Badgers and Bovine TB

Simon Hart Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Glindon]

I was going to raise that issue with the Minister later. The cost of policing, which will be very contentious, is estimated at approximately £200,000 a year, which is one of the things that is not addressed in the Government’s proposals. The amount of money seems to have decreased.

The Minister’s proposals for controlled shooting deviate from those practised in the randomised badger culling trial. To elaborate on what I said earlier, the animals will be shot in the field at night, instead of using the accurate and humane method of caging, trapping and shooting, which was used in the trial. Badgers are difficult to approach, and they spend a lot of their time in the undergrowth. Their physiology makes it difficult for one random shot to kill them outright.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

During the 700 hours of debate on hunting in the previous Parliament, it was suggested that shooting was the humane alternative in wildlife control. Is the hon. Lady now saying that shooting is not as humane as it was when it was debated in the previous Parliament?

[Mrs Glindon]

I was not an MP at that time and did not follow that debate, but methods of shooting can be debated here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the debate, Mr Crausby.

To provide some background, last week, at a place called Broomhill farm near where I live in Pembrokeshire, the home of my constituency agent, 11 cattle were reactors to a TB test. Shortly afterwards, it was discovered that they could not be taken away for slaughter because four of them were in-calf heifers. Therefore, those animals, bred with great care and attention by the family, had to be shot on the yard in front of the son and daughter who were aspiring to grow the farm in the way that we are all encouraging them to, and with all the accompanying trauma. We talk about compensation and, yes, of course there will be compensation for the animals concerned, but there will not be compensation for the calves within them, there will not be compensation for the reduction in the milk yield, there will not be compensation for the additional buildings that have had to be put in place over the years for handling, because of the lack of ability to move animals around, and there will not be compensation for the trauma that that family and others have been subject to over a long period.

In a sense it would be nice to be able to say to the House that that story was unusual, but the truth is, as we all know, that nothing at all about it is unusual. Everyone with a constituency affected by the disease has similar tales to tell. Frankly, there have been 60 years of discussion, 60 years of promises, 60 years of let-downs, 60 years of contradictory science and 60 years of politicians taking the farming community to the brink and then back again, as we have seen in the Welsh Assembly. The evidence was clear, the proposals and everything were in place to embrace at long last some degree of control, but what happens? There is an election. The only thing that changes is the election result and the whole thing goes back to square one. Is it any wonder that farming communities around Britain have lost faith in politicians’ ability to deliver some kind of progress—I will come back to that—on the issue? Thousands of cattle have been killed, as the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) mentioned, millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted, businesses have been destroyed and families broken up and farmers have left the industry, at times in droves—not solely because of the impact of the disease over so many years, but in part.

If I can bring the debate back to human beings—a little more about the human cost and a little less about the animal cost—we might be going in the right direction. Let us be honest: such an impact on any other industry in the UK and over such a long period would have been completely intolerable, but for some strange reason we have stood back and tolerated it in our farming industry, despite the human and financial costs discussed. The Government are absolutely right to draw a line and say, “Enough is enough,” and to come forward with a consultation process—let us not forget that we are still in the consultation phase and that no final decisions have been taken. It is right for farmers, taxpayers, cattle, businesses and—I say to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who has now left the Chamber for the second time—badgers. It strikes me as odd that during the debate we have almost seemed to be frozen with fear at the prospect of curing a disease which itself has a negative impact on the badger population. As a constituency MP representing a rural seat a long way from Westminster, I find it frustrating that so little attention has been devoted to the welfare of badgers. We seem to forget all that. The idea that we should close our eyes and somehow badgers will live happily ever after is utterly naive and does nothing for the overall thrust of most welfarists and conservationists—as opposed to preservationists—that we should look after the health of the wild animal population as much as that of the husbanded population, and balance between them, just as we should look after those who are charged with the interests of both.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend is familiar with scenes such as one described to me by a farmer in my constituency. When the farmer turned on the lights in the yard in the middle of the night, he saw what he thought were 30 to 40 badgers, full of TB, staggering around and unable to stand up. Those badgers could not be helped even if we had a vaccine, because they are ill badgers; they need to be destroyed, and the only sensible way to destroy them is by shooting them. My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point.

[Simon Hart]

It is as much a problem in North Wiltshire as in west Wales and other areas represented in the debate.

Someone said to me over the weekend, “Of course the problem isn’t the disease, the problem is the policy.” I have a certain sympathy with that view, formed over the years we have been studying the issue. The Minister mentioned in one of his interventions the legal stranglehold of the European Union—I do not think that you, Mr Crausby, would thank us if we went into an EU debate now, but it appears absolutely correct that the chances of us being able to introduce in the necessary time a cattle vaccination, which is effective and cost-effective, seems unlikely at this moment in the process. That leaves various other options.

As I suspect everyone is, I am rather in favour of cattle vaccination, if only it were so simple. I suspect that the Minister would agree—for no other purpose than to help his blood pressure when attending debates such as this one perhaps—if it were possible to take the problem away with a magic potion which could somehow be administered to cattle or badgers, but it is not that simple. The cattle vaccination is estimated to be only about 60% effective, even if we could start administering it tomorrow. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who spoke about badger vaccination. To be honest, I am sceptical about the practical possibilities. I live in a fairly remote part of west Wales and within a mile of my house are 20 badger setts, which are all in difficult places. They are not nicely situated in the middle of fields but are in quarries, under buildings and in the most awkward places imaginable. The idea that someone would have the wherewithal, the patience, the money, the expertise and everything else required to trap, inoculate and test or whatever frankly makes no practical sense. Of course vaccinations will form an important part of the final eradication of the disease, and the sooner the better—we can all agree on that.

One simple solution, however, is not what is on offer. We must combine testing and stricter or proper monitoring of cattle movements throughout the UK with sensible culling proposals. I am talking about culling where appropriate, under proper supervision and in line with the consultation documents supplied by the Minister. It is perfectly possible to undertake a well-controlled, humane cull in certain areas, as the Welsh Assembly demonstrated before it had the rug pulled from beneath its feet. A combination of things will lead to final eradication. People who think there is some magic pill out there which can be dished out and is cheap, effective and imminent are deluding themselves. We should take much greater notice of the evidence before us than we have so far in the debate.

I suspect that the goal for all of us is something that is easy, effective, cheap and, above, all, imminent. It is absolutely right, legally, morally and practically that the Government wish to consult on the issue, and we look forward to the final findings before too long. However, let us not underestimate—I hope that the Government will not do so—some of the practical obstacles that will present themselves, not only to vaccination, but to the controlled culling that they have set out.

Above all, the Government should not be half-hearted. They have the evidence they need. They have, if nothing else, reams and reams of human examples, which demonstrate to everyone in the House why it is so important to bring the curtain down on this appalling disease. I have been told that the badger is a political animal, and puts the frighteners on hon. Members on both sides of the House when it comes to making a bold, sensible and evidence-based decision. I suggest to the Minister that there is never a bad time to do the right thing, and now is the time to do the right thing. I commend his proposals.