MPs have attended a backbench debate on the government's acutely controversial badger culling policy today. The debate, called by St Albans MP Anne Main, who, though a Conservative, is opposed to culling, looked at the government's continued support for its bTB control policy.

Discussion in the House of Commons revolved for the most part around the leaked findings of the Independent Expert Panel. The Panel's report was said to have arrived on the environment secretary's desk by the shadow environment secretary Huw Irrance Davies, though it was not delivered early enough to inform the debate and it is not yet know when it will be published.

Leaked findings from the report, which surfaced a fortnight before its formal release, but still several weeks after the Panel's opinion was slated for publication, showed experts deemed that the culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire last year were inhumane and ineffective based on the government's own criteria.

Speaking ahead of the debate, which focused on a text tabled by Anne Main calling on the government to rethink its policy, given the evidence around culling, the St Albans MP said, "I am asking the Government to pause, reflect and adapt its policy for tackling Bovine TB. Should the motion receive the support of the House I hope the Government will look at other strategies to tackle this problem.

"I have a great sympathy for farmers on this difficult issue and believe something has to be done to tackle Bovine TB. However this needs to be an effective policy and the pilot culls have failed on all of the Government's own criteria, including humaneness. I cannot support an ineffective policy that condones the inhumane killing of a protected species and does not deliver on an effective way of tackling Bovine TB." 

Having previously tabled EDMs, first in June then again in October, asking that the badger cull policy be at least debated once more in Parliament, Main said she was glad that the controversial policy would now be subject to discussion and a vote in the Commons.

An opposition day debate in May 2013 saw the anti-cull faction in Parliament narrowly defeated in voting. An earlier backbench debate had resulted in a (non-binding) vote against the cull. During the earlier debate, environment secretary Owen Paterson was criticised for storming out of the chamber, reportedly muttering "I can't stand any more of this".

Giving her opening statement on Thursday, Ms Main said she was "glad we may [by voting on the issue] be doing something if the facts and evidence dictate that we may have taken the wrong approach." She insisted the debate should "Not [be] a blame game, but a recognition that honourable members may which to change their minds" in light of new evidence from the IEP and new information released under freedom of information requests.

The first period of culling in the South-west pilot zones came to a close at the end of November. Though the trials appear to have failed by the government's self-set standards, Defra has implied that it plans to keep culling badgers and spokespeople for the department has said ministers will use the findings of the Independent Panel of Experts to "improve" its policy. Cull licensing body Natural England has reportedly received 30 expressions of interest in culling, should the policy expand to new areas.  

Leaked IEP report

The leaked IEP findings, which confirmed that cull companies had fallen well below their targets for badgers killed, and found that up to 18 percent of badgers had taken an unacceptable length of time to die after being shot, informed most of the Parliamentary debate.

Challenged for using the findings of the leaked IEP report, the shadow environment secretary questioned why, when it was due for release in February, the Panel's opinion had not been published in time for the Parliamentary debate. Ms Main added that, although the report had not been formally released, and its admissibility had been challenged in the Commons, no-one had yet questioned its conclusions.

Main was critical of the extensions to pilot culls, when the IEP limited itself only to examining the first six week periods of culling, as had first been proposed by the government. She said ministers had, since the IEP's conclusions became known, spoken of improving, not rethinking the policy. Main suggested this could revolve around finding more effective means of killing badgers, rather than questioning the worth of culling.

She pointed to the verdict of Lord Krebs, the architect of previous culling trials, who called the current cull policy "mindless."

Ms Main also criticised the pilot culls' design; the trials did not measure levels of TB in either cattle or badger. She said, "Just getting rid of badgers regardless of humaneness or effectiveness wasn't the aim of this policy… stopping bovine TB was and we need to do this in a way that does not cause pain and misery to a protected species."

Penistone and Stocksbrisdge MP Angela smith added that the government had, in pursuing the cull, moved outside of carefully worded conditions placed by scientific advisors on effective measures for reducing bovine TB through killing badgers. She said that in exceeding the six week period set by the government ("set by opinion, not by evidence"), culling may well have resulted in an increased spread of TB between badgers.

Labour MP for Dumfries and Galloway Russell Brown said reductions of the disease over the past year were observed in England and Wales. Scotland gained TB-free status in 2009, without culling. In Wales plans for a cull were brushed aside in 2012 in favour of vaccination and stricter cattle measures. Adding weight to his colleague Ms Smith's concerns, Brown said that Professor Rosie Woodroffe, an expert with the Zoological Society of London, had warned that culling, as it was carried out, may have increased the risk for cattle in Gloucestershire.

Woodroffe, who worked on the RBCT trials that informed Defra's policy, said in December that "It's very likely that so far this cull will have increased the TB risk for cattle inside the Gloucestershire cull zone rather than reducing it."

Other countries' experience of culling

Conservative members' arguments often revolved around the leaked report, whether or not it was admissible as evidence and whether, if the Expert Panel made recommendations to the government in Thursday's report, these would be acted on.

Tory MP for the Cotswolds Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, himself a farmer, reported that that culling had had an effect on bovine TB in the Republic of Ireland.  However, Clifton-Brown was challenged from his own bench by a fellow MP who claimed TB had been reduced by 12 percent in Northern Ireland (where there has been no culling), compared to 8.9 percent in the Republic, where badger culls have been ongoing for several years.

Green MP Caroline Lucas also sought to tackle the Cotswolds MP's point, stating that ecological differences mean the efficacy of culling is context-dependent, and parallels could not be drawn between different species or ecological areas.

Lucas continued that, as culling in other countries used by Defra to justify its policy has involved different animal species (possums, in the case of New Zealand), or different distributions of badgers (as with the Irish experience), they are not directly comparable scenarios. She said that, whereas in Ireland, where badger populations are more sparsely distributed, culling may have an effect, in England this would likely lead to a spread of disease by shifting populations. Conservative Neil Parish contested Dr Lucas' claims.

Clifton-Brown, like North Herefordshire MP Bill Wiggin, drew parallels between the treatment of badgers and cattle (32,000 cows were killed as reactors or direct contacts in 2013 – about one percent of the national herd). However, Dr Lucas maintained that the badger cull debate "Is is not about people who like badgers versus people who like cattle… not a competition about who loves animals most. This is about the best way of dealing with bovine TB." She quoted former government chief scientist and president of the Royal Society Bob May, who judged that Defra "Are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence."

Conclusions

Although pro-culling MPs acknowledged that lessons may need to be learned from last year's pilots, they appeared to be resolutely in favour of continued culling. Though they frequently accused anti-cull speakers of making 'emotional appeals' both sides appeared to be guilty of this offence, not least Shrewsbury MP Daniel kawczynski, who spoke about "joining in" crying with a farmer over the threat of bovine TB.

The anti-culling faction in Parliament, which as voting showed was the larger of the two, called on the government to introduce more cattle-based biosecurity measures, vaccinate badgers, make moves to introduce better vaccination for cattle and establish whether this would have implications for international and intra-European trade.

Huw Irranca Daves, a major spokesperson for the anti-cull MPs, congratulated all MPs who had taken part in the debate, which he said was particularly timely, given the Environment Secretary's stated intention to roll out culling this year. He said there had been "calm, rational arguments" against culling, and that the motion being debated had cross-party support.

The shadow environment secretary asked the government to consider why it continues to support a policy which cost more than anticipated, due in part to its unpopularity, has apparently failed on humaneness and effectiveness grounds, "which is scientifically controversial to the point of flying in the face of mainstream scientific advice and, as we have seen today, an increasing numbers of MPs [no longer support]" and when better and more cost-effective measures exist to eradicate "the scourge of bovine TB."  

He reiterated that cattle-to-cattle transmissions, and rapid restocking of cattle in the wake of foot and mouth, are the root causes of current TB figures. Though he said there is a need to tackle TB in wildlife, he added that this should not revolve around a cull in one species.

Farming Minister George Eustice said, "no one measure on its own will work, instead we need to pursue a range of measures, which we have set out clearly in our draft strategy on Bovine TB eradication." He added, "There is one area where we disagree, and that is that there is nowhere in the world that bovine TB has been brought under control without dealing with the wildlife reservoir."

Eustice said vaccination programmes had encountered difficulties and that cattle vaccines would not be available for a number of years.

In a subsequent vote on the motion tabled by Anne Main, calling on the government to rethink its policy, anti-cull MPs won by a majority of 219 to 1.

Changing tack slightly during the main debate, Geoffrey Robinson MP said, "When the government turns round and says 'we don't know whether this will work, we won't pay for it, but if you want to go ahead then we'll license it', then you know you’re onto a dead loss." He continued, "The culls are miles off their targets… I can't imagine why farmers would want to waste more money on them."