The human cost of the mass slaughter of cattle due to bovine TB must not be forgotten, says Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire MP Simon Hart.

Speaking in a House of Commons debate on the subject, Mr Hart, spoke about a local farming family who had to shoot their in-calf heifers on their yard because they had tested positive for TB reactors and were too pregnant to travel to slaughter.

"Those animals, bred with great care and attention by the family, had to be shot on the yard in front of the son and daughter who were aspiring to grow the farm in the way that we are all encouraging them to, and with all the accompanying trauma," said Mr Hart.

He encouranged MPs to think about the cost that the TB epidemic is having not just on the cattle and badger population, but on farmers and their families.

"I want to bring the debate back to human beings. Let us be honest: such an impact on any other industry in the UK and over such a long period would have been completely intolerable, but for some strange reason we have stood back and tolerated it in our farming industry, despite the human and financial costs discussed. The Government is absolutely right to draw a line and say, "Enough is enough."

Mr Hart criticised the Welsh Assembly Government for backing away from a test cull of badgers.

"Frankly, there have been 60 years of discussion, 60 years of promises, 60 years of let-downs, 60 years of contradictory science and 60 years of politicians taking the farming community to the brink and then back again, as we have seen in the Welsh Assembly.

"Thousands of cattle have been killed millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted, businesses have been destroyed and families broken up and farmers have left the industry, at times in droves—not solely because of the impact of the disease over so many years, but in part."