, too many Government bodies were involved, and it suggested a single bovine TB authority. What is the Government’s view on that? To some extent, the review was looking at the New Zealand example. The review recommended moving to using a more sensitive test in the high risk and edge area. Does the Minister agree with that? It argued that a key problem is the high level of cattle movements in England, and that risky trading should be disincentivised. Again, does she agree? If so, what does she plan to do about it?

The review recommended mandatory post-movement testing and using the most sensitive test; the Minister’s comments on that would be welcome. It describes the number of “no regret” biosecurity options being taken up by farmers as “disappointingly low”. That was back in 2018, so can she tell us if there has been any progress since then?

As always, there are many questions, but there are many ways to tackle bovine TB. The Government and Members on the Government side clearly believe that shooting badgers is the preferred option, but in our view the evidence of efficacy is unclear. On the Opposition side, we would take a different path, as I outlined earlier—but let me clear that we will be absolutely steadfast in our resolve to eliminate bovine TB.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The Government have invested over £40 million in vaccines and tests. As set out in the Godfray review—again, this is in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire—our aim is to have a deployable cattle vaccine by 2025. Field trials began last year. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill) mentioned that the challenge is having the sensitivity to make sure that we deal with the matter properly.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

May I share my disappointment that the oral vaccine that DEFRA was keen to roll out proved too unpalatable were it to be made abrasive enough for it to work on the badger, and now we are stuck with having to trap and vaccinate badgers? Unfortunately, some badgers are too clever to get caught. It tends to be the same badgers getting in the traps all the time because they know there is food there.

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed. As every Member said, we need to approach this issue in the most humane way possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I was, in fact, due to go tomorrow, but I am now unable to. I dare say those conversations will happen in short order. I know that my Northern Ireland equivalent is looking at this issue at the moment, and it is hoped that we can learn from one another. We can certainly get those conversations where we can all be enabled to make the right decisions as swiftly as possible.

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale pointed out that culling causes badgers to move, and perturbation, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire said. Taking that into account is important. That is why we need a gradual, monitored, evidence-based approach, so we do not risk perturbation and the disease getting a hold. We need the areas that can cull to do so while we build the vaccination capability and a vaccinated population.

The strategy is rooted in routine and targeted testing of herds, movement restrictions on infected herds, rapid detection and removal of cattle testing positive. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) said that it is particularly stressful when a calf is involved. We do have an isolation policy so that a positive cow is pulled out in order that the calf can be born.

Measures such as the statutory testing of cattle, movement between farms and surveillance at the slaughterhouse also apply. Over the last 12 months, we have compulsorily slaughtered more than 27,000 individual head of cattle in England to control the disease. Many of us represent rural constituencies, and we have heard today from virtually every Member about the misery that both sides of this bring to people. The cost to Government of dealing with the disease is about £100 million a year; it is a huge burden for the taxpayer.

One of our top priorities, as I have said, is to develop the vaccine for cattle so that it does not interfere with the TB testing regime. We hope to get that introduced within the next five years. It is expected to be a game changer in providing a strong additional tool to help to eradicate the disease. It is important that we look at the trials that are ongoing at the moment and we get the evidence base. There is not a single answer to the scourge of bovine TB, but by deploying a whole range of policy interventions, we can turn the tide on this insidious disease and, we hope, achieve the long-term objective, which I think everybody shares, of ensuring that we make England officially TB free by 2038—sooner if we can make it, but definitely not much later.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

May I remind the Minister that in North Yorkshire we have very healthy badgers and very healthy cattle? Contrary to what many people think, the badger is not an endangered species; indeed, I think that in our part of North Yorkshire there are probably four or five times as many badgers as there have ever been before. It is the hedgehogs, bumblebees and ground-nesting birds that are feeling the pressure, from the high numbers of badgers, and that is having an effect on the ecosystem as well.