Maria Eagle MP, Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary, commenting on the Government’s refusal to allow further independent expert scrutiny of their badger cull, said:
“An Independent Expert Panel said that the Tories’ badger cull in Somerset and Gloucestershire was inhumane and ineffective in dealing with the problem of TB in cattle.
“Now ministers have confirmed that they will not allow further expert scrutiny of their disastrous policy when the cull resumes later this year.
“What do the Tories do if they don’t like the independent scientific advice they get? Stop asking for advice.
“Labour has said consistently that the culls are bad for farmers, bad for the taxpayer and bad for our wildlife. Working with wildlife groups, farmers and leading scientists, we need an alternative strategy that would focus on badger vaccination and enhanced cattle measures.”
Ends
Editor’s Notes
1 Maria Eagle today received the following answer to a Parliamentary Question on bovine tuberculosis
Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether he plans to ask the Independent Expert Panel which recently reported on the first year of the pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire to report on the second year of such culls. [195731]
George Eustice: I have no plans to ask the Independent Expert Panel to report on the second year of the pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
2. An Independent Expert Panel found that the two pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire failed on both the effectiveness, humaneness tests-(April 2014)
Humaneness- “It is extremely likely that between 7.4% and 22.8% of badgers that were shot at were still alive after 5 min, and therefore at risk of experiencing marked pain. We are concerned at the potential for suffering that these figures imply.”
Effectiveness- “Controlled shooting in conjunction with cage trapping, over the 6-week period of the pilot culls, failed to remove at least 70% of the pre-cull badger population from either pilot area. It is extremely likely that combined shooting and cage trapping removed less than 48.1% of the badgers in Somerset and less than 39.1% of the badgers in Gloucestershire.”
3. The Department’s own guidance to Natural England said that a minimum of 70 per cent of badgers in the estimated badger population must be removed- (2011)
‘in the first year of culling, a minimum number of badgers must be removed during an intensive cull which must be carried out throughout the land to which there is access, over a period of not more than six consecutive weeks. This minimum number should be set at a level that in Natural England’s judgement should reduce the estimated badger population of the application area by at least 70%’
4. On 13th March 2014 the House voted overwhelmingly 220- 1 in favour of a Backbench Business Committee motion which believed that Government’s badger culls had failed, urged the Government to halt the exiting culls and instead develop alternative strategies to eradicate Bovine TB.
‘That this House believes that the pilot badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset have decisively failed against the criteria set out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in guidance to Natural England for licensing of the culls, which stipulated that 70 per cent of the badger population should be culled within a six-week period; notes that the costs of policing, additional implementation and monitoring, and the resort to more expensive cage-and-trap methods over an extended period have substantially increased the cost of the culls, and strengthened the financial case for vaccination; regrets that the decision to extend the original culls has not been subject to any debate or vote in Parliament; further regrets that the Independent Expert Panel will only assess the humaneness, safety and effectiveness of the original six-week period and not the extended cull period; and urges the Government to halt the existing culls and granting of any further licences, pending development of alternative strategies to eradicate bovine TB and promote a healthy badger population.’
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140313/debtext/140313-0004.htm