Rooker Hint At Autumn Decision On Badger Cull
UK - The Government will make a decision on badger culling before the end of October, Food and Farming Minister Jeff Rooker has indicated.Lord Rooker said he wanted a decision in place by the time he appears before the Environment, Food and Rural affairs committee in the autumn.
“We will make a decision as soon as possible. I am up before the select committee on October 24. I can’t go there and say I don’t know what we are going to do,” he said.
He was speaking during a visit to flood-hit farms in Gloucestershire, on Friday.
He had asked affected farmers what help they needed from the Government, to be told that their main concern, despite the devastation, was not the floods but bovine TB.
The disease was rife in the area and the resultant movement restrictions were destroying livestock units by preventing farmers from buying and selling cattle, NFU Tewkesbury chairman Carl Gray told him.
“We will recover from the floods but what we really need help with is TB,” said Mr Gray, who questioned whether the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on bovine TB was either ‘scientific’ or ‘independent’.
Lord Rooker reassured him it was both and said he and Defra scientists were reading the ISG’s report on badgers and TB in great detail.
He said he was limited as to what he could say but went on to reiterate some of his concerns about the report.
Take a look at our previous news item on the Badger Cull debate by clicking here.