Parliamentary Questions

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who owns the traps and other equipment used for badger trapping exercises carried out on behalf of the Department. [148653]

Mr. Bradshaw: The traps and other equipment used in the Randomised Badger Culling Trial are owned by Defra.

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the administrative boundaries of the Krebs proactive areas necessarily coincide with the areas inhabited by badgers. [148658]

Mr. Bradshaw: The boundaries of treatment areas in which badger culling would take place were only prescribed once putative badger social group territories had been delineated. Any sett outside a trial area boundary which was associated with a social group of badgers whose territory fell within the trial area would be subject to the same treatment as the sett within the trial area (proactive or reactive culling) once allocated.

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what tests have been carried out by the Department to determine

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whether healthy badgers have acquired or are likely to acquire infection after colonising setts left vacant as a result of clearance of TB infected badgers. [148661]

Mr. Bradshaw: It is likely that the lack of light and relatively constant temperature and humidity inside a badger sett would favour the survival of Mycobacterium bovis (the causative organism of bovine tuberculosis). However, as there is currently no effective live test for TB in badgers, it would not be possible to tell if an incoming badger was healthy when colonising a vacant sett.

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether there are humane methods licensed for the stunning and slaughter of animals and poultry which rely on gases to render animals unconscious prior to their slaughter. [148652]

Mr. Bradshaw: The Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995 (as amended) lay down the permitted stunning and killing methods for both red meat animals and poultry. The permitted methods have been assessed for humaneness. The use of gas mixtures is a permitted method for rendering pigs, domestic fowls and turkeys unconscious. The use of gas mixtures is actually a stun-kill method, in that the animal or bird has to remain in the gas until it is dead.

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which persons and organisations are permitted to slaughter badgers; what conditions are imposed on them; and under what circumstances badgers are allowed to be slaughtered. [148663]

Mr. Bradshaw: No persons or organisations are permitted to slaughter badgers.

Badgers are a protected species and it is an offence to kill (or attempt to kill) a badger (Protection of Badgers Act 1992 s.1(1)). A person guilty of this offence is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for up to six months and/or a fine of up to £5,000 (this applies to each badger killed).

There are certain specified exceptions to this offence under which badgers may be lawfully killed. These are summarised as follows.

Section 6—General exceptions

A person is not guilty of an offence:

where a seriously injured badger is killed or attempted to be killed as an act of mercy;
where a badger is unavoidably killed or injured as an incidental result of a lawful action; and
doing anything which is authorised under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 eg experimental procedures approved under licence to advance biological or behavioural knowledge etc.

Section 7—"Farmer's defence"

A person is not guilty of an offence by reason of killing a badger if the action was necessary for the purpose of preventing serious damage to land, crops, poultry or other form of property.

This defence cannot be relied upon if it was apparent before that time that action would prove necessary and a licence had not been applied for as soon as reasonably practicable, or where an application for such a licence had been determined.

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Section 10—Licences
Licences may be granted to permit badgers to be killed for the following purposes:

scientific or educational purposes or the conservation of badgers;
preventing the spread of disease;
preventing serious damage to land, crops, poultry or any other form of property.

All licences are judged on their own merits and would be subject to compliance with conditions specified in the licence.

The exceptions, and any conditions that apply, are stated in full in the Act, which is available from Her Majesty's Stationary Office or online at: www. legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1992/Ukpga 19920051 en l.htm.

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under what circumstances badgers may be removed from setts; and what regulations govern such removals. [149221]

Mr. Bradshaw: Badgers are a protected species and it is an offence to remove (or attempt to remove) a badger from its sett, either forcibly (including the use of dogs) or by installing exclusion measures (such as one-way gates), or by obstructing access of a badger to its sett (Protection of Badgers Act 1992). A person guilty of any of these offences is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for up to six months and/or a fine of up to £5000.

The legislation includes provisions for the granting of licences, which, where justified, could be used to permit the removal (by exclusion) of badgers from a sett. The purposes for which licences may be issued are summarised as follows:

Science, education or conservation of badgers
Zoological collections
Ringing or marking
Development
Archaeological preservation or investigation
Investigating offences
Preventing the spread of disease
Preventing serious damage to land, crops, poultry or any other form of property
Agricultural or forestry operations
Drainage or sea defence

These purposes are described in full in the Act, which is available from Her Majesty's Stationary Office or online.

All licences are judged on their own merits and would be subject to compliance with conditions specified in the licence.

Controls relating to the removal of badgers from setts where the intention is to relocate the animals elsewhere—rather than simply denying access to a particular sett—are described in the joint response to parliamentary questions 0673 2003–04 and 0675 2003–04.

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Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the proportion of TB in cattle that arises from cattle-to-cattle spread. [148654]

Mr. Bradshaw: No such estimate has been made. In many cases, it is not possible to ascribe the source of TB infection in cattle, as the routes of transmission of Mycobacterium bovis (the causative agent for bovine tuberculosis) from cattle to cattle, and between environmental sources (including wildlife) and cattle, are not fully understood.

Part of the TB research programme includes investigation of the pathogenesis of M. bovis in cattle. In addition, a survey is underway to assess potential risk factors that may predispose herds to TB outbreaks. A preliminary analysis is set out in the Third Report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB.