Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)

MR TIM BENNETT, MR MEURIG RAYMOND, MR DAVID WILLIAMS, AND MR TREVOR LAWSON

7 FEBRUARY 2006

  Q60 Chairman: That is a very interesting point. What additional questions should be in it?

  Mr Lawson: There are quite a few, but let me give you some of the key ones first. The most straightforward question is do we have enough information to actually embark upon this process now, because we do not think there is enough information. We have plenty of data about what happens if you cull badgers, but there is virtually nothing in terms of reliable scientific data on, for example, what biosecurity measures might be effective, so you cannot compare like with like because there is a gross imbalance in the research. Also, we need to ask what else could be done and in what order should different mechanisms be applied? For example, should we apply culling of badgers alongside the increased testing of cattle; how do we distinguish between them if we do? Those sorts of questions are not coming up. What combination of strategies could be developed; they are presented as either/ors, there are no variables in terms of different strategies combined. What timescale should they extend over? Again, there is no indication as to how long we would be culling badgers or if we got into it, what area should be covered and, perhaps the biggest question no one has actually asked, is the eradication of bovine tuberculosis feasible? There is an underlying objective in Government to eradicate bovine TB; the Government has already conceded that that is not feasible in a ten year time scale of the animal health and welfare strategy, but we would go further, we are of the opinion that TB cannot be eradicated and to talk in terms of it being possible is living in cloud cuckoo land.

  Q61 Daniel Kawczynski: Thank you, Chairman. Are you allowed to say you fundamentally disagree with evidence? I fundamentally disagree with Mr Lawson and my question is to Mr Bennett specifically. You can understand how passionately I feel about my Shrewsbury farmers, and one of my dairy farmers was recently interrogated by the police and had all his guns confiscated for allegedly shooting a badger. He said to me that if I had reported my house as being burgled, nobody would have turned up, but the fact that he had allegedly shot a badger, three police cars turned up and interrogated him. My question to you is bearing in mind you represent the NFU, what progress have you made specifically with regards to Defra in convincing them of the urgent need for culling badgers?

  Mr Bennett: Let me put it this way, it is pretty obvious after all the years that we have been talking about this—Chairman, you have been involved in more than one inquiry into this—the incidence of bovine TB has actually increased year on year and the more you put protection in, incidentally, including the moratorium in 1997 from the present Government, the more bovine TB has increased. Incidentally, there are no more cattle in this country and there are no more movements, so that is a myth. If we are going to really reduce bovine TB in this country you have to tackle the disease, both in cattle and in wildlife, otherwise it will be completely ineffective and you will not get anywhere. In terms of talking to ministers, there is an acceptance that we just cannot go on like this. If you look at the outside world, if you talk to others across the world and particularly in Europe they look on this disease and say why have we failed to tackle this problem? Everyone else has seemed to manage to do it, what are we doing differently? Even the Irish, who had a particular problem, have managed to reduce it, so the NFU's position is very clear, we feel that a badger cull is an integral part of reducing the incidence of bovine TB. Until you accept that point and until there is some political acceptance of that, we are not going to actually make a big difference to this disease.

  Mr Lawson: Just briefly responding to what Tim said there, it is interesting that we appear to be the only country that has not solved bovine TB, I beg to differ, Chairman; they have still got a bovine tuberculosis problem in the United States, they have still got a problem in New Zealand and they have still got a problem in Ireland where they have been killing badgers in vast quantities. It is not just in this country that bovine tuberculosis is a difficult and complex issue to deal with.

  Mr Bennett: It is much reduced.

  Mr Raymond: Can I respond to that, because I would not agree with a view that we cannot eradicate bovine TB in the longer term. Obviously, initially we have to contain and then we have to eradicate. The New Zealanders have proven that it can be done, the Irish are well on the way I would suggest, and when we look at the statistics in this country over the last 12 months we have seen the incidence rise by 30%. Where I believe the Irish have benefited from their Four Area trial results is when they set defined geographical boundaries and culled within those boundaries, the incidence of bovine TB reduced quite dramatically. When we keep seeing bovine TB in the cattle herd increasing by 30% per year, I would suggest Government has to do something, and the pressure is there from the European Commission as well.

  Q62 Chairman: Can I just stop you at that point because I want to reiterate what I said at the beginning. I know there are some very strongly held views; what I am anxious to tease out of our exchanges is are there any questions that ought to be in this consultation that would enable both parties to give the Minister full vent to the views that you are putting forward? Please bear that in mind in responding to our questions. Tim.

  Mr Bennett: Trevor mentioned biosecurity earlier and I have also listened to the scientific view. The idea that farmers do not regard biosecurity as important is very sad, because they do—and I have to declare that I live in a one year test area myself, I have badgers on my farm and so far they are healthy and that is the way to keep them—and the idea that actually it is all about buildings and badgers is a joke. If you shut doors and stop the airflow you are going to get other disease problems for the animals such as pneumonia, so let us accept that farmers understand husbandry. Most of the breakdowns in linking with the badger link are when cattle go out in the spring. Very often, if you look at the evidence, we manage to clear herds and get the reactors away, then you turn them out to graze in the Spring, they mix with the badger in terms of being on the grassland and, by the Autumn, you have normally got reactors again and it takes you all the Winter and sometimes much longer to cure them. A lot of us have been trying to make sure that badger runs do not interfere where you are grazing cattle, but it is virtually impossible, and some of us spent thousands of pounds doing that. The idea that farmers do not try and separate out, I will not accept that.

  Q63 Mr Drew: Could I just take us a bit closer to home, which is Northern Ireland, which as you know has introduced a pre-movement testing regime which seems to be so far successful. I know there is an argument about whether it has been scientifically evaluated, but could I ask both the NFU and the Badger Trust to what extent have you drawn on evidence from Northern Ireland? Forget New Zealand and the States and Ireland, let us look locally; what does that tell us?

  Mr Lawson: Thanks for that question. We have pointed out in our document that according to a Defra research paper that has been published they have reduced bovine tuberculosis by 40% in Northern Ireland between November 2004 and November 2005 by tightening up on the TB testing regime; that is a huge reduction in a very short space of time. It is also worth pointing out—and we raised this with the Minister when we met him—that the whole of Northern Ireland is on an annual testing regime. In this country the ISG recommended, I think it was back in 2002, that annual testing should be the norm across the whole of the country in order to deal with this problem, and that has not happened, and it has gone on to say in terms of the report from Tony Wilsmore[49] that has come out from Reading University that in Britain we are not using TB testing in anything like the efficacious way that we could be in order to control the disease. One other thing I would add about Northern Ireland which is interesting is that I met Mr Wilsmore when I was doing a radio interview recently and he commented that the information on Northern Ireland has come from his own sources over there in the veterinary profession, not through Defra. We were surprised by that; it appears that within Defra there is a lack of communication with what else is going on in other places.

  Mr Raymond: On the issue of movement of cattle, the difference in Northern Ireland to ourselves is that obviously we have got pre-movement testing designed to come in on 20 February, which is where Ireland benefit because they have a free pre-movement testing service. I think that would be a huge advantage in this country.

  Q64 Chairman: You would support that then?

  Mr Raymond: I would support pre-movement testing of cattle as long as it was free at the point of delivery and as long as it is a realistic approach and it is very much part of a wildlife strategy at the same time. You can speak to veterinary surgeons on the ground and they will tell you to your face that unless there is a wildlife cull in these hotspot areas—

  Q65 Mr Drew: They are not doing that in Northern Ireland are they, there is no culling going on in Northern Ireland?

  Mr Raymond: No, but the evidence on the ground—we can just look at the statistics over the last 12 months where there have been herd breakdowns, where we have closed herds, where there is no purchase of cattle onto farms, very little cattle moving off that farm and there are still breakdowns, and those breakdowns are coming from wildlife. There is no doubt about that, the numbers of badgers have risen at a dramatic rate over the last number of years, they are very social animals and it is the diseased badgers that are the badgers that have been forced out of their setts, and these are the badgers that drift towards the farm buildings, looking for new setts, looking for feed, and I honestly believe—and the evidence is there to prove—these are the badgers that are helping to contaminate the cattle population. As Tim has said, we will see a huge increase in bovine TB in cattle, particularly when livestock go to grass and that again highlights this issue of diseased wildlife contaminating cattle. We all know there is transmission from cattle to cattle, cattle to wildlife, wildlife to wildlife and wildlife back into cattle. It is a vicious circle, we have to break every link in that chain if we are going to contain and eradicate this disease.

  Mr Bennett: Surprisingly, I agree with Trevor on something, and that is I do not think at times our testing regime has been as good as it should be. What I mean by that is that where you have breakdowns of cattle that have been moved it sometimes takes months to trace them back. For example, if you are selling store cattle onto finishing units and you get a breakdown of the finishing units, it is sometimes taking months to get back to the source of that and actually test those cattle. What I have to say is that the testing regime has not been perfect in the past, but it is under pressure. When it comes to pre-movement tests of cattle, in most of these areas, the hotspot areas, the vets are working flat out and have probably got a two to three months waiting list in terms of annual testing. To then impose a pre-movement test without proper consultation—remember, Chairman, there has been no proper consultation on pre-movement testing about how this is to be done. As we sit here today, if the pre-movement test comes in on 20 February, we should be testing cattle today then get the results next week, to be able to move cattle the week after. Nobody knows how it is going to be done, no one has got the paperwork and so there has been no thought as to how pre-movement testing is going to come in. In fact, I have written to the Secretary of State to point this out and, effectively, the lack of consultation and organisation on this means that we will probably be in the law courts.

  Mr Lawson: I will just pick up on that one again, though I think we are in agreement on this. Our concern about the pre-movement testing strategy, whilst we welcome it, is that it is not at all clear how Defra is going to enforce it. For example, as far as we understand it, markets will not require a pre-movement test certificate before they sell livestock on, it is going to be caveat emptor, buyer beware, and we are not quite sure at what point along the chain the Government will ensure that pre-movement testing has been complied with. One of the potential problematic consequences of that is how are we going to then monitor whether pre-movement testing is actually having a beneficial effect, so there is a real issue there that needs to be addressed. In addition, responding to this issue about breaking the chain and wildlife to cattle and cattle to wildlife and so on, I would just draw your attention to a paper by the ISG in the Journal of Applied Ecology in 2005, Spatial Analysis and Mycobacterium bovis infection in cattle and badgers. In there they report: "Our finding that cattle might be involved in transmitting infection to badgers, as well as vice versa, would also have relevance to TB control policy if substantiated by further studies." In effect what they are saying there is that if you crack down hard on cattle through effective mechanisms, you may well shrink the problem in wildlife as well. We do not know if that is the case, but the big question that no one has asked and certainly is not asked in the consultation document is what might happen if we do nothing about badgers in terms of culling them. As Dr Woodroffe pointed out, that does not mean do not try and reduce the risk of badger to cattle transmission, but what happens if we say okay, let us work hard on the cattle issue, supporting farmers through that process where necessary, for example through grants to implement biosecurity measures—and I notice that Tim felt that apparently there are not doors for barns that would allow air to circulate, but as far as I am aware a stable door does that quite well, you can keep badgers out with the bottom half and open the top half to let a bit of air circulate.

  Chairman: Before we get into an inquiry into barn design, I am going to ask Madeleine Moon to move us on.

  Q66 Mrs Moon: I do not know if I am going to be successful in doing that, to be honest, because it seems to me that what we have got here is a very emotional issue; feelings run very high. Farmers must know that they are going to come out of it in terms of public perception in a negative light; we are having scientists who are saying that leaving badgers alone and increasing the capacity for testing would reduce the incidence of TB in cattle; we have got statements from the scientists saying the reduction in numbers of badgers may be counter-productive. What I am not clear about, looking at the list of alternative measures that were put to us by the scientists of improving diagnostic testing control over movement of infected animals, on-farm biosecurity and pre-movement testing, albeit that you have an issue over paying for the pre-movement testing, is why it would not be more appropriate to look at those options before we look at an option that we are told has a capacity to reduce incidence of TB if you cull at 20%, but increase at 30% outside the culling area, and where we also are told we do not have enough skilled people to actually carry out the cull. What you are therefore going to do is have a cull that is going to be ineffective and is going to have a negative effect on the results that you get anyway.

  Mr Lawson: This comes back to our point about in what timescale do you operate different strategies? In our own TB strategy that we published after the ISG's research was published last year, we suggested that in terms of the order of progress we can envisage a situation possibly, way down the line in the future, where you might need to cull wildlife in areas where all other mechanisms have failed. We are not sure about the practicalities of doing that, but it might be, possibly, the only answer if you wanted to achieve eradication. But the question that is not asked in this consultation document is at what point should we introduce wildlife culling? The assumption appears to be let us get on with it now, and it makes far more sense to us to say let us do the easy stuff first, which is concentrating on cattle, and in terms of the other questions that that prompts, you mentioned the danger to the industry there in terms of public perception. We are pointing out that it is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it is not the Department for Farming, and one of the concerns that we have got is that no one is asking the question if farmers, or the Government as agents of farmers, are exterminating badgers all over the West Country, what are the implications of that on the consumption of traditional produce in the West Country for specialised markets? Would tourists still want to eat clotted cream that was a by-product of the extermination of large numbers of wild badgers? There could be real detrimental effects there and that could be a real problem for the farming industry.

  Q67 Chairman: Mr Rogerson might want to pick up on that point in his questions.

  Mr Bennett: I would like to come back and answer that question, Chairman, because first of all Trevor said we ought to find out what a no culling policy of badgers brings us. We have been running that experiment for the last 15 years and more intensively in the last few years and we know exactly where we have got today: in a pretty poor mess. In terms of all the things you suggested we should do—

  Q68 Mrs Moon: No, that the scientists have suggested, they are not my suggestions.

  Mr Bennett: With the exception of pre-movement testing, that is what we have been doing, that is exactly what we have been doing. What we are saying is that we are quite prepared to do something in terms of pre-movement testing because we want to get rid of this disease provided that we do take in a holistic way. Coming to public perception, we do worry about public perception because I want to make sure that we have a good public image so we can sell the food we produce, but we cannot walk away from this disease just because of public perception. Most of the British public I talk to are full of common-sense, just a small percentage are not, and when you talk to the British public about this they are very matter of fact and if they know that the target is healthy cows and healthy badgers, which is what both of us want, then it is a matter of explaining it to them and I do not think it should have any impact on our purchase of food in the West Country.

  Mr Raymond: May I just make two quick points on that? There is an issue with perturbation and I will return to what I said earlier: if there are well-defined geographical boundaries, that should ease the problems of perturbation as the Irish proved in their trials. The other area that I feel very passionately about, having been down to the South West, having been to the West Midlands in the last six months and met farmers, there is an issue of the welfare of wildlife, there is an issue of welfare of livestock, but very few people pick up the issue of welfare of farmers and their families. I have seen farmers who are at the end of their tether, whether it is mental, physical or financial and it is absolutely desperate. I fear there are certain parts of this country that will cease cattle production if this disease is not actually contained and eradicated soon, and then you have got the management of the countryside to worry about and the countryside will go in to disarray. There is an issue, therefore, and I have seen it at first-hand and it really does touch my heart, I can promise you that. There is a big issue of the welfare of the families involved, farmers that have been under restriction for three, four and five years.

  Q69 Chairman: Would I derive from that that you feel there should have been a question about the human dimension of the questions that have been posed about culling included in this consultation document?

  Mr Bennett: We do very strongly, Chairman, because we think this is one aspect that is missed. In terms of social implication in seemingly every other area of society it gets mentioned, but when farmers are affected and their businesses partially destroyed, when there is the pressure of constant TB testing and the fact that they have this disease hanging over them, it does lead to depression and does lead to some people saying eventually we just cannot farm cattle in these areas. It shows how serious the situation is and it should have been taken into account.

  Mr Rogerson: I am slightly concerned about Trevor raising this spectre of some sort of spontaneous boycott of produce from the West Country were a cull to take place, and I hope that he would want to reassure me that that if anything like were to happen it would be a spontaneous thing and nothing that would actually be organised by anybody who is involved.

  Q70 Chairman: Do not get too carried away in answering that.

  Mr Lawson: No.

  Q71 Mr Rogerson: Would not the NFU and the Badger Trust want to work towards some form of constructive view about how this disease can be eradicated for the benefit of the cattle but also for the benefit of wildlife as well where this disease is causing some suffering? You have said that in terms of eradication there may be a need at some point to look at a cull, at what point do you think that would be reached if it has not been reached already?

  Mr Lawson: One of the questions that is not asked in the document is what level of control of bovine tuberculosis is acceptable to all concerned? The focus on eradication, which we do not think is feasible, makes that a difficult question to answer, but we think that the public as well as the farming community and the conservation lobby would like to see an optimum level of the control of bovine tuberculosis and it would be helpful if Defra were to ask that question, what level do we want to get it down to, at which we can say okay, that is acceptable. If we assume that you cannot eradicate bovine TB the next question that needs to be asked is if you cannot get rid of it in parts of the West Country or parts of South-West Wales, what do we do then? Our position is quite clear on that, the public value farming and farmers, we have no quibble with that, it is the case, but they also value wildlife and the environment—they do not value farmers and farming at any price—which means that at some point you are going to have to say if you cannot eradicate TB you may need to introduce special compensation measures for farmers in areas where living with the problem in wildlife is going to go on because you just cannot get rid of it. Can I just answer this question about the health and welfare of wildlife? Animals die of diseases naturally and we understand that the work by the Central Science Laboratory, Dr Cheeseman's team, has shown that TB is not an important cause of death of badgers. You are on a hiding to nothing really if the implication is that ourselves and the RSPCA and other organisations like that, who work tirelessly for the conservation and welfare of wildlife, are saying "We do not really care about sick badgers." Of course that is not the case, but we are recognising that killing tens of thousands of healthy badgers to remove a few unwell ones is not really a very constructive approach from an animal welfare point of view.

  Q72 Daniel Kawczynski: Thank you, Chairman. These are really for Mr Raymond and Mr Bennett to answer, three different questions. Firstly, will the farmers want to run the risk of being targeted by activists? I mentioned this to the scientists before and it is certainly something that farmers have raised with me; they have strong concerns that if they were prepared to allow culls on their land they could be targeted by animal rights groups. Could I have your comments on that?

  Mr Bennett: They are worried about the activists on this one. Meurig and I have talked to probably hundreds of farmers about this in the last few weeks and their view is that they want to co-operate in the cull but they should not be responsible for it, so we feel that the overwhelming majority of our members would be quite happy to take part in the exercise. What they are concerned about is that just the areas concerned should be identified to public knowledge and not individual farmers' names because there are some very nasty people out there that are involved in this particular area. The other message we get very strongly is that we are there to help but we are not professionals at culling and we do need expertise to be brought in to help us.

  Mr Raymond: Could I just say there is a huge responsibility on Defra here as well, and if we move ahead with this badger cull I think it is up to Defra to be part of the management of the cull, and I believe if that was the case the farmers would co-operate. Picking up Tim's point, it should be done on an area basis rather than on a farm by farm basis because then you could actually lessen the risk of individuals being targeted. Obviously, people are extremely nervous but the overriding factor in most people's minds is that we cannot be defeatist on this, we have to initially contain and then desperately try to eradicate this terrible disease out of our cattle herds and out of the wildlife in the country.

  Mr Bennett: We can get down to very low levels. In the early 1970s we had just a few cases in Cornwall and Gloucester, and that is how far we can go down to. We have been there and we know how to do it, and I am hoping that the scientists at some point are going to help us on this, because we would like to actually move away from some of the options we are talking about today and just end up with a vaccine, whether that is for wildlife or cattle or both. That is the ultimate solution and surely what we are putting together here is a policy that will hold together to get the incidence down so that we can move to that point.

  Q73 Mr Drew: I want to ask about that because we are looking at framing questions for the Minister. I am sure that the one thing that both sides could agree on is that ultimately, as we are human beings, the search for a vaccine would seem to be the best way forward. There is an argument over whether it is better to vaccinate the cattle, which has problems in terms of TB-free status, or the badgers in terms of catching the badgers and vaccinating them, but again this does not feature in the options forward, it is culling or nothing. That is the simplistic way and I know we are trying to say there are other ways forward, but how would you feel if Defra had actually tried to consult the public—which is what it is doing—on the idea of vaccination and spend some serious resources on it? I would remind you that we have yet to have BCG[50] trials in this country—we have had them in Ireland, we have had them in New Zealand and we are about to hopefully start one in Gloucestershire, but it is not yet confirmed.

  Mr Bennett: I have been asking for four years for that BCG trial. The fact is that a vaccine or BCG is not going to solve this problem in the short term; what we have to do is put together a policy that reduces the incidence of this disease so that we can move on to the next stage. That has always been the NFU's view: we have to have better diagnostic tests because, frankly, the diagnostic test is not that good at the moment and we have to move towards a vaccine.

  Q74 Chairman: I like your comment about the thought of a vaccine. You remarked at the beginning that this Committee had been involved in inquiries before; I have certainly been doing them for five years and every time you ask a question about the vaccine it is always ten years ahead, the same here. It is a moving target, so there we are. Mr Lawson, 30 seconds on vaccines.

  Mr Lawson: Thank you, Chairman. Just to respond to that, we cautioned two years ago that we think a vaccine is not a feasible option in the future. We cannot see it being developed for badgers because of the difficulties of inoculating badgers below ground before they get infected, and in terms of cattle there are significant genetic problems which may be overcome in the future. We have always taken the stance that it is not a good idea to encourage policy ideas if you like, or to encourage people to think that solutions are just around the corner when the contrary is true, we think it is far better to be straight with what we know than to speculate about what might be developed in the future.

  Q75 Daniel Kawczynski: Going back to the questioning for Mr Raymond and Mr Bennett, it has been suggested to the Committee—although I have to say I disagree with this—that because farmers will benefit from a reduction in bovine TB they should pay their fair share for the costs of this cull. Could I have your comments on that?

  Mr Bennett: I think if anyone went and talked to a farmer who is consistently shut up over a number of years and said he ought to contribute his fair share, I am not quite sure what the reaction would be. Quite frankly, the cost to individuals of this disease, the fact that you are not able to trade properly, the fact that you are constantly retesting, the labour costs alone of 60 day tests—there are massive costs on this industry. To ask them, as we start off with the pre-movement tests, to also take on those costs—which will be quite considerable, probably between £10 and £20 an animal, and I can tell you it is not a very profitable industry to be in just at the moment, as you know, chairman—the idea that the State should share the cost of this, we are carrying more than our fair share of costs. As I have said to the Minister in the past, I am quite willing to work with him to reduce the costs of this disease on Government and on ourselves because if we reduce the incidence of this disease it will be a great win for the taxpayer as well as the farmer.

  Q76 Daniel Kawczynski: Lastly, in the series of three questions for you, we have touched on this briefly but what are the chances of enough landowners and farmers co-operating with any cull to make it effective?

  Mr Bennett: My view is that they will. Meurig is doing quite a bit of work on this at the moment.

  Mr Raymond: We are involved in an exercise at the moment where we are asking farmers and landowners are they prepared to co-operate, and I believe the answer is yes because they are responsible enough that they want to actually defeat this disease, but a lot depends on Defra and how Defra approach this. If Defra says it is up to you, the farming industry, it puts a different perspective on it than if Defra go in to manage and take their responsibility seriously. If Defra take their responsibility seriously and be part of the exercise of the cull, then I believe farmers will be only too pleased to co-operate.

  Q77 Daniel Kawczynski: Lastly, on the point of co-operation, I would like to ask both of you—because I suspect one of you are from Wales and one of you are from England—as my seat is on the English-Welsh border, my farmers who own land on both sides of the border are extremely confused with the mixed messages from the Welsh Assembly and from the Government here. Would you give me an assurance that you will try to lobby the Government to have more of a uniform approach to this issue, rather than allowing the Welsh Assembly to totally contradict what the national Government is doing on this?

  Mr Bennett: I find the idea that you can have slightly different policies within the same shores as crazy. We have literally hundreds of farmers who will be farming on both sides of the border and to have a different policy is nonsense. The same evidence has been presented to both and I think what has happened in terms of England is that the debate has been going on a lot longer, it is a more grown-up debate and there is an acceptance that something now has to be done about this disease. Our policy will be absolutely clear, as the NFU of England and Wales, that we would want the same holistic policy from cattle through to wildlife in both Wales and England. It is a nonsense to do anything else at all.

  Q78 Mr Drew: Can I move on to the culling options, and I will start with the NFU. Is it fair to say that the farmers who have talked to me are representative in as much as they do not like snares and the use of snaring because it is ineffective, it is counter-productive and because, dare I say, there are all sorts of problems from a public relations point of view?

  Mr Bennett: It would be fair to say that our farmers believe that gassing is the best option and we would want rapid research into that—not the hydrogen cyanide that the scientists were talking about but carbon monoxide. It is perfectly possible to run trials on that, particularly with the small cameras you can push around the setts. We have been doing gas tests for avian influenza in chickens in case that dreadful disease comes, so if there is an imperative to do something, it is surprising how quickly this could be sorted out. We managed to do the chicken tests when we were in the middle of the scare in a matter of two to three weeks, so I cannot see any reason why we cannot do the same in terms of this particular issue.

  Q79 Mr Drew: If we stay with the NFU and stick with gassing—I will come to the Badger Trust in a minute—who would do this gassing? Farmers? Landowners?

  Mr Bennett: We need professionals. The farmers are quite willing to co-operate and gassing is one of the options, but I am saying that this has not been considered adequately. I think there are professionals there that could do this job, in whatever form we eventually take in terms of trapping, shooting or whatever, so it does not matter what it ends up as, but we do need professional people working with farmers, identifying the setts and indeed doing the culling. Farmers are quite willing to go so far but they are not professional in this particular area and this is where Defra, in my opinion, have got to do more.



49   Tony Wilsmore and Nick Taylor, A review of the international evidence for an interrelationship between cattle and wildlife in the transmission of bovine TB, (Reading University, September 2005) Back

50   BCG Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine Back


 
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