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 vaccinating badgers to help tackle the spread of bovine tuberculosis.

Over the past few years, several initiatives have been introduced to encourage take up of badger vaccination over larger, more contiguous areas.

• Bolstering APHA field teams to deliver badger vaccination in several areas where licensed badger culling had ended.
• Government funded community-led badger vaccination project in East Sussex.
• Improved guidance to increase efficiency of vaccination.
• The 'Train the Trainer' (TtT) scheme, which enables experienced cage-trappers and lay vaccinators to qualify as trainers and form their own local training hubs, creates more training capacity to enable more people to be trained.

• A simplified badger vaccination licence and registration process, alongside a smartphone reporting app making it easier to report activity in the field

• Streamlined cage-trapping and vaccination training courses to make them less time-consuming and more accessible.

As a result of these step, more than 3,000 badgers were vaccinated in England in 2023. This the highest number ever vaccinated annually in England to date

On 30 August, the Government announced the start of work to refresh the Bovine TB strategy for England, to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament and drive down disease to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods. This will be undertaken in co-design with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists, ensuring a refreshed strategy continues to be led by the best scientific and epidemiological evidence and advice.

As part of this announcement, a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force will be established. This will increase badger vaccination to drive down TB rates and protect badgers. A badger vaccination study will also be carried out. This will supplement the Field Force. The Government will rapidly analyse the effect of badger vaccination on the incidence of TB in cattle to encourage farmers to take part and provide greater confidence that doing so will have a positive effect on their cattle.

Further details can be found on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-end-badger-cull-with-new-tb-eradication-strategy.