Maria Eagle MP, Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary, responding to today’s Written Ministerial Statement on Bovine TB, said:

“It is appalling that these badger culls went ahead for a second year when they had already been described by David Macdonald the chief scientific advisor to Natural England as an ‘epic failure’.

“The target set in Gloucestershire has been spectacularly missed whilst the Somerset target was only narrowly reached meaning that if anything these culls will make the problem of bovine TB worse.

“The Government must today commit to abandoning any attempt to continue these unscientific, inhumane and ineffective badger culls. They must instead work with scientists, wildlife groups and farmers to develop an alternative strategy to get the problem of Bovine TB under control.”