Biosecurity and Infectious Diseases

Earl of Cork and Orrery Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery (CB)]

My Lords, I have yet another thank you very much to my noble friend Lord Trees for what has been a quite exceptional debate. It is interesting that it is exactly four years to the week since this subject was last debated in your Lordships’ House, and a lot has moved on in that time. I declare my interest as a trustee of the International Dendrology Society and, not surprisingly, admit that my remarks are somewhat limited to the plant end of the spectrum of this wide-ranging debate. For those whose Greek is on a par with mine, dendrology is the science and study of woody plants; specifically, their taxonomic classifications.

It is rather hard to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Chartres, and even the most recent speaker, because they enunciated a number of the things that I wanted to mention. But, as we have heard, some repetition is not a bad idea. In the past 10 years, much has changed in the world of plant health and protection—and here I unashamedly issue a compliment to Defra, where the chief plant health officer for the UK, Professor Nicola Spence, has been a sure and steady hand in moving forward the health of our plant stock. We have also seen, as we have heard, Defra’s 25-year environment plan, which includes, in recent years, a tree heath resilience strategy, a Great Britain biosecurity strategy and a plant health research and development plan.

The arrival of Brexit has complicated the biosecurity landscape but has allowed us to get away from the EU’s one-size-fits-all approach to the subject, which tended to mean that problems originating in Mediterranean countries would inexorably find their way here, through common trade and travel arrangements. In that time also, the advance of gene sequencing for plants has given us a much greater understanding of the nature of the problems we face, and of the susceptibility of individual plants to the diseases attacking them. As has been mentioned, citizen science is now being employed to report infestations and diseases, and such reports to the chief inspectorate are now running into many thousands per year.

In summary, we are increasingly well protected by an ever-more alert department and its agencies, not to mention the financial side of things, but the work they are doing has been well received in the industry. All of this is well known and understood by those interested in the trades associated with plant health and movement, such as forestry and horticulture. It is also pretty well understood by those who live and make their livelihood in the countryside. But the great multitude of our increasingly enormous population have little idea of the problems which face us, and with which these agencies must deal. A cynic might add that a large proportion of them care even less. The real issue facing us, therefore, is awareness. As we have heard, the cost of the Chalara Fraxinus, or ash dieback, epidemic has been estimated at about £15 billion over the next few decades. That is a huge figure and, if you look out of the window of a train or at home, you see skeletons wherever you look. These have all got to be cleared and someone has to pay for that.

On the other hand, the value to the national balance sheet of our plant stock, both trees and the agricultural and horticultural sectors, is reckoned at £175 billion—in other words, it is worth looking after them.

There is an urgent need for continued, and increasing, training and awareness campaigns focused on all the sectors previously mentioned, and especially on a mobile, travelling public. This increased awareness must also extend to the amateur gardening sector—no more returning from trips abroad with sponge bags full of likely specimens and the soil in which they grew. To illustrate the size of the problem, there are reckoned to be 90 pests that can attack oak trees, 165 for potatoes, 130 for roses and 160 for tomatoes.

Possibly the two most high-profile concerns at present, both of which have been mentioned in passing, are the bacterial disease Xylella fastidiosa, which has devastated the olive plantations of Italy, France and Spain—olive is much more important than the other plants mentioned, but nevertheless they are all part of it—and the emerald ash borer, a beetle that attacks ash trees, especially when they are already weakened by another pathogen, the ash dieback. This pest is spreading across the world from its origin in the Far East and has reached Ukraine, which does not have a lot of time to deal with it. It has equally devastated the American ash population. I therefore have two questions for the Minister. What is the latest situation on these two pests, Xylella and ash borer? What measures are being taken to combat them?

There are some advantages to our being an island, and there is no doubt that our moat helps to keep things at bay, but many insects can travel over water. The Asian hornet and longhorn beetles have both arrived on the wind.

One area I find hard to understand is the behaviour of our nursery and horticultural trades in importing large volumes of plants that we can perfectly well grow ourselves. It should be impossible to obtain an import certificate without offering proof that the plant in question is not available from growers in this country. This is not a matter of civil liberties. It is a matter literally of life and death to the plant populations concerned, and to the livelihoods of our growers.