Bovine Tuberculosis

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

As the noble Lord will know from having looked at the science, one thing that came out of the research by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was that you could not stop culling after one year—you had to continue it for several years, otherwise there would be an adverse effect. Therefore, the culling will continue in the areas in which it was started, as was always planned. That is based upon scientific advice from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. As I am sure the noble Lord will know, there was a reduction in the incidence of bovine TB in the randomised control areas that were looked at, but that reduction was only around 16%, and therefore other strategies are needed too.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, the efficacy of the pilot can be evaluated properly only if both the number of badgers at the start and the number killed are known. As noble Lords will recall, last year the badgers notoriously changed the goalposts at the last minute. How precisely will the number of badgers be estimated in the future pilot cull? Can she in particular confirm that Defra will not rely on the numbers reported by the contractors, as the independent expert panel advised that those numbers were quite unreliable? For example, the contractors initially claimed to have shot more than one badger per bullet fired.

[Baroness Northover]

Perhaps they were all lined up. We could recently have done with some moving of goalposts in Brazil, could we not? The noble Lord is right to emphasise the importance of a much more comprehensive coverage. He will know from his own trials that in many of the areas he was working in, the process started slowly and picked up. There are a number of recommendations in the independent expert panel report about how to ensure that there is more systematic and comprehensive coverage, and we are taking those recommendations forward.