Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on ending badger culling.

The Government has started work on a comprehensive new bovine TB strategy, to continue to drive down disease rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods and to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament. The previous government was taking decisions that were not based on sufficient scientific understanding of the subject, and the new Government has put following the science at the heart of its strategy.

Additionally, this work is being undertaken through stakeholder co-design with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists, with a steering group formed from the existing Bovine TB Partnership for England.

A key part of the strategy is to drive forward the ongoing development of a cattle vaccine, which is at the forefront of innovative solutions to help eradicate this disease. In August, the Government also outlined several actions it is taking immediately to end the badger cull. This is available at the link below and includes:

• Surveying the badger population for the first time in a decade, to estimate badger abundance and population recovery. Surveys of eligible land started this February.
• Developing a new national wildlife surveillance programme, to unlock a data-driven approach that informs how and where TB vaccines and other eradication measures are deployed.
• Establishing a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force, to continue increasing delivery to create progressively healthier badger populations that are less susceptible to catching and transmitting TB.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-end-badger-cull-with-new-tb-eradication-strategy.

The work toward a new strategy represents a new direction in defeating this disease that will both protect the farming community and wildlife, building on the 2018 independent strategy review. To ensure it benefits from the latest evidence, my Department has also asked Professor Sir Charles Godfray, who led that review, to reconvene a panel of experts to consider whether there’s any substantive new evidence that might affect previous conclusions.