Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): I welcome Geraldine Fee, grade 5; Colin Hart, grade 5; Mr Roly Harwood, grade 6; and Andrew Kell, grade 7. You are all very welcome. Can I ask you to make your presentation?

Ms Geraldine Fee (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development): Mr Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to provide the Committee with an update on bovine TB, the progress of the new TB strategic partnership group and the first year of the test and vaccinate or remove (TVR) wildlife intervention research project. As you noted, the Committee has already received, in advance of today's meeting, detailed statistical information on TB incidence and an update on our progress in addressing the Committee inquiry recommendations. You will be aware that the annual report on the 2013 TB programme was published several months ago and that a copy of that was provided to the Committee as well as being placed on the DARD website. It was a substantial piece of work that should be of interest and value to those who are concerned with TB eradication. Work has already started on the production of the 2014 report, which will be published later this year.

During 2014, Veterinary Service continued to provide biosecurity advice to farmers through on-site visits and advisory leaflets along with TB letters. It also continued to work constructively with private veterinary practitioners (PVPs) through the TB testing partnership group. One output from that was the production of TB heat maps in response to an express need to know more about disease levels on the ground. PVP feedback indicates that those have been informative and useful in promoting discussion with clients. As well as being sent in hard copies to all practices, they are also available on the Internet. Updated maps are currently being produced.

We have also tightened our cross-compliance rules, with the objective of ensuring that the 300 or more farmers whose TB herd tests are persistently more than three months overdue now test on time. I am pleased to report that there has been an improvement in the TB herd incidence position in 2014 compared with that in 2013. TB herd incidence has fallen from 6·48% for the 12 months ending 30 November 2013 to 6·01% for the 12 months ending 30 November 2014. Although there has been a 7·2% reduction in the number of new herd breakdowns, there has been an increase of 4·6% in the number of animals removed as reactors during the same period. Therefore, while we welcome the reduction in TB herd incidence, we are concerned about the recent increase in reactor numbers. There is, therefore, no room for complacency, and we need to further progressively reduce the levels of TB in our herds, with eradication being the ultimate aim.
Our 2015 TB eradication programme gained EU Commission approval as part of the overall UK TB eradication plan, and the payment of co-funding for 2013 has also been approved. In May 2015, the Food and Veterinary Office will be conducting a detailed audit of our TB eradication programme. This will be an important evaluation of our programme and its delivery and may subsequently lead to the EU Commission recommending changes to it.
You will recall that, on 17 September 2013, the Minister announced that she intended to establish a TB strategic partnership group to develop a long-term strategy to eradicate TB from the cattle population here. The Minister indicated that the eradication strategy should be all-embracing and address all relevant issues and the partnership should produce an implementation plan outlining the cost of implementing the various elements and how those would be funded and agree who would lead on their implementation.

As you are aware, the partnership group was fully established by October 2014 and comprises a Chair, four independent members and two DARD ex officio members. The newly established group has been tasked with developing the long-term eradication strategy and implementation plan within 12 months. I am pleased to inform you that the group is meeting frequently. It commissioned a consultation exercise on 6 December, and that closed on 23 January. The exercise was intended to gather information and views from stakeholder organisations and members of the public. Some 28 responses were received, and the group is currently considering those. It is likely that the group will have meetings with at least some of those who have provided responses to explore their suggestions in more detail. It is anticipated that the group will produce its interim report and recommendations by June 2015. It will then engage in further consultation before producing its final report and implementation plan by December 2015.

The group has been provided with the results of TB-related research, such as the biosecurity study and the recently completed slurry literature review, the badger-cattle proximity study as well as a briefing on the TVR wildlife intervention research project. It has also been provided with research papers in relation to the TB eradication strategies in Wales and England.

DARD has separately met with local industry stakeholders to brief them on those research findings and the possibilities from risk-based trading at a TB workshop held in the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) Greenmount campus on 5 June 2014. That allowed stakeholders the opportunity to ask questions about the research findings and provide their initial response. In addition, work is currently being carried out to ensure that some funding will be available through the rural development programme 2014-2020. Specifically, officials are considering how the farm business improvement scheme may help on-farm biosecurity.

Substantial work has also been undertaken to progress the TVR project. At the outset, the Minister made it clear that it was vital that we embarked on an intervention research project, which could provide a unique contribution or insight into TB in cattle and TB in wildlife here. She also made it clear that we must avoid simply replicating the expensive interventions and research being undertaken elsewhere.

As you know, TVR is a five-year research project, which will run from 2014 to 2018. The project commenced on 27 May 2014 in a 100 square kilometre area of County Down. An integral part of TVR is to undertake badger ecology studies, including the measuring and monitoring of badger movements in the TVR area to seek to establish whether there is any potential for adverse perturbation.

Fieldwork on the first year of TVR was completed on 24 October 2014. Some 94% of farmers and landowners gave access permissions to allow DARD staff to implement the TVR research project on their land. Some 280 badgers were captured, although there were a further 350 recapture events. Badgers were anaesthetised, sampled, microchipped, vaccinated and then released. In addition, GPS collars were placed on 39 badgers to establish the baseline of data on badger movements. That data can be compared with future movement data obtained during the removal of infected badgers.

Year 2 fieldwork is expected to commence in May/June 2015, during which all test-positive badgers will be removed and test-negative badgers will be vaccinated. We anticipate that a considerable volume of data will be accumulated during the five-year period. We cannot commit at this stage to issue interim results, as that could lead to premature and potentially inaccurate speculation about TVR and its effects.

A final report will be completed in 2019, after the TVR data has been analysed, interpreted and understood. Finally, I trust that this provides the Committee with an overview with where we are with bovine TB-related issues. We are happy to take your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): OK. Thank you very much for your presentation. The Committee Clerk spoke to you about the graph and a number of figures that we were given. For example, last April, we were told that there were 8,271 reactors and the compensation was £12·59 million. However, we received other figures this week that there were 7,502 reactors and the compensation was £10·57 million. In another incident, a press release said that there were 8,392 animals and the compensation was £11·5 million. So, there are three different figures being bandied about. From the Committee's perspective, it seems strange that there are so many different figures. What is the issue here?

Mr Roly Harwood (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development): I can try to explain it. Last year, when we attended the Committee, we provided the figures for the whole of 2013 because the Committee meeting was a bit later and those figures were available. So, that is where you get the 8,271 reactors from. The compensation referred to there was for compensation in its entirety. So, that includes reactors, animals taken as negative contacts and as gamma interferon animals.
The next figure is from the DARD press release in September. The number of reactors is incorrect; there is no other way of putting it. We spent ages looking at how that happened and could not find the answer. It may have been a transcription error or something. It is wrong.

The compensation figure is for the removal of reactors only. It was making a specific point about the number of reactors and the cost of compensation for reactors. That figure is correct.

The figures that I gave you today are not for the complete year, because official statistics only go up to the end of November at the moment. To allow you to make an accurate comparison between 2013 and 2014, I have given you the 2013 figure to the end of November as a reference point. That is supposed to make it easier for you to make a comparison as we are sitting here. There is no point in giving you the full year for 2013 and only 11 months of 2014, because you do not know how the two compare. That is standard. If you look at statistics on the Internet for other countries, you will find that this is what they do: they will look at the same 12-month period. The compensation is for reactors only. The figure has been checked and is correct.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): The compensation of £10·57 million is correct.

Mr Harwood: Yes, it is correct, but it is only for reactors. I make that point because if you look at the number of reactors and the cost, it gives you a better feel for the cost per animal. Obviously, it has caused problems, so what we need to do is to find a way of being consistent. That is provided, and I assumed that it is just looked at in isolation, and that is —

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): You can understand why it is very difficult for us to know what is what, when the figures are set out like this.

Mr Harwood: I understand that; but, as I say, the only one that is wrong is the one in the press release: the others are correct. They have just been presented in a slightly different way.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): You are saying that the associated animals that are taken are not counted into that?

Mr Harwood: They are not counted into the compensation figures. They are not counted into reactor numbers, because the purpose of that table is to show what is happening with the disease. It only looks at animals taken as reactors; we build our incidence figures on herds that go down as reactor herds. That is why it is presented in this way.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): The difficulty is that, when many of those reactors are killed, they do not show any sign of TB. Is that not right?

Mr Harwood: A fair proportion do not, but that does not mean they do not have it.

Ms Fee: If it would be helpful to the Committee, we can agree the parameters of the figures for the next update to ensure that the figures we provide meet your expectations and are clearly explained.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): It leads to confusion if there is not some consistency.

Mr Byrne: Our Committee held an inquiry, which came up with 18 recommendations. I have to say that, after reading a summary assessment of where this is going, I am very concerned that an awful lot of things have not started. I refer to recommendations 4, 6 and 7. We are told that there have been staff shortages at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI). How seriously are the TVR and badger-cattle proximity studies and the research that has been done by AFBI being taken?

Ms Fee: The updates provided on 4, 6 and 7 reflect delays in some research projects, which have been impacted by staffing issues at AFBI. We are, however, liaising with them closely, and through the evidence and innovation (E&I) process, they are submitting revised full-format proposals and change requests. Within the prioritisation arrangements we are anxious to get any of the projects that still meet identified needs activated. Resources are, of course, a constraint, and difficult choices will have to be made on funding for research; but, at the same time, there is a prioritisation process and stakeholders are being liaised with about that. As I say, we are working closely with AFBI.

Mr Byrne: I take it that AFBI was contracted to carry out some work for DARD. I know that AFBI is an arm's-length body of DARD. Surely somebody is accountable for the slippage in relation to recommendation 4. The study has still not started. Members will recall that this appears to be a recurring theme with AFBI and TB studies. Recommendation 6 is about the gamma interferon study, which:

although it was scheduled to be completed by December 2013. Recommendation 7 is that:

This is a similar story to recommendations 4 and 6. There are staff shortages nearly 18 months after the publication of the Committee report and acceptance by the Minister of at least three of these recommendations without explaining these staff shortages. Who needs to get a grip on this?

Ms Fee: First, I would not want to give the impression that no work has commenced on any of these projects. Certain milestones have been reached on some of the projects. The Department has also undertaken a review of progress on the first three years of the E&I programme. There will be recommendations arising from that. The process is now being very closely monitored, again through the E&I programme, and there is quite a bit of oversight now through change-control documents and revisions to full-format proposals. I am afraid that issues such as the lack of suitably qualified staff with capacity to undertake the work in AFBI were outside my direct control, but those issues are being considered in a departmental way.

Mr Byrne: Chairman, we have the TVR project, badger-cattle proximity studies, alternative control herds (ACH) and AFBI studies going on. I am worried that this is a tale of woe and that no one is really taking responsibility for most of what has happened. It begs this question: are there still too many people — vets, departmental vets, private vets and cattle-owners — who are quite happy with this ongoing saga because so much public money is available to finance the show?

Ms Fee: The Department has clearly demonstrated its intention to get a grip on the problem by establishing the TB strategic partnership. The Minister has very clearly set out her expectation that a solution will be developed by Government and industry together to ensure that there is the necessary consensus and ownership to develop and implement a strategy. The bio-security study, the proximity study and the slurry literature review have all been completed. Some interim work has been done in relation to the chronic herds, and that has been analysed by the Department's veterinary epidemiology unit, which is liaising closely with AFBI on the next steps because we are very conscious that you need to review projects, not only to analyse the results that they have delivered to date but also to ensure delivery of results to inform policy-making in the most cost-effective way.

We have requested AFBI to provide us with its revised costs in relation to endemic diseases and a tailored-format proposal to meet the ongoing policy needs. The same is true of our request in relation to serological testing. We are also considering research going forward for the 2015-16 programme against that backdrop. Proposals have been put forward in consultation with stakeholders to look at the genetic components and to try to tie in with the research which has been undertaken through TVR. I should also indicate that there is a commitment of funding up to £7·5 million across five years for the TVR research project. I think that the Department is demonstrating its seriousness in gripping this problem. I think that there are also demonstrated successes in the herd incidence statistics, but herd incidence could be subject to a rise in future, and we are monitoring that very closely.

Mr Byrne: I will make a final comment. There is certainly no problem about money being put to different projects. That seems to me to be a lucrative end of the business. The other questions that I have are of a policy nature, so it would not be fair to ask the officials.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): OK. I suppose that I should have declared an interest at the outset, given that my own herd is down with TB. Thankfully, it is not a serious outbreak. It is minor. I declare that interest.

Over the years, there has been a situation whereby chronic herds repeatedly go down with breakdowns. Have you done any assessment of why that should be the case? I have noticed that some herds go down in massive numbers, whereas other herds have small numbers of TB. Is there a reason for that? Have you identified the causes of herds repeatedly going down and others not?

Ms Fee: I can maybe speak slightly about the research project. That is research that has been commissioned from AFBI and is at a certain stage. The data is being analysed in conjunction with the veterinary epidemiological unit. It is also an issue which has arisen in discussions with the TB strategic partnership. We will provide further information to them going forward. As regards actual issues on the ground, is there anything —

Mr Harwood: Yes, there is the work that is being done to look at this type of herd in some detail. In general, a lot of work is being done that shows that there are certain risk factors associated with TB. Even the size of the herd makes it more likely to have a breakdown. The actual history of a herd — if it has had confirmed TB within three years — means it is more likely to go down again. Equally, because it is a disease that clusters, you get TB in an area. So, if there is a high level of TB, the herds are more likely to go down in that area and could go down frequently. The buying-in policy for a herd is another thing that can affect how often it goes down. It is demonstrable that the more animals that are bought into the herd, the more likely they are to go down. So, in essence, somebody's business plan could lead to their herd going down a lot more frequently than other herds. Our vets are going to look and advise when somebody has had a breakdown to point these things out and advise as to what can be done. I have not covered everything, but that is some of it.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): It just seems strange that, in some herds, there can be large numbers go down while, in other herds, very small numbers.

Mr Harwood: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): It seems strange that it is not the same in each herd. They are completely different.

Mr Harwood: The pattern of spread of the disease is not fully understood. It is very difficult to actually ascertain why that very large spread has come about in certain situations.

Mr Poots: What is the herd incidence in other parts of the British Isles — England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland?

Mr Harwood: The Republic recently published its 2014 figures. Its herd incidence is 3·61%. In the previous year, it was 3·85%. In GB, it was 4·1% until the end of October, compared with 4·5% the previous year. I have not got the breakdown for the individual parts.

Mr Poots: That is fair enough. The percentages are all comparable really, are they not?

Mr Harwood: They are all in the same ballpark, but they are not calculated in the same way, so they are not directly comparable. However, they all roughly show the same thing. When we are looking at herd incidence in other jurisdictions, we tend to look at the trends. The Republic is showing a similar trend to us, in that its herd incidence has gone down a bit but the number of animals that it has had to remove has gone up. In Wales and the west of England, the incidence has gone down quite significantly over the past year, whereas in the north and east of England it has gone up a bit. You have to look at it in that way.

Mr Poots: We are 80% above the Republic and 50% above the rest of the UK, so are they doing something differently from us?

Mr Harwood: All the programmes have slight differences. Some things are being done elsewhere that are stronger than what we do, while some things that we do are stronger than what is done elsewhere. I emphasise the point that in the Great Britain statistics in particular only confirmed breakdowns are counted, whereas we count confirmed and unconfirmed breakdowns, which makes our incidence appear higher than GB's.

Mr Poots: How many unconfirmed breakdowns become confirmed? I assume that, if you have an unconfirmed breakdown, further enquiries, tests and so on are pending, but a whole lot of unconfirmed breakdowns will not become confirmed ones.

Mr Harwood: What I mean by that is that the disease is never actually confirmed, as the Chair referred to at the start.

Mr Poots: Therefore, there may be a reaction on the farm, but when the animal is tested at the factory for lesions, it does not have bovine TB.

Mr Harwood: Yes, or it is not confirmed in the laboratory.

Mr Poots: Have we any take on the incidence of TB in the badgers that have been captured thus far?

Ms Fee: I am not aware of the figure, but I do not know whether that is a figure that we would be willing to put into the public domain at this stage, for the reasons that I outlined. This is a research project. It will be five years before the data can be fully analysed and evaluated. We would not want conclusions to be jumped to as a result of any figure.

Mr Poots: It is difficult for the Committee to be of any assistance to you in assessing the problem if you are not prepared to share the information with us.

Mr Colin Hart (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development): I can qualify that. The testing of badgers, as the Committee knows, is dependent on our use of the dual-path platform (DPP) VetB test, which is a test that has never really been established in a pen-side situation, or, if you like, a sett-side situation. We found ourselves, on the eve of launching TVR, expecting to use another test, the Brock TB STAT-PAK test, which was taken off the market just when the TVR project was due to go live. The only test available to us was the DPP test, which is made by the same company, Chembio, but that test had not been validated for use in badgers. Therefore, as part of the TVR project, we have set out to compare whole-blood sample results with serum samples. We have set out to compare laboratory analysis of the two types of samples with field analysis of the two types of samples, so there is a complex piece of analysis going on at the moment. Nobody knows the extent to which we could honestly say that badgers were either positive or negative. That is key to moving forward with the TVR project, because it is the DPP test that will determine the removal of badgers from year 2, which is from this summer onwards.

As I said, that piece of work is ongoing. It will not all happen this year, but this year, next year and the year after, we will be comparing those results with gamma-interferon results on the same badgers, swab results from the nose of the same badgers and, in the case of post-mortem badgers, full post-mortem data. One of the objectives of TVR is to develop confidence in the use of a pen-side or sett-side test for use in field conditions. That could be immensely valuable to Northern Ireland and the other parts of these islands that are suffering this serious cattle TB problem. We do not know at the minute the extent to which badgers are positive this year, but, over the next while, we will work on our own and in collaboration with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) in Great Britain to evaluate and then validate the DPP test, at which point we will have complete confidence in its use. The DPP test is already validated for use in other species, but not in badgers. We have confidence that we will get there, but we are not quite there yet. The tests are still being compared, statistically and otherwise, by AFBI and our field staff. That is where we are at.

I re-emphasise Geraldine's point that, even if we had the data on individual badgers, giving out that information would jeopardise the research. We can work on biosecurity and do things across the whole country, but if we were to change the behaviours of farmers in an area as a result of something other than what affects the rest of the country, we could change the dynamics of the project and come up with a result that is quite misleading. That is the nature of research: you cannot play around with it. I hope that that explanation is suitable for the Committee.

Mr Poots: What you are up against is that the farming community is pretty much convinced that badgers are a major contributor to the incidence of TB. Rightly or wrongly, that is where they are at. That view is probably based largely on the fact that about 20% of badgers that ended up as roadkill were identified as being infected with TB. Consequently, an assumption has been made that, if badgers are circulating, they are spreading the disease. Many farmers cannot understand, particularly when they are not buying in livestock and none of their neighbours' livestock is down, why, all of a sudden, their cattle go down with bovine TB. They cannot get their head around why their cattle are getting it.

Mr Byrne referred to this being a lucrative business in many ways for many people. It is not a lucrative business for the farmer. It is a devastating thing to see a lorry take away 200 or 300 cattle and have your herd, which you have perhaps worked for many years to build up and develop the progeny, decimated. To be honest, there is an awful lot of cynicism out there about the Department's response. We have not seen the reductions that should have taken place, not in the past two or three years but over the past 20 years. Our incidence is higher than every other comparable region in the British Isles. That leads to us being deeply concerned about how the Department is handling the situation.

Do not think that we will be content to have to sit back and wait for a full five years while all the research is done before we can start to tackle the issues. We need to be tackling the issues hand in hand with the research happening. Therefore, the information that you receive out of the research should be acted on, even if you feel that you cannot make it public. We need to see actions coming from it.

Mr Hart: Chairman, may I come back in on that?

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): OK.

Mr Hart: TVR is wildlife intervention research, but we are actively following the progress in the South of Ireland, Wales and England.

Mr Poots: We should be leading not following.

Mr Hart: We are looking at the pilot culls in England. We are looking at the corner of Wales where a vaccination intervention is under way. We are looking at the progress being made through reactive culling in the South. Although we are doing something unique in Northern Ireland in the TVR intervention research, we have an open mind about the best way in which to tackle the problem. We fully accept, and the evidence overwhelmingly indicates, that badgers are spreading TB. Cattle are also spreading it, but we have to look at that in the round. The best way forward to tackle the wildlife element of TB in the long term is not yet determined in any part of these islands. It is important that we participate in the research, maintain an open mind and follow events. It is by no means certain that the interventions, pilots and research happening in the other parts of these islands is the right way to go. We all have to keep an open mind on this one.

Mr Poots: I support TVR by the way.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): Do you accept that the reactive cull in the Republic of Ireland seems to be working and that it has reduced its herd incidence big time?

Mr Hart: Yes, but look at the amount of time that that has taken. It has been 10 years, which is slow progress. The Republic of Ireland is currently ahead of us, but that is after a considerable amount of effort and expense. Colleagues in the South admit that reactive culling is not the final answer. It has got incidence of the disease down, but something else is needed for the push to eradication.

Mr Elliott: Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple of issues to raise. It was a very interesting experience to go out and see TVR in action. It might be helpful if you were to explain what you hope to get out of it all in the longer term. I know that it is building up to a process, but what might the end result be? My issue is that there is nothing to try to help reduce TB in the short term. I, like others, am very well aware that, at times, there is no explanation at all of how a cattle herd became infected with TB. It may be that the cattle are housed, there have been no purchases made and there is no TB in the immediate area, yet still there is a TB reactor, or a number of TB reactors, in the herd. How widespread does the Department find that to be? Can you normally trace a potential reason? I know that it is very hard to give a definitive reason, but I am sure that you are looking at trends and potential reasons. How often is that occurring? We hear anecdotal evidence. I do not know whether it is the same throughout Northern Ireland or other parts of the UK and Ireland, but I am wondering whether you can explain the unexplainable to me.

Ms Fee: There are lots of elements to your question. I will address one of them and leave it to my veterinary colleagues to address the technical aspect. You indicated that there is nothing in the short term to reduce TB. I would point to the creation of the TB strategic partnership group (TBSPG), which is a genuine attempt to get industry, government and scientists around the table to look at what is a complex disease and to try to look, in the short, medium and longer term, at a strategy with ownership and funding, and with someone leading on delivery. The Department recognises that it cannot deliver by itself and that the cooperation of farmers is needed. Therefore, I think that action is being taken at a strategic as well as practical level in the short term. There were 28 responses to the recent consultation process. That is the start of the engagement process by the TBSPG.

Mr Elliott: Can you point to anything done by the partnership that may have reduced TB in the short term?

Ms Fee: It is only at the start of its work —

Mr Elliott: I know

Ms Fee: — but it has quite challenging targets.

Mr Elliott: I accept that the partnership is going to be looking at short-, medium- and long-term aims and goals, but does the Department have anything in place at all? I know what you are saying about looking at this, and you need to start somewhere, but is there currently anything that may help to reduce incidence of TB over the next year or two?

Ms Fee: By way of a practical measure?

Mr Elliott: Yes.

Ms Fee: To bring it back to the partnership, there will be the interim report in June and then a final report by December. I cannot prejudge what recommendations might be made along the way. There is also collaborative research ongoing on establishing genetic indicators. I believe that DairyCo is bringing forward a genetic indicator test — I cannot remember the exact technical term — for sire bulls. That should be available in April. The complexity means that all those elements fit in to help to create what will be a composite solution.

I will now hand over to my colleagues.

Mr Hart: I will start, and Roly might say a word as well. You asked about the reasons for breakdowns. Our investigations show that, with a great many breakdowns — the majority, in fact — the strain type of TB is peculiar to that area and is common to both the badgers and the cattle in the area. What we can say with some degree of certainty is that local spread is responsible for the vast majority of breakdowns. When I say "local spread", I mean that, as it is very hard to say that TB is definitely spread from badgers or definitely spread from cattle to cattle, it is the same strain and is local.

You asked whether there are any quick fixes. There may not be, but what we have to do is try to break the local cycle of disease spread. You do that by preventing the badger TB spreading to the cattle or by preventing TB in cattle in the neighbouring farm spreading to the cattle on the home farm.

Mr Elliott: Colin, on that very point, are there any statistics to indicate how many cattle are infected with TB during the winter months, when cattle are housed, compared with the summer months, when they are at grass and are more likely to come in contact with other cattle and, indeed, other wildlife, including badgers?

Mr Hart: TB is quite an insidious disease. It can take time to develop, so it would be quite hard to say whether cattle had got it while housed or while out to pasture. They could have got TB while out to pasture without it showing up until they were housed. Roly, do you want to comment on that?

Mr Harwood: We do more testing when cattle are housed. We detect TB in more animals during the housing period, but, as Colin said, you do not know when the disease was passed on to them.

To pick up on the issue of unexplainable breakdowns that you talk about, one of the difficulties with TB is that it is a chronic disease, so it can take a long time between the disease being transmitted and it being able to be detected, and the test itself will not detect it in all infected animals. Therefore, it is quite possible that an animal could go through a number of tests and be considered clear yet actually have the infection and spread it. That is a possibility as to why TB in that animal would not be picked up, but the answer to your question about what we can do about that is this: just keep testing, unfortunately. That is why we test every year: to make sure that the infected animals are picked up eventually.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): Alan Milne. Ian, sorry.

Mr Milne: You are OK.

This is a very interesting subject for me. It is a bit worrying that we are not really making much progress on the eradication of TB at this stage. When you look at the figures for cattle in the North, it is even more worrying . There is a vast reduction in cattle numbers. How do the figures that you have shown us for the number of cattle here now compare with those for previous years?

A delegation from the Department went to Scotland some time ago, and it came back with information that the Scottish people had said that some breeds of cattle are more resistant to TB than others. Is it more prevalent in suckler herds here or on dairy farms, or whatever? If it is the case that it is more prevalent in certain breeds of cattle, surely we need to be looking at the breeds that we are dealing with.

No one to date can say that badgers are causing it. It is my belief that they probably are, but if it is proved that they are not, what will the Department's position then be? Is there a fallback, or have all the hopes been pinned on it being badgers?

Ms Fee: I will deal with the question about the research. The research that you referred to that is being taken forward in Scotland — the Committee made a very useful visit last year — is a collaborative effort between AFBI, Queen's University and the Roslin Institute. That has led to what I referred to earlier in my answer to Mr Elliott, which is the development of the genetic index. That project has received further funding. We are very aware of it and will be looking at the results of the research. The TB strategic partnership group has already received a presentation from AFBI on its range of research, including that project.

Mr Hart: I think that your final question was on whether badgers are responsible, and, if not, what our fallback is. It could not be coincidence that the same strains of TB exist in badgers that are in the same areas as the cattle. There is a difference when you remove the badgers, as the cattle incidence can come down. There is lots of evidence to suggest that badgers are at least playing a part in the whole picture, but they are by no means the whole problem. What is our fallback? What you are referring to is our underlying TB programme, which involves testing and the removal of reactor animals. It involves the control of animal movements from diseased herds. It is basically what we call the cattle element of the TB programme. You could introduce tighter and tighter controls, but there is a cost to everything that you do. We end up balancing the costs against the overall effect. We do not think that the cattle programme on its own will eradicate TB. There will need to be a wildlife element and a cattle element.

You also asked about the fall in cattle numbers in the North. Roly, can you —

Mr Harwood: I was just looking at the number of animals tested since 2009. There is not a massive difference: 1·6 million in 2009 and 1·59 million in the past 12 months. Therefore, testing has stayed fairly steady. Our disease statistics, because they are based on a percentage, are always taken account of.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): We have to suspend for questions for oral answer to the Minister of Agriculture at 2.00 pm. Thank you very much for your presentation. We will watch with interest how things develop with the TB issue.