Legal action threat on badger cull

National Farmers' Union president Peter Kendall said reports that Environment Secretary Hilary Benn was not going to authorise a cull would be "nothing short of a disaster" if true.

Mr Kendall said a failure to cull badgers, which can infect cattle with TB, would have a devastating impact on farmers and rural communities in areas which have been ravaged by the disease.

And industry commentator and farmer Ian Potter, from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, warned of demonstrations and the possibility of farmers taking the law into their own hands to deal with badgers.

But the news a cull of the protected species would not be given the go-ahead was welcomed by conservation groups, who said the reported decision was based on sound science.

With spiralling rates of infection and 28,000 cattle slaughtered last year, the Government has been under pressure to give the go-ahead for a cull in badgers, which act as a "wildlife reservoir" transmitting the disease.

Speaking at the Royal Show in Warwickshire, Mr Benn refused to disclose what his announcement, expected on Monday, would be. But he acknowledged the scale of the problem and the strength of feeling and "depth of despair" felt by those most affected.

"Bovine TB is and remains a big problem and in the end we can only deal with it by working together. I want to find an effective way of dealing with it. I take this responsibility very seriously," he said.

But the Conservatives accused the Government of failing to bring the disease, which has cost the taxpayer some £500 million in the last decade, under control.

Shadow agricultural minister Jim Paice said: "After years of dithering, tens of thousands of animals lost and countless farm businesses driven to the wall, there is still no prospect of the Government bringing this terrible disease under control. We want to see healthy cattle alongside healthy badgers but there is nothing to suggest that 'business as usual' will deliver this outcome."