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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress she has made on developing a vaccine for cattle against Bovine Tuberculosis.

Developing a deployable cattle vaccine is one of the Government’s top priorities.

Defra aims to have a deployable cattle TB vaccine (CattleBCG) in the next few years. In 2021, world-leading cattle TB vaccination field trials began as a result of a

major breakthrough by government scientists on the development of a new DIVA

skin test to Detect Infected among Vaccinated Animals.

The UK is closer to being able to vaccinate cattle across England and Wales than we have ever been before but there is still a lot of work to do. Deployment relies on the success of the field trials, achieving Marketing Authorisations from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (for both CattleBCG and the new DIVA skin test), gaining international recognition for both products, an IT system to record and trace vaccinates and acceptance of vaccination from across the range of stakeholders.

Close partnership working with industry is also an essential component of the TB vaccine programme. A Government-industry working group has been established to co-design initial deployment policy proposals. These proposals will then be further developed with wider stakeholders before going to public consultation.

Vaccinating cattle against TB will be a valuable addition to the measures available to achieve bovine TB eradication but will not replace existing control measures. Maintaining biosecurity measures on farm, avoiding risky movements of cattle, and complying with TB testing protocols remain as important as ever in the fight against bovine TB.