Bovine TB

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I can give that assurance. Of course, we will share with devolved Ministers all the evidence and experience from the two pilots as well as from the wider package.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there will be a requirement, particularly in the pilots, for a strict count of the number of badgers culled, that there will be a requirement for those badgers to be tested to substantiate that they are suffering from TB and that in the long term, there will be a requirement that those areas that are going through vaccination will not also have culling at the same time?

[Mrs Spelman]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Very strict requirements have been set out, and tomorrow I will publish the guidance to Natural England and he might wish to read that to see precisely how this will be controlled and how we will test the infection of badgers. On the point about coterminous vaccination and controlled reduction, it is important to remember that this is a package and the option we have chosen to pursue combines controlled reduction of the badger population with vaccination. Some parts of the area might not be suitable for one method of controlled reduction and boundaries might be secured by a programme of vaccination, too.