Rachael Maskell

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the 102,000-plus petitioners on signing the petition, including the 185 from my constituency, and I join them in opposing the badger cull. I am so glad that it is this Labour Government that are looking at the evidence and the science in order to support farmers, the whole community and of course badgers, with better biosecurity, testing and, if necessary, vaccination. I have been debating the badger cull since I was the shadow Environment Secretary. At the time, I pored over the science and came to the clear conclusion that the badger cull was not the way forward. We needed to cull the cull and ultimately to put in place the right measures. I am so glad that, since that point, when just Gloucestershire and Somerset were involved in the culling experiment, further science has been developed. Today we know that about 250,000 badgers have been killed, which is around half the population of badgers. In some areas, that amounts to about 70% of the population. Badgers are now becoming an endangered species in our country. They are crudely killed, and many, of course, are not carrying the TB virus at all. Indeed, this places an increased risk on farmers and their cattle. As we have heard, 94% of transmission of bovine TB is from cow to cow, but the poor badger is being scapegoated. Bovine TB is present across our environment, and we have heard many examples of that already. It is recognised that farmers and Government want to stop the spread of this disease, and we need to do that by following the right methodology. To facilitate that, we must take the money being spent on the cull and ensure that it goes to farmers. Indeed, there also needs to be additional support to ensure that we get on top of this disease. Bovine TB follows the same pattern as human TB and other communicable diseases. We need testing, isolation of the disease and, where necessary, vaccination. We need only think about covid to know that the same methodologies that were recommended to us need to be applied to TB in cattle. Controlling the movement of cattle and putting in place more rigorous testing—the right testing—can make such a difference to livestock, stopping cross-infection between herds. This is all about good public health, which we are so familiar with. We practise that worldwide, so why be different with this community? It is seriously letting farmers down. Scapegoating and slaughtering badgers does not aid farmers in managing the disease. The culling has been condemned as inhumane. Up to 22.8% of badgers shot while free-roaming were still alive after five minutes. That demonstrates significant levels of suffering, yet monitoring of culling is at an all-time low. The evidence should make the Government determine that the cull is the wrong measure. Professor Rosie Woodroffe’s research, which dates back to 2007, has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the badger cull, because of the way TB is transmitted. She has described it as the “largest manipulative ecological experiment ever conducted”. If anything, the risk of transmission from cattle to badger is far higher than the converse. Consistent DEFRA research shows that culling has no impact on bovine TB, yet culling continues. When I asked the then Secretary of State a question before the summer recess, I was told that Labour is now serious about looking at the science. I welcome that, but the cull has continued for two seasons under our watch, so it is really important that we bring it to an end. I, too, met the team from Gatcombe farm when they came to Parliament before the summer. I probed the farmer and the vet deeply for about an hour to understand the science and the methodology. I spent time hearing about the impact and about how a farm that had once been ridden with TB was now free of bovine TB. Surely that is the outcome that we want for all our farmers. We have to look at the testing regime. The traditional skin test will only show the presence of the disease when sufficiently loaded with reactor cells. By that point, the cow could have had advanced TB in its lungs for some time and could have managed to spread the disease to other cattle. A more advanced screening polymerase chain reaction test can identify the disease at a far earlier stage, so deploying that is a better approach. We all know that we can scale PCR testing, as we did over the covid pandemic. Research at Gatcombe, recognised elsewhere, showed that an accumulation of slurry led to a concentration of disease. Untreated and infested, the slurry is spread on to fields; it is then ingested by snails, slugs and other animals, and moves into the badger food chain. The risk of cattle-to-badger infection is incredibly strong, as PCR testing has proved. Further research has shown that intensification of farming increases the risk. Cattle wading through their own faeces, and that of other cattle, means a greater risk of cross-infection. It is far less likely where cattle graze in the open, as they eat the grass between the cowpats. We often think about TB purely as a respiratory disease, but we see lesions in other organs as well. It is now recognised that farming intensification and poor hygiene are the route of disease transmission; that is a basic thing that we learned through covid. Good biosecurity, testing and removal of cattle are the way to address this. Again, that is something that we practised during covid. The Gatcombe strategy works and should be adopted. The question is therefore not “What should be done?”, but “How will it be done, and how will the Government support it?” We need to use sensitive testing to identify the pathogens in faeces and blood, cut off the routes of infection, identify disease before cattle become infectious, ensure scrupulous hygiene and removal of faeces at pace and test new cattle before integrating with existing livestock with a more sensitive Actiphage test. The TB-infested farm has become a TB-free farm, all without killing a single badger, just by removing infected cattle. No badger vaccination was needed. In fact, it was proven at the time that the highest risk of infection comes from the most intensely farmed cattle, which are not free to graze. An infected cow produces about 500 times more faeces than a badger. Badger hygiene is also known to be far more fastidious, and badgers are likely to concentrate in one area. The risk of badger-to-cattle infection is minuscule. It is the other way around. Studies have shown that badgers do not approach cattle, so airborne infection via a badger breathing on a cow is so unlikely, if it is ever encountered.