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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information her Department holds on the largest single herds slaughtered due to the detection of bovine TB in each of the last five years.

In 2016 more than 29,000 cattle were compulsory slaughtered in England due to the discovery of bovine TB following surveillance testing. On average six reactors are found and slaughtered from testing where bovine TB is detected in a herd. As the comprehensive bovine TB testing surveillance regime ensures most bovine TB incidents are detected at an early stage, it is very rare for cattle herds to be fully slaughtered for bovine TB control reasons in England. There have been four such cases in England in the past five years.