Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 23 January 2019.
I'm rather astonished to hear that, but there it is. The results of the four-year badger cull that was licensed in England have recently been published, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as a result is now extending them into 10 other areas in England. The results closest to us in south-west England, in Gloucestershire—the incidence of TB in wildlife has been reduced from 10.4 per cent to 5.6 per cent and, in Somerset, from 24 per cent to 12 per cent. So, it seems like an overall reduction of 50 per cent. Now, the Farmers Union of Wales has said that England's progress makes Wales's strategy look toothless, given that you have a plan on the shelf, as it were, ready to be brought in if you give the go-ahead to extend badger culling, which, of course, would be an animal welfare policy for badgers as well as for cattle, because TB is a terrible disease, whichever form of animal life has to suffer from it. So, surely, it's now time, in this particular instance at any rate, to think of following England's example.