United Kingdom-Parliment wakes up to Bovine TB problems.

UNITED KINGDOM.

OUTRAGE OVER TB IN CATTLE.

MINISTERS have been accused of "hiding their heads in the sand" by ignoring the need for a badger cull to help tackle the spread of TB in Westcountry cattle herdsOpposition MPs used a Commons debate on farming in the region to protest at the "absolutely scandalous" number of cows slaughtered for carrying the disease.

None of the MPs claimed a badger cull would solve the problem alone, but the Government came under sustained criticism for ruling out targeting badgers completely.Senior Liberal Democrat David Heath said the situation in the South West is "completely unacceptable".

In the first nine months of 2008, 12,383 dairy cattle were culled, which meant in the whole of last year the figure could have topped 16,000. In 10 years, 200,000 cattle, at a cost of £600 million, have been culled.

The Somerton and Frome MP said: "Whether we are talking about animal welfare, the health of the industry, the awful effect that the problem has on farms where reactors appear, the consequences for farming families or the cost to the taxpayer, a quite extraordinary thing is being allowed to happen.

"We are seeing the front of bovine TB advance 10 miles a year, which is significant. I cannot believe that it is right simply to wait and hope that something will happen." He said it was "inexplicable" that this situation is allowed to continue and insisted a targeted badger cull "was the right thing to do and should have been done a long time ago, before bovine tuberculosis reached its present, almost endemic proportions".

Tory shadow farming minister James Paice agreed, adding: "There is no logic in continuing, year after year, to slaughter increasing numbers of cattle without addressing some fundamental problems.

"We cannot go on the way we are. I have never pretended or suggested that culling badgers is the only answer, because it is certainly not. However, I think that to pretend that it is not part of the necessary package of measures is akin to hiding one’s head in the sand."

However Labour MP David Drew, a member of the environment, food and rural affairs committee, said a badger vaccine will "almost certainly" be available next year to help treat the disease.

"We should roll that out as a major programme to dampen down the disease. The debate, to cull or not to cull, is sterile, and it will not find the answer. We need to get on and do something, but the answer has to lie with vaccination and probably with vaccinating cattle."

Liberal Democrat spokesman Roger Williams said he had "never believed that the slaughter of badgers would eradicate bovine TB".

"However, along with vaccination and better biosecurity on farms, it has a role to play," he added.