Is this the greenest election ever?

There's a disagreement among political parties about the badger cull

As part of Midlands Today's election coverage, we're looking at the environment, farming and countryside issues. So to complement that, here's a blogpost with some useful links.

If you want to read the major manifestos for yourself, you can find them at these links: Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, Green, Brexit Party.

What follows is an outline of some of the issues we've looked at and further reading if you fancy it.

Badger cull and hunting

Last election, a promise for a free vote on hunting foxes seemed to cause real problems for Theresa May

With all the parties now really pushing their green credentials it's interesting how similar some of their promises can sound but there's clear disagreement over the badger cull. A quick reminder, the coalition government introduced pilot culling of badgers in 2013.

It's a policy that continues and has been expanded since then. Culling is currently seen as one way to try to tackle the problem of TB in cattle.

If elected, the Labour party and the Greens would ban the badger cull.

The Lib Dems were part of the government that introduced the policy although they say they also want an increased focus on developing a vaccine. The Tories would continue the cull as part of efforts to control the disease.

Last election, a promise for a free vote on hunting foxes seemed to cause real problems for Theresa May and was dropped after the election. So, perhaps to avoid this, the new Conservative manifesto would not alter the hunting act.

Labour remains committed to the ban. The Greens would go further and ban all hunting including commercial hunting for birds.

Farming Subsidy

All parties apparently expect farmers to do more general green stuff in return for public cash

Let's be honest, who knows exactly how Brexit is going to play out from this side of the election? And that makes working out the shape of future farming subsidy pretty tricky.

The manifestos seem to acknowledge this but all parties apparently expect farmers to do more general green stuff in return for public cash.

In terms of hard promises, the Conservatives do say the current subsidy levels will be maintained for the next parliament and Labour promises more county farms which is good news if you want to get into the industry.

Rural Broadband

Broadband has become an election battleground and you can read more here. All parties are promising us faster internet although only the Lib Dems mention a particular focus on connecting rural areas.

Trees

Everyone wants to plant trees this election. The Greens want to plant 700 million, Lib Dems 60 million, Conservatives 30 million and Labour even wants an NHS forest to help make our health service carbon neutral. But believe it or not, planting a lot of trees isn't as easy as it might seem. You can read more here.