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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he is planning to take steps to deliver a strategy to eradicate Bovine TB from wildlife, including providing data on (a) epidemiologically-led culling and (b) Government-funded badger vaccination.

Controlling bovine TB in wildlife, specifically badgers, makes up part of the package of measures of our bovine TB eradication strategy, with the aim of achieving Officially TB Free status for England by 2038[1].

As part of the next phase of the strategy HM Government will now evolve its approach and gradually move on from intensive badger culling over the next few years. Badger culling would remain an option where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed. The proposal for epidemiologically led culling is currently under development.

Details of HM Government funded badger vaccination, together with data on the number of badgers vaccinated, is published on GOV.UK[2][3][4][5].

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[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-strategy-for-achieving-officially-bovine-tuberculosis-free-status-for-england

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb-controlling-the-risk-of-bovine-tb-from-badgers#badger-vaccination

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-summary-of-badger-control-monitoring-during-2019/summary-of-badger-vaccination-in-2019

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-summary-of-badger-control-monitoring-during-2020/summary-of-badger-vaccination-in-2020

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-summary-of-badger-control-monitoring-during-2021/summary-of-badger-vaccination-in-2020