Following today’s announcements by Defra and particularly the statement made by Dr Christine Middlemiss, UK Chief Veterinary Officer, I’ve written again to Ranil Jayawardena MP. You can read what I’ve said below.
To: Ranil Jayawardena MP Wed 05/04/2023
Dear Mr Jayawardena,
I’m still waiting for a reply to my email to you dated 8th March and the numerous substantive points I raised within it. I’m also still waiting for a reply from the BTB Engage Team to my email to them in January. It’s not nice to be ignored in this manner and I wonder what the reasons are for this? Please provide me with your reply, and one from the BTB Engage Team, as soon as possible.
Today, I’m writing to you because you recently wrote to one of the members of North East Hampshire Badger Group (your letter reference being RJ42678-SW) to say that last year’s consultation on the badger cull proposed how culling will be phased out and that new licenses can be cut short “after two or three years”. As you know, the license for culling in Area 56, including parts of your own constituency, was issued in 2021 so is available to be cut short with immediate effect.
Today we have learned the Government’s Chief Veterinary Officer has issued the following statement.
“In May 2021, the government issued a response to the bovine tuberculosis (bTB) consultation. This set out provision for the UK Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) to recommend early termination for intensive cull licenses issued in 2021 and 2022 after 2 or 3 years.
Cull Areas 55 to 61 inclusive began culling in September 2021, and all of them completed their second cull in late 2022. These areas are therefore eligible for consideration of early termination.
On review of the available data for these 7 areas, my view is that early termination would be sub-optimal for disease control. Therefore, my advice is not to terminate any of those culls this year. ”
As you know, Mark Spencer MP recently confirmed to you in response to your written question that there is a complete absence of data confirming the existence of bTB reservoirs in badgers in Hampshire. Mr. Spencer’s reply admitted such but referred you to an ongoing APHA Southern Edge bTB project (“badgers found dead”) which has been running since April 2021 and is due to finish this month. As of the end of February 2023, this project had identified bTB in 1 badger out of 84 submitted from Hampshire over the last two years and is not yet confirmed or peer-reviewed.
As you also know from the APHA 2021 Year-End Descriptive Epidemiology Report for Hampshire, there have been no confirmed cases of badgers as a source of bTB herd infections in cattle here either. Not one. That was also the case in the APHA 2020 Year-End report for Hampshire, which highlighted that one domestic cat had been found with bTB in this county that year. And no badgers.
I must ask you please to urgently reach out to your ministerial colleagues in Defra and ask them on what possible basis the UK Chief Veterinary Officer has concluded that early termination of the Area 56 badger cull is “sub-optimal”. Such a conclusion is absurd and, in relation to Hampshire at least, will be of great interest to those in your constituency who share my regard for our natural world, and distaste for wildlife persecution, as well as the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention.
I look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency.
Yours faithfully,
Nick Cole
North East Hampshire Badger Group.
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