I commend Simon Thomas for bringing this debate forward and for the sober way in which he argued his case, in particular his conclusion, because that’s how I was intending to begin my speech, in any event, to point to the enormous cull of cattle that has taken place—with no conferring. Since 1996, nearly 120,000 cattle have been slaughtered as part of the control of tuberculosis in cattle. So, this debate, which is so frequently taking place in the context of the badger cull, has to be considered in a much wider context, because also, as a result of the uncontrolled expansion in the number of badgers in the countryside, other species have also been culled quite naturally—hedgehogs, toads, snakes, slow worms, and so on and so forth. So, nature in the raw, I’m afraid, is perhaps very unpleasant, but that’s the reality of life in the wild.

The problems in Wales are particularly severe. In the 12 months to June 2015, 9,500 cattle were slaughtered, and that’s a 43 per cent increase on the previous year. It’s particularly a problem in our region of Mid and West Wales. In Pembrokeshire, there’s a 55 per cent increase in the number of cattle slaughtered to June 2015. In Carmarthenshire, it’s 89 per cent. Simon referred to the particular problems in Clwyd, which has seen a 129 per cent increase in the number of cattle slaughtered. These are dreadful figures and each one constituted a tragedy for the farm concerned and the farming family that runs it.

So, this is not a problem that is going to be solved very soon. The tragedy is that, at the moment, because of the lack of vaccine, in effect, the Government has no policy. The percentage of herds in Wales that are currently under restriction has gone up from nearly 4 per cent in 2006 to nearly 6 per cent in 2015, and that also poses significant costs and difficulties for the individual farms concerned. Vaccination is undoubtedly part of the solution to the problem, but we won’t have a vaccine available generally until at least 2023, according to the industry.

We have to remember that, even if we do have a vaccination policy, it doesn’t actually confer immunity upon badgers that have already been infected, although it does help to stop other badgers being infected. Although, it’s said that the vaccination itself may be no more than 70 per cent or 80 per cent effective. So, even if we do have a proper vaccination policy, it’s not going to be the solution, 100 per cent.

The cost of the current policy is significant—or the policy that we had up until the vaccine disappeared, that is. In 2015, we spent £922,000 on 1,118 badgers—that’s £825 per badger. I don’t know how we can conclude that this is a policy that we can afford, if it’s going to be applied to achieve the levels of freedom from infection that we would like to see.

Greater surveillance and biosecurity are also important, and have, undoubtedly, had an effect on the figures. They have reduced the number of new incidents—we have to be aware of that—from 1,112 in 2012 down to 854 in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available. But, the slaughter figures have actually got worse as the number of herds infected each year has gone down. In 2014, 8,103 cattle were slaughtered, compared with 6,102 in 2012.

We have to remember that tuberculosis is a horrible disease, and the badgers that are infected by it suffer as well. So, any means that we can employ that have a long-term benefit of reducing the incidence of TB in badgers is good for badgers themselves. It’s not humane, actually, to have a policy that doesn’t work. Therefore, I think we have to, perhaps, be less squeamish about the way in which we approach this.

There is no doubt that badgers do spread tuberculosis to cattle—that has been proved scientifically. It has been proved also that culling badgers does reduce the incidence in herds. I heard what Joyce Watson said about the Krebs report, but the Krebs report has been criticised for many reasons on account of the weaknesses and anomalies in its strategies. We haven’t time to go into that today. But, I agree with her conclusion from the report that has been produced by the British Veterinary Association that a targeted, effective and humane cull is going to have to be part of a long-term policy of eradication. This can be done in ways that are humane. Shooting with rifles at a distance is not a humane or effective way of doing it—that’s not something that I would support. But, there are more humane methods of trapping and gassing in setts with carbon dioxide, which isn’t lethal to badgers except in certain doses, so, if it is not done properly, there is no ill effect that is felt.

So, I’m afraid that the cull will continue—not of badgers, though, but of cattle, with all of the costs. Simon Thomas was quite right, I think, to refer to the emotional costs that are involved here, as well as the financial ones. Ultimately, as far as our negotiations with the EU are concerned, I do agree with both him and Huw Irranca-Davies that this is potentially a hurdle that we’ve got to get over. It’s vitally important, therefore, that the Welsh Government takes a strong view on this, and I think Huw Irranca-Davies showed the way forward—that, under the current regime that has been endorsed by the European Commission, there is no excuse whatsoever for using this, as the French did in relation to BSE, to try to block exports of meat products from Wales or the United Kingdom.

So, although we, perhaps, don’t have the full answer to the problems that exist in relation to bovine TB, perhaps today we have begun, in a cross-party debate, to explore the solutions that are bound, ultimately, to be the ones that the Government will have to face up to.