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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to expand circumstances in which private veterinary surgeons are permitted to use more sensitive bovine tuberculosis testing technologies in commercial settings.

Statutory tuberculin skin testing (SICCT) and interferon-gamma blood testing (IFNy) of cattle herds will remain the foundation of bovine tuberculosis (TB) control and will continue to be required. The recently published co-designed bovine TB Control Strategy for England also proposes facilitating greater access to privately-funded ancillary bovine TB testing alongside this, to support earlier detection of infected cattle and disease management.

Government will now consider the recommendations in the new bovine TB strategy, including on testing.