May I just continue? I will never finish my speech otherwise, and the Minister will need quite a lot of time to respond because of the excellent debate that we have had, even if hon. Members do not agree on this issue.
I hope that we are looking at what Sibley has discovered in trying to eradicate this disease from a cattle herd. He has narrowed things down, again, to, dare I say, the impact of slurry being put out on farms. We need to know more about that.
With regard to where else we need to be much better, I think that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) brought up the notion of the Enferplex test. We need to push forward on the different measures. I will be blunt: the SICCT—single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin—test, the skin test, is notoriously unreliable. Far too often, cattle that have the disease are
missed. Sometimes they are picked up with the interferon-gamma test. Again, Gatcombe is doing work with PCR and phage.
It is important that we know that these tests are much more accurate. We need to bear down on this disease. I do not want to kill cattle any more than I want to kill badgers. Far too often, cattle are killed that are clean of the disease. But sadly, there are cattle that are not clean of the disease and get through. We still have 14 million cattle movements. It is important that we understand that those movements could be a major cause of the spread of the disease, because if we do not know which cattle have it, as we may not know which badgers have it, and we allow those cattle to travel around the country, that is clearly a real threat.
We need to look at every tool in the box. We will not agree on how this disease is currently being fought, but fought it must be. The Leader of the Opposition offered with equanimity to work with the Government at the end of yesterday’s debate and I would like to work with the Government on this. I would love for the Minister to come to Woodchester Park and look at the implications of what researchers have found there over many years.
I agree with the Prime Minister about the need to end cattle movement—all live exports—in terms of what we send abroad. That could give us an opening. Much of the way in which we have fought this disease has been to do with the need to keep our trade policy “TB-free”. If we maintain that, it is important to understand that this might be a way forward. Thus far we have been within EU rules. That is something we could address.
In conclusion, I would like to work with the Minister. Sadly, previous attempts at cross-party work have not always succeeded, but I make that offer now—and I hope the Minister will take me up on it.
10.40 am