Bovine TB

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

May I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement, which I welcome? In view of our bitter experience in Wales with proposed trials, however, how confident is she that these proposals will not be subject to a legal challenge?

[Mrs Spelman]

Far from it: I think we can be reasonably confident that they will be subject to a legal challenge and that is one reason why we have taken the utmost care. We have taken our time and we have taken a precautionary approach, and every step of the way we have tried to ensure that we have a copper-bottomed reasoned analysis that is the basis of our judgment that we should proceed with this policy.