A parliamentary debate has been held over the government's plans to kill badgers as part of its bovine TB eradication strategy. High level politicians debated the contentious issue in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon.

Badger culling licenses for two 'pilot' areas of the South-West came into effect on Saturday (1st June), though shooting is not expected to begin for a number of days. The policy has divided public opinion in Britain; the latest Yougov poll on the subject revealed that opposition to the policy outweighs support for culling.

Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh tabled Wednesday's debate, which saw MPs discuss a motion reading "This House believes the badger cull should not go ahead." The Labour Party has been highly critical of the government's strategy, which it maintains will be "bad for badgers, bad for farmers and bad for taxpayers."

Debate in parliament was heated, with both sides of the House making impassioned cases to support their stance, and many MPs seeking to contribute to the proceedings. However, during remarks by Labour MP Nia Griffith, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, along with some other tories in the chamber, lost their composure and harangued Ms Griffith, who is Shadow Minister for Wales.   

image expired

Tory MP Tracy Crouch lashed out at her fellow party members, who she said had been condescend towards her, both ahead of Wednesday's debate and in light of her voting against the Tories' culling policy in a backbench debate last October. Although the debate in October would not have forced a change in policy, the outcome delivered a serious blow to the credibility of the Coalition's approach; cull opponents gained 147 votes compared to 28 from supporters.

Owen Paterson was accused of storming out of the chamber during the October debate, though he denied this, claiming he had to attend a meeting elsewhere and maintaining it was always his intention to leave the debate early.   

Ms Crouch, MP for Aylesford, said on Wednesday, "I do understand the science and I do not believe the indiscriminate killing of badgers will have an effect. Nor do I believe that eradicating TB in badgers will eradicate the disease in cattle, especially in a country with such high cattle movement."

In the full Parliamentary debate, the Labour motion was defeated by 299 votes to 250. Although the opposition day motion would not have been binding even if Labour had won, the government will now feel their policy has greater legitimacy.  

Mary Creagh lambasts Defra strategy

Prior to voting, Mary Creagh and Defra Secretary Owen Paterson spoke in detail about different aspects of the policy. Speaking first, the Shadow Environment Secretary criticised the Coalition for cancelling all but one of the badger vaccination trials set up under Labour; she provided figures showing that the current government had slashed funding into cattle vaccine research and halved support for a badger vaccine.   

Many Labour MPs, including Ms Creagh, expressed grave misgivings over the government's chosen 'free-shooting' strategy, which will be trialled in Gloucestershire and Somerset this month. Responding to hecklers from the Tory benches who disagreed with her assertion that reliance on a novel method of killing badgers is risky, Creagh said "Nobody has shot a badger legally in the UK since 1973 – so the method is untested."

She suggested farmers have been misled over culling and warned that, aside from the novel 'free-shooting' methodology, there are other uncertainties inherent in the government's policy. The Wakefield MP questioned the efficacy of 'hard boundaries' which surround cull zones. She said roads, considered as hard boundaries, are where most badger deaths occur, suggesting they are crossed by badgers.

Responding to this, former Farming Minister Jim Paice assured hard boundaries would prove effective and added that, as they did not feature in the influential Randomised Badger Culling Trials conducted under the previous government, the current cull methodology could prove more effective at reducing TB and minimizing the perturbation effect (where infected badgers flee persecution, spreading TB into 'ring zones').

Ms Creagh added that, as badger numbers in the cull zones are unknown, and veterinary experts have said that making population estimates of nocturnal wild animals such as badgers is notoriously difficult, the culls risk leading to local extinctions of badgers, or alternatively falling short of targets and exacerbating the badger-cattle spread of TB. Farming Minister David Heath insisted that the government is confident about its population estimates.

Adding that the policy would hurt taxpayers as well as badgers, and potentially farmers, the Shadow Secretary claimed the total cost of culling would outweigh the benefits from any reduction in TB incidence. She said, "The expense of the cull exceeds that of vaccination. At first sight the cull appears to be cheaper than vaccinating, but with half a million per year in policing costs for each cull zone, the balance tips in favour of vaccination."

Ms Creagh claimed that evidence from the Wildlife Trust and Zoological Society of London expert Rosie Woodroffe shows "two to three years of vaccination would make badgers fully immune" without the need for culling to "continue to 25 years" or become "routine".

Contradicting Mr Heath's statement, Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy said that, according to Prof Woodroffe, repeated estimates of badger populations in the trial cull zone have varied widely, and that there is a 40 percent chance that actual populations lie outside the government's stated range.

Wakefield MP Mary Creagh admitted that vaccinating either cattle or badgers alone would not work, and stated that a "cohesive policy is needed", focusing on cattle movement and biosecurity measures. She commended the government on the recent introduction of its 'risk-based trading' strategy, but criticised the time taken to launch the measure.

In response to calls for moves on vaccination in cattle and badgers, former Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said skin tests and BCG vaccines are beset with problems that have hampered their wider use, and added that the issue of cattle vaccine is a European one. She pointed out that it would prove difficult to secure consent from 26 other member states to use of cattle vaccines in the UK.

Paterson defends culling

Owen Paterson, responding to Mary Creagh's accusations, blamed the previous Labour government for the state of TB in the UK. Last year, more than 28,000 cattle were slaughtered in Britain as the result of TB controls and the Defra Secretary said "tough and sometimes unpopular decisions" are necessary in order to protect Britain's successful of the cattle industry.

He said that in 1972 only 0.17 percent of cattle tested as infected, adding, "I regret that as this issue has become politicised, our grip on the disease has weakened… what we can all agree on is that bTB is the most significant animal health problem facing this country."

Backing up Paterson's claims, Tiverton MP Neil Parish also accused Labour of inaction when they were in power. He said that when Labour came to office there were 6,000 cattle with TB, compared to 30,000 when the Coalition took over in 2010.

Paterson claimed the implementation of a legal cattle vaccine is ten years away. He pointed to a report released by the EFRA committee on Wednesday, which suggested vaccination is expensive, unpredictable and the associated benefits will not be apparent in the short-term. However, the report also states that there is a place in control strategies for vaccination.

Although he backed strict cattle measures, Paterson reiterated that no other country in the world had tackled bovine TB in cattle, without addressing the "wildlife reservoir." He cited several examples, including buffalo culls in Australia and badger culls in Ireland.

Bristol MP Kerry McCarthy accused the government of failing to act on badger persecution and warned that the assessment of how 'humane' trial culls are is fundamentally flawed. She concluded, "There is real public concern and real public opposition to this and I don't think the government is taking the issue seriously enough."

Fellow Labour MPs, including Nia Griffith, said scientific experts maintain the government's policy will not work. Ms Griffith quoted the findings of the RBCT, the authors of which concluded that culling "cannot meaningfully contribute" to the reduction of bovine TB. She also criticised the environment secretary for using comparisons to other countries' experience of TB, explaining how even the situation in Ireland is vastly different from England's TB problems. This criticism was later echoed by Lib Dem MP Andrew George.

Widespread condemnation after Labour loses vote

Although, as Defra Secretary Owen Paterson pointed out during his prepared remarks, culling has the support of the British Veterinary Association as a whole, vets working with wild and exotic animals in the British Veterinary Zoological Society have turned on their parent organisation and condemned its support for culling.

In addition to the BVZS' first act of defiance in March, Members of the BVA itself today joined the attack on their representative body over its unequivocal support for culling. In a letter to The Independent, the vets claimed the BVA stance is not representative and has not been formed through consultation with the group's membership. They said the Association's stance contradicts "the overwhelming scientific opinion that culling badgers will not help reduce TB in cattle."

The vets, many of whom have held senior positions in wildlife and animal welfare NGOs, continued, "The public needs to understand that the BVA's position is not necessarily representative of majority veterinary opinion and that many vets oppose or have serious reservations about the policy." They added, "That some vets in positions of influence appear to have abandoned precaution for the sake of what appears to be political and perceived economic expedience casts a dark shadow over our profession."

In an impassioned appeal made as the debate was drawing to a close on Wednesday afternoon, Labour MP and executive at the League Against Cruel Sports Chris Williams said "the government policy is absolutely bonkers, it's criminal and it should stop." He urged Paterson to "pause, consider [Mary Creagh’s] words, consider the science and take a different course of action."

Mark Jones, Executive Director of Humane Society International said the outcome of Wednesday's vote was "deeply disappointing," and suggested that certain shortcomings of parliamentary democracy had resulted in "the sacrifice of this supposedly protected wild mammal on the altar of politics."

Mr Jones said, "Today's vote was about politics, not badgers. We heard from many MPs unable or unwilling to vote against the party whip despite their conscience telling them a badger cull is unjustified. So our battle for badgers goes on in support of majority scientific opinion."