Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the risks posed by hunting hounds using scents laid by trail hunts drifting across the transport network.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Hunting Act 2004 came into effect on 18 February 2005 and bans all hunting of wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions set out in Schedule 1 to the Act. Many hunts have since turned to trail hunting as an alternative to live quarry hunting.
The Government neither has plans to assess the risk of laying scent trails nor to assess the merits of banning the laying of scent trails. There are also no plans to assess the risks posed by hunting hounds using scents laid by trail hunts drifting across the transport network.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the article on the Puckeridge Hunt in the Hertordshire Mercury published on 8 February 2018, whether he will (a) make an assessment of the risks of laying scent trails and (b) make and assessment of the potential merits of banning the laying of scent trails.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Hunting Act 2004 came into effect on 18 February 2005 and bans all hunting of wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions set out in Schedule 1 to the Act. Many hunts have since turned to trail hunting as an alternative to live quarry hunting.
The Government neither has plans to assess the risk of laying scent trails nor to assess the merits of banning the laying of scent trails. There are also no plans to assess the risks posed by hunting hounds using scents laid by trail hunts drifting across the transport network.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to publish an analysis of badger culls conducted during 2017.
Answered by George Eustice
The duration of the cull period is intended to achieve a balance between sufficient intensity to achieve disease control and what is operationally deliverable by a cull company. The length of each cull operation between 2013 and 2016 has already been published as part of the annual badger control monitoring summaries (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb-controlling-the-risk-of-bovine-tb-from-badgers). The assessment of 2017 operations will be published on gov.uk in due course.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in how many zones badger culling has taken place for longer than six weeks, and what the completion date was of the cull in each zone in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Eustice
The duration of the cull period is intended to achieve a balance between sufficient intensity to achieve disease control and what is operationally deliverable by a cull company. The length of each cull operation between 2013 and 2016 has already been published as part of the annual badger control monitoring summaries (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb-controlling-the-risk-of-bovine-tb-from-badgers). The assessment of 2017 operations will be published on gov.uk in due course.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress he has made on agreeing a bilateral trade deal to export British lamb to the US since 27 July 2016.
Answered by George Eustice
The US authorities are currently in the process of amending their regulation to formally lift their ban on EU ruminant products (including lamb).
Defra has provided the US authorities with required information on the UK animal and public health controls to review equivalence with US requirements. Once their review is complete we will welcome the US to conduct an in-country inspection visit.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 December 2016 to Question 57987 and the Answer of 24 March 2017 to Question 66627, how many of the 421 carcasses of badgers have been examined for bovine tuberculosis in line with the Chief Veterinary Officer's advice in his report on the badger culls in 2015.
Answered by George Eustice
Culled carcasses from between 2013 – 2016 were not routinely tested for TB as the RBCT established that approximately one-third of badgers in areas of high incidence of TB in cattle were infected. This year a pilot study was started to explore ways in which badger carcasses obtained from the cull potentially could be used to gather long term information on levels of disease in badgers. A number of carcasses from nine of the areas were sampled and testing methodologies are being piloted. It will be some time before any interim findings on this exploratory undertaking are available.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has commissioned or published any reports on vaccination as an alternative option to culling in the last 12 months.
Answered by George Eustice
No such reports have been commissioned or published in the last 12 months.