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We must cull badgers

Published 08 July 2008

'I have sat with a farmer in my constituency who has been brought to his knees by Bovine TB and I do not mind admitting that I cried for the first time in 20 years'

As chairman of the all party Parliamentary group for dairy farmers I am devastated at the news on Bovine TB announced first by the BBC. Early reports claimed that on Monday 7 July the government would announce, as they did, that they intended to ignore official expert advice to have a limited cull of badgers and would not be issuing licenses for a cull.

Predictions across the country are that this year alone up to 40,500 cows will have to be slaughtered as a result of Bovine TB, at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds to the taxpayer in compensation to farmers affected.

Many readers will know or have experienced firsthand the emotional stress and misery that this disease is bringing to our rural communities and the extraordinarily damaging effect it is having on our farmers' livelihoods.

I have sat with a farmer in my constituency who has been brought to his knees by Bovine TB and I do not mind admitting that I cried for the first time in 20 years when I heard what had happened to him and his livelihood.

I will fight to the end to protect my farmers and feel so very angry about the Socialists' total disregard for our farming community. Hilary Benn, Margaret Beckett and all the others have shown nothing but shallow platitudes to me and others whilst happily ignoring our deep concerns and wilfully taking no action to address the crisis.

I am incensed that as usual we first had to hear this news from the BBC rather than from government itself. Yet another leak to the media shows the contempt that Defra Ministers have for us. I have tried to go through all appropriate channels to raise this issue with the government by securing numerous debates in the Commons on Bovine TB and asking many official parliamentary questions on the matter, all to no avail. I even raised the issue in a debate last month on food security, in a vain hope that at least one of the Defra ministers may have been listening, but alas, it seems they were incapable of doing so.

That is why we have no option but to go to the High Court to seek a judicial review over government inaction. To this end, I am urging the NFU to react to the government’s decision and go to the High Court to gain permission for judicial review. I believe they have a strong case.

The decision not to cull is totally unreasonable and is clearly within the grounds for judicial review under the head of irrationality. Doing nothing to protect cattle or badgers from the spread of bovine TB, after years of consultation, is not a reasonable outcome and, on this basis alone, I believe the government’s decision sufficiently passes the Wednesbury reasonableness test – a legal condition for judicial review on the ground of irrationality.

Beyond this, I would also argue that the government has neglected to listen to the views of the farming community and has been frightened into retreat by the anti-culling lobby. There is a premise in the English legal system whereby a government Minister must “not close his ears” to someone’s right to be heard, yet this is exactly what they have done. They have resisted calls from farmers for action to tackle this terrible disease and have refused to give valid reasons for doing so. They should not be permitted to make such an important decision purely on political grounds. Therefore, it is time for the judiciary to step in and ensure that the voices of all parties involved are fairly heard.

The government should be forced to revisit their decision on tackling the prevalence of bovine TB and make it based on the sound principles of science and common sense. I shall be approaching various business people and sympathetic organisations to secure the funding for such a review and will fight the Socialists through the Courts until our dairy farmers have justice.

Daniel Kawczynski is Conservative MP for Atcham and Shrewsbury

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11 comments from readers

Justin Kerswell
08 July 2008 at 15:40

In their eagerness to blame anyone but themselves for the bovine TB epidemic, farmers are targeting wildlife when they should be looking closer to home. The bottom line is that it is the intensification of farming practices and the huge increase in cattle movements that are the reasons for the spread of this disease. Around 14 million cattle are moved across the UK each year – this number has quadrupled since 1999. According to Government figures, between 2005 and 2006 over 600,000 more cattle were moved than the previous year.

Dairy herd sizes have more than doubled since the 1970s – when bovine TB was at its lowest. There is a direct correlation between larger herd sizes and the spread of disease. The rush to intensify animal agriculture has led to this disastrous situation. Dairy cows suffer the dual burden of pregnancy and lactation during much of their lives. Their immune systems are shot to pieces and they are physically exhausted and killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan. Add to this unreliable bovine TB testing that is inaccurate in one-third of cases and you start to see the real causes of the problem.

Viscount Firm
08 July 2008 at 15:58

Tricky things badgers - vicious when cornered!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/3027681.st...

Steve_J
08 July 2008 at 16:31

Irrationaility? Methinks it is Mr Kawczynski who is being irrational, not Mr Benn.

Just because the decision on badger culling hasn't gone the way Mr Kawczynski wanted doesn't mean that Mr Benn didn't listen. I'm sure Mr Benn has had his ear well and truly bent by the pro-cull lobby. But he has also taken the time to study the science on this complex matter, and the best available science (from the 10 year programme of study by the experts in the Independent Scientific Group) clearly shows that killing badgers would provide marginal benefits at best and could quite possibly make things considerably worse (especially if 'limited culls' are undertaken).

Far from "doing nothing", Mr Benn is pumping more money into the only viable long term solution to the problem (vaccines) while in the meantime inviting the industry to work with Defra on the best way to deal with TB until the vaccines are ready - the improvment of cattle management and testing procedures. (The skin test currently used to detect TB in cattle is woefully inadequate and misses many infected animals, add to this the fragmentation of farm holdings and the frequent movement of cattle and it is no wonder that scientists have found that cattle themselves are the main reservoir of infection, not badgers.)

If Mr Kawczynski and others wish to devote time and money to legal challenges to a decision well grounded in science they are more than welcome. But I can't help thinking their energies and resources would be much better spent on working together with Defra on solutions to the problem of bovine TB which will actually bring results.

theo
08 July 2008 at 16:49

I own 50 acres of woodland with badgers within it in north Devon.

Because of this, I have been following the issue of bTB and badgers with great care. Devon is a bTB hotspot area.

As far as I understand the science of the matter, any realistic cull will fail to address the problem, and may make things worse. I wish it were otherwise.

I am not a bunny hugger, but a conservationist. Buy before anyone charges me with having a soft spot for badgers, be aware that I allow shooting in this woodland. The bag goes to local pubs, mostly, but last week the bloke who shoots for me gave me four venison joints, four venison fillets, three rabbits and a trout.

However, I see no point in allowing the NFU to enter my land as all the evidence indicates that the badgers will, if cullled, merely spread the disease.

The question I ask is why the NFU want, in effect, to shoot themselves in the foot, and exacerbate the very seroius problem of bTB.

Theo H

RedDaybreak
08 July 2008 at 16:50

Chase those socialists through the courts go on, I dare you.

Jonty Stang
08 July 2008 at 17:08

You're only having a go at badgers because they're christians. You wouldn't dare have a pop at watervowels, or some other Muslim woodland creature. Shame!

Kathy Musker
08 July 2008 at 21:34

A ten year study is good enough for me. Farmers need to take responsibility for thier poor husbandry. Killing will not be tolerated as the answer to everything.

chris37uk
08 July 2008 at 21:40

Once again the Tories show their true colours. So much for Cameron's 'modern' Conservatism! What a sham that is!

We know that a Cameron government would mean a war on our wildlife, the barbarity of hunting with dogs re-legalised and now a mass slaughter of badgers to please the backward medieval mindset of NFU.

JUdi
09 July 2008 at 09:23