THE Government has been accused of overseeing an “indiscriminate badger genocide” by one of its own MPs.

Tracey Crouch said the badger cull in England, which is licensed by the Government, is “cruel, inhumane and unnecessary”, and should be halted.

The Tory MP was speaking in the Commons and referenced reports that the Environment Secretary Therese Coffey has said culls will be permitted for as long as they are needed to combat bovine tuberculosis (TB) and that she had scrapped any “arbitrary deadline”.

The remarks, reported in The Telegraph, signalled a shift away from an expected move for intensive culling to be replaced with the rollout of a cattle vaccine by 2025.

Ms Crouch, who has been an outspoken critic of the badger cull and was speaking in the Commons during a general debate ahead of recess, said the cull is “wrong” and there is “little proof that it has by itself worked”.

While she expressed sympathy for farmers, the MP for Chatham and Aylesford said in some places badgers are “near extinction”.

She told MPs: “Yet again the goalposts have been moved. Only this time not by those pesky badgers, but by the Government itself.

“It was reported last week that the Secretary of State told an NFU reception here in Westminster that she had scrapped any arbitrary deadline for when we stop culling, contrary to the previous secretary of state’s (George Eustice) exit strategy that would have seen an effective end to the cull by 2025.”

She added: “When the science is saying that badger culling has had no significant impact, it seems wrong therefore to scrap his strategy which would have ended intensive culling.”

“After years of this cruel cull is that the vast majority of bovine TV cattle is as a result of cow-to-cow infection,” she said, adding “many badgers who are culled are actually TB-free.”

Ms Crouch said “over 77%” of badgers culled are “now being subjected to death by free shooting”, adding “inhumane cull methods use cause them fear and pain”.

She told MPs: “The cull remains cruel, inhumane and unnecessary in the fight to eradicate bovine TB. Badgers are the scapegoats, the victims of politics rather than science.

“The answer to solving bovine TB in cattle has always been to focus on cattle-based measures, including investment in cattle vaccination, proper testing and continuous improvement in farming methods.”

She added: “Let’s be led by the science and end this indiscriminate badger genocide.”

According to the Badger Trust, more than 210,000 badgers have been killed since the current badger cull began in England in 2013.

The Government said in 2020 that around 30,000 cattle have to be slaughtered annually due to bovine TB, and that its prevention strategy is “founded in science”.

Deputy chief whip Marcus Jones, responding to the debate for the Government, said: “This is a very, very emotive subject.

“What I would say to her is that clearly this is a massive issue, not just for cattle and farmers but also clearly nobody wants to see a badger die a miserable death from bovine TB and therefore we all hope that the significant work that’s taking place to bring about a vaccine can take place as quickly as is possible.”