Addressing the House of Commons on Thursday, environment secretary Owen Paterson announced that the government will press ahead with its much maligned policy of badger culling in the South-West.

On publishing the government's strategy for achieving TB free status in England, the Defra head said culling would continue in Somerset and Gloucestershire, but later added that it would not be extended to new areas in light of "lessons" cull architects need to learn from last year's pilots, which a report from the government-appointed Independent Expert Panel revealed had failed to meet two of their three targets.

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Nevertheless, Mr Paterson said, "The risk from this disease cannot be overstated." He called bovine TB a "Devastating zoonosis that threatens our cattle industry… badgers, domestic pets and humans." The environment secretary also reminded MPs that fully a quarter of herds in the South-West and West-Midlands were under movement restrictions in 2013 and that bTB has cost taxpayers £500 million in the last decade.

Not cowed by the BBC's admission that its inaccurate reporting on culling in Ireland may have given the misleading impression that there is a scientific consensus on the effect of culling, the Environment secretary compared the English experience to culls in the United States and Australia, as well as the Emerald Isle on Thursday, and said no other bTB outbreak anywhere in the world had been brought under control without recourse to culling wildlife.

He added, "We already have robust cattle-based measures, which we have strengthened since 2011," and declared that Defra would be investing £26 million into cattle and badger vaccine research.

Evidently anticipating scathing criticism from the opposition, The Environment Secretary concluded, "The four year culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire are pilots and we always expected to learn lessons from them. It is crucial we get this right. That is why we are taking a responsible approach, accepting recommendations from experts to make the pilots better.

"Doing nothing is not an option. We need to do everything we can, as set out in our Strategy, to make England TB free."

IEP Report published

Defra published the Independent Expert Panel's assessment of the pilots to coincide with the Environment Secretary's statement. The IEP's main findings were scheduled for publication at the beginning of the year, but were delayed and eventually leaked to the BBC early last month.

The Panel said that, though culling in Somerset and Gloucestershire had been carried out safely – with no threat to members of the public, despite concerted anti-cull protests – the culls had failed on the grounds of humaneness and efficacy. Though the IEP only looked at badgers killed using the previously untested free-shooting methodology it had been appointed to assess, expert authors noted that, even with more established caged-shooting brought in within three days in both cull zones, the two pilots "did not deliver the level of culling set by government."

Neither cull measured the effect of culling on TB levels in either cattle or badgers.

The IEP also found that "Shooting accuracy varied amongst Contractors and resulted in a number of badgers taking longer than 5 min to die." The Panel said it was confident that an unacceptably high proportion of badgers shot took too long to perish and were likely to have experienced considerable pain. Less than 45 percent of contractors' shots hit their mark in the badgers' 'target area,' it was revealed.

In a statement released on Thursday, Defra suggested that, "Following recommendations from the Independent Expert Panel that assessed the badger cull pilots last year, a series of changes will be made to improve the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of culling. These changes will be monitored to assess their impact before further decisions are taken on more badger cull licences next year."

More information on Defra's response to the IEP's findings and proposed changes is available here and here.

Labour: Cull is bad news for farmers, taxpayers, wildlife

Responding to Mr Paterson's statement in the Commons, shadow environment secretary Maria Eagle said the Defra secretary's decision to continue culling is "Consistent with his inept handling of this shambles [so far]." She accused Paterson of having ignored the will of the Commons (where the government's policy was defeated by 219 to one in backbench voting last month), failing to engage with offers to develop a cross-party bTB eradication strategy, and putting "posturing before good policy." Ms Eagle summarised that the decision to continue culling was "an unscientific fudge for [Paterson] to save his face."

The Shadow Secretary added, "The two pilot culls failed to meet their own success criteria – they should be ended not extended. There is no justification for continuing with inhumane culling or for culling without independent scientific oversight." She claimed that the admission that culling would not be extended amounted to a "Humiliating climb down," after Mr Paterson had said he wanted to roll out the culls to ten new areas this year.

Eagle asked the environment secretary, "How can you justify [this decision] when culls are likely to increase TB risk to cattle… through perturbation?" Paterson replied that his Chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens had been "emphatic" in insisting that stopping culling would present a higher risk of further spreading bTB.

In Parliament, opposition MPs also criticised as cynical the recent increase in government attention paid to bovine TB in domestic pets, which remains a minor issue, and, as the Environment Secretary himself noted, has not been tied to badgers or other wildlife. In the case of TB-infected domestic cats last year, however, cattle kept nearby were found to have the same strain of bTB.

Reactions to cull announcement

The NFU expressed its "bitter disappointment" that culling would not be rolled out this year. Referring to the IEP's findings, president Meurig Raymond said, "As pilots, there was always going to be the potential to make improvements as a result of knowledge gained. After all that is what pilots are for. They have helped to gain a greater understanding of how we can tackle the wildlife element of this terrible disease cycle."

Although support from the NFU was unwavering (in the run-up to culling, Defra refused to acknowledge freedom of information requests to publish communications with the union, classifying these as internal communiqués), votes of confidence from other groups were less forthcoming. Robin Hargreaves, president of the British Veterinary Association, which had initially backed the cull, said, "Clearly the headlines from the IEP report raise a number of concerns about the humaneness and efficacy of controlled shooting of badgers. It is regrettable that the Secretary of State has announced his decision on the way forward without consulting key stakeholders, including BVA. We are unable to comment further on the announcement until we have had time to fully consider the report in consultation with our members."

Badger Trust CEO Dominic Dyer offered his opinion, "The government is clearly in full retreat. They had hoped to cull badgers in 12 areas this year, so to only be culling in two is a victory of sorts. But why continue at all? Culling is cruel, expensive and won't work. The government should call it off completely, and come to the table so we can plan a way of beating bTB which will actually be effective."

He continued, "Where's the sense [in continued culling]? Better farming practices including controlled cattle movements, better testing and better biosecurity are clearly working. Combine these measures with a long term badger and cattle vaccination programme and we will beat this disease, without having to kill any badgers. Has there ever been a government policy that has so blindly, so arrogantly, pushed on despite all the evidence showing that it won’t work and that it isn’t necessary?"

Veterinarian and Humane Society Spokesperson Mark Jones added, "DEFRA is doing farmers no favours by continuing to push this futile badger slaughter. The Government’s own figures show that we were already getting bTB under control before a single badger was shot last year, just as Professor John Bourne of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial science panel predicted we would. As we did in the 1950s and 60s, by increasing cattle testing intensity, improving farm biosecurity and controlling cattle movements, we have achieved a significant decrease in cattle TB incidence."

In 2007, in the final report of the Independent Scientific Group which oversaw the previous government's Randomised Badger Culling Trials, professor Bourne said, "It is unfortunate that agricultural and veterinary leaders continue to believe, in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, that the main approach to cattle TB control must involve some form of badger population control."