The hon. Lady is absolutely right about that point, and I will be coming on to it.
As a consequence of not reaching the target of 5,000 badgers, the Government are likely to have made matters considerably worse because of perturbation, about which they were warned. DEFRA has not only failed in its own terms on effectiveness, but certainly failed on the test of humaneness as well. The independent expert panel, which the Government disbanded, as the hon. Lady said a moment ago, said about year one of the pilot badger cull:
“It is extremely likely that between 7.4% and 22.8% of badgers that were shot at were still alive after 5 min, and therefore at risk of experiencing marked pain. We are concerned at the potential for suffering that these figures imply.”
When it was clear that the cull was failing on every possible measure, the previous Secretary of State, unbelievably, blamed the badgers for “moving the goalposts”. In truth, the Government have moved the goalposts and Ministers are behaving like the three wise monkeys. The DEFRA independent expert panel confirmed last year that the cull was unsuccessful in terms of humaneness, as I have mentioned, and ineffective. The figures speak for themselves. The chief scientific adviser to Natural England also made negative comments about the cull, describing it as an “epic failure”.