Badger cull debate in Parliament
A parliamentary debate on the badger cull took place in the House of Commons yesterday, Thursday 25th October, which provoked fierce arguments for and against the cull.
Welsh MPs had a particularly loud voice in the debate, with some arguments that purport that badgers are being killed "for sport" while others focussed on the "absolutely devastating" effects bovine TB has on famers and families.
Newport West Labour MP Paul Flynn was against the cull, saying: "Many people sadly enjoy killing wild animals. It's not part of the growing civilisation of this country as go from decade to decade and we treat other living species with greater respect and not with contempt."
Meanwhile, Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South Tory MP, Simon Hart, emphasised the 'very serious consequences' of a lack of action; he said: "A lot of those [slaughtered farm] animals would have been perfectly healthy, some of them would have been in calf; some of them because they were so much in calf would have probably had to be slaughtered on the yard, in front of, in many cases, young children."
Another MP, Montgomeryshire Tory Glyn Davies, himself a farmer, spoke in favour of a 'targeted pilot cull' to test its effectiveness, but he added would not support a general cull if it failed.
At the end of the debate, MPs voted 147 to 28 in favour of a motion calling on the UK government to abandon its cull entirely, but as the debate was held at the behest of backbenchers, ministers are not bound by this vote.
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
