British Flora: Protection from Imported Diseases

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Swire

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the protection of British flora from imported diseases.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I am extremely grateful to have been granted this debate, particularly as this is such a pertinent issue; the Forestry Commission recently stated:

“The threat to our forests and woodlands has never been greater.”

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and former Mayor of London pledged that 2 million trees would be planted in London between 2009 and 2025. By 2012, I understand only 100,000 had been planted. The current Mayor, Sadiq Khan, promised before his election in May 2016 to plant 2 million trees in his first term, but for some unknown and unwise reason, he abandoned that policy just five months later, in October 2016. Can the Minister cast light on any of that? Can any pressure be brought to bear on all our city mayors to plant more trees? Should that not form part of the Government’s plans to tackle pollution, particularly in our inner cities?

UK imports of live plants have increased by 71% since 1999. There are now more than 1,000 pests and diseases on the UK plant health register. The Royal Horticultural Society has, however, clamped down on imports. All imported semi-mature trees will be held in isolation for 12 months before they are planted at RHS gardens and shows, and evaluation of plant health risk will be incorporated into judging criteria at RHS flower shows. Services relating to our almost 9.3 million acres of forests, woodlands and other trees are estimated to have an annual value of £44.9 billion to the UK economy. Such services include wood processing, recreation and landscaping, as well as biodiversity.

In my part of the world, the beautiful county of Devon in south-west England, a number of diseases have already been found in trees, including phytophthora ramorum, a fungus-like pathogen called a water mould, which has infected large trees widely grown in the UK for the timber market and rhododendrons. Phytophthora ramorum causes extensive damage and death to a large number of trees and other plants.

Red band needle blight, which particularly affects the Corsican pine, is found in most parts of the UK. A five-year moratorium on the planting of the species has been established for Forestry Commission plantations. Here I pay tribute to a fellow Devonian, Sir Harry Studholme, who does such important work as chairman of the Forestry Commission.

Ash dieback is an extremely serious disease of ash trees caused by a fungus. It causes wilting leaves and crown dieback, most usually leading to tree death. Ash dieback was discovered in Devon by the county council, and in February 2016, Natural Devon published a strategy entitled, “Devon ash dieback action plan: an overarching plan to identify and address the risks of ash dieback disease in Devon.” The plan states that there are more than 1.9 million ash trees in Devon, and goes on to say:

“Today we probably have more such trees because many hedges have been permitted to develop into tree lines. The 2012 estimate of nearly half a million roadside ash trees bigger than about 7.5 cm in diameter…confirms that the 1.9 million figure represents only larger trees, and that the true number of non-woodland ash in the county is much greater.”

Finally, sweet chestnut blight was discovered in Devon in December 2016. It is a plant disease caused by the ascomycete fungus, which causes death and dieback in sweet chestnut plants. Restrictions are in place in Devon on the movement of sweet chestnut material.

All of that comes on the back of the change to our landscape. We all remember the devastation that Dutch elm disease caused to the English countryside in the late 1960s and 1970s. That in turn preceded the unprecedented storm of 1987, which uprooted and killed so much woodland. It is unthinkable that we might lose any more of our flora. Act we must.

However, we must give the Government credit here. The Minister will make his remarks later, but I welcome some of the actions taken by the Government and his Department, not least under the stewardship of my former boss in the Northern Ireland Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), when he was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am extremely pleased to see him in his place. I believe he intends to catch your eye later, Sir Henry.

The appointment in 2014 of Professor Nicola Spence as a chief plant health officer was a huge step forward. She has invested £4.5 million in new patrols and inspectors, which hopefully will stem the flow of diseases entering the United Kingdom. I also very much welcome the appointment this month of Sir William Worsley as the Government’s tree champion. That appointment meets one of the key commitments in the Government’s 25-year environment plan.

Sir William’s task of driving forward planting rates will help raise awareness of the impact our flora have on our planet. Such action by Government will teach us all further about the impact that diseases have on our environment and our economy. When the Minister gets to his feet, I hope he will confirm that Sir William will be fully resourced—or is he to be just another Government tsar with no power? How will his success be measured? Will he have full access to Ministers? I hope to hear positive answers to those key questions on the role of our excellent new tree champion.

I also very much welcome the work of the Action Oak partnership, supported by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, a man who is always ahead of the curve on all matters environmental. The partnership will, among other things, fund research to improve the understanding of the threats to our oak trees and inform best management practices. I understand that it is looking to raise £15 million. Can the Minister confirm how much has been raised since its launch at last year’s Chelsea flower show and say whether the Government will make a financial contribution to that important project?

One of the common threats is xylella from continental Europe. I pay tribute to Country Life magazine and the RHS for bringing it to my attention. Xylella has not yet reached our shores, but it could pose a severe threat to our flora if it does. It was found in the United States, Taiwan and Italy, where it has destroyed olive groves in the southern part of the country. Subsequently, it has been discovered in Spain, Germany and France, along with some of the Baltic states. According to Mark Griffiths in Country Life, the EU’s reaction to xylella has been “authoritarian”; its vectors have been

“subjected to mass insecticide, an action that has turned plant disease into an ecological disaster”,

through a policy of fighting the disease by eradicating everything that might possibly succumb to it.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reasons for many of these diseases reaching us are twofold: climate change and the movement of people? Her Majesty’s Government should understand that it is in our economic, social and environmental interest to have as much early warning as possible of such diseases moving up through Europe. Does he agree that we should require our embassies and other agencies to give much earlier warnings as diseases approach, so that we on these islands can develop strategies to tackle them before they get here?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My right hon. Friend is precisely right. Forewarned is forearmed, and the more we can publicise these impending diseases coming to our islands, the better. He will acknowledge, as a former Environment Minister, that in some respects the problem is already here. It is about how we stop it from spreading and try to contain it where we can. He has a record second to none on environmental matters, and I am extremely pleased that he is here and taking an interest in the debate.

This rather follows on from what my right hon. Friend said: there have been reports that if the British Government were presented with the problem of xylella, they would destroy not only the infected plant, but all plants within a 100-metre radius. I am concerned that that would amount to uprooting parks, gardens and the greenery of entire neighbourhoods. I would appreciate it if the Minister could confirm what action the Government would take in the event of a xylella outbreak in the UK, and what precautions he is taking to prevent such an outbreak.

As in many of our discussions nowadays, the Commonwealth has its part to play, with the invention of the Queen’s Commonwealth canopy. That initiative, which aims to involve all 53 Commonwealth countries and was first conceived by, among others, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), will hopefully save one of the world’s most important natural habitats, forests. Three UK projects are involved: Epping forest, Wentwood in Wales and the national forest, which covers parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire. Those of us who saw it enjoyed the ITV documentary in April, “The Queen’s Green Planet”, with the legendary Sir David Attenborough, in which Her Majesty the Queen and Sir David discussed the importance of the Queen’s Commonwealth canopy. I particularly look forward to planting a tree in the name of the canopy in Devon in the near future. Will the Minister say what the British Government are doing to raise awareness of and support this Commonwealth initiative?

That leads me on to the defining issue that the United Kingdom faces: leaving the European Union. I am well aware that there is a small amount of irony in the fact that while this debate is about indigenous British flora, many trees and plants in this country are not originally from these shores. Indeed, without our great plant-gatherers of the 18th and 19th centuries, we would not be enjoying many of the trees, shrubs and plants that we have come to know and love. However, I believe that we have a real chance to deliver a green Brexit by ensuring that trading incentives are used to improve biosecurity in trade, including green trade deals. We have a chance to be a pioneering force in having the greenest possible free trade deals, and I hope the Minister will have a positive view of that suggestion.

I commend the millennium seed bank at the royal botanic gardens, Kew, which achieved its initial aim of storing seeds from all the UK’s native plant species in 2009, making Britain the first country in the world to have preserved its botanical heritage. The current phase of the millennium seed bank project is to conserve a quarter of the world’s plant species by 2020. I hope that the Commonwealth, and in particular the Queen’s Commonwealth canopy, will help with the project through their extensive global contacts, and that the British Government will support those efforts.

My hon. Friend the Minister, who represents another wonderful constituency in the south-west, a bit further to the west than mine, will be aware that I always approach these debates with a shopping list. I have some key asks of him this afternoon, which I hope he will address. I welcome the Government’s announcement of £37 million in funding through the tree health resilience strategy. However, how will it be divided up? How much of that money will go to the new tree champion?

Will the Minister commit to tightening up and enforcing more strongly the rules concerning which plant materials can be imported into the UK from the EU and further afield, and how will that be affected once we leave the European Union in March 2019? Could biosecurity be incorporated into any transition deal that the Government agree with Europe? Further to the remarks by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), what instructions can be issued to our embassies and high commissions around the world to identify the threats to the United Kingdom, and some of those plants and trees, to prevent people from trying to export them to the UK?

I am much heartened by the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee’s inquiry on plant and animal biosecurity after Brexit. Will the Government implement the Committee’s recommendations when the report is published, if they are in line with the stated ambition under the 25-year environment strategy and the tree health resilience strategy?

I could go on much longer on this extraordinary subject, but those with greater knowledge of the subject wish to contribute to the debate. I will conclude by saying that many of us spend our recreational time walking the British countryside. It is the envy of the world. How distraught would we be if it were to be further decimated by diseases that killed our flora? I call on us all to act now to protect our green and pleasant land.

Diplomatic Service and Resources

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Swire

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Later in my speech, I will talk about defence attachés and how we can copy the way that other countries do that better.

I have travelled to parts of the world where the Union flag might exist in the corner of an island state’s flag but there is no Union flag flying over anything that could resemble a high commission, embassy or diplomatic mission. All aid to the Pacific region was delivered through the EU; I could not find one sign of recognition of the sacrifice that the UK taxpayer made to provide that much-needed aid—it all had the EU mark on it.

Well before 2010, embassies were being sold off. They were bricks and mortar whose value in terms of influence vastly outweighed their real estate value. Our missions abroad were reduced and our diplomatic service language school was closed. After 2010, some good things started to happen: the language school was reopened; embassies that had been closed were reopened. But what that really meant was that our diplomatic missions abroad were marginally broader, but shallower too. I was in Mali just as we reopened our embassy there. An excellent ambassador arrived and she took over with a staff of one locally recruited driver. According to the FCO figures, there are now three FCO personnel there.

This year, the Government will spend £2.15 billion on the winter fuel allowance—a welfare element that we all support—but that is more than the £2 billion we spend on our foreign affairs budget. Let us compare how France and Germany—two similar-sized countries, both in the EU—manage their diplomatic services abroad. France spends £4.2 billion on its diplomatic service—more than twice what we spend on ours. As a country, it has a clear view that in order to maintain its P5 status it will stay true to its spheres of influence. Our 30-year bout of post-colonial guilt syndrome in this country, which may well have abated now, never seemed to have a parallel in the French psyche. France maintains a very clear involvement and commitment to countries in north and west Africa in particular, but also across the middle east. It maintains a much more permanent presence in areas where it has a history of influence.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I am listening closely to what my right hon. Friend is saying. I believe that even some former French colonies are represented in the French Parliament, unlike here. At the end of the day, it is worth remembering that France has Francophonie; they look with envy at the Commonwealth, which is an organisation that they are unable to replicate. They rather wonder at it. I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will mention the Commonwealth in his speech.

[Richard Benyon]

I certainly will. Our commitment to the Commonwealth is at the forefront of our minds, with the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting about to take place. There are some very important Commonwealth countries that we owe more attention to. We must see this as a very important part of our foreign engagement in the years ahead. There has not been a more important time for the Commonwealth to exist, and for the Government to have a clear strategy of supporting it both economically and using all the soft-power influence we can, to ensure that this wide variety of economies and countries united by a set of values can be a key part of our foreign engagement in future.

I do not know how many diplomats France deploys in the Central African Republic, Niger or Senegal, but I bet it is many more than the two we have in Lusaka, the two we have in Gaborone or even the seven we have in Harare, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office annual report and accounts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

rose—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention first, and then that of my right hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I will take a brief intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury.

[Richard Benyon]

I was in Panama just after we sold one of the few nice buildings in Panama City, on the main corniche, and moved the embassy residence to the suburbs. The ambassador said to me, almost with tears in his eyes, that he could have made a business case for the use of that building that would have allowed us to continue there. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such decisions are often taken with a short-term perspective, which results in a failure to understand not only the long-term business case, but the influence case?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My right hon. Friend is clearly right. I see that on 21 February, in a topical question, I asked that there be a moratorium on any asset disposals until such a review is complete. That question was answered with tremendous agreement by the Foreign Secretary. Let us have a moratorium until we decide what our global footprint will be, and let us have no more selling off of properties until the Foreign Affairs Committee has some formal oversight role.

Another thing I campaigned for, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex touched on briefly in describing his experiences in Zimbabwe, is what I called “one HMG”. I should be interested to hear an update from the Minister on that. Over the years, many different Government Departments have crept into some of these places and have other organisations in many capitals around the world; they include the Scotland Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Often, the ambassador does not have much control over some of these other organisations.

In some countries—I think Nepal was one—the head of the Department for International Development was a much more senior figure than our ambassador and would not kowtow to them. It is my view that, very simply, the individual who represents the British Government abroad is the ambassador, and everybody should work for the ambassador. There should be no discrepancy in employment, accommodation and so on, and where possible, all those other agencies should be brought under the British embassy or the British high commission and co-located on that estate.

That leads me to my next point: we are still shadow-boxing about the independence of DFID. Increasingly, as a lot of the Foreign Office is funded by overseas development money, that skews things and the lines are getting blurred. I wish at some point someone would have the bravery to say that DFID belongs back with the mother ship. We could have huge economies and savings, and greater alignment of British views and values overseas, by bringing it back to the mother ship. To anyone who says, “We can’t do that; all the non-governmental organisations will get too upset,” I say that I do not think the NGOs are in any position to do anything at the moment—at least some of them—and the stock rejoinder to them is, “Look, we stand by our pledge of 0.07% of GDP. That’s our answer. How we actually apply that is up to the Government, not the NGOs.”

We are about to see a major change to the European External Action Service, the force under Federica Mogherini. I always thought it to be pretty hit and miss around the world; it seemed to me very often that the head of the EEAS was always going off to the British embassy to find out the latest intelligence, but we paid a lot of money to the EEAS and a lot of our best people were employed there, on better terms than our own people locally. That is something we want to withdraw; I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on how many British people who currently work for the EEAS will be pulled back into the FCO and where they will be deployed.

Overall, it seems to me that a major piece of work needs to be done—a major realignment of what the UK is seeking to do abroad. That involves the World Service, the British Council and different Departments of State; it involves redefining what we mean by soft power as well as ensuring that that soft power is backed up by a sufficient military capability. It is pointless to have soft power unless we have decent armed forces which, if necessary, can support that soft power. That is a fundamental piece of work that needs to be done, and I am not convinced that it is being done cross-departmentally or that it is being done by Ministers. I believe a Cabinet Sub-Committee should be set up without further ado to bring together all these competing demands on the Exchequer, to articulate what we expect from our superb diplomatic service—the envy of the world—to ensure that it is given the tools to do the job, and to better co-ordinate all the different parts of the state to that end.