End the Badger cull and adopt other approaches to bovine TB control
102,458 people signed this petition to the UK Parliament after it opened on 28 November 2024; it closed on 28 May 2025. The Government responded on 10 January 2025. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 13 October 2025.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
End the Badger cull and adopt other approaches to bovine TB control
The Government’s TB Eradication Strategy allows the continued killing of badgers, a protected species, until the end of this Parliament, despite the Labour manifesto calling the cull “ineffective.”
We believe the badger cull is unjustified and must end.
Some research has suggested culling results in a reduction in bovine TB (bTB) in cattle. However, there are concerns about the methodology used. Other research, which has been peer reviewed and published, shows no evidence that culling badgers reduces confirmed bTB in cattle. Over 230,000 badgers — many healthy — have been killed, disrupting ecosystems without solid scientific justification.
We call for an immediate end to the cull and the implementation of cattle focused measures to control bTB, rather than what we see as scapegoating wildlife.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 10 January 2025; the petitions site lists the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as responsible. Its summary:
Bovine TB has devastated British farmers and wildlife. Work has started on a new eradication strategy to drive down TB rates, protecting cattle and farmers’ livelihoods, and to end the badger cull.
The opening 366 words of the 520-word response:
Bovine tuberculosis (TB) has had a devastating impact on British livestock and wildlife. Over the past decade alone, 278,000 cattle have been compulsorily slaughtered and over 230,000 badgers have been killed in efforts to control the disease.
On 30 August, the government announced the start of work on a comprehensive new strategy to continue to drive down bovine TB rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods and end the badger cull by the end of this parliament.
Working closely alongside farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists to rapidly strengthen and deploy a range of disease control measures, a key part of the strategy remains the ongoing development of a cattle vaccine, which is at the forefront of innovative solutions to help eradicate this disease.
Field trials of the candidate CattleBCG vaccine and companion test to “Detect Infected among Vaccinated Animals” (the so-called DIVA skin test) started in June 2021 and are on-going. The aim of these trials is to gather further information on the vaccine and the test to support marketing authorisation applications and international recognition. Our aim is to deliver an effective cattle TB vaccination strategy within the next few years to accelerate progress towards achieving Officially Bovine Tuberculosis Free status for England by 2038.
The work towards a new strategy marks a step-change in approach to tackling this devastating disease. It will consider how we boost cattle testing, reduce the spread of disease through cattle movements, and deploy badger vaccination on a wider, landscape scale. This will build on the independent review of the bovine TB strategy led by Professor Sir Charles Godfray in 2018.
Existing cull processes will be honoured to ensure clarity for farmers involved in these culls whilst new measures can be rolled out. However, the government has decided that it will not be proceeding with the proposals drawn up under the previous government relating to targeted badger culling. That follows careful consideration of the responses received to the public consultation launched earlier this year.
Work to underpin the next phase of policy with robust science has already begun and includes:
• The first badger population survey in over a decade, to start this winter, to estimate badger abundance and population recovery.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies. Measured against each constituency's electorate at the 2024 general election, the most came from St Ives, with 6.7 signatures per 1,000 electors (470 in all).
100,800 of the signatures were from the UK and 1,658 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures | Electorate, July 2024 | Per 1,000 electors |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Ives | 470 | 69,978 | 6.7 |
| Ceredigion Preseli | 435 | 75,690 | 5.7 |
| Derbyshire Dales | 397 | 73,324 | 5.4 |
| Camborne and Redruth | 389 | 74,342 | 5.2 |
| West Dorset | 395 | 75,998 | 5.2 |
| South Devon | 357 | 72,261 | 4.9 |
| Torridge and Tavistock | 357 | 74,727 | 4.8 |
| Central Devon | 349 | 75,385 | 4.6 |
| North Cornwall | 355 | 76,741 | 4.6 |
| Hastings and Rye | 340 | 75,939 | 4.5 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| South East | 16,049 |
| South West | 14,090 |
| East of England | 10,492 |
| North West | 10,186 |
| East Midlands | 8,386 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 8,247 |
| West Midlands | 8,219 |
| London | 6,828 |
| Scotland | 6,647 |
| Wales | 5,790 |
| North East | 3,764 |
| Northern Ireland | 1,084 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 13 October 2025. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700317.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
7d10dfce72d6a6e2… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.