Horsemeat

Debate between Mark Pritchard and David Heath

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I have to say that I am impressed by the degree of co-operation we are now seeing from the industry and all food businesses in the testing regime we have put in place, from which we hope to have meaningful results tomorrow. Who works for which company is not a matter for the Government or Ministers at the Dispatch Box, but whether we get results that reassure the public is a matter for us.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Given the importance of this issue to all our constituents, will the Minister join me in calling on Her Majesty’s Opposition to work with the Government in the national interest to sort it out, rather than making cheap party political points?

Badger Cull

Debate between Mark Pritchard and David Heath

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

In my previous ministerial role, I instituted the e-petition concept and also introduced the Backbench Business Committee. This is a perfect example of why that was a very good idea, because Back Benchers were given the opportunity to debate matters of real importance that ought to be discussed. I was the first person to say that this matter should be debated in the House. Of course, the Government have only legislative time, so this is the right mechanism to use.

There are some issues on which most of the House will agree. Bovine TB is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK and the importance of the epidemic for our cattle farmers and their families and communities cannot be overemphasised. I hope that we can also agree about the geographical spread, although I was slightly worried by what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said at one point. This was once a disease isolated to small pockets of the country, but it has now spread extensively through the west of England and Wales, and the number of new cases is doubling every nine years. So I do think that it is spreading like wildfire, and one has only to look at the map to see that that is the case. Someone mentioned rather hyperbolically the prospect of a massacre. Well, there is a massacre going on: it is the slaughter of 26,000 cattle last year at the cost of nearly £100 million, and we cannot afford to shy away from tackling the rampant spread of bovine TB throughout our cattle herds. If we do not take the action needed now, this disease could cost us £1 billion over the next 10 years. That is the answer to the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). I will accept that he, within the parameters that his Government set, took action to try to deal with it, but the fact is that it has not worked. The problem has carried on getting worse and worse, and that is why we are determined to do better.

I hope that we will also agree that bovine TB is transmitted from cattle to cattle, badger to badger, badger to cattle and cattle to badger. The task of managing bovine TB and bringing it under control is difficult and complex. I resent a little bit the caricature that we are blundering into an approach not based on evidence; that we are blind to obvious alternatives and guaranteed to make things worse; and that we have failed to understand the science. Ministers do not make decisions in this way, certainly this Minister and the previous Minister did not.

Plenty of people have told us that the cull will not work and what we should not be doing, but none of them—not the critics, the scientists or the politicians—has come up with a single workable alternative to the cull that would give us the positive impact that we need right now. Nobody wants to kill badgers, but no one can deny that they are a significant reservoir of the disease, which is contributing to the spread of TB. All the experts agree that we cannot hope to tackle the disease without addressing the problem in wildlife. That is why we are determined to use all the tools at our disposal, and continue to develop new ones, as a package of measures to tackle the disease. Some people say that the cull not the silver bullet. No, it is not the silver bullet, but it is not the only thing that we will do. This will not cure the problem, but it will contribute to curing the problem. People say that it will only be a 16% net reduction. Well, if I were to say that we were reducing cancer incidence in this country by 16%, people would say that it was a very good policy indeed. Let us be clear about that.

Cattle controls have been in place for many years and are vital. In high-risk areas, herds are tested annually, any cattle that test positive are slaughtered and infected herds are placed under movement restrictions. Restrictions on cattle movements have been further strengthened to reduce the chance of disease spreading from cattle to cattle. Only last week, we announced plans for a new surveillance testing machine and stricter cattle movement controls. We also continue to look at ways of improving the testing of cattle for TB, and—a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)—PCR testing to identify infection in wildlife is also important. However, despite the robust use of cattle measures over many years, TB has continued to spread. We need to accept that we are at the point where cattle measures alone are not enough to prevent the spread of disease in the worst affected areas. That is why the Government support a policy of badger control as part—I stress, as part—of a package of measures to tackle bovine TB.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am unsure whether the matter will be put to a vote, but on the principle of whether people are for or against a cull, will the Minister put on the record that the Government will respect the will of the House?

[Mr Heath]

We will of course listen to what Back Benchers have to say. As a member of the Government, I will not have a vote today because we do not believe that the Government should be taking over the views of Back-Bench Members. We will listen to Members of the House; that is the purpose of this debate.

The eradication of the badger was mentioned. That is utterly ridiculous. No one is talking about that. I think the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) referred to the Bern convention. We have now had a categorical response that we are not in breach of the convention. Just like every other legal challenge, we have won categorically.

Let us go back to the science and consider what we can do. There has been much discussion about how evidence underpins the policy. Research in this country over the past 15 years has demonstrated conclusively that cattle and badgers transmit the disease to one another. That is what Professor Krebs found in the randomised badger control trials. It has also been demonstrated—there is no getting away from this—that culling badgers can lead to a reduction of the disease in cattle if it is carried out over a large enough area and for a sufficient length of time. That is why we designed the pilots in the way we did, with hard boundaries. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said that the hard boundaries are not rigorous enough. I do not know what she thinks would be more rigorous than the Bristol channel.