farmers. I have a dairy farmer in my constituency , and my constituency contains a mix of urban and rural areas. I have spoken to that dairy farmer, and we both understand the impact of bovine TB on farmers and their business. Having said that, most organisations in the UK have united in opposition to the badger cull, while the e-petition against it has been signed by 142,000 people. Even some who live and work in the countryside are not convinced that it will do what it is meant to do. Quite simply, free shooting badgers in the dark is just that -- a shot in the dark to control bovine TB. Independent scientific studies have shown that culling would be of little help and probably make the situation worse in some areas. I was brought up in the hon. Gentleman's constituency . Does he think that the attitude of his farmer or, indeed, his own attitude would be different if there was bovine TB in Scotland, which there is not? There are precious few badgers, too? There is no accurate way of knowing how many badgers there are in an area, so how would we know when a cull had reached its quota of 70%? The culls are non-selective and would equally destroy healthy local badger populations. It is not possible to take out diseased badgers only. The research that the Government cherry-pick to try to justify their onslaught on badgers shows that even in TB hot spots most