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.

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.