Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of (a) the potential merits of creating a distinct classification of responder, separate from reactor, for non-reactor cattle that test positive to non-statutory bovine tuberculosis tests and may be latently infected and non-infectious and (b) the potential impact of such a classification on (i) compensation costs and (ii) farmer-led disease management.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The recently published recommended Bovine TB Control Strategy for England (https://tbhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Recommended-Bovine-TB-Strategy.pdf) proposes facilitating wider access to privately funded ancillary bovine TB testing to support earlier detection of infected cattle and disease management.
The Government will now consider the recommendations in the proposed Strategy, including the creation of a distinct, formal classification of ‘responder’ for TB control purposes, and the potential impacts of such a classification.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to make Animal and Plant Health Agency bovine tuberculosis testing data accessible with appropriate permissions and GDPR safeguards to private veterinary surgeons engaged with the herds concerned.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Animal and Plant Health Agency has an established process enabling cattle keepers to request TB testing data relating to their herds. Keepers need to complete and submit a request proforma to APHA. Keepers may then choose with whom they wish to share their herd's test data.
The recently published recommended Bovine TB Control Strategy for England (https://tbhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Recommended-Bovine-TB-Strategy.pdf) emphasises the importance of providing secure TB farm-level data to farmers and their vets in a timely manner, to aid decision making. Government will now carefully consider the recommendations in the proposed strategy.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance and reassurance they have offered to local authorities in interpreting the Standards of Modern Zoo Practice 2027 in regard to farmed reindeers.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Standards of Modern Zoo Practice for Great Britain, published in May 2025, apply to all zoos in Great Britain licensed under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 (the 1981 Act). The new Zoo Standards contain requirements that are applicable to all licensed zoo animals, including reindeer, as well as containing requirements for specific species, such as elephants and great apes. Defra has not provided any separate guidance to local authorities on the new Zoo Standards on reindeer licensed under the 1981 Act.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what conversations they have had with local authorities on the interpretation of the Standards of Modern Zoo Practice 2027.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government published new Standards of Modern Zoo Practice for Great Britain on 24 May 2025. The Standards will come into force from May 2027 and will replace the current 2012 Secretary of State’s Standards of Modern Zoo Practice.
One of the objectives in updating the Standards has been to make requirements clearer to aid enforcement and compliance. As set out in the Animal Welfare strategy published in December 2025, the Department is working with the Zoos Expert Committee, which contains local authority representation – as well as other local authority zoo licensing groups – to update licensing guidance and inspection forms to make it more straightforward for local authorities to enforce the new Standards.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has he made of the adequacy of the classification of farmed reindeers as zoo animals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
For the purposes of the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 (the 1981 Act), Defra considers that reindeer are not a species normally domesticated in Great Britain and therefore to be considered “wild animals”.
Any establishment, including farms, where “wild animals” are kept for exhibition to the public (otherwise than for the purpose of a circus, or in a pet shop), to which members of the public have access, with or without charge for admission, on seven days or more in any period of twelve consecutive months will require a zoo licence under the 1981 Act.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will review the definitions of Officially Tuberculosis Free (OTF), Officially Tuberculosis Free Withdrawn (OTFW) and Officially Tuberculosis Free Suspended (OTFS) herd status to permit continuous testing using additional tests to the Single Intradermal Comparative Cervical Tuberculin Test (SICCT) and Interferon Gamma Test in high-risk herds, including those that have recently regained OTF status, without affecting that status.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There are no plans to review the definitions of Officially TB Free (OTF), Officially Tuberculosis Free Withdrawn (OTFW) and Officially Tuberculosis Free Suspended (OTFS) status of bovine herds in England.
The recently published recommended Bovine TB Control Strategy for England (https://tbhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Recommended-Bovine-TB-Strategy.pdf) proposes facilitating access to privately-funded ancillary bovine TB testing to support earlier detection of infected cattle and disease management, including those herds that have regained (or are eligible to regain) OTF status after a bovine TB breakdown.
Government will now consider the recommendations in the proposed Strategy, including on testing.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to issue any further badger control licences under the current or any successor cull policy; and if she will make a statement on the timetable for the cessation of badger culling in England.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
There are currently no plans to issue further badger control licences. The government has committed to ending the badger cull by the end of this Parliament, and the 2025 culling season marked the final year of industry-led culling in England’s High Risk and Edge Areas.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what modelling her Department has undertaken on the contribution of badger vaccination to achieving Officially Tuberculosis Free status in England by 2038.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Several modelling studies published by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) predict that badger vaccination will significantly reduce TB in badger populations, reducing onward risks to cattle. Further modelling work is ongoing to investigate this further.
The co-design steering group, in its recently published recommended bovine TB strategy, concludes that with most of the High-Risk Area having received at least four years of culling, a transition to vaccination should be beneficial to TB control, particularly when targeted to areas where it can have the greatest impact.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to expand circumstances in which private veterinary surgeons are permitted to use more sensitive bovine tuberculosis testing technologies in commercial settings.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Statutory tuberculin skin testing (SICCT) and interferon-gamma blood testing (IFNy) of cattle herds will remain the foundation of bovine tuberculosis (TB) control and will continue to be required. The recently published co-designed bovine TB Control Strategy for England also proposes facilitating greater access to privately-funded ancillary bovine TB testing alongside this, to support earlier detection of infected cattle and disease management.
Government will now consider the recommendations in the new bovine TB strategy, including on testing.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the badger vaccination programme on the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in cattle herds.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Multiple published studies indicate that badger vaccination is safe and can reduce TB infection and transmission in badgers. Vaccination is now being deployed across a number of large areas, including through a newly contracted Badger Vaccination Field Force. This expanded programme will provide further opportunities to assess and add to the body of evidence about the impact of vaccination on reducing TB incidence in cattle, where important evidence gaps remain.