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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to publish Professor Malcolm Bennett’s badger roadkill study of the Edge area.

The Defra-funded survey of TB in badgers in the Edge area of England involved examination and sampling of carcasses of found-dead badgers for the presence of Mycobacterium bovis (the bacterium that causes TB). Professor Bennett’s work formed part of that project. Researchers are currently working on a peer-reviewed publication of their study in a scientific journal and a final report will be published by Defra on the http://randd.defra.gov.uk/ website in due course.