Legal Action Against Badger Culling
On 11 September 2017 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced that authorisation has been granted to continue and extend the badger cull across England. The Save Me Trust has today sent a letter before
action to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, threatening High Court action to stop the cull, on the grounds that it is being undertaken in defiance of long-standing safeguards put in place by Parliament.
In 1976, in response to anxiety over the discovery of bovine tuberculosis in badgers, Parliament altered the law to give government ministers the power to order a cull of wild animals within an area. But at the same time that they gave ministers this power, MPs insisted on three safeguards. First, a cull could only be ordered if it was necessary – in other words, if no other measure would do. Secondly, it had to be preceded by a consultation. And, thirdly, it could not go ahead without the minister placing a statutory instrument before Parliament, giving MPs and peers the opportunity to debate the proposals and block them if they saw fit.
In 2013 the government began culling badgers in areas in Gloucestershire and Somerset. This cull continued in 2014, and in the following years was expanded to further areas in Dorset, Cornwall, Devon, and Herefordshire. On 11 September 2017 the government announced the extension of badger culling to many other areas and issued new licences.
For the last four years, teams of operatives, working mainly at night, have trapped and killed badgers. They have done so under “badger control deeds of agreement” signed on behalf of the Secretary of State for Food and Rural Affairs. The government has paid for traps, for radios, and for the policing needed to support the cull. And yet all of this was done without reference to the powers introduced in 1976, now to be found in section 21 of the Animal Health Act 1981.
Parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution. Where the government’s power to act has been placed under Parliamentary control and regulated by an Act of Parliament, the government cannot ignore restrictions that Parliament has placed on its power. If it does act outside the limits set down by Parliament, the courts can stop it.
The Save Me Trust has today written to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, requiring him to cancel the 2017 cull. If he fails to do so, the Trust will bring a case before the High Court arguing that the government has acted outside the limits set down by Parliament and must be stopped. The government has ignored the safeguards introduced in 1976 and bypassed the scrutiny of Parliament by organising badger culls without complying with the requirements of the Animal Health Act 1981. As a result, the badger cull in England has been unlawful since its inception, and if the government wishes to continue with the programme it will have to show that it is necessary to eliminate or substantially reduce the incidence of bovine tuberculosis which is the test under the 1981 Act.
[1] Explanatory Note: Bovine tuberculosis is a disease caused by Mycobacterium bovis, a micro-organism that can infect both cattle and badgers. Methods of tackling the disease include improved bio-security in farms, detection and elimination of infection in farmers’ herds, and the vaccination of badgers. In some circumstances, the culling of badgers can increase the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in nearby herds, due to the perturbation effect. This denotes a phenomenon whereby culling of some badgers causes others to modify their behaviour in a way that increases the opportunities for the transmission of the micro-organism. The Save Me Trust opposes the unnecessary and unscientific slaughter of badgers under the government’s cull programme.