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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 905-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Tuesday 7 February 2006 PROFESSOR H CHARLES J GODFRAY, DR CHRIS
CHEESEMAN, MR TIM
BENNETT, MR MEURIG RAYMOND, MR DAVID WILLIAMS Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 81
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on Tuesday 7 February 2006 Members present Mr Michael Jack, in the Chair Mr David Drew Patrick Hall Lynne Jones Daniel Kawczynski Mrs Madeleine Moon Mr Dan Rogerson David Taylor ________________ Memoranda submitted by the Independent Scientific
Group on Cattle TB
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Professor John Bourne, Chairman, Professor Christl Donnelly, Deputy Chairman, and Professor Rosie Woodroffe, Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB, Professor H Charles J Godfray FRS, Chairman, Independent Scientific Review of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, and Dr Chris Cheeseman, Central Science Laboratory, gave evidence. Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Before I formally welcome and introduce the first of the witnesses this afternoon, as they say, for the avoidance of doubt, I would like to remind everybody who has come today of the focus of this very short inquiry and evidence session. The terms of reference that we put out in our press notice said: "In conducting its inquiry the Committee intends to focus on the key questions that ministers must address in reaching conclusions on the issue set out in the consultation paper." I say that because, unsurprisingly, a number of people have been kind enough to send us their thoughts in the form of written evidence and they have gone somewhat wider in, once again, debating issues which this Committee has reported on more formally on a number of occasions, looking at the whole issue of bovine TB and the way in which policies can be developed to deal with it. That is not the focus of this inquiry, although, inevitably, it will touch upon some of those issues. I wanted to remind everybody that that is what we are about. Could I welcome, first of all, representatives of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle: Professor Sir John Bourne who has been kind enough to give us evidence on many occasions and we are grateful to you for coming again; Professor Christl Donnelly, the Deputy Chairman of the Group; and Professor Rosie Woodroffe. They are accompanied, from the Independent Scientific Review of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, by Professor Charles Godfray, its Chairman, and from the Central Science Laboratory, by Dr Chris Cheeseman. Dr Cheeseman, I do not know whether it will make you feel good or nervous, but you are sitting exactly where the Prime Minister sat earlier today when he gave evidence to the Liaison Committee. Dr Cheeseman: The seat is warm! Q2 Chairman: The seat is warm, that is good. There may be a little aura around you which may assist this afternoon. I know there are a number of you here and it may well be that one of you has been deputed to be the principal spokesman, but, if there is a question that comes up or a point that you want to amplify personally and you have not started the question, perhaps you would indicate to me by raising your finger or a pen and I will bring you in, because obviously there may be more than one view on it. I would like to ask whomsoever wants to respond to this question: Defra is a department which prides itself on making decisions on the basis of sound science. In the context of the decisions which the minister is consulting about, do you believe that still should be the case, that any decisions that are made in this area must be based on sound science? Professor Bourne: I do not think there is any question that decisions should be based on sound science, but of course I do accept that scientific assessment is only one aspect of developing policy. Certainly the ISG, when we were asked to fulfil our role seven years ago, recognised at that time that the science base underpinning future TB policy control was lacking in many respects. With Defra, we have worked very hard and effectively over the last seven years to develop a science base based on high quality research. We are now in a position where the science base is in place - science which is focused on the badger issue and the cattle issue, but sound enough science to inform future policy. I have no doubt that that the science is strong enough to inform ministers, but I do accept it is just one aspect of development of policy. Q3 Chairman: Clearly, you could say in respect of the questions which the Minister has put in the consultation document, that all of those could be answered with an objective, quality, scientific base. Professor Bourne: As you know, we were occasioned to write to the Minister, having seen the consultation document. We were concerned that science had been misrepresented, and in fact two of the policy options on which stakeholders were being asked to comment were, on the basis of scientific findings, not appropriate; in the sense that, in our view, the scientific view, it made matters worse rather than going towards improving matters directly. You will notice I used the word "directly" in my letter to the Minister, and I used that word very purposefully. Q4 Chairman: The Minister has listed what he thinks are the key questions to consult about on the question of whether to cull or not to cull. Are there any other questions that he should have posed in the consultation document? Putting aside for a moment the questions on which you have commented, are there any remaining questions which you think perhaps are either not well phrased or should not be asked? In other words, is he asking the right questions? Professor Bourne: Seeing that the document was focused solely on the culling issue, he was asking questions solely about the culling issue, I think the right questions were asked. But, as I have already said, I think the consultation document was badly framed. Q5 Chairman: Can you help me in terms of understanding. Each one of the questions laid out in the consultation document, in the way that it is posed, is given equal weight. The Minister does not attempt in the way that they are phrased to say this one is more important than that one. He will get a range of information, from objective opinion underpinned by science to subjective observations reflecting some of the emotion that is in this particular subject, but, when he comes to weigh these answers, are there some questions which are more important than others? If he is trying to determine where the weight of information comes, does he give all the questions equal weight or does he give some more weight than others? Professor Bourne: I think the consultation document is imbalanced, in the sense that two of the options from the scientific perspective are simply not tenable. Q6 Chairman: Would you remind us which those are. Professor Bourne: That would relate to localised culling, involving licensing farmers individually, or targeted culling, where the expectation is to get farmers together and work as a cooperative, if you wish, and cull badgers out from, still, relatively small areas. Scientifically - which is why we felt obliged to write to the Minister - those are not supportable. The issue becomes whether widespread culling, which we accept - there is scientific evidence to suggest that could be tenable - but not on the scale that is proposed in the consultation document. They refer specifically to 100 km2 for the size of a trial area, and we have shown, on the balance of a protective effect within a trial area which is culled and the worsening effect on the edge of a trial area which is not culled, that over 100 km2 there will be just about a zero impact - based, of course, on the culling efficiency that we are able to operate and the way we carried out the trial. So I think the question relates to a more extensive cull carried out systematically for a very prolonged time period. My view is that the consultation should have focused on that single question, rather than identifying questions, two of which, as I have said, are scientifically untenable. Professor Godfray: I wonder if I could make a brief comment on the first question you asked and then a comment on what Professor Bourne has just said. We have an immeasurably better scientific base for making decisions about bovine TB than we had before the ISG started work, but I think it is important that ministers realise - and I think they do realise - that getting evidence about badgers, in particular, which are nocturnal animals that live underneath, is extraordinarily difficult, and so there will always be gaps in what the scientific base can inform ministers, and ministers have to make difficult decisions on imperfect scientific knowledge - even though, thanks to the people on this table, it is much better than it used to be. For the precise point you just asked Professor Bourne on the different questions, although I would not disagree with the broad answer that he gave you, I think I would temper it slightly and say the overwhelming evidence suggests that localised culling licensed for farmers or groups of farmers is unlikely to be a sensible approach - so a very slightly different nuance from Professor Bourne. Q7 David Taylor: Professor Bourne just said that the option of culling over larger areas is just about sustainable, and Dr Cheeseman in his evidence implied that there would be some practical difficulties in sustainability. I would like to examine the difference between the two. Professor Bourne: I did say it would be sustainable but it would need to be sustained over a long period and done systematically, and, as we have indicated in our letters to ministers and reports elsewhere, there are serious logistical problems that would need to be overcome to ensure that this was done satisfactorily. Q8 David Taylor: Dr Cheeseman, did I quote you accurately? Dr Cheeseman: First of all, Chairman, apologies for my voice - I will try to make myself heard. I think the key question - which I have put in my submission - that the Minister has to address is whether there is any badger culling policy that could be recommended on the basis of efficacy (that is, that reduces the disease in cattle, preferably without any edge effects) that is practical, cost effective, acceptable and sustainable. This question of sustainability is a key question. I would venture to suggest now that I do not believe that any culling policy is sustainable in the long term. There has to be a better way to control the disease. The Irish, if you recall, said that at the end of their paper. They have demonstrated a significant reduction in TB in cattle in excess of 50 per cent but even they said culling of badgers is not a sustainable long-term option for the control of TB in cattle in Ireland. Q9 David Taylor: So you depart from the ISG and Professor Bourne at that point on the question of sustainability, do you? Dr Cheeseman: I do not think we depart. I think we are saying that sustainability is a key question that must be addressed - long-term sustainability. Q10 Mr Rogerson: On the perturbation effects, is there any conclusive proof that is a factor? Professor Woodroffe: There is very strong evidence to suggest a deterioration in the cattle TB situation close to/bordering culled areas. There is also very good evidence to indicate that there is some substantial disruption of badger populations and territorial behaviour and movement patterns which could plausibly increase contact rates between cattle and badgers. At present, the causal relationship between those two is not 100 per cent, but certainly the ecological pattern is consistently there, the cattle pattern is consistently there and the relationship between the two suggests that that badger perturbation effect is currently by far the strongest candidate explanation for the effect we see in cattle. It is becoming quite broadly accepted by scientists that that is the case. Q11 Mr Rogerson: In your opinion, do you think that should have consequences for the approach that Defra takes in terms of any culling strategy? We talked about area and ---- Professor Woodroffe: I think it certainly should be taken into account, but I think it is very important to stress that the ecological explanation for the pattern that is seen in cattle is one thing - it is strong, but it is not 100 per cent - but the fact that we see these unintended negative consequences of badger culling on cattle TB is very strong, so, even if you did not know what the cause was, still you have the empirical evidence to suggest negative effects of culling and that certainly needs to be taken into account. Q12 Mr Rogerson: Would that also have implications in terms of the efficiency of the culling method: making sure that if you are doing it you are doing it effectively? Professor Woodroffe: I am really glad you asked that question. This is another concern we have with the consultation paper. The consultation document states that if a more efficient culling method could be used it would counter these edge effects, these perturbation effects. That statement is without any scientific support. Wherever badger culling has been performed and anybody has looked at what happens to the badger population, there is perturbation. That is true not only in the UK, where the badger removal has primarily been with caged traps, but also in Ireland, where snares have been used. You do see this disruption of badger populations also under snaring. If you were to use a potentially more efficient capture method, unless you have a geographic boundary that is impermeable to badgers you are still going to have edge effects. Q13 Mr Rogerson: You have been critical of Defra's proposals. They have suggested that cattle management difficulties could be another cause for this effect potentially. Can you see any evidence of that? Professor Bourne: That comment is without any foundation. Dr Cheeseman: Chairman, I completely endorse everything Rose Woodroffe has just said about perturbation and I would go further. I think the evidence now is more compelling for this being a serious issue in the context of control than it ever has been. It is something that is not new. We first recognised this over 20 years ago, when badger populations were removed in respect of TB outbreaks. We saw the exacerbated movements and we were even told by farmers at the time that this was the cause of a rash of outbreaks around control zones. We did sound warning messages at the time. It was a difficult concept, I think, for the Department to take on board then. But we have seen over the years various strategies big implemented with the disease slowly getting worse. I think there is very compelling evidence now that perturbation is possibly one very good reason for that. You have mentioned the efficiency of culling. I, again, agree with Rosie that if you cull more efficiently you do not necessarily reduce the perturbation effect; you may actually make it worse and create a bigger vacuum and you may pull badgers in from further afield and extend the zone of negative influence even further. I would finish by saying there is no linear relationship between culling efficiency and the degree of perturbation. Professor Godfray: When my committee reported two years ago, although we considered perturbation we did not think the evidence there was particularly strong. I agree completely with what Dr Woodroffe has said, that recent evidence the ISG have produced on the perturbation effect is extremely compelling, and, while the case is not proved, especially that disruption of badger social structure actually has a direct effect on the epidemiology, it is by a very long way the most plausible hypothesis out there at the moment. Q14 Chairman: Could I follow up a point Mr Rogerson made - and this comes back to the science base. In the Defra consultation paper, they say "at this stage it is not possible to rule out other possible contributing factors such as cattle management differences between treatment of areas" and your reaction to that was that this was a suggestion "without foundation". I presume that Defra's questions are informed by sound science. How is it that their science takes such a diametrically opposed view or comes to such a diametrically opposed conclusion to yours? Professor Godfray: I do not know the answer to that. Q15 Chairman: You would not like to hazard a guess, would you - or is that not allowed? Professor Godfray: I assumed it was associated with some misunderstanding of our interpretation of science that we obviously reported to Defra and was subsequently reported in the scientific paper in Nature and in the Journal of Applied Ecology. We were given an opportunity of commenting on the scientific component, which is two or three pages of the consultation document, only a few days before the deadline of December 15 - I think it was one week before - and we had 48 hours or 72 hours to respond to that, and respond we did. Some of our response was accepted but much was not. That obviously was purposeful. I really think you need to ask Defra why they differed from our interpretation. I just do not know. Q16 Chairman: That is fair comment. There was no feedback as to why there was this difference of opinion. Whilst we are talking about edge effects and perturbation, one of the areas, which I cannot see, but there is a question to be consulted on - and forgive me if I have misunderstood what is in here - is this question of the size of the area where Defra are proposing that culling should take place, because there was an indication given when the announcement was made that you could join together some of the areas. I was interested to know whether that is something that should have been consulted about. In other words, if you look at the incident rate in the South West, some might conjecture that you could join the whole of the South West together in a giant culling zone, but there is not any question in the document that tries to tease out what is the zone size, what is the optimum size. Is that something that should have been there? Professor Donnelly: I think it is important to think not only about the size but also the shape of the zone. If you are thinking about an edge effect, of course your edge is going to be smallest the closer you come to a perfect circle. That was one of the reasons we tried to make trial areas that were circular. One concern that one would have for allowing the culling areas to form naturally by agglomeration of smaller culling areas, is that you are going inevitably to end up with a culling area which may be large but it is going to be a very contorted shape, with a very high perimeter to area ratio, and you are therefore are running a risk of having an even more substantial edge effect than you would have otherwise. Q17 Chairman: Do I interpret from that answer - I do not want to lead you to the conclusion - that there should have been something in the consultation document which would have allowed a debate about the nature and size of the culling area? As I say, it does not appear to be there. Professor Donnelly: I am not sure I would go that far. It is something that we have been cautious about extrapolating. We can tell you if you cull over about 100 km2. We have replicated that ten times and ten times the same thing happened, more or less. I think that extrapolating beyond that one has to do with greater caution. But the ecological patterns we see, both in localised culling and larger scale culling, do suggest that it is certainly an issue for serious consideration and concern. Q18 Chairman: It might merit a question. Professor Donnelly: It might merit a question. Q19 Daniel Kawczynski: On the point of the size of the area, have you at all looked into cross border areas? Of course my constituency is on the Welsh-English border, Shrewsbury, and I have farmers who own land on both sides of the border. I am just wondering whether the Government has spoken to you at all about crossing national boundaries. Professor Bourne: No. When we agreed on the siting of trial areas, it was at that point agreed that they would be sited entirely within England with no areas in Wales at all. The decision of the Welsh Assembly at that time was that they did not want the trial area in Wales: if there was good, compelling scientific reason for a trial area to be in Wales, then they would consider it. Well, there was no good, compelling reason for the trial area to be in Wales and it was never considered. That is why they were all sited in England. Dr Cheeseman: In relation to the size of the area, it is true that, as it gests bigger, the proportion of the negative edge effects will be smaller in comparison with the positive effects in the inside. But, unless you go to an area that is bounded by the sea or an area where there are no badgers or no cattle, you will always have that negative edge effect. I think it is true that in the consultation document it has not been satisfactorily aired as to how we can address that particular problem. It does not matter how big they might be - and I see no reason why they should not cross national boundaries, county boundaries or any boundaries - they need to be constructed according to the disease pattern in cattle and, hopefully, some sort of natural geographical boundary that will stop its negative edge effect. But that is almost an unachievable goal. Q20 David Taylor: I am not sure I accept what Professor Woodroffe said, that the optimum way of reducing the edge effect is a perfect circle. It does depend, does it not, on the topography of the areas being enclosed, the distribution of badger populations, the extent of urban fringe - all sorts of other factors. But that is just an observation. We have been dealing with perturbation and I think Defra are perturbed to a certain extent - if that is a rather weak link - in that they have put up three options which address the issue as they might see it, and, as we heard clearly from Professor Bourne in his opening remarks, the scientific community has come down quite heavily on individual licensing and targeted culling and has major reservations about generalised culls over large areas. If that is so, are the scientists saying that there is not a case for badger culling, or, if there is, what sort of cull would address the reservations that the scientific community have used in casting doubt over the three options the Government have come up with? Dr Cheeseman: I think we would probably all agree that the only cull that would have an expectation of making a worthwhile impact on the cattle situation would be an extended, large-scale, continuous cull over several years, where the aim would be to remove 100 per cent of the badgers and have full compliance, where there are no holes inside the culled area where farms are not culled out which would introduce further negative effects, and I suggest that is an extremely difficult thing, in terms of practical and sustainable issues, to achieve. So, yes, I think we all agree that very thorough widespread culling is an option that might reduce ... You have to remember you still have a problem in the cattle themselves, so you will not completely eradicate the disease until you have eradicated it in the cattle population as well. Q21 David Taylor: Professor Bourne, do you agree with that summary? Professor Bourne: We have consistently interpreted the evidence to suggest that a general cull is supported by scientific evidence. But culling must be carried out systematically over very large areas for a very long time, several years. Dr Cheeseman has made the point that one has to question the sustainability of that, in the sense that it has to be continued certainly beyond the five years that we were involved with in the trial. But it does come down to a question of badger numbers: if you reduce badger numbers to a very low level by a general cull, you do reduce badger-cattle contacts - so the question becomes less of a scientific one and more of a political one. Science supports that if it is done systematically. One accepts that within culled areas there will be no-go areas. We accepted that in our own particular trial: we knew there would be land we would not have access to; farmers would not cooperate. We did in fact find that we could cull only, on average, about 66 per cent of the land in trial areas, but we still got an effect on cattle breakdowns of 20 per cent. By culling over the areas we did - and it is possible one may improve culling efficiency, but we do not know what impact that would have on further reducing cattle breakdown rate - you still have the edge effect, and by extending culling areas you reduce that out, and by reducing badger populations you further reduce the effect of perturbation. Could I ask my colleagues if they would like to add further to that. Professor Woodroffe: Yes, I would like to. It also comes back to the issue you raised earlier about geographical boundaries. Professor Bourne talks about improving culling efficiency and I think it is very instructive to compare our findings with those from the Republic of Ireland, where two experimental studies were carried out. The one in East Offaly used snares, which are probably a more efficient way of removing badgers, and, whilst we are not confident of the badger densities in East Offaly and the Four Area Trial after the culling occurred, it appears that a more thorough eradication of badgers was achieved. The reduction in cattle TB incidence in East Offaly was about 26 per cent, comparable with what we detected. When you read the papers, one of the things on which they commented was that badgers continued to immigrate into the area and they considered this a problem. That is one of the reasons, when they went to the Four Area Trial, that they chose areas that were geographically isolated, either by coastline or by major rivers, and under those circumstances were able to achieve greater reductions in cattle TB incidents, averaging about 58 per cent. As Professor Bourne says, scientific evidence would suggest that if you do a very large cull, preferably in an area that is geographically isolated, then culling badgers can, under the right circumstances - at least as it appears from Ireland - contribute substantially. Unfortunately places like Gloucestershire are not geographically isolated, so how do you deal with that situation? I would like to add that I think the scientific evidence is suggesting, as Professor Bourne says, that a very large-scale, extensive, continued, well-maintained cull could contribute if it is done correctly. The question then of whether that is sustainable, in view of things like the Berne Convention and public perception and so on, is a political question; it is not a scientific question. But I would like to add that it is portrayed in the consultation document as culling badgers or doing nothing, and I think it is very important to stress that not culling badgers does not necessarily entail doing nothing: there is a lot of things that could be done. Q22 David Taylor: All the contributors so far have made it clear, in terms of practicability and in terms of political impact and other factors, that there are serious reservations that you have - even if you also set aside economics and animal welfare and conservation considerations. Okay, if not culling, then is there some other optimum TB control policy which you can briefly suggest? I heard the Chairman say at the start of our session that this is a relatively narrow inquiry, but, if you are going to shoot down every option that comes over the horizon, is there some other, non-culling option perhaps which you think is preferable? Professor Bourne: We are digressing from your remit but we are coming back to issues that we have discussed in the past with you. At the outset I indicated that we were determined to adopt a holistic approach to the whole problem, including work to give us a better understanding of the disease in cattle with respect to pathogenesis and epidemiology. One can state without any contradiction - and I think there is general acceptance now that you certainly would not have got five or six years ago - that there has to be an improvement in diagnostic testing, the strategic use of diagnostic testing, the complementary use of the gamma-interferon test, to avoid the large numbers of undetected TB infected animals that are present in the national herd at the moment. There is clear evidence of the movement of infected animals around the countryside which leads to the disease appearing in new areas - very clearly established over the last few years. There is a clear recognition of the importance of our security. Defra have moved a long way in this regard, with respect to introducing tighter controls on testing timetables, and is also now introducing pre-movement testing of animals - which is directly related to bio-security, in preventing infected animals moving around the country. Added to that, there has to be a more realistic adoption of on-farm bio-security by farmers. Again, I have gone on record repeatedly by saying that government alone cannot control this disease. Much of the answer and many of the issues can be addressed only by the farming industry, by recognising that they are dealing with an infectious disease. It is foot and mouth in slow motion - in some cases, not so slow either. They have to recognise they are dealing with infectious disease and treat it accordingly. I do not think there is any demurring on that at all. I attended a meeting of the British Cattle Veterinary Association last Thursday and it was really heartening to me to recognise that 80 per cent of the day was devoted to talking about cattle control. That would not have happened five years ago: they would have dismissed it. Professor Godfray: Most of the points I wanted to make have been made, but, very briefly, I think there has been a reasonable scientific consensus, almost since Professor Krebs reported ten years ago, that badgers are a source and that if you remove badgers you will remove a source of bovine TB. The evidence has changed in the last couple of years: the null hypothesis that the more badgers you remove, the better the situation, no longer occurs. By doing a small cull or an inappropriate cull, you can make matters worse. That is a major thing that has changed in the last 18 months or so. Q23 Mr Drew: Could I ask a question about the scientific basis of a large cull, inasmuch as the only experience we have that has been scientifically evaluated - and there are doubts whether it was done properly - was the Thornbury experiment - which I know rather well because my constituency abuts it. We are moving from a situation currently of randomised badger culling to what is effectively indiscriminate badger culling. By the very nature of that, it is different from cattle. Apart from when there is whole herd removal, we only cull cattle where they are tested - they may be inaccurately tested, but tested - and subsequently we see lesions, we have some proof that they have bovine TB. In terms of badgers, with indiscriminate culling we will be killing clean badgers. Is there at least an issue there that you are killing out the immunity which some badgers will have to bovine TB? Are there dangers in that? Because eventually clearly we either have to vaccinate - which seems to be what the Irish have suggested - or we have to look at the way in which the wildlife reservoir breeds this disease out. There is a danger, is there not, of culling clean badgers? Dr Cheeseman: It is one of the factors that needs to be taken into account when you are considering the sustainability. You are correct that culling is indiscriminate: it kills healthy as well as infected animals. After culling ceases, you have immigration and recruitment in the population, and that population will be naïve to disease, so you may have a worse picture down the road than before you actually culled. That needs to be taken into account in the long-term planning of these sorts of strategies. That is all I would say. Professor Bourne: I have found it difficult to answer that question. We do know from the literature that there is some evidence, in some bovine species, for instance, that there is a degree of resistance to TB, but there is no suggestion that any animal is totally resistant: if it is exposed to a TB organism, if it is given in the right place it will develop disease. I really cannot comment on the dynamics of the disease as it might be affected by culling, but I would like to comment briefly on the prevalence of the disease in badgers. Much of this work that has come from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial has yet to be published, but it will show a very large variation, both across space and in time, with respect to the prevalence in badgers, and it will range from something like four per cent in some areas to perhaps 40 per cent in other areas. We do, of course, with any diagnostic test, underestimate the prevalence, and there is work to suggest we could multiply both those figures by two. But I am persuaded that TB in badgers occurs over a very wide area, and, if you are going to tackle the badger problem, finding badger TB-free areas is going to be jolly difficult. Equally, of course, the comments I have made about the inadequacy of diagnosis - and we are talking here about diagnosis at post mortem - which relate to the badger also relate to the cattle. I add that point simply because of confusion in many people's minds created by the fact that only 50 per cent of reactors are prone to carry TB. I think that is more an inadequacy of the post mortem procedures and growing bacteria than it is an inadequacy of the tuberculin test. I think the problem with diagnostic testing in cattle is not the false-positive you get but animals which are negative which are falsely diagnosed as negative. I am rather digressing there but it gives you a picture of the complex dynamics of disease in the badger and in the cattle, much of which we do not fully understand . Q24 Mr Drew: But that would suggest there is at least a possibility, if you choose the wrong culling strategy - given that you have already identified that localised culling could well be problematical - that it could make things worse rather than better. Professor Bourne: It could. Not only that, you could change geographical boundaries as well if you involve yourself in wider-scale culling. Those are the factors that we can only guess at and we do not have data to support that. But one can consider that, yes. Q25 Daniel Kawczynski: I was intrigued by your hypothesising over an area that is surrounded by the sea. As an MP in Cornwall, where we are virtually surrounded by water, with the River Tamar as well, and it is an area that has obviously been a real hot spot, is this something where you think that could be overcome, were there to be a cull across the county? Dr Cheeseman: You could certainly define an area with geographical boundaries but you still have to overcome the internal problems of compliance. How you are going to catch all the badgers? As somebody who has spent 35 years using every method available to catch badgers, I can tell you that you will never get 100 per cent. Unless you cull and eliminate badgers, you still have the problem afterwards of immigration and disease coming back, and, as I have said, a more naïve population, and you have the possibility of reservoirs in other wildlife, such as deer, that could re-infect the badger population. I just put to you that the practical difficulties of achieving eradication, never mind the acceptability and the sustainability, are huge and probably insurmountable. Professor Woodroffe: I would like to add an additional comment, as somebody also from Cornwall, that our level of compliance in West Cornwall was the lowest of any of the trial areas. In that particular area, whilst geographically it looks very well suited to this sort of approach, the level of compliance with culling was the lowest that we experienced. Q26 Chairman: Should the consultation document present people with some different scenarios? There has been an interesting debate about the effectiveness of different culling strategies, with an underplay of : "But there are other things we could do." The one thing I do not derive from this document are trade-offs; in other words, if you culled and achieved a certain reduction of the incidence of bovine TB but at the same time increased your cattle movement testing, better bio-security and so on, what is an acceptable model? There are no alternative models put in there with, if you like, financial outcomes. In other words, you do not have a menu of choices. Should this document have gone a bit further and given some alternative strategic options rather than simply focus on questions about culling? Professor Bourne: There was an attempt, as you know, to present a cost-benefit analysis. We have commented on that at the moment simply by saying that we would expect a proper cost-benefit analysis. I think our wording is: "An informed cost-benefit analysis is necessary". Certainly, from our perspective, there was not an informed cost-benefit analysis, and I think Defra would agree with that because the cost-benefit analysis excluded any of the more recent findings that we reported to Defra on September 29. Q27 Chairman: Just to be clear, in your judgment a proper cost-benefit analysis should be produced for public view before a firm and final decision on this matter is made. Professor Bourne: I think it is absolutely essential, yes. Chairman: Fine. Thank you very much. Q28 Patrick Hall: Just to put it in context - because one can listen to all this and get the impression that the final solution, which may be impractical, of the elimination of all badgers would deal with the problem of TB infection in cattle, but it would appear not - could somebody give me a broad indication of the main percentage sources of TB infection in cattle, badgers and other? Dr Cheeseman: We do not know. You were looking at me, I am sorry. Q29 Patrick Hall: Well, I am looking at anybody. Dr Cheeseman: Okay. We certainly do not know what proportion of TB in cattle comes from badgers. The estimates range from 20 to 50 per cent. The Irish put it at over 50 per cent. But, if you remember, the objective originally of the Randomised Culling Trial was to quantify the role of the badger, but, because it was not possible in practice to eliminate badgers, that objective had to be abandoned, so we still do not know and I do not think we ever will. Q30 Patrick Hall: So cattle to cattle? Dr Cheeseman: Cattle to cattle is a big problem and I think all of us would agree that it is serious and it has to be addressed and it is probably bigger than the badger contribution. That is all I would say. Q31 Patrick Hall: Professor Godfray? Professor Godfray: I would just make the point that normally when one has a disease with a wildlife reservoir, the strategy is not to eradicate completely the wildlife reservoir but to reduce it to such a level that the disease is no longer sustainable in the wildlife reservoir. One of the particular difficulties of the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis is that it is an extraordinarily difficult disease to study, particularly because of the problems with diagnostics, as Professor Bourne has already said, so we do not know the level one has to get the badger population down to, we do not know the geographical level in which that happens. This is one of the things I referred to earlier - and it is through no-one's fault; this is just a particularly intractable decision - there are elements where it would be nice to have better scientific evidence to inform policy making where it is just absent at the moment. Q32 Daniel Kawczynski: I would just ask a brief supplementary question of Professor Bourne before I go on to my main question. You said that this is not something the Government can deal with by itself, but the farming community has to be involved. I am very concerned for my Shropshire farmers. If they had trial badger culls, they were attacked by all these animal welfare rights people. What role are you, the scientists, going to play, through government, to ensure that people are well informed as to the necessity of a cull, thus protecting my farmers from intimidation? Professor Bourne: I thought the whole endeavour was to inform government and the general populace and stakeholders of the science behind a cull - which is one of the reasons, of course, why we felt obliged to write to government, as we did in the last few weeks. Q33 Chairman: You are going to suggest born to the barricades, then! Professor Bourne: Could I answer this question by also answering the last question about the cattle contribution. You can state that the disease in relatively TB-free areas of the country is associated 100 per cent with cattle transfer: there is no wildlife involvement there; it is cattle to cattle transfer. I would suspect that if you went back 20 years, you would see the development of TB in new areas, again as a result of cattle to cattle transfer. One then saw the badger element having an impact on this disease. It is very easy for us to suggest that farmers in Cumbria, Northumberland and Yorkshire should simply put up the barricades. I agree, it is far more difficult to advise farmers in hot-spot areas on what they should do when there clearly is a wildlife involvement and their view is: "If we kill the badger it must make it better." Science says, "If you do that, I am afraid it is not going to make it better; it could well make it worse. You really need to focus very aggressively on the cattle issues, cattle to cattle transfers, which you can do something about." It is then a question of will, whether farmers would wish to do that, particularly when they believe: "What is the point of doing that if badgers are going to re-infect my cattle?" There is no simple answer. I think the science underpinning these issues is becoming clearer and clearer. I accept, as Professor Godfray said earlier, there are still enormous gaps in our knowledge but the science base is nonetheless firm enough to advise not only government but also farmers and other stakeholders on a sensible way forward. Whether one kills badgers over a very large area or not, as I have stated, I believe is more of a political issues. Certainly there are serious logistics to be considered, but it is political rather than scientific. Q34 Daniel Kawczynski: Various members of the panel have touched upon the size of the culling area that will be required. Are you in overall agreement as to the size that is required? Given the fact that you have suggested it is going to be a relatively large area, do we have the capacity to manage such a large culling area? Do we have the teams in place? How long will it take to set them up? That is what I am interested in, because I am led to believe that the teams that are set up for the Krebs' trials have been disbanded and we will have to start from scratch. Professor Bourne: The trial data does indicate that if one culls, as we did in the trial, over 100 km2, over that area one would have a zero impact on cattle TB. Professor Donnelly has modelled what an extension of the trial areas would deliver and it does suggest that at 300 km2 you get a positive impact - a balance between the positive impact on the inside and the negative on the outside, but overall a positive impact - with very wide confidence intervals, but around, say, 20 per cent impact. Extending beyond that, the model suggests, provides no great advantages on increasing the percentage impact on cattle breakdowns, but of course it does mean you are covering a much larger area of the country. You have to recognise that TB hot spots do affect a very large area of the country. Even though 300 km2 is a large area, you would need a number of those to cover all hot-spot areas. Professor Donnelly: To clarify, that was really an extrapolation based on the area of circles and their relative perimeter areas within two kilometres. One of the issues with this sort of extrapolation is that the 20 per cent reduction inside and the 29/30 per cent increase outside are relative terms. Ideally, you would like to have a big culling area that covers all your high-risk areas, so you get the 20 per cent reduction in there, and, then, if you have to stomach a 30 per cent increase on the outside, at least it would make that a 30 per cent increase of a relatively low incidence. Q35 Chairman: When you talk about "even a large area" and you said there is a 20 per cent reduction, if you achieve a 20 per cent reduction, does that mean all the other measures (bio-security, cattle movement, pre-movement testing) would then have an opportunity of cracking the spread of the disease? Professor Donnelly: We are starting to get into some very complex areas. From a disease dynamics point of view, all we want to do is reduce it so that we are getting to: "For every case we have now, we get less than one new case coming up" and then we will be in a declining situation. It is extremely difficult to extrapolate from the basis of an experiment like this, where you have matched pairs, to what happens dynamically. Q36 Chairman: I come back to this consultation document. I am interested in the questions that should be posed. It does strike me that the document, maybe in the questions it has put down, has not in fact exposed the debate of uncertainty, even within the careful work that you are now describing to us, because you are talking about what I was asking about earlier; namely the trade-off between the decline in incidents achieved by culling and the ability to break the cycle of the further incidents of bovine TB. To come back to the questions that are being asked, do you think the questions are there to tease out the analysis that you are putting before the Committee? Professor Donnelly: I do not think they address this dynamical feed-back nature of the infectious disease. Q37 Chairman: Should they do that? Professor Donnelly: Ideally, yes, but if they are so difficult I am not sure they would be able to get to the issue in simple questions. Q38 Chairman: It may be very difficult, but that is exactly what the Minister has put out for consultation: a difficult issue. And I am interested in making certain the right questions are being asked so that when ministers come to make their political decision informed by science they have the best information available to them. The message I am getting from you is that there may be a question mark as to whether they are getting the full rich analysis that you are giving us. Professor Donnelly: This includes the other companion issues as well that we talked about of other methods of control. You asked would this be sufficient; one of the things that we have shown with the modelling paper that we recently published in Proceedings in the National Academy of Science is that simply by leaving badgers alone completely so that their contribution stays static, simply by increasing the sensitivity of TB testing, which could be either by improving the way the test is used or using another test, and/or increasing testing frequency, it could be sufficient to bring this reproduction number below one and therefore turn an increasing trend into a decreasing trend. That modelling shows that with leaving the badgers alone, just focusing on the cattle controls, would be sufficient to turn that trend around. That does not guarantee that you go straight to eradication, but it certainly in the short term turns your increasing problem into a decreasing problem. Q39 Chairman: If I have understood you correctly, unless you get 100 per cent removal, which is conjecturable, whichever route you go down you cannot guarantee what the steepness of the slope to eradication is. Professor Donnelly: That is true, it is always extremely difficult in this modelling to predict when the end will come, even if you have a fast-moving disease like foot and mouth; it was very difficult to say when would the last case be. Q40 Chairman: Thank you. Professor Godfray? Professor Godfray: At one level of abstraction I think what one can say at the moment - and this is only partially helpful - is that there are certain things that you can do that will do no harm and will probably do good. Working on the cattle to cattle transmission, working on better diagnostics and working on farm biosecurity will all clearly help and may make substantial progress to getting below the threshold that Professor Donnelly has just mentioned. Where the badger culling is different is we do not now think that increasing badger culling, reducing the population of badger, will necessarily do good; it probably will ultimately if you get to eradication, but at least in the short term it may be counter-productive and move you away from this eradication threshold that you are trying to get at. Q41 Lynne Jones: Defra says that it bases its policies on sound scientific advice, yet it is clear from your comments on the consultation document that it is badly framed and ignores scientific evidence. To what do you attribute this difference between what you as scientific advisers that they have appointed are telling them and what they actually are disseminating in these documents? Why have they not listened to you? Professor Bourne: It has been puzzling to us for some time because, consistently, the Secretary of State has commented that a TB control policy must be based on sound science, yet over the past 18 months Mr Bradshaw and also the Chief Veterinary Officer have stated on a number of occasions that they are able to and would develop future policies without waiting for the end of the randomised badger culling trial. We found that very difficult to understand. Q42 Lynne Jones: Do you think there are any political pressures? Professor Bourne: I am sure there are political pressures. Q43 Lynne Jones: What you are saying is they have put forward options that will make things worse, not better; what on earth would any Government department be doing in suggesting such a policy if it is based on sound science, or is supposed to be? Professor Bourne: I do not know. There have certainly been very serious political pressures, pressures from the NFU on the one hand with respect to badger culling and, I am bound to say, pressures from the Select Committee as well. If you read the reports of previous Select Committees there has been pressure on Government with respect to badger culling and I believe there has been all party support for badger culling, so I sympathise somewhat with the Minister and the position he has found himself in, but I just cannot answer your question, it is a question you need to address to Defra. Q44 Lynne Jones: As a new member to this Committee I can ask such questions. It is clear to me that what you are saying is that the most important way we need to go forward is to improve diagnostics. Are there any other things we could do, for example in reducing contact between badgers and cattle? Dr Cheeseman: We have not really touched on husbandry at all but biosecurity has been mentioned. There is potential for improvement in farm management in order to reduce the risks from wildlife, and although you will probably hear the NFU later today say that these things are impractical, I could show you some very interesting videos of badgers visiting buildings where the farmers were completely unaware that they were being visited by badgers. There is a need for educating the farming community better and there is certainly a need for research that is focused on identifying and quantifying the risks. I am not saying it is as simple as shutting a door, but really we have to reach out to the farming community and say, look, you do have a responsibility to try and tackle this disease yourself. Although I know colleagues in the NFU have said they find these things impractical and expensive, there are some simple measures that they could take which would reduce risks. Professor Godfray: It is not my brief to defend Defra, but I do have huge sympathy for the difficulties that they have and I think it is very important to realise that there is never going to be any one time where we have the perfect scientific information by which we can develop policy. All the way along it is going to be a trade-off between the quality of the information that you have at any one time - much better now thanks to John Bourne and his group - and the amount of money it is costing the country. Every single time it is going to be for Defra to make decisions based on imperfect knowledge. If I could just briefly support what Dr Cheeseman has said, as someone coming much more as an outsider into this field, the absolute importance of biosecurity on farms and incentivising farmers such that they take this very seriously will do a huge amount to help with this problem. Q45 Mr Drew: I am going to ask you a scientific question, but you may see it as a political question, and it is not in any way trying to catch you out but you talked about cost-effectiveness, practicability and sustainability; I want to look at the middle of those, practicability. At what level of non-compliance would you as a scientist begin to think that any level of badger culling becomes counter-productive? You have talked about localised culling being something that you have got evidence now that it could lead to increased bovine TB. If you have these huge areas and you have significant non-compliance, non-agreement by either farmers or wildlife trusts or A N Other who are landowners in those areas, at what level would you as a scientist feel very unhappy with pursuing a culling strategy? Professor Donnelly: One of the immediate things is that one of the additional analyses that we did in the analysis of the randomised badger culling trial was looking to see if the impact of proactive culling differed in areas based on the consent level that was achieved. Over the consent levels that we observed we did not find a significant interaction, so we found no evidence of a systematic variation on the basis of the consent level that was achieved. There are two things to consider with that: one is that obviously the trial was not designed to be powered up to find the interaction, so there could be an interaction and we just have not detected it; the other thing is I think it is probably very likely that the impact of non-compliance would not just be a simple function of what proportion of the land was non-compliant but how it was distributed, so if there is a big patch of non-compliant land that is probably very different than if there were lots of little patches, but I certainly do not think that from the trial itself we could say what the threshold was. Professor Bourne: No, that is right, we could only comment on what we found in trial areas and, taking the trial overall, we had something like 89 per cent co-operation from farmers, 11 per cent did not wish to co-operate at all. Of the 89 per cent 71 per cent, or something like that, opted for survey and cull and of the other 18 per cent the majority agreed to survey only and no cull, in other words they had nothing to hide by us going onto their farms - one suspected they just did not want their badgers culled. If one looks forward to an application of this as a policy, it is very likely that those percentage figures will not change very much or, if they do, I would suspect there would be less farmer co-operation because if farmers do not have TB - and the majority of farmers do not - there would be concerns if badgers were taken out that it would disturb their badgers which they regard as disease-free and lead to them having TB breakdowns. Inevitably, therefore, if one pursues a policy of culling there is going to be quite an element of non-co-operation, similar to or perhaps a little bit greater than we experienced in the trial, but you must accept that although we had this non-co-operation in the trial, we were still able to reduce the incidence of the disease in cattle by 20 per cent with the culling methods that we operate. Q46 Mrs Moon: There is an issue over the method of culling, and I know that there are suggestions of, I believe, four alternatives. What is the scientific consensus on the most appropriate and most effective method of culling and where does that lie in terms of complying with circumvention of European standards in terms of animal welfare? Dr Cheeseman: There are five methods - there is trapping, snaring, gassing, poisoning and shooting. If we take shooting first, shooting is generally regarded as the method where you use a high-powered lamp at night and shoot badgers in the open. The restrictions on that are obvious: you have to have badgers in the open and you cannot shoot them in the woodland. It is also quite dangerous and I am sure you will be aware of some of the tragic fatal accidents that have occurred recently. The other type of shooting would be shooting on setts and shooting on setts suggests that the first shot would be the last on most nights because they would just retreat below ground and not come out again, so I think shooting would be rather inefficient. Taking poisoning - incidentally, chairman, I have actually over the course of my career legitimately used all of these methods so I do speak from some experience - we have poisoned badgers inadvertently when we were targeting foxes in a rabies controlled trial. They are very easy animals to target with poison, as was evidenced by the fact that we poisoned a lot of badgers when we were targeting foxes. The risks of poisoning are that you have no control over non-target species taking the poison, and there is also a safety issue to the operators. Gassing - we abandoned hydrogen cyanide gassing in 1982 when it was found to be inhumane in action, and there was also a problem of reaching the farthest extremes of a badger's set and achieving lethal concentrations of gas, so badgers were surviving in the blind ends and loops in the complex structure of a badger's set. There is also the issue of the porosity of soils that badgers commonly dig their setts in, you also have an issue of safety and, again, a risk to non-targets. With snaring, snares carry a very significant risk in terms of the welfare of any captured animal: the longer an animal is in a snare, the more likely it is to sustain injury. When we operated snares the frequency of the inspections were not more than three hours, but I do not think that is a very practical option for a control method. There is also a significant risk to non-target species: no matter how hard you try you will end up sooner or later probably catching somebody's dog or a deer or even a steer, as was the case in my experience. There is a need for a closed season to avoid catching and removing lactating females and leaving the cubs to starve. With trapping, you are probably aware that some badgers are trap-shy and at best you are going to catch 80 or 90 per cent of badgers. The efficacy varies hugely with the weather and the season. Traps are bulky, they are easily targeted by animal rights activists and, again, you have to have a closed season. None of these methods is perfect, therefore, and all of them require a very high degree of skill in their operation. Q47 Mrs Moon: Can I be clear, my understanding is that poisoning is not an option that the Government is considering. Dr Cheeseman: It was not put in the consultation document. Q48 Mrs Moon: You say that all of these need a high level of skill; given the potential volume that we are talking about here, do we have those large numbers of people with these specific skills? Dr Cheeseman: Defra's wildlife unit had an enormous body of expertise in trapping and the associated skills of surveying - you have to find the setts first - but that is where it really ends. A few of those people did have some experience of snaring that goes back at least a decade, but there are not very many of them left so the answer to your question is really no, Q49 Mrs Moon: Thank you. What about the culling approach contravening the Bern Convention and the European Convention on Wildlife and Natural Habitats, what are we talking about here? Dr Cheeseman: We have been taken to task under the Bern Convention before. I had to go to Strasbourg and argue the case and it rested upon the issue of local extinction. If any strategy achieved the extermination of a species, even locally, it was a concern, and we managed to persuade the secretariat that this was not going to be achieved in the randomised culling trial. I think if it was the objective of any policy we would have to explain to the secretariat why we were seeking to achieve that because there is provision in the Convention for action to be taken where there is a serious problem and obviously disease is a serious problem. I dare say we would be back before the Bern Convention if a culling policy were introduced that would achieve the local extinction of badger populations. Q50 Mrs Moon: From what has been said earlier it is 100 per cent that is the target, albeit the fact that you will acknowledge that there is no chance that you would achieve that, so it is failure rather than a lack of policy. The policy would be 100 per cent, but your actual success rate could never be achieved at 100 per cent. Dr Cheeseman: I agree it is an issue and it would be something that would have to be resolved. Professor Godfray: The policy would not be 100 per cent, it would be to reduce badgers below a level at which bovine TB was not sustainable in that or in other wildlife reservoirs. It could be very low and it could risk extinction, but the policy would not actually be 100 per cent. Professor Woodroffe: I would just like to come back on Professor Godfray's point. I absolutely acknowledge that the aim would be to reduce badger densities to such a level that TB completely disappeared from the badger population, and I would just like to comment that however low we have managed to get badger populations, we have never seen the infection disappear and, indeed, there has not been any relationship found between the population density of badgers and the prevalence of infection with TB. Chairman: Fine. A quick question for David Drew. Q51 Mr Drew: I am intrigued, John Bourne, to what extent Defra - either through the Minister directly or through his officials - sought your advice on culling strategies? If they have not sought your advice, on what basis are they able to carry through these strategies because they have not been used on a large scale - you could argue ever - certainly for some considerable time? Professor Bourne: Neither I nor any other member of the ISG have had regular meetings with the minister, in fact they have been very infrequent, but of course the Minister does have senior civil servant colleagues attending all of our ISG meetings which we hold on a monthly basis, so contact and I assume feedback through that mechanism would be fairly complete. With respect to the consultation paper - we were not asked to comment on the consultation paper, but we were involved in some of the discussions that were organised on a national basis with stakeholders some 12 months ago on developing the consultation document, but our input was no different to the input of other stakeholders. We only had the opportunity, as I said earlier, of commenting on the scientific component of the paper, the three or four pages or whatever it was, a few days before the publication of the consultation paper. I first saw a draft of the consultation document on the evening of December 14 - it was published, if you recall, on December 15 - and my colleagues did not see it until it was on the website, so we played no part in drawing up that paper and, as I have indicated, we were concerned about the scientific interpretation. I immediately informed Defra - and I do mean immediately - that we would need to write to ministers and I also informed Defra that that would be in the form of an open letter. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. That, as always, has been fascinating, challenging, interesting and you have given us in a relatively short space of time a great deal of food for thought, and I am sure better informed our thinking about the nature of the questions which Defra have posed as far as this consultation exercise is concerned, so can I not only thank you for coming once again and giving of your expertise and your time, but also for your written evidence and the copies of various presentations which I did my best to understand. I got the general message, but this pupil could do better. Thank you very much indeed for coming. Memoranda submitted by National Farmers' Union and the Badger Trust Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Tim Bennett, President, National Farmers' Union, Mr Meurig Raymond, Vice President, National Farmers' Union, Mr David Williams, Chairman, Badger Trust and Mr Trevor Lawson, Media Adviser, Badger Trust, gave evidence. Q52 Chairman: We are ever so slightly behind schedule, but nonetheless may I welcome our next set of witnesses to come before us, and I would like to welcome on behalf of the National Farmers' Union Tim Bennett their President and Meurig Raymond their Vice President, and on behalf of the Badger Trust Mr David Williams their Chairman and Mr Trevor Lawson their Media Adviser. I do appreciate that you may not entirely share the same agenda, and I am grateful to you for agreeing to sit on the same table. Obviously, we would like to try and ensure that we get as balanced a point of view from both of you, and again I would say to you that if you want to intervene if a question is not directly addressed to you, please indicate and I will do my best to bring you in. Can I just again say for the record, in case you were not in at the beginning, we are focusing on the questions that have been asked in this consultation process, we are not trying to have a universal inquiry into this complex matter in the shape of one evidence session in one afternoon, that would be an insult to the complexity of the subject, but we are looking specifically at the nature of the consultation exercise. I just want to start, if I may perhaps, to both sets of witnesses with a point that came out of Professor Bourne's concluding observations when he said that the Independent Scientific Group had not been consulted by Defra about the nature of the consultation exercise; the first time that he saw it was the day before it came out. Could I ask whether the Badger Trust had any approaches about the questions that should be asked? Mr Williams: No, we were invited to see Mr Bradshaw on December 14, he just outlined it verbally, so we had no indication. Q53 Chairman: What about the National Farmers' Union? Mr Bennett: It would be the same. We obviously had discussions with Mr Bradshaw, but in terms of framing the consultation document the first time we saw it was when it appeared. Q54 Chairman: Mr Lawson? Mr Lawson: Thank you, Chairman. I might add that the Badger Trust under Freedom of Information has asked Defra how often the Minister has met not only the ISG but also the farming lobby groups as well, and Defra has simply told us "frequent occasions" and failed to give a detailed answer to the question that we asked. Q55 Chairman: It is like some of the Parliamentary answers that we get; you just have to go back and ask the question all over again. I would be interested to hear from both of you as to what you think, because I asked the question about the weighting effect. The questions which the Minister has put forward are given equal weight in the consultation document, but in terms of the ones that are absolutely crucial, which are the ones from your respective standpoints that you would, if you like, put at the top of the list? Mr Bennett: The important emphasis is that this is a disease that, frankly, we have not been tackling. When I was a student just over 30 years ago we had virtually eradicated this disease, and so the way we have approached this with the Minister and others over the last 18 months is to try and find a strategy to once and for all reduce and hopefully move towards eradication of this disease. To be quite blunt, because of the absence of science moving on we feel science has let us down very badly on this disease, and the fact that I am still using the same diagnostic test on my cattle as when I started farming and the fact that I was told we were going to have a vaccine ten years ago, 25 years ago, and it is still ten years away, means that the science has failed us in this respect, so what we have got to do is work with the tools we have got. We have to look at whatever we can for cattle to cattle and indeed in the badger to try and reduce this disease; others have managed to do it and we stand out as a country that has failed to do that. We have approached this in a very open way about making sure that we would accept from the cattle perspective that we have to do more, providing that we do tackle the wildlife reservoir as well. That has been the principle of our approach all the way through. Q56 Chairman: Have you got your own independent (if that is the right way of phrasing it) scientific back-up that informs the policy position which the Union has taken on this matter? Mr Bennett: We look at the science from around the world as well as the science in this country. Q57 Chairman: Are the people who look to advise you as President scientifically qualified, because we hear, for example, about the question of the science that lay behind some of the assumptions that underpin the Defra questions on culling, and I was interested to know whether you thought that the science had been properly used in that context in informing the questions that were in the document. Have you got your own scientific advisers who are underpinning the opinions you are giving us? Mr Bennett: We have obviously got a scientist who works for us, but we have also underpinned it by what has happened in other parts of the world in terms of trials - and indeed some of the trials that have gone on in the past in this country. We have used the evidence that everyone else has got, Chairman. Mr Raymond: Can I just follow that up. Obviously we have expertise in-house, but we also studied the Four Areas Irish trial results, we have looked at what has happened in New Zealand and we have also looked at what has happened across the rest of Europe. We in the United Kingdom do stand out, and we used all this evidence when we collated our document last summer which we passed on to the Minister. Q58 Chairman: One last question on this, for example, in the context of the Irish trials Defra say that you cannot make a direct comparison because there are essential differences. Do you agree with the science that underpins that analysis? Mr Bennett: You can make comparisons with the Irish trial. There are some differences; that will be to do with badger density, because their badger population density is less, but they have results, for example, in using snares, which is something we have not been used to, but again it adds to the science in terms of the method of culling. So, yes, we have used that and Meurig has actually spent some time in Ireland talking to the people involved in it and making sure that we are well-informed, because that is a country that has actually reduced its bovine TB incidence and we want to learn from those who have managed to decrease as opposed to increase, which is where we are at the moment. Q59 Chairman: I would like to put a question to the Badger Trust on the same line of analysis; do you feel that the questions that are posed in the consultation document give sufficient opportunity to probe the stance that you have taken, which I think is against the use of culling? Mr Lawson: Thank you, Chairman, the short answer to that question is no, they do not, as I am sure you expect us to say, but to be more specific about it, what we have done in our submission to you is we have put this consultation in the context of the recommendations of the foot and mouth inquiry, and what we are arguing is that the questions do not match up to the standard set by that inquiry in terms of what is being asked and what constructive approach the Government has taken to dealing with this problem, such as, for example, being more creative in its thinking in terms of how it addresses the issue. In terms of the specific questions, in terms of the weighting, which was the question you asked originally, we would obviously give greater weight to the first question, the principle, which is should badger culling be part of an approach to control bovine TB in hotspot areas? The reason we give weight to that is because we think the answer to that is no, for the very simple reason that the science shows that either it will make the situation worse, or it would have to be done on such a scale that it is impractical. Following on from that we have a further problem, and that is the questions that are not asked; that is where we have the real problem. 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 for 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 per cent. 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 cent 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 understand 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 per cent 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 Willsmore 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 Willsmore 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 per cent, but increase at 30 per cent 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 if we have a good public image we 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 intro 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 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 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 out 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. Q80 Mr Drew: Can I ask the Badger Trust, what is your worst option in terms of all these measures and what is the least worst? Mr Lawson: I am afraid our honest answer to that is that we do not think any of the measures are acceptable from a welfare point of view because each of them has its own particular horrible consequence. I am afraid I could not disagree more strongly with Tim Bennett on this, when he talks about gassing being an easy, straightforward option, in the Thornbury Trial which was carried out in the 1970s it took seven years to gas the badgers across 100 square kilometres, seven years of repeat gassing. Once you extend that to the vast areas currently covered by TB you are on a hiding to nothing, but not only that, badgers are not just on farms they are in private woodlands, they are in private gardens, they are in steep wooded river valleys that you cannot get easy access to, so the practicalities of gassing are pretty limited. There is also a really challenging welfare issue with gassing which Dr Cheeseman has already referred to, which is that you cannot get the gas right into the setts. One of the consequences of that is that you end up with some badgers getting hypoxia, they get a lack of oxygen to the brain and they suffer brain damage. I am sorry to be cynical about this, but we think that the reason why the farming industry favours gassing is because there is a view that what cannot be seen will not hurt. In other words, if all these badgers are dying underground there will not be an objection to that. I remember when I was a kid seeing on Nationwide, the news programme, people being dragged away from protests about gassing when it was being carried out by the State and I cannot see any reason why that would not happen again. We certainly would not be advocating any illegal practice on the part of the people who oppose gassing, but I cannot see that that would be avoided. Q81 Chairman: We can draw a conclusion from the two sets of comments that there does need to be a question in here about various security aspects, and it is a missing dimension to this particular inquiry. Thank you both very much indeed. You have given us your own special perspectives and we are very grateful to you. The Committee will reflect very carefully on the evidence we have received and it may be that we will want to say something more about our conclusions on this, but we need a little time for further thought. Thank you very much indeed for your written evidence and for your contributions this afternoon, we much appreciate it. Mr Bennett: Thank you, Chairman. If there is any more evidence that you would wish to ask us, please ask and we will supply it. Chairman: Thank you very much. |