Contribution
I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The Birch et al. study of 2024 looks at that issue in depth. Indeed, if we look at some of those scientific studies criticising the badger cull, the Government’s DEFRA chief scientific adviser and the chief veterinary officer queried the statistical methodology of those. We can have a long debate about the methodology of those papers, but Godfray himself, and the expert panel reconvened by the new Government, looked at a lot of the evidence, which shows that there is still a role in some way for badger control. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I will carry on.
The previous Government were clear that they did not want or intend to continue badger control indefinitely. No one wants to keep going with it forever. However, until all the tools in the toolbox—we have heard today about many of those tools, and they are not all there yet—are fully developed and up to speed, His Majesty’s Opposition believe that, sadly, badger control needs to be kept in that toolbox. I know that will disappoint many stakeholders watching this debate and many people in the Public Gallery, but we must try to be dispassionate and follow the science. One of the key take-homes from the Godfray review was that the polarisation of the role of the wildlife reservoir and the badger in this debate, and the fact that it has split people into one view or the other, has made it very difficult for everyone to analyse the exact risk and the best control mechanism.
The British Veterinary Association states that when badger culling is deployed, it
“should be deployed in a targeted, effective and humane manner only where cull design is based on the best available evidence and mitigates against the ‘perturbation effect’”,
which we have heard a little about today.
The National Farmers Union states that to tackle the disease effectively and combat transmission through all routes we must retain access to all tools, and their implementation must be driven by science and evidence.
More widely, on rural issues, this Labour Government have already shown us that sometimes they do not follow the evidence or data in policy decisions for farming and rural communities. Just look at their retrograde approach to taxation on farms, ignoring the devastation that the family farm tax will have on the very livelihood and survival of rural businesses, and choosing to add to the pressures on farmers’ pockets and wellbeing, rather than providing them with the support they need. I too urge the Government to reverse the policy as a matter of urgency—something we have heard from across the House—to give clarity to farmers and to abolish the family farm tax.
I hope the Government do not make another error by losing the progress made since 2014 in the control of bovine TB. If we take a quick decision without looking at all the science and the evidence, we might take backwards steps that will have significant impacts on our rural communities. At present, we need all the tools to remain in the bovine TB control toolbox: biosecurity measures, better diagnostic testing, cattle vaccination, badger vaccination, roll-out of the DIVA test and targeted control of the wildlife reservoir.
To conclude, I reiterate that His Majesty’s official Opposition believe that targeted, humane and evidence-based badger control should remain a measure—not forever, but so long as the evidence says that it needs to stay in place. It is an available part of the toolbox, alongside others, to control the spread of the devastating disease that is bovine TB. The previous Government set out their ambition to eradicate the disease by 2038, and it is important to highlight that the current Government have not changed that target year. We should follow the science, the evidence and the data, for the sake of our cattle sector, our rural communities and, indeed, rural mental health.