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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether badger culling is (a) permitted to take place and (b) taking place on Forestry Commission land; and if he will make a statement.

For security reasons we do not comment on specific activities or licences for licensed badger control. Natural England has published this year’s badger control licenses on gov.uk which can be accessed here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb-controlling-the-risk-of-bovine-tb-from-badgers

The Forestry Commission would handle requests for access from applicants for a Natural England licence in the same way they do for all other requests to access. If access permission was given it would not automatically mean badger disease control activity would be carried out on land they manage.