I thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement and I am optimistic that these new enhanced measures will continue the significant progress that has been made towards eradicating bovine TB in Wales, which has already seen a 40 per cent drop in cases since 2009. I share your resolve to clear up the long-standing TB breakdowns, the cost to the public purse and the personal misery that they perpetuate.

But, Members know my views on culling wildlife: I believe that we should do all that we can to avoid it. So, I would urge the Government to continue to seek new science-led, innovative and humane ways to take out the disease. There is a big difference between Wales and the heedless cull in England. I know, Cabinet Secretary, that you don’t support an all-out cull and I welcome that approach, but I do wonder how frequently cages will be examined and how sure you can be that once a badger is caught, it would escape unnecessary death and suffering. You mentioned roadside kills being reported. I wonder if any of those have been assessed as being already dead before arriving at the roadside, and how many of them are actually TB free. I have lots of anecdotal evidence that suggest that that is a way of disposing of badgers that have been killed illegally long before they arrive at the kerbside. So, the only way that we can determine that is by actually looking more closely at those carcasses.

The other thing that I want to ask about are the slurry leaks from the mega dairy farms and the potential spread of bTB as a consequence of those. I ask, because it’s not mentioned here at all in this statement, whether before we license any more mega dairy farms, we could look very seriously within that planning application about the containment of slurry within the farm, rather than finding it in the river within a few days and also quite frequently.

I would also be interested to hear your views, Cabinet Secretary, on a new testing technique currently being used on a farm in Devon that could help identify and isolate infected cows more accurately and quickly, eliminating TB from the herd without having to interfere with the surrounding wildlife. We know that although badgers can catch TB from cattle, they don’t keep it alive for nearly as long. The Devon test appears to show that even where badgers around the farm had tested positively for TB, because the disease had been completely eradicated from the herd, it then doesn’t return. The Save Me Trust is assisting in the study and hopes that, with better testing, killing badgers will become an irrelevance, and so do I.

The other thing that has disturbed me, and I’m sure it will have disturbed other people listening to this debate today, is now the inclusion, not only of badgers, but of otters and beavers. I find that completely distressing and I’d like to see any evidence that anyone can present in that regard.