No one disputes that Bovine TB is a serious problem and is spreading across the UK. In the South Hams the combination of TB and low milk prices have led to a collapse in our family run dairy farms. Those that remain, as well as those rearing cattle for beef, are fighting a constant battle with Bovine TB and regularly face losing their livestock. The emotional impact of this is enormous and many of our local farms have been under TB restrictions for a decade.

The hard reality is that they are unlikely ever to be TB free in the long term unless something is done about the disease in wildlife. Badgers spread the disease to cattle through urine, saliva and faecal contamination of their pastures and even with strict bio security measures many farms are being hit repeatedly with this disease. A cull of infected badgers will of course be strongly opposed by many people in the fear that it will be cruel or will lead to the extermination of badgers. Many people feel strongly that a cull will simply be ineffective and that we should vaccinate cattle and badgers.

I would like to set out why the Coalition has decided to press ahead with a pilot badger cull in two areas (these areas have not yet been announced). Last year in Devon, 5,653 cattle were slaughtered as a result of Bovine TB (as compared with 1,105 in 2000). Across England this number was nearly 25,000 and this has cost £90 million last year alone.

Bio security measures will remain at the heart of the TB eradication programme with pre-movement testing, movement restrictions and culling of infected cattle. These measures will be strengthened by increasing the area over which routine TB testing is in place and the DNA tagging of cattle to prevent the few reported cases of TB reactor fraud.

Work will continue including a £20 million investment to develop an effective cattle and oral badger vaccine as soon as possible. Unfortunately an effective vaccine is still some way off and because of both European Law and the fact that there is no reliable way to tell an infected cow from one that has been vaccinated, a cattle vaccine only approach cannot be enough to tackle Bovine TB alone.

In order to address the potential problem of "perturbation", the two pilot culls will take place over an area of at least 150 square kilometres and culling would only be permitted by trained experts over a minimum of 4 years. The trial would be closely monitored to make sure that the badgers were not suffering unnecessarily. Unfortunately a vaccine deliverable in bait is not available and it is simply not practical to deliver an injectable badger vaccine to wild animals. Animals which are infected with TB cannot be cured by vaccination; treatment of TB in people requires months of a combination of antibiotics and such an approach is completely impossible in wild life.

There is no country in the world that has managed to control Bovine TB without addressing the disease in wildlife and it is worth bearing in mind that unless we tackle this terrible disease those parts of the country where badgers are not infected by TB will inevitably be affected in the long run. TB inflects great suffering in badgers and they can live for many years passing on the disease to other wildlife and of course to livestock.

Over the past year many people have written to me opposing the spread of industrial scale dairy farming with massive indoor herds of cows, the reality is that in the South Hams many of the pastures are heavily contaminated with TB and we must do more to ensure a future for small scale outdoor reared livestock farming in South Devon.