MPs call for an end to badger culls over bovine TB
MPs have overwhelmingly backed a motion calling on the Government to abandon controversial badger culls in England in favour of vaccinating the animals.
A total of 220 MPs voted in support of a motion tabled by Conservative Anne Main, MP for St Albans, compared with just one MP - Tory Philip Hollobone - who voted against.
Among the yes votes were 18 Conservative MPs and seven Liberal Democrats. Telford MP David Wright was one of 194 Labour MPs to support an end to the cull.
The result of the backbench business vote, which is not binding, is a blow for ministers including North Shropshire MP and Environment Secretary Owen Paterson.
They claimed the culls are a vital part of a strategy to reduce the risk of bovine TB.
Pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset were due to run for six weeks, with the aim of killing 70 per cent of badgers in each area.
But both schemes were extended after initial figures suggested 58 per cent of badgers were eradicated in Somerset and 30 per cent in Gloucestershire.
Conservative Anne McIntosh, chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said Bovine TB was costing taxpayers £500 million a year, which could increase to £1 billion in the next decade.
Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski told the Commons he had been left in tears while visiting a farmer whose entire herd of cattle had been slaughtered after contracting bovine tuberculosis.
Mr Kawczynski described his visit to the farm as "one of the most emotional experiences I have faced", as he saw the suffering the farmer and his family had been through.
He described how over a cup of tea, the farmer began to cry, and "I joined in".
The MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham said bovine TB affected not just farmers but their children too, who experience psychological damage after seeing cattle they have lived with taken away for slaughter.
He said: "One of the most emotional experiences I have faced was meeting with a dairy farmer in the village of Snailbeach in the southern-most part of my constituency.
"I went to see him and spend the day on his farm and saw at first hand the terrible suffering that he had been through with all his cattle being taken away. We sat at his kitchen table afterwards and over tea he started to cry, and I joined in."
Mr Kawczynski said the experience led him to set up the all-party parliamentary group for dairy farmers.
He urged the Government to have the "courage" to press ahead with the badger culls, despite widespread opposition.
