You did very kindly consider using me as a specialist adviser to your Committee examining badgers and Bovine TB. I had chaired the Minister's Panel on Badgers and TB for over 10 years and I believe therefore I have a close knowledge of all the issues in this difficult subject. I had to advise you of my current involvement with the CLA as Chairman of the Environment and Water Committee, a role in which you and I have met at a CLA briefing lunch. Unfortunately this CLA involvement precluded me from acting for your Committee. I am sorry about that but it has now allowed me to write a short note to you stressing a few points which I hope your Committee will keep uppermost in their minds.

  1.  My Panel had long accepted that badgers played a significant role in the maintenance of an active infectious source of Bovine TB in the countryside and potentially a serious threat to cattle.

  2.  We strived to secure a control process which enabled the disease to be limited to a minimum level in cattle. Constrained by funding and the bounds of research albeit strides forward were being made particularly towards vaccines, we were aware of the creeping failure of the various strategies from the apparent success of the Thornbury exercise right through to the live test strategy. My determination was always to reach a practical solution enabling longer term management of the disease. This longer-term view must remain a priority in your thinking.

  3.  I was pleased to welcome the Krebs Report although I knew of the many hurdles it would have to cross, not least the problems of securing robust research data from trials carried out in an ever changing countryside. These were all, of course, issues which had confronted us over many years. If Government wishes to pursue the Krebs triplet experiment, then I urge you to stress that the trial be compressed into three years by bringing forward new trial areas and providing the necessary full level of funding. There is absolutely no point in prolonging this trial, it's value is now. A prolonged trial will mean, the data is more difficult to interpret, the problem for the cattle industry horrendous and the credibility of Government to find a solution lost with unknown consequences.

  4.  I have always recognised the role that cattle management plays in reducing disease transfer. I do not believe this can be the single issue in control strategy but it is a means of taking sensible precautionary management action. I am convinced there are significant issues involved in silage making and maize growing. Professor Harris' work on boundary urine trails left by badgers is particularly interesting, so that where silage making processes leave uncut strips adjacent to fence lines and cattle are turned out into the "silage after cut", cattle will prefer the lush uncut headland grass which is exactly where badgers have urinated. On maize I have no doubt that the crop has provided badgers with a plentiful pre-winter food source and has acted as an attractant and thereby has increased the local population of badgers.

  5.  I have always been a keen advocate of a vaccine. However, I do not share John Krebs preference for a cattle vaccine over and above a badger vaccine because I consider if we can control TB at a wildlife level, then it is our responsibility to do so. Assuming that our badger poplulation will not decline and that the level of TB in the badger population is at least partially badger density related then if only cattle were protected by a vaccine it would still leave the badger population with a potentially devastating level of TB likely to spill over into other wildlife (eg wild deer) and remain a constant source of disease if things were to go wrong with the cattle vaccinaton process. This is in addition to the welfare aspects of badgers. You need to remember the badger acts as a very efficient maintenance host for the disease. Resources and effort must surely be placed into work on a badger vaccine although I appreciate the on-going funding implications for Government.

  6.  A view sometimes expressed by several members attending Panel meetings was that a targeted and predicted approach could be taken to deciding which areas were likely to produce cattle breakdowns and consequently the pre-emptive culling of badgers might lessen the likelihood of cattle being infected. Such a proposal would be based on historical data, badger populations and post-mortem results on badger road traffic casualties. I believe the value of the road traffic casualty survey was significant and a recommendation from you that the survey be reinstated across the country would be worthwile.

  I have tried to raise just a few issues which could be of interest to the Select Committee. Having struggled myself with the problem for over 10 years, I urge you to concentrate on the immediate management issues without pinning too many hopes on successful vaccines albeit this is surely the most hopeful end result.

  I wish you every success and I am sorry not to have been a part of your deliberations, and with my best wishes.

25 February 1999