Andrew George

My hon. Friend is of course correct. The testing regime has been hotly debated—indeed, not just debated; successive Government Ministers and scientists have promised progress on the testing regime for many years. In 1997, the agriculture Select Committee looked at this issue and the benefits of shifting from the tuberculin skin test to the gamma interferon test. The gamma interferon is often used and is a much more sensitive test. It produces many more false positives, which perhaps one might argue is a good thing, and fewer false negatives, so perhaps, if one wants to have a baseline of clean cattle, one might use it, but it adds to the complexity. None of this is perfect, of course, but perhaps the Minister might address the issue of the testing regimes that the Government are prepared to consider using to get on top of the disease. I have a range of questions that I would like to ask the Minister. The first is about the tuberculin test and the gamma interferon test. I remember that back in 1997 there was a lot of talk about the diagnostic instrument for vaccinated animals test, or DIVA test, which has been referred to already, to differentiate between infected and vaccinated cattle. Clearly, that would be a golden bullet and enormously helpful to the industry, because until we get across that line, no cattle vaccine, no matter how effective it is, can be used, because farmers would not be able to sell cattle into the marketplace if they were not able to undertake that differentiation test. In 1997 we were told that an effective DIVA test was up to 10 years away. Every time we look at it, it is always 10 years away; the date simply rolls forward. We have been dealing with this issue for many years, so I would like to know this from the Minister: are we any closer to securing a DIVA test? Secondly, if we are going to base policy on vaccination, are there enough vaccinators and do we have a mechanism through which we can create more? My understanding is that at present we have nothing like enough people who have the licence to undertake vaccination. When we were rolling out the community-led vaccination trial in my own constituency all those years ago, we knew that we were fortunate to have a number of people available to us then, but we also knew at the time that if any of them were to fall ill, we would struggle to continue the work. Clearly, there needs to be significant investment in training, and it is not something that can simply be created overnight. Maybe we could bring in a lot of vets, but that is an expensive way of doing it. Perhaps the Minister would like to advise us on that. Gatcombe farm, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) has been referred to on many occasions already, so I will not go into it, but have the Government taken a view of the Gatcombe trials? If so, what has been identified? Can the Minister tell us whether we are on the cusp of the end of the culling? My understanding is that no new licences are likely to be granted. On the basis of the licences that have been granted, is it reasonable therefore to say that this winter will be the last when there is any culling at all? When the Government announced their policy last year, there was a lot of concern that there would be culling until the end of this Parliament, but it looks to me—I may be wrong—as if culling is going to end. If so, the vaccine, cattle security measures and biosecurity measures need to be brought forward as quickly as possible. What lessons have the Government learned from the Welsh Assembly policy so far? Wales has been ahead of England and Cornwall for some time in rolling out vaccines. Have any lessons been learned through conversations with other Government Departments? Similarly, southern Ireland was undertaking a widespread cull policy, which it stopped. What lessons have been learned there? I do not know, and I wonder whether the Government are fully aware.