CULLING badgers in an attempt to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis is “crude and crowd-pleasing, not science-based”, Newport West MP Paul Flynn has claimed.

The veteran Labour MP was speaking during a debate on the issue in Parliament on Monday, March 27, in which he strongly opposed the UK Government’s policy of allowing badger culling in some areas.

The practice was trialled in England in 2013 and 2014, and in 2015 licences were issued to carry out culling in Dorset, Gloucestershire and Somerset. But no such licences have been issued in Wales, where rural issues are devolved and a vaccine has been used to battle the disease.

Opening the debate Mr Flynn said: “I share with most people a great affection for these beautiful creatures.

“As the superior species, we have a responsibility towards them. As the intelligent and thinking species, we have a duty to ensure that all sentient, living creatures are protected from gratuitous violence or cruelty.

“I believe that the Government’s policy on badger culling is evidence-free and prejudice-rich.”

He also claimed, while there was some evidence culling badgers did reduce the spread of bovine TB, the costs involved in doing so were disproportionately high in comparison to the benefits.

“The present government have a long record of appeasing farmers,” he said. “Everything farmers want, normally farmers get from this government, however unreasonable the demands might be.

“The case has been made powerfully in other parts of the world for the futility of culling, which appears to be a simple solution only to those who believe in shooting first and thinking later.

“We heard similar nonsense in the debate about hunting. Some people thought that it was a reasonable method of pest control to take 100 riders and horses across the countryside to deal with one fox.

“Sadly, that rural attitude is not as respectful as it should be of all animal life.”

Saying “the government’s approach has been crude and crowd-pleasing, not science-based”, Mr Flynn also claimed the UK Government’s had made no efforts to understand how it was spread.

“I applaud the sentiments of all those people who have taken up this cause with great skill and a mountain of scientific evidence,” he said.

“Now is the time for the walls of government prejudice to come down.

“We should adopt a scientific and humane approach.”