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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions her Department has held with other EU member states in which bovine TB occurs on establishing joint research on a TB vaccine for cattle.

To date, no other EU member States have expressed interest in developing a TB vaccine for cattle. But we are working with officials and businesses in both New Zealand and the USA in our quest to identify, through research, an effective DIVA test (a TB test to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals), which is a critical element of any programme which would involve BCG vaccination of cattle.