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

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of wild badgers need to be vaccinated to achieve the same efficacy in reducing bovine tuberculosis as culling badgers; and what assessment they have made of the feasibility of this.

Research indicates that trapping methods used for badger vaccination result in the capture of approximately 50-70% of badgers in a given area, and this level of coverage is associated with significant disease control benefits in badger populations.

Unfortunately the past Government neglected to use its R&D budget to fully explore the problem so information on this subject, as well as badger resurgence rates is not as clear as it might be. The Labour Government has announced that they will use the R&D budget to ensure that decisions to best tackle bovine tuberculosis (TB) are informed by science.

While we are gathering a better understanding on the subject, badger vaccination is now underway in several large areas in England demonstrating that vaccination is feasible at a large scale in a range of situations.

Research from Ireland also suggests that badger vaccination is not inferior to badger culling as a means to control TB in cattle.