Plant Health (Forestry) (Amendment) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Skelmersdale

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. I do not know how quickly the noble Lord can finish his remarks.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I cannot guarantee to do it quickly enough that I would be comfortable.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

In that case, we will adjourn for 10 minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, we have had our 10 minutes, and so I ask the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, to continue.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Thank you. When the Division Bell rang I had read out the end of the rapid risk assessment published by Forestry Research on 9 August 2012 and referred to paragraph 3.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says,

“Such legislation would have been based on poor technical evidence (in the absence of a risk assessment and surveillance data) if introduced earlier and would have had little practical impact because there is little movement of ash for planting during spring and summer”.

The question clearly then arises: given the nature of the risk assessment that had been done in early August, what if there had been a rapid consultation through August, let us say, until mid-September, and a ban introduced then? We are always a little vague in Government and elsewhere about when these seasons begin and end, especially when we are asked to make decisions, but I would define autumn as starting in September or possibly October. We could have had a ban in place at the beginning of October, and would that not have been a good idea?

I would be interested to know in what period the investigation into the wider environment and the presence of the organism in Great Britain took place. The perception we now have is that as a result of the surveillance activity that is now taking place, and which has taken place since the ban, we have discovered the widespread infection of the disease across the wild trees of this country—widespread, that is, not necessarily in terms of volume but in terms of various locations. I would like to know during what period those investigations prior to the ban took place, and why we did not discover more infections at that point.