The row over badger culling has erupted again, with Labour describing government plans to allow farmers to shoot the animals on their land as the "big society badger cull".

The government has yet to respond publicly to a Defra consultation on proposals for a cull in England, but ministers have given a heavy steer that they will approve plans to allow groups of volunteers to organise their own shooting expeditions to kill badgers in affected areas, after applying for a specific licence under the Protection of Badgers Act; they would also have to hold an appropriate firearms licence. The Tory minister in charge, Jim Paice, has described the culls as "free shooting".

Theoretically, these culls could begin as early as this summer. Labour highlighted police warnings of the danger of badger hunts in areas with large numbers of the animals in the southwest – areas that also happen to be popular tourist destinations.

In a "strategic assessment" of the plans submitted to Defra, the National Wildlife Crime Unit – a British national police unit – has raised concerns about how free shooting would be organised. In its latest assessment of the proposed cull, it says: "There is a very real danger of illegal badger persecution being carried out under the pretext of culling activity."

It goes on: "Devon and Cornwall were identified as hotspot areas for bovine TB earlier in the year and there is concern that political acceptance of this method may see farmers managing the problem themselves without obtaining a licence."

Tessa Jowell, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, said: "I don't believe that many of us would be comfortable with the idea of a 'big society badger cull', with volunteers licensed to roam the countryside carrying shotguns. I am not sure what it does to promote tourism in Britain or encourage people to visit the countryside."

The Tories are committed to culling badgers in an attempt to tackle bovine TB, which is having a significant impact on the cattle farming industry in some parts of the country.

Last year government figures showed 25,000 cattle were slaughtered because of the disease and this cost the taxpayer more than £63m in England alone.

Badgers are a protected species and it is illegal to kill them, with a few exceptions. The government's proposals would deregulate this, and would allow farmers to kill badgers themselves as long as they had a firearms licence.

A government source said: "No decision has yet been made. The announcement will be made later in the year after the local elections. The consultation was very much about farmers forging a group and working in partnership across the appropriate area."

In September, launching the consultation, Paice said: "As a countryman my view is that free shooting would, in most cases, be by far the most effective option."

He added: "There may be security issues but I am not talking about people just ranging around the countryside with a rifle. If you put a high seat over a sett you could kill most of them fairly quickly.

"I have looked carefully at the potential for using badger vaccination. Based on veterinary advice and the available scientific evidence, the government's assessment is that vaccination on its own will not reduce disease as quickly as culling."

Cattle and the cull

When badgers were the first wild animal to be given legal protection in Britain, in 1973, the problem of bovine TB in cattle herds was a small one. But two years before, in 1971, the first case of bTB in a badger was detected on a farm in Gloucestershire. Farmers have since become convinced that the burgeoning badger population is to blame for the spread of the disease.

Last year 24,899 cattle were slaughtered for bTB control in England. In 2009/10 the government spent £63m on the disease, mostly compensating farmers for infected cattle that were slaughtered – mainly in the West Country, the West Midlands and Wales.

It is this cost, rather than any (minimal) risk to public health, that is the prime motivation for the Conservative side of the coalition's determination to commence a cull of badgers in England this year. The Welsh Assembly also voted in favour of culling badgers in Pembrokeshire last month despite its proposals being defeated in the appeal court last year.

The trapping and shooting of badgers (culls in the 1980s involved gassing badgers in their setts) will almost certainly become what the fox hunting ban was to Labour – a hugely divisive issue, possibly sparking violent confrontations between animal rights activists and farmers.

Farmers speak of ruined livelihoods and scientists say there is compelling evidence that badgers contribute to the spread of bTB. But conservationists are not convinced the badger is the prime villain, blaming the movement of cattle and lax biosecurity on farms; other vectors may include bTB carriers such as deer, rats and even domestic cats.

The evidence that a badger cull will reduce bTB in cattle is ambiguous. Under Labour a 10-year trial by independent scientists which saw the experimental culling of 10,000 badgers concluded that the culling "can make no meaningful contribution" to the control of bTB in cattle. It recommended controlling the disease with smarter controls on cattle movements.

A key finding was "perturbation" – that culling breaks up clannish badger communities, sending diseased survivors into neighbouring areas and actually increasing bTB in the neighbouring countryside. But last year the coalition announced contrary findings that showed that eventually perturbation diminished: in the three years after the end of the cull, bTB in cattle was reduced by 5.6% in a 2km area surrounding the cull. Overall, bTB in cattle was reduced by 31.5% in the cull zones more than four and a half years after the cull ended.

Vaccination – of cattle and badgers – could satisfy farmers and conservationists. An injectable badger vaccine is now available but it is costly to trap and inject badgers. The coalition cancelled five of the six badger vaccine trials last summer to save money and claims a cheaper oral vaccine will not be ready until 2015.

Cattle vaccines are currently banned under EU legislation because it is difficult to distinguish between infected and vaccinated animals. Scientists are currently working on new ways to easily test this but EU law will have to be changed before any such test – and cattle vaccines – can be introduced.

Patrick Barkham

• The main article above was amended on 15 april 2011. The original omitted to mention the special licence which, under the new proposals, people wanting to cull badgers would have hold. This has been corrected.