Biosecurity and Infectious Diseases

Lord Chartres Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chartres (CB)]

I am particularly glad to follow my noble friend Lord Carrington because he has enabled me to, among other things, shorten my own remarks.

“Thanks noble Trees, our Entish Lord

For laying bare the grievous ills

Impending on our scepter’d isle.

England, set in a silver sea

That doth no longer serve us

In the office of a wall or as

A moat defensive to a house,

Is subject to mounting threats”.

It is perhaps not usual to address your Lordships’ House in blank verse, but it may be a modest way of indicating the severity and scale of the challenges we face. After all,

“A verse may find him whom a sermon flies.”


The poets have long understood what the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have impressed upon us: the importance of a One Health approach. They have also long understood that we live in an entangled world, including and beyond the wood-wide web, and that the health of our trees reflects and influences our state of mind, our health and our economy.

“The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d”


says Shakespeare in “Richard II”, and the play is full of the reverberations between the life of trees and plants and the state we are in as a country.

In that very helpful briefing paper produced by Fera, there is a horrifying Forestry Commission graph showing the cumulative increase in the number of new pests and diseases affecting trees since 1971, and the particularly alarming increase in the frequency of such outbreaks since 2002. Over the last 20 years there has been a 500% increase, keeping pace with the increased globalisation of trade.

The admirable Woodland Trust publishes an invaluable up-to-date list of the key pests and diseases affecting our trees, along with, crucially, guidance on how to recognise them and report them. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Trees, there are some pests and diseases already with us but there is a worrying number waiting in the wings. The elm zig-zag sawfly is the newest threat to our badly damaged elm populations. The emerald ash borer has killed billions of ash trees in the US; if it arrives here, it will further damage our vulnerable ash populations. Likewise, the North American native bronze birch borer could decimate our own birch trees.

One of my favourite native trees is the juniper. It now faces a dedicated pathogen, phytophthora austrocedri, which infects juniper trees and then kills them. Time does not permit me to anathematise any further the red-necked longhorn beetle or the sirococcus tsugae. But the Government are aware, as previous speakers have noted, of the scale of the challenges. In particular, can the Minister update us on the results of the three-year trial of the proposed invasive species inspectorate? The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has already alluded to that theme. Is this vital contribution to our biosecurity to be established on a permanent basis?

There are many other things which can be done, as other noble Lords have pointed out. I would underline the value of investing more in the proven capacity of citizen science monitoring and reporting programmes. That would contribute to raising consumer awareness of the problem, as would the inclusion of a biosecurity warning in air-steward cabin safety briefings. We have been talking about international travel; one thing that could be done, just by passing a regulation, is to add to those safety briefings in international air flights some biosecurity warning. At the same time, as my noble friend Lord Carrington said, as far as possible it is clear that we ought to source and grow trees in the UK and, crucially, invest in the skills needed to cultivate them.

“Let us lift high the phytosanitary shield

To repel the pests and contagion,

Lest child child’s children, cry against

Us, woe!”