Badger Cull

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I want to concentrate on the effect of TB-infected herds on farmers, especially in the west country, particularly in Devon. For nearly 20 years, and certainly for the past 15 years, cases have been increasing. In Devon, we started off in 1998 with some 1,700 infected cattle, and now there are 5,000-plus. We should not forget that those farmers who have herds with TB have been restricted throughout that period, when they have been testing their cattle every 60 days. Under restriction, dairy farmers can sell their milk and beef farmers their finished animals, provided that they do not have TB, but they cannot sell any young stock. They are restricted throughout the period, so one can imagine the effect on family farms and their finances.

I declare an interest: I am a farmer. Most hon. Members will not have heard me say anything else but that. Farmers whose cattle are restricted and who cannot sell their young stock see only an ever-rising overdraft. Not to put too fine a point on it, every time the bank statement arrives, farmers feel suicidal. They are trapped because nothing can be done; they cannot rid their cattle of the disease. There is not only the emotional impact, but the impact on all the cattle of being for ever tested. Cattle do not like being put through a crush every 60 days and injected. Would any of us? Those are the sorts of things that we have to face up to.

We have talked a lot today about vaccines, which are always a year away. For 20 years, farmers have been told that. The last Labour Government spent virtually all the time saying that to farmers. I have much respect for the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), but the last Labour Government got very close to having a cull and they chickened out, which the Secretary of State has no intention of doing.

[Angela Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

No, I think not. I want to carry on in this vein.

I object to Opposition Members’ comments that farmers have not restricted cattle movement. There have been a few such cases, but the vast majority of farmers have had ever-stricter regulations imposed on them. They clean those cattle; every summer and winter, they come in and are tested and the TB reactors are taken out. In the spring, those cattle are put back out to grass. I might be being simplistic, but they then graze on grass infected with badger urine. Do not forget that whatever the percentage of badgers with TB, we can be certain that the biggest percentage of infected badgers are where the most TB is in cattle, so they are giving it to one another. However, we are taking out cattle with TB, but we are not taking out and controlling badgers.

We know that the vaccine will not work on infected badgers. Government Members are not bloodthirsty. We do not love the idea of a cull, but we must take out badgers in those areas with the highest concentration of infected badgers. We must not forget that these are pilot culls in areas that have been chosen because they are TB hot spots with harder boundaries. Yes, badgers will cross roads, but with a large motorway, a river or the sea, there will be much less perturbation. We all accept that there will be some, but if it can be restricted, that is right.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Neil Parish]

No, I will not, because I did give way earlier. I will carry on.

This is mainly an Opposition Back-Bench debate—[Interruption.] I did say “mainly”. If one looks at the list of speakers, I would not be far wrong. But it is the Government Benches rather than the Opposition Benches that are packed out. We have real concern about prevaricating and doing nothing, as the previous Labour Government did, and the Government are making a real effort to control the disease.

Badger numbers are interesting. Let us not forget that the Badger Trust has argued for years that there are not such numbers of badgers in the country, but the badger population has continually increased and become more diseased. As that population grows, badgers become more adventurous and are much more likely to enter cattle sheds and infect cattle. Increased numbers of badgers and diseased badgers create a problem not only for cattle, but for wildlife and wildlife management.

[Duncan Hames]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

As the hon. Gentleman is so persistent, yes.

[Duncan Hames]

I am very grateful. On perturbation, what happens to the setts of badgers that are culled in the trials? Are they then occupied by healthy badgers or by diseased badgers? Are they destroyed to prevent them from being occupied, or do natural processes mean that they are not occupied by badgers after the trial?

[Neil Parish]

The whole idea of the trial is to get a 70% reduction in the number of badgers—

[Angela Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

I have not really answered the previous intervention, but I will give way.

[Angela Smith]

The evidence is that the setts are left untouched. That has already been demonstrated. They are often repopulated by healthy badgers, which then pick up the disease.

[Neil Parish]

My point, in answer to both interventions, is that the whole idea of the trial is to carry out a cull of at least 70% of badgers in the given area over a four or five-year period. That is key to ensuring that we cull the diseased badgers. I cannot say which badger will go back to which sett, but I am certain that if we reduce those numbers, we will reduce their movement, and if they cannot spread beyond the cull area, we will see a reduction of much more than 16% in TB in cattle in those areas. It has been found throughout the world that where infected wildlife are culled there is a much greater effect.

The Government are right to carry on with the culls. I respect what the NFU has had to do. Because of the Olympics, it was late in the day before the culls could be started. We are getting towards much darker nights and we have had probably one of the wettest summers and autumns that I have ever known, so now is the wrong time to go forward with the cull. But I dispute the idea that we can do nothing about the situation and that culling badgers in the infected areas is wrong.

Until we tackle those concerns, farmers in my constituency and across the country, especially in the west, will be unable to rest, because they know that more and more cattle will become diseased and more and more restrictions will be imposed on them, and in the end many of them will decide, because of the weather, the price of feed and the disease, to give up cattle farming. Do we not want to see those farmed cattle healthy and grazing in the fields? Of course we do, which is why we need to take action. I very much respect the Secretary of State for sticking to the plan to have a cull.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

In following the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), let me say that I was disappointed at an attempted politicisation of this debate, which has so far been incredibly cross-Bench and non-partisan. What Members are doing today is putting the issue first. This is not about party politics; it is about animal welfare. More than anything else, it is about the future of farming in our country and the attempts that we need to make effectively to tackle bovine TB.

Tuesday of this week was a day on which a degree of common sense prevailed in DEFRA. Although I welcome Tuesday’s announcement, it was only for a postponement and I, along with many others, want to see this madness stopped and will not rest until the Secretary of State sees sense and stops the cull permanently. That is what the motion is about.

Let me be clear: there is no doubt that bovine TB is a major problem. If there is one thing on which I agree with the Government it is that bovine TB presents a serious threat to both cattle and wildlife. Where we differ, however, is on the actions needed to tackle this awful disease. In order to answer that question, one has to ask why, after the successful reductions of the disease in the 1950s and ’60s, it has become more prevalent, particularly during and after the 1990s. I do not believe that the rise was due to an increase in the number of badgers, which is an equation often made by the myth makers.

What is clear is that changes to farming practices are not helping matters. The intensification of farming means that we have ever bigger herds, and all the evidence says that the bigger the herd, the faster the disease will spread within it once it takes root.

Husbandry is another issue that we cannot dismiss. Yesterday in the Lobby we had a visit from Steve Jones, who is a dairy farmer in the Forest of Dean. He described eloquently the often less than ideal conditions in which cows were—and still are in some instances—kept, along with the increasingly intensive regimes to which the animals are subjected. For example, water troughs are often said to rarely be cleaned out. Over time, they can become reservoirs of the disease as the stagnating water collects various bacteria, typically over the winter months. He also talked about the practice of some farmers—not all of them by any means—who, even now, collect the slurry deposited during the course of a farming day, spread it over the land and immediately let some of their cattle feed off those fields.

[Neil Parish]

I cannot believe that the hon. Lady believes that farmers who have had the disease and who have been testing their cattle every 60 days do not clean their water troughs. If she had suffered the same pain as a farmer, she would not make such a comment.

[Angela Smith]

I will not comment on particular instances of the husbandry practices of farmers and how they keep their herds. All I can say is that there is some evidence that water troughs, particularly those kept at ground level, can be a source of the disease and that some farmers do not keep them as clear as they ought to of disease.

It is also argued that cows infected are often not quarantined quickly enough and that animal stress levels caused by pain and suffering can reduce immunity and make cattle more susceptible to diseases such as bovine TB.

As the instances of bovine TB started to climb in the 1990s, the then Secretary of State, Jack Cunningham, asked Professor Krebs to report on the matter and then to conduct the randomised badger culling trials, which have been referred to so often today. The important point is that they still stand as the most extensive study ever completed into the relationship between bovine TB and badgers. A two-page paper produced two or three years later does not stand in the context of the extensive trials carried out as the legitimate view of the scientists.

Although it is true that the independent science group concluded that in the cull areas the incidence of bovine TB fell by 23%, it also found that in neighbouring land outside the culled area the incidence of the disease rose by approximately 29%, thanks to perturbation, whereby surviving badgers move to new areas as a consequence of disturbance.

Overall, the study concluded that the benefits of culling were, at best, modest, with an average reduction of just 12% to 16% in the incidence of infection over a period of seven years. The ISG concluded that

“badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.”

That point was reiterated by Lord Krebs on Monday when he said in the other place that, after nine years of culling,

“there is still more TB around than there was at the beginning; it is just that there is 16% less than there would have been without a cull. The number is not the 30% that the NFU quoted; that is misleading—a dishonest filleting of the data.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 October 2012; Vol. 740, c. 148.]

Another problem is that the test used to check whether cattle are infected with bovine TB—the so called SICCT, or single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin test—is not accurate. A recent scientific paper has suggested that as many as two in 10 infected cattle might be missed by the test. That is a staggering 20%, meaning that a significant proportion of cattle-to-cattle transmission of bovine TB may be going undetected and that the role of badgers in the spread of bovine TB to cattle may be overestimated.

Culling, therefore, is not the way forward. Its impact, the science tells us, would be marginal, and if we get it wrong, the results could be disastrous. It is demanded that 70% of badgers in the pilot culling areas must be culled; otherwise, the incidence of bovine TB could get worse—hence this week’s U-turn. Given the lack of credible assessment of the number of badgers in the pilot areas, it is difficult to get the 70% figure right. Equally, it is also difficult to avoid breaching the law by killing too many and taking the species to the brink of extinction in the specified areas.

When I started my contribution, I said that bovine TB is a major issue for farmers and I stand by that. I want the Government to take the opportunity over the next few months to work more intensively on developing the badger vaccination programme, which all experts believe is a better way forward in diminishing the instances of bovine TB in that species. We also have to do more to develop a vaccine for cattle, which is the long-term answer to this problem. I am told that there is now a suitable DIVA test to identify and separate cattle with bovine TB from those that have been vaccinated, and that it is in the process of being licensed.

I appeal to the Minister to take seriously the points that have been made, to invest in getting the cattle vaccine licensed and on the table, and to talk to the EU to get it sorted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I ask colleagues to imagine a bowl of fresh green salad, but rather than sprinkling it with the salad dressing of their choice, I would like them to imagine sprinkling it with some diseased badger urine—urine from a badger that has lesions in its kidneys, which sadly is commonly the case. Before pasteurisation made milk absolutely safe to drink, countless thousands of people died from bovine TB, because the disease can be spread through ingestion. It is very important to understand that for several reasons, particularly those related to biosecurity.

I absolutely support the comments that have been made about the importance of biosecurity and preventing cattle-to-cattle spread. However, a farmer can take all the effort he or she wants to keep badgers out of cowsheds, but those cattle are still grazing on infected pastures and will still be at risk. We are talking about closed herds with no concerns about TB being imported from outside, which is an important route for transmission.

Reference has been made to super-dairies and huge herds of cows, thousands strong, being kept inside. We do not want that. We all saw last year’s campaign, “Cows need grass, not concrete”, and I absolutely support that. However, in parts of South Hams in my constituency, putting cattle out on to infected pastures is tantamount to a death sentence—a form of culinary Russian roulette. We have to take this very seriously.

Let us look at the figures. In 1998 in my constituency, fewer than 600 cattle were culled; in 2010, that figure had risen to just short of 6,000. This is a dangerous zoonosis that is spreading inexorably year on year; we can look at the geographical maps and see the edge spreading. As other Members have said, sporadic cases are arising elsewhere which are undoubtedly due to the movement of cattle, but the inexorable spread that we see on the charts is due, in part, to the reservoir in badgers. Let us imagine how a dangerous zoonosis like this might spread out to other mammals; we are seeing it increasingly in deer, alpacas and pigs, and now in domestic pets as well. This is a real threat, so why have we not got a grip of the situation?

I should like to say something quite uncomfortable—that we are seeing the rise of the celebrity mammal. Indeed, we have a celebrity mammal here with us today, and very welcome he is too. We are beginning to focus on a single species, and that is unhelpful. I would challenge anybody to come down to south Devon and lay their hand on the side of one of the beautiful south Devon cattle and tell me that that animal is less important than the badger. All these animals are important, but there is a balance to be struck. When I step outside my door of an evening in south Devon, I frequently see badgers; they are a wonderful sight. The last time I saw a hedgehog was over five years ago. That element of balance is sometimes missing from this debate.

The rise of the celebrity mammal has been a barrier to science. Those on both sides of the debate rightly quote scientists, who will disagree about the issue; that is what scientists do. We want a robust debate, and I welcome it. The problem is that there were some flaws in the randomised badger culling trial, particularly regarding the size of the triplets and the edge effect. In that circumstance, the right thing to do is to take matters further and consider pilots that explore the edge effect, but we are prevented from doing so because of the effect on politicians and the public of a focus on the needs of a specific animal, lovely as it may be. We need to tackle that issue head on.

Will the Minister say whether we are exploring the PCR—polymerase chain reaction—test further? We want to have a test of greater sensitivity and specificity that will allow us to test badger droppings, and then perhaps look to a further trial, even on whole-sett humane underground culling. There are also issues to do with perturbation, such as the effect of picking off one animal at a time. I suggest that we would be perturbed in an entirely different way if someone picked off members of our families one by one.

Let us see more focus on the science. Let us tackle this as a dangerous zoonosis. Let us also look at vaccination. The important point is that if any Member in this House developed any sort of TB, they would be looking at weeks and weeks of a complex antibiotic regime. Any doctor who treated them with vaccination would be struck off. It is not possible to cure an infected badger with a vaccination. Of course I want to see vaccination and prevention in disease-free animals. However, we should not pretend that we can extrapolate the results from an injectable vaccine, which may indeed show a slight reduction in the amount of TB excreted in urine by infected badgers, to oral vaccines. Oral vaccines and injectable vaccines are entirely different, and so we must be very careful.

I fully support a move towards greater investment in vaccination, but perhaps that is because I am a people person. I went into medicine rather than go to veterinary school because I think that people matter more. I was rewarded for that—I was never bitten by a patient in 24 years.

[Neil Parish]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Wollaston]

No, I am going to carry on, if I may.

The point is, yes, let us see investment, but we want to see an oral bait vaccine. I want to leave a question in the air: is there something obscene about the amount of money we are going to spend on trapping and vaccinating every single wild badger in this country, year on year, when there are other things that that money could be spent on? I want to see an oral bait vaccine and an improved test, but we have to be honest and tackle a dangerous zoonosis. We have to be honest about the need for further scientific pilots and I am afraid that we have to do it now, because farmers in my constituency are suffering. These are the people who feed the nation—they put food on our plates and care for our countryside.