TUESDAY 16 MARCH 1999

MR JEFF ROOKER

  700. Should it have gone out, hand in hand, when you made the announcement last August, that if we are going to start this trial and, a part of the trial, your argument is that it is not just about culling, it is about other things and husbandry has to be looked at, should not a revised document have gone out then?
  (Mr Rooker) Yes. If I were going to treat this issue in a very simplistic way, which really would not be taken seriously by the industry, then I would have done that. But, the fact of the matter is, last August, we received Professor Bourne's report, in July, they had worked on it for some five or six months, it gave us, in their term, a multifaceted approach, a holistic approach, to this issue; until we received it, we were not committed to a policy one way or the other, we did not put issues in preparation and recruiting staff, and all that kind of thing, we were not prepared to do that until we had got an announcement, and then, of course, this was a major issue of Government policy and expenditure as well. So we would have been jumping the gun, in doing the preparation to hand out a leaflet, it would have been slipshodly prepared and processed, and what I am trying to say is, what we are trying to do now is to put out information to farmers that just does not come from MAFF but it comes from a wider spectrum of opinion than MAFF, and we are actively, at this moment, trying to put together, if you like, a coalition of support to guidance literature to farmers, so that they receive it as early as possible during the closed season.

  701. So what is going out to farmers now, what advice is going out, how is it being given to them, and where is it coming from, who are all these other interested parties, if you like?
  (Mr Rooker) What I would say, Diana, I have not got the final draft. It will go out when we are ready for it to go out, but the target is to get it out in the closed season. We know where all the cattle farmers are, they are all on the cattle database now, we are not short of information. By the way, a year ago, we did not know, it took us a long time to put the cattle database together.

  702. So is it going to be a direct mailing to all cattle farms throughout the South West, or where there is evidence of TB occurring; how are we going to disseminate this information?
  (Mr Rooker) We will use the best available avenue we have got for disseminating; whether it is through MAFF regional offices, whether it is through the vets, whether it is, indeed, through the Cattle Movement Service database, we will use the most effective way to get to the farmers who have got the problem. That is the key issue. We will obviously use literature and publications as well, it is very important, producing new information, which is much more up-to-date than you have got there. I can assure you, we will not hide the information under a bushel.

  703. Right. So, if, at the present time, you have a farmer that is concerned, he is in Gloucestershire, he is in a hot spot, he is concerned about what husbandry practices he should carry out, in order to avoid, to make his risk less likely, where is he going to get that information on what you are putting out at the moment; he has got this old document, is that it?
  (Mr Rooker) If you are asking me about a farmer today; basically, then he should contact his vet and look at the latest information that we have put out. At the risk of repeating myself, we are about to update that.

  Chairman: We will have to move on, I am afraid, because we are running desperately short of time, and there are lots of things; but we will come back, if there is time, at the end.

  704. Minister, really following on from what Diana said about the leaflet, which is being, I think, redesigned, what really staggers me, if I may say, one of the headings is `How is tuberculosis passed from badgers to cattle?' and there appears to be a fairly informative answer to that question; we seem to have concluded we do not know how it is passed, and I think everybody else has told us they do not know how it is passed. Which really brings us on to the whole area of research, and your advisers, Minister, were telling us just now about the road accident surveys, and it was put to them, well, shall we carry it out in areas where there have not been herd breakdowns, and the answer appeared to be, well, no, we do not need to do that; but we common folk seem to think, well, should we not know. It may be that badgers in those areas are actually riddled with TB, and if they were that would be a highly relevant piece of information to have, and sometimes, I think, I do not speak for myself, we are a little bit mystified by the rather sort of easy conclusions that are reached about these matters?
  (Mr Rooker) The one thing I am not taking responsibility for, or being accountable for, is leaflets produced before I arrived there as a Minister; so it is not an avenue I am going to go down, because it is not very fruitful, to be honest, because we are updating it, and we will take full accountability for that. Yes, on the road traffic accident survey, you heard the answers from our senior officials, the same as I did, and you also heard, if you like, nuances, bearing in mind what you have already heard from Professor Bourne and Professor Krebs, that there might not be 100 per cent full support for everything on the road traffic survey. Now the fact of the matter is that the policy of how we do that has not yet come to Ministers; that, I know, is being debated amongst officials and with the Scientific Group. We have already made an announcement, as the Scientific Group said, to go into the extra counties; there is also the point, that you have heard put this morning by Mr Scudamore, as to what will we get from it. The fact that MAFF abandoned it in the past, it is not as though it is the first time it has been done, it was done in the past, I cannot remember when it was abandoned, it is some years ago now, MAFF did not get much from it, except, if you like, a lot of bills for the post mortems, very, very expensive for the post morteming. I have to say that, in advance of receiving the advice, my general principle is, the Ministers Group and the Government's policy was, to seek to implement Krebs via the practical policy operation, put together by Professor Bourne and his group. That includes a road traffic accident survey. So, in principle, I wish to go down that route. I will have to be careful about how I do it, because to me it does not make sense just to do it in the hot spots; quite clearly, it makes sense to have a look at any badgers up in Cumbria, about the badgers in Cheshire, if any, it would be useful. On the other hand, would ten deaths or a hundred deaths actually tell me there is a major problem of an outbreak there, when I have not got the major outbreaks of TB, touch wood, at the present time, I am not saying there are not any.

  705. But might it not, Minister, cause us to pause, if we found widespread TB in areas where it has not appeared in cattle?
  (Mr Rooker) Yes, sure. Look, the resources are carefully made available from the Treasury, in this respect.

  706. Did you mean "carefully", Minister; sparingly, possibly?
  (Mr Rooker) Yes, they were, very carefully, made available, because we had to put a bid in to implement Krebs. We will have to look at this. Obviously, if we were to, let us say, abandon any road traffic accident survey, clearly, that would be a change of policy, in the sense of principle, and certainly that would be announced, that would not be done secretly, and I am not forecasting one way or the other. My inclination is to go for a road traffic survey; what I do not know at the moment is whether we will be able to do it outside of the counties that have already been targeted. Or maybe do not do it in the hot spot counties, because we are going to find out a lot about badgers in the hot spot counties where the triplets are, and deliberately go for counties outside of the culling area, just to take a snapshot. Let us take a snapshot, in 1999, of the counties where there is next to no problem, or very, very minor, way outside the area, just to take a snapshot, to see if anything interesting comes up, we do it because it is an interesting thing to do and we might find something. I do not know, I have to get the advice on it, but my inclination is certainly to go for some form of—there are so many badgers, unfortunately, killed by motorists that it is like a resource that is, it seems to me, going to waste, to find out about them. So, from that point of view, I think it is an area certainly I am keen to explore.

  707. I am certainly reassured by, I think, what I might say is a commonsensical approach to this approach. Looking at the broader research project, you have announced the research programme for 1999-2000, it is something, I think, just over £3 million. That does not seem a very large sum of money in sort of governmental terms, but are you satisfied that it covers all of the areas that we ought to be looking at, the question of transmission, for example, which seems to elude everybody who looks into it, the question of the weather factor, the importance of different forms of husbandry, which you have already spoken to Diana about; are you satisfied the research budget is big enough to cover all of those possible areas?
  (Mr Rooker) I have to, but do not run away with the idea that, you see, the announcement last week,—which I freely admit, by the way, I had a choice of making it today, I thought it would be best to make it as soon as possible. My view is to get the information out, it is no good coming here today and saying "Oh, we're doing the research budget"; it is a con, it treats you with less than seriousness.

  708. We would never expect that of you, Minister, no.
  (Mr Rooker) But, do not forget, the culling trial is part of the research. The exercise announced last week, the £3.4 million, several different schemes, are really, if you like, add-ons, ancillary extras to what we are doing as a whole. So it is not true to say that MAFF's research on this, out of £27 million for 1999-2000, is only £3.4 million, it is not fair to say that. Professor Krebs is very critical of old MAFF, in putting far more into compensation and testing than into research, whereas, of course, the New Zealanders had done it the other way round, or on certainly a different scale, and we have certainly shifted the scale of the percentage of resources into research.

  709. And, my final question really, Minister, to what extent can you guarantee—a foolish word, I think, to put to a Minister—that funding for research will carry on, year upon year; a word slightly lower than guarantee might be appropriate, but assured, might be the answer?
  (Mr Rooker) All I can do, I think, as any other Minister will do at the moment, is, the funds have been made available for the Comprehensive Spending Review, which is just about to start, in April, it is a three-year programme, as I understand it; it is obviously a Government operation, a different way of doing public finances, it will be reviewed after two years. So, within the Comprehensive Spending Review, everybody knows the money we have got available and the resources, and obviously we will be accountable for how we use it within that snapshot of the CSR.

  710. And beyond that?
  (Mr Rooker) I cannot say.

  711. But the Treasury's carefulness will contribute?
  (Mr Rooker) I cannot say.

  Chairman: I am sure we can say that with some confidence.

  712. What timetable is going to be followed for the release of data from the culls?
  (Mr Rooker) I have to share with you that I do not know the answer to that. I am mindful of the history of my Ministry, which is, if you like,—

  713. Secretive?
  (Mr Rooker) I was not going to say that.

  714. Careful, perhaps?
  (Mr Rooker) What I was going to say is, it is quite clear, from the evidence given to another inquiry, which I only know what I read in the newspapers, like you, with no access to the background of the BSE inquiry, it is quite clear there have been criticisms of lack of discussion and releasing information, so that other, independent scientists can check work that has been going on. Now we obviously want to learn from the lessons of the past, and I am going to be mindful of the fact that there are maybe some people who want to hang on to it, because they see scientifically it is important, it is not quite ready for releasing; there will be other people pressing me, and my colleagues say "No, Minister; in the interests of openness, and learning lessons from the past, get it out now", not too soon, because the validity must not be destroyed by putting it out too soon. It is going to be a tricky one, I do not deny that. Let us face it, our policy in this issue has been to publish all the information we can as quickly as we can about the trial, the background and what we are doing. Now that will be our ethos on the release of information, but I do not think it will be like the first results of the 238, it may or may not be possible to release that, possible is the wrong word, there may or may not be a decision to release the detailed information, because that could totally and utterly distort, or give people a different mindset, and I do not know what the figures are, by the way, about what we find. And we must not conduct the policy on the basis of skimpy information, which then is used to destroy, if you like, the validity of what we are trying to do to collect the information; but it is one where I will be happy to report back, because it is a tricky one, the release of information. We have got MAFF, you see, it is not controlled, in any sense, by, at the end of the day, I suppose it is down to Minister, it is, indeed, but it is not controlled by MAFF officials; the Independent Scientific Group is running the trial, overseeing the trial, and we are relying on their advice and expertise, it is very important. And, obviously, if there are differences of opinion between the Group, on the one hand, and advisers, on the other, then it is down to Ministers to take a view of that. But I do realise the way it is released and the timing of the release of valid, scientific information for use by other scientists is obviously of interest, but we must release it so it is valid, it is scientific and of use to other scientists. I am not going to release it just because it is of use to a PR campaign for the NFU or a PR campaign for the badger groups, and I do not see them separate. I have done meetings on every triplet and I will go to every triplet when it is announced to have a discussion, the same as I did at Cinderford and the same as I did on the Devon/Cornwall one, to put the case and to listen to views, and they were both, in my view, very successful meetings, with both sides listening to each other.

  715. So you are obviously well aware of the sensitivity of the release of the data and how it is going to be perceived?
  (Mr Rooker) I am, yes.

  716. When we saw the vets, they expressed a criticism over the lack of communication between MAFF divisional offices and local veterinary inspectors when there was a TB outbreak; is that criticism seen as valid by MAFF, firstly?
  (Mr Rooker) When you say you saw the vets, which vets were these?

  717. RCVS, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
  (Mr Rooker) I have to say that is one transcript I have not read. As I said, in answer to David Drew, I think it is implied in there, we wish to get as fast an operation as possible where there are outbreaks, and, it is true, there have been criticisms in the past, there have been criticisms during the days of the badger removal operation, and I do not know if they gave you particular examples, when they were here, that I could get them checked out. It is quite clear, this is a complex issue, there are opposing views as to the practicalities of what has happened in the past; obviously, we are trying to learn the lessons from the past, but what we are trying to do is to run as efficient and as tight a ship as we can, at the moment, with this new policy, i.e. a new policy of trying to find out the information we need to construct a policy for control of TB. So I am sorry I cannot be more specific than that, Mark.

  718. They did certainly make a criticism that the local veterinary inspectors were not informed; the written evidence actually referred to that. So we can take it that some attempt will be made to at least perhaps have a discussion with them and address their concerns?
  (Mr Rooker) Where a problem has been identified, we will do our best to redress it.

  719. In relation to the options for future policy, the Ministry's memorandum notes that "the Government's primary motivation in conducting the investigation is to arrive at a sound scientific basis for future policy decisions", yet about a fortnight or so ago you put on record that you, and I quote, "do not see widespread badger culling as the answer". The question in the minds of, I am sure, a lot of people is what then is the point of the trial, some people will be saying, if it is shown that, say, 80 per cent, or more, or less, of herd breakdowns can be attributed to badgers, when will you actually consider a policy such as that, have you actually closed off one of the options, which I think, I am sure, quite a lot of farmers already anticipate to be the only answer?
  (Mr Rooker) The policy option that we closed off was not just announced a fortnight ago, it was said at the time we announced last August, our policy objective is the control, and possibly eradication, of TB in cattle, our policy objective is not the eradication of the badger, it is the exact opposite. The idea that we have a policy objective of wiping out the badger species in this country is a non-starter, we will not consider it, it is not even on the table, nobody has put it to us. But it is the way the thing gets talked about. It may be a policy option in certain areas of the country to, if you like, remove badgers, or control their levels, depending on the terrain, the time of the year, the badger density, the history of the area; that I do not consider to be a policy. The badger is not under threat in this country, it is not an endangered species, and it is not going to be, as a result of this trial. So we are not closing off a policy option because nobody has ever really said "Eradicate the badger from GB and that will solve the problem", I do not think that is a ...