Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
26 MAY 2004
MR BEN
BRADSHAW, MR
ALICK SIMMONS
AND PROFESSOR
JOHN BOURNE
Q100 Chairman: No, I am just saying that
Professor Bourne indicated that a body of work following the Rooker
plan has indicated that within the body of knowledge today there
appear to be three things which can be done supposedly with some
success. All I am saying is, why are you not doing them?
Mr Bradshaw: We have done them.
We have introduced cattle movement restrictions, we have changed
the frequency of testing—
Q101 Chairman: But you are now busy consulting
on another strategy.
Mr Bradshaw: We are consulting
on more stringent cattle movement restrictions, on more regular
testing, on post and pre-movement testing and some of the recommendations
which have been made more recently, but to suggest that we have
not implemented any of the recommendations which were made back
then is simply not the case. We have and we are now considering
what more measures could be implemented.
Q102 Chairman: This is a document which
contains no indication by way of target, number or anything about
the relative effectiveness of what you are consulting about, so
if somebody is going to give you a, "Shall we have this or
that?" answer to the question, how are they going to know
what is going to deliver an effective solution to the problem
when your document gives them no information about the potential
success rates of the different things you are consulting about
and all it does is give slightly out-of-date information about
the onward march of TB?
Mr Bradshaw: Well, I would guess,
and John may, as a scientist, have a better view on this, that
the only way you can make such a prediction is based on scientific
evidence or experience and that is exactly what—
Q103 Chairman: But Professor Bourne has
been very clear. I do not think I have heard him speak with greater
clarity on what can be done now to deal with the situation.
Mr Bradshaw: And that is exactly
why most of the recommendations that we are going out to consultation
on now are exactly those which Professor John Bourne has just
recommended.
Q104 Chairman: I am sorry, but I find
it very difficult in a practical, real-world situation when, as
we speak, more and more herds are going down with TB.
Mr Bradshaw: Actually you are
wrong.
Q105 Chairman: Well, I may be a few per
cent wrong and the rate of increase may be slowing down, but in
absolute numbers—
Mr Bradshaw: No, the actual numbers
are falling. It may be perhaps that some of the measures that
we have taken post-Rooker on cattle movement and on testing have
actually had an effect.
Q106 Chairman: But if you said numbers
are coming down—
Mr Bradshaw: It may be and that
is why we should build on those measures which we are intending
to do.
Q107 Chairman: Why then does Figure 3
on page 23 of this document, which is your publication which is
not exactly miles out of date, show an inexorable march up to
the financial year 2012 and 2013 where we are looking at expenditure
of about £325 million a year?
Mr Bradshaw: Because the decrease
has only been recorded in the last two years. I will give you
the figures—
Q108 Chairman: Well, hang on. If it has
only been recorded in the last two years—
Mr Bradshaw: Well, you asked for
the figures, Mr Chairman, and I just said I would give them to
you. The number of new TB incidents were down 14.2% on the period
January to April 2003, 1,264 against 1,473. At 48%, the percentage
of confirmed new incidents is below that of January to April 2003
when it was 52% and 2002 when it was 64%. The number of reactors
slaughtered so far in 2004 were down 20% on the same period in
2003, 6,596 against 8,229, and the average total number of reactors
per incident, a proxy for the severity of TB breakdowns, were
two reactors per incident compared with 2.2. Now, I can give you
a lot more detailed figures and I will leave the Committee with
them, but I think it is important that we take note of the recent
trends in the disease, not that we should think that this is some
dawn, but that it is important to take note that some of the measures
we actually have been taking, which you implied we had not since
Jeff Rooker's evidence, may be having some impact.
Q109 Chairman: Well, I did not imply
that nothing had been done. I think, with respect, you are misinterpreting
the direction of my questioning because your own document, from
which I worked, gives a different situation in terms of the statistics
on this. You have now brought to the attention of the Committee
some revised figures, for which we are grateful, so what does
that mean in financial terms then in terms of cost? Would you
like to revise down your own projection of the costs in the light
of what you have just told us?
Mr Bradshaw: No, but at the same
time I think it would be wrong to base a projection on increased
costs, as you did a little bit earlier on,—
Q110 Chairman: I am only questioning
what you have said in your document. I do not make these numbers
up.
Mr Bradshaw:— assuming that
there will continue to be a 20% annual increase. There are other
impacts on costs, such as the cost of compensation, and if we
are going to go ahead with field studies and vaccines, that is
going to cost more money.
Q111 Chairman: What are you revising
down, your projection in the way that this disease is going to
move forward in the light of this data, and you now use that in
that respect?
Mr Bradshaw: Not yet, no, because
I only had these figures this morning, but we have budgeted, I
think I am right in saying, in Defra's budget in this financial
year for about £90 million on TB compared with £74 million
in the last financial year, so our budgetary projections are still
going up, but they have not taken into account these latest figures.
Professor Bourne: If I can comment
here, as I see it and as the Independent Science Group see it,
there are real difficulties in translating research findings into
policy. These are emerging research findings and we have commented
that we believe they are sound enough on which to base future
policy options, and no doubt they would have to be modified as
new scientific findings emerge. However, I think one has to accept
that Defra can only control TB with the full and active co-operation
of the agricultural industry, the livestock industry. It is impossible,
I think, for them to do it on their own. I think a real problem,
and I know to my cost with blood, sweat and tears, is persuading
farmers of the validity of these scientific data coming through;
it is extremely difficult. There is another problem which I think
needs to be addressed and that is the validity of the gamma-interferon
test. We need an improved diagnostic test and gamma-interferon
is the only one on the horizon. We have pushed hard to get this
test developed and are still pushing to ensure that it is improved,
but we believe that one has to use it in the field in a way which
provides you with appropriate data on sensitivity and specificity
so as to determine how it can be used in a range of policy options.
You are aware of the difficulties we have had with Defra in relation
to the gamma-interferon test, but I have no doubt at all that
we and Defra need to do work to better establish the gamma-interferon
test as a policy tool and that will be another step forward in
persuading the agricultural industry about the appropriateness
of these measures.
Q112 Paddy Tipping: So can we get the
headline message right? I think it is the same headline message
as that which our previous witnesses gave to us, that in the short
term it is bio-security and cattle movement measures which are
going to make the difference. It is as simple as that, is it not?
Professor Bourne: Bio-security
in its widest sense, absolutely, yes.
Mr Bradshaw: We know, and there
is firm evidence there, about cattle-to-cattle transmission. We
know it from the things which Professor Bourne was saying earlier
about the restocking after foot and mouth and if you look at the
different strains of bovine TB on a national map, if you split
the strains up into different strains, you can see how they have
shot from one end of the country to the other. That is not being
spread by badgers. Now, badgers may have a role at a local level
when the disease is established and there is that wildlife reservoir,
and we know what measures can be taken not only to prevent cattle-to-cattle
transmission, but to protect cattle from badger-to-cattle transmission,
very simple measures like the ones I have mentioned earlier, so
it does seem to make sense in the short term to get on and do
better on those, in the medium and long term badger vaccines,
cattle vaccines, live badger tests and possibly evidence either
from Professor Bourne's trials or from the Irish trials on the
efficacy or otherwise of a badger culling strategy.
Q113 Paddy Tipping: Why can we not get
this message across? Why, when I read the farming press or even
the national press, do I hear such strong messages coming from
farmers and landowners saying that culling has got to be the answer?
Clearly it is not the answer. The real answer in the short term
is better bio-security measures. What can be done to get that
across?
Mr Bradshaw: I think there were
two bits to that question. You are better to ask the representatives
of the NFU that, but from the conversations I have had with farmers
it is because they have seen a large increase in the badger population,
they have seen this coincide with the increase in TB and they
are aware of not proper scientific trials in the past but experiments,
like the Thornbury experiment, where badgers were completely exterminated
and that seemed to have an impact on TB, although there was no
proper control. I cannot answer for farmers. Some farmers do take
bio-security very seriously. I mention a pedigree beef farmer
I met in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago who is surrounded by TB
breakdowns but has never had one on his farm and does not have
any badgers because he has a simple electric fence that keeps
the badgers out very, very effectively. Chris Cheeseman mentioned
his experience of badgers going into farm buildings and eating
feed. I do not know whether any of you have seen his video but
he has got a video that I am sure he would be prepared to show
you of badgers running all over farms in and out of buildings.
Some of the farms I have visited that have had TB breakdowns have
absolutely no bio-security whatsoever. They have gaps this big
between the walls of the cattle feeding areas and the floors,
they have modern dairies that are completely open to the elements.
Nothing is being done on a lot of these farms as far as bio-security
that I can see. We cannot force farmers to do this but in the
context of the new Animal Health and Welfare Strategy and the
possibility of an animal disease levy we can at least introduce
incentives and rewards for farmers who are good on bio-security.
That gives us a tool.
Q114 Paddy Tipping: That was just the
point I wanted to get to because you are consulting on financial
incentives around the new way of paying CAP payments and around
cross-compliance. Could we build this into cross-compliance?
Mr Bradshaw: Yes, indeed. Animal
health and welfare is going to be an element of cross-compliance,
not in the first phase but in the second, and that will be part
of the consultation. There is also the question of how we pay
compensation. There is a review of the rationalisation of compensation
going on at the moment in the wake of the National Audit Commission
report which shows that we were overpaying quite substantially
in Wales on TB compensation. There is the possibility of introducing
some mechanism into the compensation payment to take into account
measures that farmers take on bio-security. All of these things
are being considered as part of our renewed TB Strategy.
Q115 Paddy Tipping: Are we going to do
it?
Mr Bradshaw: I do not want to
pre-empt the consultation. I think it makes sense to let us see
the consultation through to 4 June and then we will make announcements
in due course.
Q116 Paddy Tipping: Are you serious about
this?
Mr Bradshaw: Having read what
I have and listened to people like John Bourne, as I have, and
spoken to farmers in the context of the Government's Animal Health
and Welfare Strategy, I am keen, not just because of TB but for
a whole range of animal diseases, that we must have a mechanism
in the way that we pay farmers, and thank goodness we are moving
away from subsidies to production and that gives us several new
opportunities to do this, we must build into the system of agricultural
finance in this country incentives for good husbandry.
Q117 Paddy Tipping: Can I ask you one
separate set of questions. You just said you talk to Professor
Bourne a lot and I think you said in your opening statement that
Professor Bourne brings you up-to-date with the Krebs trials every
six months. This is a scientific trial that is being run in a
sense separately from you, in a sense he is blind from you, Minister,
but you did intervene a little while ago around reactive culling.
If things were going wrong, if there were developments within
the Krebs trials, would you know about it? Would you be in a position
to intervene? In a sense, what is the relationship between the
policy and the science?
Mr Bradshaw: It is very good,
we go for a beer together. Seriously, right from the start since
I have been in this job, Professor Bourne has made absolutely
clear that if there are significant interim results, which are
reviewed every six months, he will be able to say exactly what
he sees. I do not see these results but he gives me his assurance,
and this is exactly what happened with the reactive trial, that
if there are significant results earlier than 2006 he will tell
me so that I can act on them. This was one of the recommendations
that you might have wanted to come on to from the Godfray report
which was that I should demand to see these results. I have not
made my mind up on that, but I trust Professor Bourne, his advice
is sound and dispassionate and he does not have an agenda. When
he tells me that if there are any significant results from these
trials before 2006 he will tell me, I take him at his word.
Q118 Paddy Tipping: Professor Bourne
wanted to comment.
Professor Bourne: I think what
you are saying is we are independent, and we value that independence.
The Minister said we were dispassionate but we are not, we are
very passionate about controlling this damn disease and getting
some answers. The situation is as he described. Members of the
group analyse the data on a six month basis and as a result of
the October analysis we believed there was information that needed
to be presented to the Minister and the Minister stopped the trial,
against our advice. I am bound to say we did advise the Minister
that although we would like to continue it for another few weeks
until the end of the culling period, we were likely to return
in May with no different answer. In fact, the March interim analysis
has now been completed and the Minister has been informed that
there is an even more marked shift in the data from reactive,
so had it not been stopped in November it most certainly would
have been stopped now, so in that respect I think the decision
was correct and I think the action of the ISG was correct. The
situation with regard to proactive is the data is as yet uninformative;
when it is informative the Minister will be informed.
Q119 Paddy Tipping: Just going back to
the Godfray recommendations: you are still consulting about those
but you are not inclined to go forward with the recommendation
that the Minister should see the results?
Mr Bradshaw: I will be perfectly
blunt, I think people have got too excited by the Godfray recommendations.
Godfray says we should base our policy on an assumption that there
is a wildlife reservoir in badgers but I have based my assumption
on that ever since I was appointed and that was the whole point
of the Krebs trials. Krebs said that there was an assumption.
What we do not have is any scientific evidence of a particular
culling strategy being helpful, that is the issue here. Godfray
does not move us one inch further forward on that.
Chairman: That is right. I am just reading
the same thing that you have read. Mr Mitchell?
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