To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to speed up the transition from culling badgers to vaccinating cattle to reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis in England.
Answered on
28 October 2021
As set out in the Government response to Professor Sir Charles Godfray’s review of the Government’s strategy for achieving Officially Bovine Tuberculosis Free status for England, the next phase of the strategy focuses on developing a deployable cattle vaccine, wider rollout of badger vaccination and improvements to TB testing.
Badger culling will not be halted immediately – as set out in the Government’s response to the January 2021 consultation[1], no new intensive cull licences will be issued after 2022 and new supplementary badger culling licences have been limited to a maximum of two years. Culling would remain an option where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed.
We have awarded funding for a five-year badger vaccination programme in East Sussex. The scheme, which will see vaccination deployed by the farming community, will help refine future delivery models for deploying large-scale farmer-led vaccination schemes. We are also undertaking Government-funded badger vaccination in an area where four-year intensive badger culling has ended. We are continuing to bolster our capability to deploy even more badger vaccination in post-cull areas from 2022.
Developing a deployable cattle TB vaccine, with the objective of introduction within the next five years, is one of the Government’s top priorities. In 2021, world-leading bTB cattle vaccination trials began in England and Wales.