If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place and listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield he would have heard her set out the alternatives. There are alternatives, and that is the point that we are making. The Government are taking the wrong course of action. It is not just me saying that as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports; this is the scientific evidence. Let me quote some of the scientific evidence for the record.
Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the RBCT, said on 12 October 2012 on the “Today” programme:
“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle. I have not found any scientists who are experts in population biology or the distribution of infectious disease in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try and get the argument they want.”
Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and president of the Royal Society, said:
“It’s very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense.”
He added:
“I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”
The recently retired Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, has also refused to back the cull.
A letter published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and signed by more than 30 scientists, including Professor John Bourne, former chairman of the ISG, Professor Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London, Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, Dr Chris Cheeseman, formerly of the Food and Environment Research Agency, Professor Denis Mollison, former independent scientific auditor to the RBCT, and Professor Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College, states:
“the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it”.
The letter ends:
“culling badgers as planned is very unlikely to contribute to TB eradication.”
The Government are taking the wrong course of action. Government Members have spoken as though they were somehow the friends of the farmer, but they will make matters worse and cause incredible suffering to the badger population. They are enraging the vast majority of the British public and they are wasting police money. They have cut the police service to the bone and yet they want the police to waste resources policing the culls—estimated at about £2 million per cull. This is absolutely bonkers. It is criminal and it should stop.
I urge the Secretary of State, having heard the cogent argument put forward by my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, to pause for a moment, to think what he is doing, to consider her words, to consider the scientific evidence, to think again and to take a different course of action.
2.39 pm