Labour could end the badger cull but it will require a Covid-19-like approach focusing on testing and vaccinating, according to the author of a government-commissioned report.

Ministerial plans to stop the shooting of the animals can be achieved but at a cost to the Treasury, the report warns.

The government’s 2024 election manifesto pledged to stop badger shooting by 2029. Badgers are culled nearly to extinction locally because they transmit bovine tuberculosis (bTB) to cattle, which can devastate entire herds. The overall financial impact of the disease on taxpayers, including the cattle sector, is estimated to be around £150 million annually. Since the cull started in 2013, over 210,000 badgers have been culled.

However, the current funding levels for testing and vaccinating both cattle and badgers are insufficient for effectively suppressing bTB, noted Sir Charles Godfray, the report’s author.

The government’s current goal is to eradicate bTB in England by 2038, yet the report indicates that achieving this target is unlikely without significantly ramping up efforts and resources towards eradication. The report asserts: “In our opinion there is only a small chance of meeting the target without a step change in the urgency with which the issue is treated and the resources devoted to eradication. There needs to be a mindset of defeating rather than managing the disease.”

Godfray said it was not the case, as some campaigners have said, that badgers did not spread the disease to cattle.

Upon releasing the report, he commented: “The evidence continues to show that badgers can provide a vector of the virus for cattle and vice versa. Denying badgers can be a risk can be a problem because then you have an unacknowledged source of virus that you aren’t dealing with.”

However, he clarified: “Some people see that as automatically assuming one needs to cull badgers: that is not so,” and “the presence of a threat from badgers does not mean that one should in any sense be deflected from bearing down on the transmission in cattle”.

This report is the first government-commissioned scientific review of the evidence into badger culling since 2018, when Godfray found that culling badgers did have a modest impact on reducing bTB levels.

He now says it is possible to stop the cull, but more government investment and farmer engagement is needed. The report suggests measures including the microchipping of cattle, to track their movements and their interactions with the infected.

“There is a threat from badgers and if we are going to move away from a cull we need to move towards non-lethal control,” Godfray said. “Vaccination is a realistic way to stop bovine TB in badgers but considerable work will have to be done to scale it up so it becomes viable. We saw during the Covid-19 pandemic how things can move so much faster when there is real focus on the disease. We want to see the same for this disease.”

The scientists who produced the report acknowledged they were “mindful of the great current pressures on public finances” but said: “Bovine TB control is suffering from lack of investment in Defra/APHA and in the local authorities that play a critical role in compliance.” They said: “We suggest that investment now will save money in the future.”

Prof James Wood, a veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge who contributed to the study, said testing cattle using more hi-tech methods had helped reduce the disease over the past seven years.

He said the standard test, which is a skin test, was “imperfect” and missed some cattle in the early stages of the disease, but there were blood tests which gave more accurate results.

Wood added that vaccinating cattle and badgers could reduce the transmission of the disease. He said: “Cattle vaccination provides huge opportunities for the reduction of transmission in herds. These large herds are some of the most challenging situations for both the farmer and for Defra to manage with TB”.

The farming minister, Daniel Zeichner, said he welcomed the report but did not mention whether the end to the badger cull would go ahead during this parliament as previously planned.

He said: “The government is determined to eradicate bovine TB – a devastating disease that destroys too many farmers’ livelihoods and has led to the culling of thousands of badgers. Following a record year for badger vaccination in 2024, a new badger vaccinator field force will be deployed next year. We are also developing a cattle vaccine and, along with the Scottish and Welsh governments, have invested over £40m into vaccine-related research. Early next year, we plan to publish a comprehensive new strategy that will set out how we will set out how we will eradicate this disease by 2038.”