BADGERS

That this House opposes the mass cull of badgers; urges the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to follow the lead of the Welsh Assembly by implementing a vaccination programme with increased levels of testing and improved bio-security as a more effective way to tackle bovine tuberculosis in the long term; notes that vaccination is a more sustainable and human solution which has already been shown to significantly reduce the potential transmission of tuberculosis and that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs's own advisory body, Natural England, has said that it has little confidence in the cull delivering the predicted long-term benefits; and urges the Government to halt the imminent cull which could make the situation worse and lead to the badger population in some areas being entirely wiped out.