I rise to speak against the motion. It strikes me that many who have spoken in its favour have done so having assumed for themselves the mantle of majority support and that the country is behind them, but I can tell hon. Members that my constituents are not behind the motion. I can
say that with some authority, because I surveyed some 30,000 households over the summer and one of the questions I asked was whether they were in favour of the Government’s approach to pilot culls to tackle bovine TB, and the results were that 59% were in favour of pilot culls, 27% were against and the others did not voice an opinion.
The reasons why a majority of almost 2:1 of my constituents are in favour of the Government’s courageous policy are simple and have been rehearsed many times during this debate: the huge loss of our cattle—some 26,000 last year; the huge expense to the taxpayer of almost £100 million last year and £1 billion over the next decade, if this is left unchecked; and a cost for every farm where there is an outbreak of £30,000, of which £10,000 is borne by the farmer. This is unsustainable; it cannot be allowed to continue.
As many hon. Members have said, there is a human cost to farmers, their families and the communities in which they live. That cannot be underestimated. One of my most special constituents is Mr Brian Warren, who runs a voluntary organisation called Farm Crisis Network, which provides pastoral support to farmers in distress. I invite any Opposition Member who supports the motion to come to Central Devon, sit down with Brian and listen to some of the stories about the misery that our farmers are going through as a consequence of this scourge. On most occasions, it is nothing short of harrowing.
I wish to deal with a couple of arguments that have been made by those on the other side of the debate. The first is that we somehow claim that our approach will be 100% successful. We do not. The culls will be pilots, from which we will learn. We accept that we will not eradicate bovine TB in the cull areas, but we have to accept that no other approach will lead to quick and certain 100% eradication either. We therefore have to use the proposed approach, along with increased biosecurity. The Government announced as recently as last week that biosecurity would be tightened up. We also have to look to the ongoing use of vaccination and the development of vaccines in future.
The second argument that has been deployed is that our approach will have no effect whatever on TB, or indeed will make it worse. Many Opposition Members have mentioned the independent scientific group and the Krebs trials as evidence, but time has moved on and so has the assessment of those trials. New analysis and new research has challenged some of their conclusions. I refer specifically to the report of one member of the ISG, Professor Donnelly. As recently as last September, she wrote:
“In the time period from one year after the last proactive cull”—
the Krebs trials—
“to 28 August 2011, the incidence of confirmed breakdowns in the proactive culling trial areas was 28.0% lower…than in survey-only areas”—
as used in the trial—
“and on lands up to 2km outside proactive trial areas was 4.1% lower…than outside survey-only areas”.
As time has gone on, the evidence in favour of the effectiveness of culling has hardened.