I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think that it is worth reading what Lord Krebs said in the House of Lords, because it is exactly the point the hon. Gentleman identifies. He said that
“the long-term, large-scale culling of badgers is estimated to reduce the incidence of TB in cattle by 16% after nine years. In other words, 84% of the problem is still there. To reflect on what that means, this is not a reduction in absolute terms”,
as the hon. Gentleman rightly said,
“but actually a 16% reduction from the trend increase. So after nine years there is still more TB around than there was at the beginning”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 October 2012; Vol. 740, c. 148.]
That is the key point that Government Members are not taking on board.