The Committee deliberated.

Draft Report [Badgers and Bovine Tuberculosis], proposed by the Chairman, brought up and read.

Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraphs 1 to 76 read and agreed to.

Paragraph 77 read as follows:

A further point raised concerning the design of the trial was the justification for including a proactive treatment. The Minister has already clearly stated that he would not implement a policy of eradication so badger groups such as that from Herefordshire questioned "what valid reason is there for conducting the experiment at all?" This view is understandable but it mistakes the purpose of the proactive area which is to provide one extreme against which the reactive and control treatments can be measured. It is therefore essential to the trial design and to the aim of obtaining a good quantitative estimate of the force of infection arising from badgers. Although many witnesses claimed that the design of the trial was flawed, we have not been persuaded by their criticisms and feel that many of the protagonists have been irresponsible in using the term in a misleading manner. We are concerned about the logistical aspects of reducing the statistical power but in no way could we discover that the trial was scientifically flawed.

Amendment proposed, in line 10, to leave out from the word "manner" to end of the paragraph and insert "We could not discover any way in which the trial was scientifically flawed. However, we are concerned that the proposed trial is on too large a scale, too elaborate, too slow, and subject to all kinds of imponderables. The objective now should be firm information provided as quickly as possible rather than full scientific and statistical rigour so we would prefer a smaller scale of trials and the use of badger-proof fencing to prevent possible contamination of the results. We suggest scaling the research down to no more than four triplets."— (Mr Austin Mitchell.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Paragraph agreed to.

Paragraphs 78 to 131 read and agreed to.

Annex (Glossary) agreed to.

Resolved, That the Report be the Fifth Report of the Committee to the House.

Ordered, That the Chairman do make the Report to the House.

Ordered, That the provisions of Standing Order No. 134 (Select committees (reports)) be applied to the Report.

Several Papers were ordered to be appended to the Minutes of Evidence.

Ordered, That the Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee be reported to the House.—(The Chairman.)

[Adjourned till Wednesday 5 May 1999 at Ten o'clock.