Welsh TB board chair to head animal health steering group

A key critic of the Welsh Government’s stance on badger culling has been appointed to a position on a board which advises the Labour-led administration on animal health and welfare.

Peredur Hughes, is the chairman of the North Wales TB Eradication Board, and has been appointed as the chairman of the Wales Animal Health and Welfare Strategy Steering Group.

The appointment was announced by environment minister, John Griffiths. “I value the steering group’s role as a key forum focused on raising standards of animal health and welfare in Wales and look forward to working with the chairman and group in the future,’’ he said.

The steering group was established in 2004 to advise and assist the Welsh Government on a range of key issues that impact on animal health and welfare. The group has 17 members who represent the industry in Wales, including Wales’ chief veterinary officer, Christianne Glossop.

Last year Mr Hughes, together with the chairmen of Wales’ two other TB eradication boards, said they felt “entirely by-passed and badly misled’’ by the Welsh Government’s decision to review the science behind the TB eradication strategy.

In a letter to John Griffiths, they expressed their “bitter disappointment” over the review.

That review has since led to a decision by the Welsh Government to adopt a badger vaccination policy.

But Mr Hughes, who runs a beef and sheep farm on Anglesey and is a former president of NFU Cymru, has accepted the steering group post and will serve for an initial term of three years.

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