Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 20 JUNE 2007
DR RICHARD
YARNELL, MR
TREVOR LAWSON,
MR COLIN
BOOTY AND
MS CLAIRE
ROBINSON
Q140 David Taylor: Political parties
have spin doctors and pressure groups have media advisers. In
your battery of responsibilities there will no doubt be one involving
the drafting, approval and distribution of press releases. Would
that be true?
Mr Lawson: Yes, that is right.
Q141 David Taylor: I do not know
if you recall one less than three weeks ago which seemed to reveal
that you do not think much of the State Veterinary Service. Would
that be true?
Mr Lawson: I will qualify that.
We looked at the State Veterinary Service because we noticed in
recent weeks very public statements by officers of the State Veterinary
Service claiming that they knew what the problem was, in others
words badgers, that they knew how to deal with it and that they
were frustrated at being unable to deal with that. We have noted
that this has been a trend for some time, as our report makes
clear, but we looked in detail at what the SVS was saying and
whether or not the claims that state vets were making were supported
by the facts at their disposal, and we found that they were not.
I would clarify our position by saying that we do not have a problem
with the SVS, or Animal Health as it stands per se, because
it has long been an under-resourced organisation which has suffered
problems as a result, but we do feel that at that level they were
insufficiently qualified to make the claims that they were making.
Q142 David Taylor: It was not just
`for some time', though, was it, your remarks were a bit more
long term? You are too young to be familiar with the Queen in
Lewis Carroll: verdict first, trial later. That is what you are
really saying about the State Veterinary Service, are you not?
You said that many of them have devoted their careers to, and
stake their reputations on, blaming badgers. They were your words,
were they not?
Mr Lawson: That is the case.
Q143 David Taylor: So, it is more
than just in recent times. You believe that they have been of
that opinion for a very long time?
Mr Lawson: Yes, and I might add
that the predecessor of this Committee was critical of the State
Veterinary Service for its failure to use a scientific approach
in analysing the problem.
Q144 David Taylor: There are not
too many common people on both Committees, I do not think, but
you went on in that press release to paint a fairly bleak picture
of the Minister. You said that he would be in a science vacuum
at the mercy of state vets, as if he is some poor, simple sap
baffled by scientists with a hidden agenda. That seems to be the
underlying theme of that press release, does it not?
Mr Lawson: We were concerned about
the lack of scientific rigour as applied within the State Veterinary
Service. I might add that we are not the only ones to have expressed
concern about that. The Science Advisory Council at Defra has
also expressed concern about that.
Q145 David Taylor: I will come on
to that in a minute. Okay, in seven days time, or whenever it
is, the ISG will be no more. That is the scenario you were looking
forward to, was it not? You were suggesting that there would be
particular difficulties for the animal welfare minister at that
point. Could you go into a little bit more detail as to what difficulties
you anticipate?
Mr Lawson: Sure. We have been
aware for some time within the State Veterinary Service at a senior
level of the Minister being advised that the veterinary advice
is to deal with the root cause of the problem by removing it.
That was the major justification for badger culling. That position
has not changed. The state vets at a senior level are still arguing
that, both on a regional basis and on a national basis.
Q146 David Taylor: So you think that,
after the ISG have gone over the horizon, the state vets will
be arm-twisting the Minister back to their point of view. Is that
what you are suggesting?
Mr Lawson: The Science Advisory
Council, because, do not forget, we take this whole picture into
account—
Q147 David Taylor: What is your own
view? We will come to the Defra Science Advisory Council in a
moment. What specifically do you feel or in what ways will the
Minister be vulnerable to this type of deal in smoke-filled rooms,
as it were?
Mr Lawson: For example, proposals
which would suggest that a different kind of culling regime might
yield results, not identified by the ISG. I have to say that since
we wrote that report, we did not know at that stage that the ISG
was going to be so thorough in addressing the full range of culling
options. One of the things that we were involved in, in 2005,
was the citizen's panels which Defra ran, where I sat alongside
Meurig Raymond from the NFU and two representatives from the State
Veterinary Service, and one of the things that was of interest
there was that the state vets were making it very clear to the
members of the public there that, for example, the badger culling
in the trial was inefficient, only 20 to 60% of badgers culled.
That was what the state vets were telling members of the public
at that event. That has since been shown to be factually inaccurate,
but that was a very serious cause for concern to us.
Q148 David Taylor: Now that the ISG
report is out, you are still not reassured that the bleak picture
that you have predicted is less likely to take place, are you?
Mr Lawson: Because the scientific
advice has analysed all those possible culling scenarios.
Q149 David Taylor: So it is not as
bad as you predicted 20 days ago?
Mr Lawson: That is right.
Q150 David Taylor: To come back to
the point you were trying to make when I interrupted you (and
I am sorry about that) the Defra Science Advisory Council has
agreed with you to an extent by saying that the Government should
have established a bovine TB science advisory body rather earlier.
That is not going to be available until 2008. Do you think that
Professor Bourne and his team should be put on life-support until
2008, until that body exists? You did not want the ISG to be closed
down at the moment. You have said that you wanted a bovine TB
science advisory body to be set up. Would that be a way of bridging
the concerns you have got?
Mr Lawson: There are two issues
there. First of all, we think that the Government needs to have
continued broad spectrum scientific advice and how the Government
goes about that is its decision. Whether the ISG would want to
continue doing so is hard to say, but it is not exactly either
what the Science Advisory Council has requested. The SAC has requested
a more broad-brush approach that focuses on the bacterium itself.
That was not the ISG's role. The ISG's role was far more specific
than that with relation to badgers and bovine TB.
Q151 David Taylor: In your view,
but not theirs, would the continuation of the life of the ISG
be desirable in the absence of the science advisory body that
you refer to?
Mr Lawson: I would think so, in
the absence of that, but I do not see why it should take until
2008 to formulate a science advisory body. This has been on the
cards for over a year already. There is no obvious reason for
it to be taking that length of time, other than a lack of interest
in Defra for establishing it.
Q152 David Taylor: Mr Booty, you
look as if you want to say something.
Mr Booty: Yes, if I may, I was
going to pick up on that point, because the way your questioning
was going, I was wondering whether we needed to accept the presumption
that this new strand of independent scientific advice need not
come on stream until 2008. There have been a number of years'
discussions between the Science Advisory Council and Defra, so
the question might need to be asked, why do these need to be prolonged
for another six months? At yesterday's ISG open meeting, in the
margins to that, I was speaking to Professor Gaskell, who is the
Chairman of the TB Sub Group of the SAC, about what they saw as
important, and they do see it as important, as it being a single
strand of independent science advice on the TB issue going into
Defra; and I questioned him in relation to Peter Jinman's TB Advisory
Group and he said he has had discussions with him and he sees
it being quite distinct. The TB Advisory Group, which is already
in existence, is considered to have much more liaison with stakeholders
and a policy implementation role, not as a strand of independent
scientific advice, and it is how Defra gets hold of that. They
were airing these issues in one of the many consultation documents
that have come out of Defra in recent years. So, I think we go
back to the point: what is magic about 2008?
Q153 David Taylor: You still remain
concerned that the pro-cullers will identify some amenable independent
advisers who will then whisper in the Minister's ear in the absence
of an equivalent to the ISG?
Mr Lawson: I would say that is
a very genuine concern based on our interactions with that part
of Defra up until now.
Q154 Sir Peter Soulsby: I was interested
in what you said about the Irish experience and the decline in
the number of reactors from 1998 through to 2006. The Irish Minister
of Agriculture and Food takes a very different view as to the
reasoning behind that drop. Why is she wrong?
Mr Lawson: Briefly, there are
two parts to the Irish question. That is probably not the best
way of describing it, but you know what I mean. There is the Four
Areas Study, which was a scientific experiment which, if you look
at the ISG's report in detail, raises some questions about the
conclusions of that in terms of how the research here suggests
that the results might have been exaggerated. Alongside that is
the wider question of TB control policy in Ireland and how it
has changed over the years. In Veterinary Microbiology
there was an interesting paper, published in the wake of the International
TB Conference held in Ireland by Professor Simon More and Margaret
Good from Ireland, where they looked in detail at the history
of TB policy in Ireland. What that showed was a range of different
measures. It showed that they had been culling badgers for 20
years at various levels and the ISG's research here, compared
to the Four Areas Study, showed that when the science started
they had very low levels of badgers in terms of population density
compared to Britain. But what it also showed that when, as I said
earlier, they abandoned pre-movement testing in 1996, TB went
right up. It then gets a little bit more sketchy towards the latter
end of the timeline as it is shown (and it is harder to tell,
and we have not been able to find any figures on this as yet,
only a general statement from the Minister) to what extent additional
measures, including gamma interferon, tighter controls on farms
under TB restriction, restrictions on animal movement, various
restrictions in terms of across the border, and so on, have had
an effect; but I can recall an interview with Margaret Good from
the department in 2003 on Radio Four saying that they had had
very significant benefits as a result of using gamma interferon,
and that is the problem. The NFU has referred to the Irish success,
but that does encompass (when they talk about those figures) that
period when the Irish were doing a great deal of cattle-based
TB measures. In addition, a report from the University of Reading
for Defra published in 2005 made it clear that in Northern Ireland
they had a major reduction in bovine TB of 40% in one calendar
year by focusing on cattle-based measures, particularly with the
roll-out of gamma interferon and clamping down on farms under
TB restriction.
Q155 Sir Peter Soulsby: Looking at
the Minister's own views on this, she said, not just that there
were a number of factors, but that her department was satisfied
that the badger removal policy made a significant contribution
to the improvement of the situation. You are saying that she is
totally mistaken, are you?
Mr Lawson: Well, we are of the
view that the view expressed by the Minister is influenced as
much by the politics of the situation as the science, and one
of the reasons for that is that—. Let me give you an example.
In Ireland the view now is that badgers roam very widely, in areas
in excess of 15 kilometres, on a regular basis. It is a bit like
what happens when you have the perturbation effect here. As you
reduce badger population density, the animals roam more widely.
So you have got a wide-roaming badger population, which, according
to the Irish Government, is responsible, in very large part, to
the problem of TB in Ireland. They are the majority factor, it
appears. Yet, when you look at bovine TB in cattle by strain type,
it is very tightly clustered. Those two facts do not add up, do
they? If you have got badgers roaming widely and, supposedly,
spreading the disease over very long distances, why is TB very
tightly clustered in cattle herds? Another problem we found with
the Irish data is that during the 1990s the average level of bovine
TB identified in badgers was 12.8%. In the Minister's statement
I think you will find it has gone up to 40% now. In other documents
we have seen it is described as in the order of 20%—in statements
by the Minister—so there is that significant variation in
the definition of what proportion of badgers are infected with
TB, so there is another problem there. Finally, picking up on
that issue, the assumption that because there is X percentage
of TB in the badger population that indicates that they are the
agents, in other words more TB in the population means that they
are spreading it at a greater rate, is not necessarily the case,
because in epidemiological modelling being susceptible to TB is
not the same is being infectious with it. Certainly what we do
not see in Ireland are clear statements about the infectivity
level of badgers in Ireland. There are lots of figures about the
supposed level of infection within badgers, but not the extent
to which they are supposedly infectious.
Sir Peter Soulsby: Thank you, Chairman.
I think I will leave it there, because no doubt the NFU have been
listening to that—
Chairman: I can see they have.
Q156 Sir Peter Soulsby: —and
I will be interested to hear their perspective on that later on.
Chairman: Sitting where I am, I can see
the body language of the audience, so I can see we are in for
an interesting session. I would like to move on, Roger, please.
Q157 Mr Williams: Thank you, Chairman.
Could I just ask the RSPCA about your assessment of TB in badgers,
in terms of the percentage of the population that have it, but
also in terms of the effect that it has on badgers themselves
in terms of their general health and well-being?
Mr Booty: The percentage of the
badger population that will be infected with TB obviously varies
from area to area. I think the figures from within the badgers
that were removed in the culling trial varied between of the order
of about 4% up to about 40%, so there is obviously a range within
that. Within the Road Traffic Accident Study that was undertaken,
I think the average figure was that about 12% were infected. Of
the badger population that is infected, a relatively small percentage
will go on to develop acute clinical signs of the disease in which
they will be perhaps emaciated, have severe lesions et cetera.
In that handful of animals, perhaps, yes, there will be a degree
of suffering, if that is, I suspect, where you were endeavouring
to go to.
Q158 Mr Williams: But if you say
there is 12% or 15%, how many badgers is that? What is your estimate
of the badger population?
Mr Booty: That is one of the $64,000
questions in this equation.
Q159 Mr Williams: You say there will
be a handful of badgers that will suffer serious effects from
TB?
Mr Booty: Yes.
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