I beg to move,
That this House has considered the badger cull.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, in a debate on this very important issue, because I know that you take a close interest in it.
However, I am amazed that five years after the badger cull started we are still debating it. If you will bear with me, Sir David, I remember speaking on this issue on 5 June 2013. I quoted Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the randomised badger culling trial. He was interviewed on the “Today” programme on 12 October 2012, and said:
“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle.”
I have found no scientists who are experts in population biology or in the distribution of infectious diseases in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try to support their argument.
I also quoted Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and President of the Royal Society, who said:
“It is very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense…I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”
Another former Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, also refused to back the cull. More than 30 scientists signed a letter that was published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and states that
“the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it”.
The letter ends by saying,
“culling badgers as planned is very unlikely to contribute to TB eradication.”