TB in Cattle and Badgers

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George). What she said was very measured. [Interruption.] I do not know whether a debate is still going on—that is always better than comments sotto voce. My hon. Friend presented the case very well, so I will not go over what she said. Hon. Members will disagree on the way in which this terrible disease is currently being fought.

Of course, we are all in favour of eradicating bovine TB. My area has suffered from it more than most. I have seen what it does to both cattle and badgers, and anyone who does not believe that it is an awful disease does not know much about it. However, we will disagree on how we go about eradication—including the notion of when we will eradicate it, if we ever can. We have to hope we can, but that is at least questionable.

I shall start with what we know—and I will congratulate the Government. They were brave, given all the pressure that they came under, not to extend the cull to Derbyshire, because it is worthwhile looking at different models. I shall also start by saying that I think we could learn from what has happened in Wales. I heard what the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Jane Dodds) said, but the Welsh Government have taken a fundamentally different approach. I do not know enough about what the Scottish Government have done, but I hope that the UK Government are open to the suggestion that we can bear down on this disease in different ways. Wales, with its concentration on herd breakdown, has shown us at least some very different notions of what we can do.

Let me go back to what Labour did when we were in government. It is a bit of a myth that we did not spend an awful lot of time on this disease: we did, including through the work of John Krebs. I recall that one of Krebs’s conclusions was that killing badgers would make no significant difference to the spread of bovine TB in cattle. That was borne out by the independent expert panel, under John Bourne. We put serious resources into that, and it is where we got to understand the perturbation effect. All the scientists who were associated with it have come down very strongly against the current, privatised cull, given the potential damage that it does, with the spread outwards of this disease because of the perturbation effect.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Drew]

Obviously we are quite short of time, but I will give way to my constituency neighbour.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to my constituency neighbour for giving way. He is aware of the latest figures, which show very clearly that in Gloucestershire, far from there being a perturbation effect, the opposite has actually been the case: there has been a reduction in the level of the disease on the edge of the cull areas.

[Dr Drew]

Let me come to that later, because I will point out something slightly different.

We have had the two articles, and they are articles; they are not necessarily anything other than a position taken by both Brunton and Downs. Brunton used the findings given to her by APHA and she made the point that

“to use the findings of this analysis to develop generalisable inferences about the effectiveness of the policy at present”

was at least questionable. Downs was more definitive and did say that there was some strong evidence, in her opinion, that the cull was working. But this is where I disagree with the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). The current figures from Gloucestershire have shown an upward spike, in both incidence and prevalence, in the cull area. This is the problem with this disease: it is not a disease that can easily be measured in terms of one policy. My fear about the Government is that they have gone along the badger cull route as the main policy.

With regard to where we are, the one real criticism that I have of this Government is that I think it is outrageous that MPs are not allowed to know where culling is taking place. I recently had an incident locally that was about culling on the edge of the Woodchester Park area. Anyone who knows anything, and certainly those who have studied the matter, will know that Woodchester Park has spent more time than most of us have had hot dinners in trying to understand how the badger population is affected by bovine TB and in looking at the relationship—the transmission mechanism—between badgers and cattle. Certainly we had some evidence that a badger was shot within that trial area. I know the police will not prosecute, but I hope that the Minister will give me every assurance that there is no possibility of culling, because that would throw away 40-plus years of how we have been studying those badgers, and we need to keep doing that.

I have been talking about where we are. This, of course, is a stress-based disease. That is why I am quizzical, and want to hear from the Government, about why they have not yet responded to Godfray, because it is right and proper that we do respond to Godfray. We need to understand this issue. My area had a recent incidence of TB caused by the way in which people were putting in a new pipeline. Because they did not move the badger setts properly, five farms have gone down, no doubt because of the stress on the badgers that were moved wrongly and on the cattle, which suffered accordingly. It is important that we understand that a number of different things are involved.

I welcome what the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said about slurry. I hope that the Government are looking seriously at the work of Gatcombe, down in Dorset—on the Dorset-Devon border—where Dick Sibley has tried to do things.

[Mr Goodwill]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Drew]

May I just continue? I will never finish my speech otherwise, and the Minister will need quite a lot of time to respond because of the excellent debate that we have had, even if hon. Members do not agree on this issue.

I hope that we are looking at what Sibley has discovered in trying to eradicate this disease from a cattle herd. He has narrowed things down, again, to, dare I say, the impact of slurry being put out on farms. We need to know more about that.

With regard to where else we need to be much better, I think that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) brought up the notion of the Enferplex test. We need to push forward on the different measures. I will be blunt: the SICCT—single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin—test, the skin test, is notoriously unreliable. Far too often, cattle that have the disease are missed. Sometimes they are picked up with the interferongamma test. Again, Gatcombe is doing work with PCR-polymerase chain reaction— and phage.

It is important that we know that these tests are much more accurate. We need to bear down on this disease. I do not want to kill cattle any more than I want to kill badgers. Far too often, cattle are killed that are clean of the disease. But sadly, there are cattle that are not clean of the disease and get through. We still have 14 million cattle movements. It is important that we understand that those movements could be a major cause of the spread of the disease, because if we do not know which cattle have it, as we may not know which badgers have it, and we allow those cattle to travel around the country, that is clearly a real threat.

We need to look at every tool in the box. We will not agree on how this disease is currently being fought, but fought it must be. The Leader of the Opposition offered with equanimity to work with the Government at the end of yesterday’s debate and I would like to work with the Government on this. I would love for the Minister to come to Woodchester Park and look at the implications of what researchers have found there over many years.

I agree with the Prime Minister about the need to end cattle movement—all live exports—in terms of what we send abroad. That could give us an opening. Much of the way in which we have fought this disease has been to do with the need to keep our trade policy “TB-free”. If we maintain that, it is important to understand that this might be a way forward. Thus far we have been within EU rules. That is something we could address.

In conclusion, I would like to work with the Minister. Sadly, previous attempts at cross-party work have not always succeeded, but I make that offer now—and I hope the Minister will take me up on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

We will look at that evidence, but this is a difficult issue. My right hon. Friend is right that our aim, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby pointed out, is to get the badger population down by 70% in the four years of the cull; it is not our intention at all to eradicate the badger population. This is an issue that we will continue to look at because, as we plot how to get from where we are now to being officially TB-free by 2038, it is clearly an important issue.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby also pointed out some of the challenges of vaccinating badgers and the further challenge that we have had with an oral vaccination. However, if we can use such a vaccination, there are also some advantages. It provides herd immunity and there is some evidence that cubs born in badger populations that have been vaccinated have a higher degree of resistance to the disease than other badgers.

Finally, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith asked about Scotland. The approach taken in Scotland is very similar to the approach that we take in a low-risk area elsewhere. Scotland does not have a large badger population and nor does it have a presence of the disease in the badger population, which is in common with the north of England. Therefore, the nature of the challenge in Scotland is very different from that elsewhere.

The badger population has more than doubled in this country over the last 20 or so years. In the cull areas, which we are targeting because the disease is rife there, we simply look to reduce the badger population by 70% for the duration of the cull.

[Dr Drew]

The one thing that has not been mentioned—I should have mentioned it myself, of course—is cattle vaccination. Such vaccination was always 10 years away, but I gather that it is now five years away. Are the Weybridge and Pirbright research institutions still working on this vaccination and, if so, can they clarify where they are with that work?

[George Eustice]

Yes, we are continuing to do cattle vaccinations; that particular research has not been stopped. As the hon. Gentleman says, cattle vaccination is an important line of work and it is one that we intend to continue.