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Bovine Tuberculosis

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have certainly seen pictures, films and post-mortems of badgers with TB, which is clearly not very nice for them. It is difficult to tell whether or not a live badger has TB, although some people claim to be able to do so. I have seen badgers near my constituency in Devon wandering around during the day, which was not at all usual in my childhood but has become commonplace. As for the cost of TB, as I said earlier, last year, it cost the taxpayer more than £90 million, a good proportion of which was compensation for slaughtered cattle.