David Heath MP
Minister of State for Agriculture and Food
DEFRA
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London  SW1 3JR

27^th September 2012

Dear David,

Congratulations on your recent appointment to the position of Minister of State for Agriculture and Food.

I am writing to ask you to stop the planned cull of badgers in England.  I have written to your Department before, but over the past fortnight I have received a high number of emails from concerned constituents, young and old, including a 10 year old school pupil who says that she loves badgers and other wildlife and who is very upset that the Government is going to allow them to be shot.

My constituents are making a number of extremely important points, on which I would appreciate your response. These include:

• Vaccination is the more sustainable and humane solution, and has already been shown to significantly reduce the prevalence and severity of disease in the badger population and could reduce the potential for transmission of TB from badgers to cattle.
• The most robust scientific evidence available does not support a badger cull and predicts that it could even make things worse in some areas. Even Defra’s own advisory body, Natural England, have said that they have little confidence in the cull delivering the predicted benefits long term.
• The cull could see badger populations in license areas decline by over 70% and in some areas none may survive. As culling cannot be selective, many healthy badgers will be slaughtered as ‘collateral damage’.
• Please rethink the cull and follow in the Welsh Assembly's footsteps, implementing a vaccination programme with increased levels of testing and improved bio security –a more effective way to tackle bovine TB in the long term.

In light of the strength of feeling and overwhelming public opposition to a cull  - at local level but also nationally, as demonstrated by the e-petition -  and the scientific evidence supporting alternative approaches such as vaccination and better testing, I urge you to reconsider this policy.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas MP, Brighton Pavilion

Read the ministerial response here