cattle herds. As a zoonotic disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans, that was obviously a danger, so the Government decided to eradicate it. They were spectacularly successful, and by about 1960 there were few instances of bovine TB in cattle herds. That situation was maintained for about 20 years, but in 1971 a dead badger was found to be infected with bovine tuberculosis on a farm where cattle had gone down with the disease, and from then on it became ever more apparent that badgers were involved in the spread of the disease. The Badger Trust website states that bovine TB "may also be caught through contamination of feeding and watering sites and from infected wildlife, including badgers". That is what led to the trials by Lord Krebs , which I commend as a piece of scientific work, but only in as far as they went. When that work was concluded, Sir David King , chief scientific adviser at the time, was asked to prepare a report. I do not have time to go through that report, but I recommend it to hon. Members. It is an extraordinarily balanced and insightful piece of work that needs looking at. Sir David King came to the conclusion that by building on trials by Lord Krebs, and by identifying their weaknesses, pilot schemes could be introduced that would lead to the minimisation of bovine TB in this country. Sadly, in 2007 Hilary Benn rejected that report and we have had