I simply say to the hon. Gentleman, who is an intelligent chap, that every bit of logic points to the fact that there must be a link. If badgers have TB and cattle have TB—I do not think this island is alone; this takes place in the rest of the world —any scientific hypothesis would assume there is a link. It is not credible for him to suggest otherwise.
We have to take every opportunity to improve biosecurity in the ways I have mentioned. We also need to improve the testing. We know that the traditional swelling test leaves an element of cattle undetected. We need to work on better tests, whether they be skin tests or others. We need my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that we have the resources to research tests that are much more reliable. The polymerase test is being adopted in some areas, which gives a more reliable result. The problem is that it also detects the disease in some animals that do not have it, so they show up in the test as having it. We need to keep trying to develop a more effective test. As well as that, in edge vaccination areas, we need to stop the perturbation effect that I described. We rely on the Minister and the Government to ensure that we have sufficient supplies available to do that, because there is no doubt that that is part of the armoury.
The final part of our armoury is the trial culls. The opposition to the culls tries to maintain that the culls are not improving the situation. Any initial assessment
of my constituency would show that where trials have taken place—for example, on the hard edge of the Severn—the incidence of TB has reduced. It is early days, but even the evidence from Krebs and pre-Krebs of the gassing of badgers showed that where badgers are eliminated, the incidence of TB declines.
One thing that my farmers want to know from the Minister today is what regime will succeed the original three cull areas. It seems that everybody has gone to a huge amount of trouble to eliminate badgers in those areas. If the whole thing were stopped dead now, it would be rather a waste of time. They want to know what sort of regime will succeed that. They hope that it will be a light-touch regime and not too onerous. I can tell my hon. Friend that getting the big trial area up and running in the north Cotswolds was very onerous indeed for the farmers involved. I think that he needs to look at ways in which the regime can be made lighter-touch.
In conclusion, my local farmers suffer emotionally and economically. The taxpayer suffers economically. The badgers suffer a painful death. The cattle become unproductive and have to be slaughtered prematurely. It is essential that the Minister reassures the House today that resources are being put into trying to find a satisfactory oral vaccine for badgers; that would be the ultimate solution to the problem. We need to find more effective skin testing, so that all the animals that have this dreadful disease are detected and eliminated from the national herd. We also need to look carefully at the spread of the disease to other species. There is increasing evidence that this terrible disease is spreading into the deer population. Perhaps my hon. Friend can say something about that this afternoon, and about the total situation in relation to TB. Is it stabilising in the main areas affected, or is it still increasing? We need to find that out.
We need to use all the tools in our box. I urge the Minister to keep on with the trial areas; that is what my farming constituents want. They believe that that method works; the proof will come when all the results are evaluated, but anecdotally, so far, they believe that it works.
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