Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much her Department has spent to date of the £1.25 million committed to the Badger Edge Vaccination Scheme.

George Eustice

Defra Badger Edge Vaccination Scheme projects in England were funded on the basis of actual work done by the grant beneficiaries with no specific total amount committed to the Scheme. Defra spent just over £92,000 on these projects in the 2015/16 financial year, with additional in-kind support in the form of free loans of equipment, supply of the Badger BGC vaccine and advice from field experts.

Although no vaccination of badgers under the Scheme is possible in 2016, we have awarded grant funding to three of the former beneficiaries for other vaccination-related work. The amounts payable to each will depend on the work that they do in the current financial year