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
|
