I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. One of the sad things about the badger cull debate is that it has been quite divisive: two groups have been pitted against each other rather than working together. We have moved forward significantly since the start of the badger cull debate, with those who care passionately about wildlife respecting the challenges of bovine TB in herds and, equally, farmers being keen to move forward and not be seen as people who do not care about wildlife, which they do enormously.
We have come together much better and converged on a much more congenial atmosphere and conversation, but the badger cull still continues. The whole point of today’s debate, I hope, is to stress the importance of bringing the cull to an end and starting work on a whole variety of different measures. I know that the Minister will refer to the proverbial toolbox; it is clear that there is a whole host of ways of dealing with bovine TB. I am sure she will make those points in her speech.
The data from Wales is really encouraging. The devolved Government have announced a new approach and are targeting cattle as the victims and main transmission source of the disease. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the UK Government are in dialogue with the devolved Administration and whether they are monitoring data from that strategy to support the fight against TB in England.
The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill is going through Parliament at the moment. I intervened on the Secretary of State on Second Reading and spoke about how gene editing may improve disease resistance in livestock. He said that there is already work going on to breed natural resistance and select, for instance, dairy cattle with a higher resistance to bovine TB. I hope the Bill will enable scientific advances to be made far faster so that cattle and farmers can be protected without harming our wildlife.
Despite the announcement in May 2021 of the phased end of culling, Natural England issued 11 new supplementary badger culling licences the following month, and announced seven new intensive cull areas in September. I am concerned that, despite DEFRA’s mantra, new areas will continue to be approved. Will the Minister outline how many new supplementary intensive culling areas have been approved this year?
Will the Minister assure me and the many other Members who care passionately about this issue that the Government are serious about phasing out the cull and are investing in a diverse armoury to tackle the disease, including accelerating work to develop an effective cattle vaccine, improving husbandry measures such as herd health plans, restricting cattle movements, and ultimately enabling financial incentives so that farmers can use improved and reliable testing to remove infected cows at source?
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