Planned badger cull is delayed

A new inquiry will be launched to examine the vaccination of badgers and cattle in relation to Bovine TB, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has said.

The inquiry is expected to cover the likely timescales and challenges in delivering vaccination programmes, their costs and efficacy, and whether a vaccination programme could be delivered without having a negative effect on UK exports.

Plans to cull thousands of badgers in England to tackle tuberculosis in cattle have been abandoned until next summer.

The Environment Secretary Owen Patterson insisted it was not a government U-turn and the delay had been caused by the Olympics, legal proceedings and bad weather.

Carol Wainwright, a farmer from Gloucestershire, tells ITV News what the delay in the badger cull will do to business and the farming community.

Tony Dean from The Badger Trust speaks to ITV News about how the funds for culling should be spent on more research into vaccination.

Guitarist from Queen Brian May says he's "delighted" that the planned badger cull will be delayed but he won't stop campaigning for a complete stop.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson speaks to ITV News about why the badger cull must still go ahead, even though it has been delayed by one year.

When in power, Labour ruled out a cull of badgers in England after a study concluded it could make "no meaningful" contribution to addressing TB control in cattle.

• The study looked at culling badgers over a 60 square mile area over four years, reducing the population by around 70%.
• It found that culling reduced TB in cattle inside the cull area but it led badgers to move around, thereby increasing the disease in the areas adjacent to the cull.

• Later results from the trial showed that, overall, the widespread, repeated culling of badgers could reduce the incidence of disease in cattle herds by up to 16% over a decade.

• The method used to kill the badgers was to trap them and then shoot them, an expensive process which researchers calculated was not cost-effective.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has told ITV, 'I'm completely unmoved by the protest. I've lived in the countryside all my life...

"...there are people shooting furry animals tonight. There are people lamping foxes, lamping rabbits."

The cull was delayed after farmers said they may not be able to kill enough of the wild animals to make the scheme effective.

It had also emerged there were more badgers in the cull areas in Somerset and Gloucestershire than previously estimated, meaning that more would have to be killed to meet the 70% target needed for the programme to be effective.

The shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh has accused the Government of another "U-turn" over the badger cull postponement.

She said the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson had been "yanked back" from a trip to promote British produce in France by the Prime Minister "who told him it was game over" for the cull.