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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to monitor the disease status of badgers within cull areas.

Testing of badgers between 1998 and 2005 via the Randomised Badger Culling Trial and Road Traffic Accident surveys provided evidence of the typical prevalence of TB in badgers in areas of high incidence of TB in cattle. TB was found in around one third of all badgers in these areas.

We are considering the case for a cost-effective method of testing badgers within cull areas in order to assess the impact of the current policy on badger TB prevalence.