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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of vaccinating the UK’s badger population to reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis in England.

In its response to the Godfray Review[1], the Government set out its ambition to move from widespread badger culling to wider deployment of vaccination, with epidemiology-driven culling remaining as an option where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed.

We have clear evidence that badger vaccination reduces disease burden in the badger population. Logically, as badgers cause a proportion of cattle breakdowns, badger vaccination would very likely result in a reduction in cattle incidence where badgers are infecting cattle[2].

Modelling of the potential badger control options for post-cull areas was carried out by APHA[3]. Vaccination was found to reduce the number of infected badgers per social group and was comparable with continued culling, indicating that vaccination could be used as an exit strategy from culling to maintain reductions in cattle bTB incidence.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-strategy-for-achieving-bovine-tuberculosis-free-status-for-england-2018-review-government-response

[2] https://tbhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/TB_hub_badger_vaccination_powerpoint_Sept_2021.pdf

[3] Smith, G. C., & Budgey, R. (2021). Simulating the next steps in badger control for bovine tuberculosis in England. PloSone, 16(3), e0248426. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248426