I absolutely don’t agree with that. I don’t think you can compare vaccination and culling at all. In relation to your comments around Northern Ireland, as I’ve said, I think—certainly looking at what they have been doing—it has had a very positive impact on the badger population also, and I’m very concerned about the health and welfare, of course, of badgers too. I’m not pre-empting what will be in the bespoke action plans, but what we are saying is that it’s really important that the vets, the farmers and the APHA get together to get these action plans, particularly for these chronic herd breakdowns. I mentioned that the 10 longest herd breakdowns that we have, together—106 years they have been under restrictions. To me, that’s not sustainable, and I don’t think it’s acceptable either.

In relation to infection from cattle to cattle or cattle to badger, there is a lot more that we need to learn. Again, I’ve asked my officials to work with the APHA and with vets and individual farmers around this. We held a workshop, I think it was on 10 October, where badger ecologists and experts in cattle husbandry systems—and also grassland management, because I think that’s very important too—met to discuss the options for minimising the risk of contact, both direct and indirect, between the two species. I think that what’s really important—and I mentioned it before—is that farmers know the level and the areas of badger activity on their farms for them to be then able to take precautions to prevent that contact. So, for instance, we’ve had analysis or research that’s shown that badgers visit farm buildings where they get their bedding from or where there is a whole crop of silage, for instance. So, I think it’s really important that that sort of information is known, and sometimes it’s not known, and sometimes it’s inaccurate. So, I think that’s an area where farmers can also help in this eradication that we want to see of TB.