Nick Harvey says:

‘Outgoing Secretary of State for Agriculture David Miliband gave his successor Hilary Benn and Minister of State Lord Rooker a stay of execution with the ongoing controversy over how best to tackle the spread of Bovine TB.’

In response to questions raised by Nick Harvey, Lord Rooker, Minister for Sustainable Farming and Food recently responded:

‘We will base our approach on tackling this disease on all available scientific evidence. The Independent Scientific Group’s report makes an important contribution to the evidence base and we will be considering the issues it raises very carefully and continuing to work with the industry and others in reaching a final policy decision.’

Nick comments:

‘All I and the NFU have received is a lot of hot air from defra in response to concerns over the way ahead for dealing with Bovine TB. A predictably backsliding reply from Lord Rooker who has singularly not addressed any of the questions I posed.

‘Instead he has chosen to hide behind the outgoing Secretary of State’s statement issued on 18 June, which we are already only too familiar with.

‘As ever on this issue we remain at the whim of the Government – who in the name of not losing votes continues to sit on the fence – a policy decision deadline remains conspicuous by it absence.

‘This leaves our farmers precisely nowhere and the taxpayer picking up the cleanup bill.’