Lord Knight of Weymouth response to Government statement on Bovine TB, 23 October 2012

My Lords, I am grateful to the Noble Lord the minister for repeating the statement and for advance sight of it this morning. We welcome this statement and it is right that it should start by setting out the scale of the animal health problem, and the cost to farmers and to taxpayers of slaughtering infected cattle. This is an acute problem for farmers and I know from talking to them in the West Country over many years what a toll is taking on them personally and financially. It is therefore also right that the Statement concludes with the need to work with farmers. But as the President of the NFU says in his letter to the Secretary of State all decisions must be based on the science. Why then no mention of working with the scientists?

I am pleased to see the Noble Lord Krebs in his place. He is one of the leading scientific authorities on this issue. What meetings has the new Secretary of State had with the noble Lord and his colleagues? Did the minister read the comments of the noble Lord in last weeks debate on Scientific Advisors when he said in Column GC514: it is still the case that the Government, perhaps too often, prefers policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy...The fact is that the overwhelming majority of scientific experts have concluded that the policy of killing badgers to control TB in cattle will have only a small beneficial effect, if any. It is essentially a waste of effort and money, and a distraction from the business of getting on top of a serious animal health problem that can have devastating effects on the livelihoods of farmers.

My Lords, the truth is that this is yet another humiliating moment for the Government and for DEFRA because they put prejudice and ideology before science and evidence. And can the Noble Lord the minister confirm that this is more of an NHS Bill pause than another Government U Turn? It is certainly another in the chain of weekly incompetent humiliations plebgate, the West Coast Mainline fiasco, the energy policy on the hoof last week, The Great Train Snobbery and now this

from DEFRA. And from DEFRA we had the abandoned forestry sell off, chaos over circus animals, a uturn on shooting buzzards to protect gamebirds and now a pause on shooting badgers. No wonder the Noble Lord Tebbit said this weekend in the Observer that the Government seems unable to manage its affairs competently, he described it as a dog of a coalition government. I dont think the noble Lord likes dogs. I suspect he would like the country put out of its misery and have this dog of a coalition put down. But beyond the endemic incompetence in DEFRA and the Government there are serious specific questions to answer.

As my colleague in the Other Place has said today: Labour has warned the Government for two years that a cull was bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife The Secretary of State is right not to proceed because the cull this year couldnt deliver the 70% mortality rate needed for the possible positive effect on bovine TB of up to 16% over 9 years. His decision is based on there not being enough time to cull that many badgers in the limited time available, particularly given the growing numbers of badgers in the pilot areas. But the numbers and the limited time were predictable. And demonstrate the incompetence in Defra that this announcement was inevitable.

His statement blames the weather, the police and the Olympics for a limited time window. Wasnt it the Home Secretary who ruled out policing the cull this summer not the police? Wasnt the limited window therefore predictable and decided by ministers? And is it not the case that in July last year Natural England gave Defra badger population figures that projected from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial that the numbers of the badgers in pilot areas was 3,300 per 350 square kilometres. This is broadly the same as their current estimate of 3,000 per 300 square kilometres. So the larger numbers of badgers was predicted too.

So why did the Secretary of State in the Other Place today say that it was only in September this year that Natural England determined deficiencies in the numbers of badgers to be culled?

Is it just to cover the incompetence in Defra? Or is it that those projections last year were ignored because it was inconvenient evidence not policy based evidence? And can the minister tell us whether the estimates of badger numbers in the planned pilot cull areas were reviewed by the Independent Expert Panel overseeing the pilots? I have heard not. And what is the Department going to do during the pause before doing the cull next year? Will it need to secure more money?

The Secretary of State said today that the Government will compensate the police forces in Avon and Somerset and Gloucestershire for their costs in preparing for the abandoned cull. If it is a more intensive cull of the larger numbers of badgers, will he need more than the current projection of 1/2 million per cull per year?

Will there be any compensation for the two companies engaged to do the shooting? I gather 850,000 was to be spent on surveying badgers, 248,000 on post mortems, 713,000 on checking the humanness of the cull. Will those contractors be compensated? And beyond the finance questions there are other areas of work between now and when the cull starts next summer. Will ministers meet with representatives from the tourism industry in Somerset and Gloucestershire? The notion of marksmen across this countryside that I know well shooting badgers at night has clear risk. That risk is heightened because the location of shoots will be kept secret to frustrate protesters. But if the location of shooting is secret, how will visitors in the summer months be warned to keep away?

How will ministers work with farmers to maximise the effectiveness of the welcome announcement last week on changes to the testing regime and cattle movement restrictions. These sorts of biosecurity measures are a key component in controlling this dreadful disease. Is there more that can be done with Government support to improve biosecurity? And then there is the core question of vaccination. The possible benefits of a cull are marginal. Sir John Beddington, the Chief Scientific

Officer, has said it will be a 12-16% reduction in the disease after 9 years. The statement pays tribute to the tireless work of farmers and contractors in preparing for the cull and funding it. What is the Governments estimate of what could be done on vaccination over nine years with the same unity of purpose?

The emerging Diva test is an encouraging development to allow a diseased animal to be differentiated from a vaccinated animal. Surely this now makes it possible to seriously engage the EU in lifting the ban on exports from vaccinated animals? The vaccine itself is 50-60% effective. We need more efficacy but it appears that good progress is being made in finding a scientific solution. Surely it is right to focus on this rather than on what the 30 eminent animal disease experts writing to the Observer ten days ago described as a costly distraction.

My Lords, my party is clear. Bovine TB is a blight on dairy farming and causes untold misery to dairy farmers. We take it very seriously and we all want a solution. We know that growing numbers of diseased badgers are passing the disease to cattle and costing the taxpayer a fortune. But unfortunately the logic of then culling them does not follow because the science tells us that is most likely to spread the disease unless at such a scale of geography and intensity that is clearly nigh on impossible to deliver. We must be led by the science and the science leads us to vaccination with interim efforts on biosecurity. That is what we want. That is what the nation wants. And I hope after reflecting on this shambles today the Secretary of State will abandon his dogmatic view and get it right by listening to both farmers and scientists.

ENDS