Ash Dieback Disease

Andrew Miller Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I confirm that we will use the resources necessary to do the job and deal with this disease effectively. The Government believe that we can mobilise those resources within the Department.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister to correct the record? Although it is true that the Forestry Commission programme shows an increased spend under the heading “tree health and biosecurity”, figures under the heading “tree breeding for increased resilience and improved markets” show a 52% cut over the lifetime of the review.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman chairs the Science and Technology Committee, which I know will want to look at this issue in more detail. I invite it, however, to look at the totality of spend in this area, not all of which goes through the Forestry Commission—there are other heads. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look at that spend, as I am sure he will, and come to an objective view about how much is being spent on this important matter.

On Friday 26 October, the consultation, which I mentioned, closed. It demonstrated overwhelming support for import and movement restrictions, and on Monday 29 October, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced a ban on the movement of ash from anywhere that is not a designated pest-free area—I should point out that nowhere is labelled a designated pest-free area. There is now a criminal offence, carrying a maximum fine of £5,000.

On 24 October—during the consultation period—Chalara was confirmed in the wider environment in East Anglia. The trees had no apparent connections to nurseries. Since that finding, the Government have taken action on an unprecedented scale to tackle the problem. At the beginning of November, we initiated a rapid survey of the whole of Great Britain. More than 500 people worked around the clock to survey 2,500 10 km squares for signs of disease. That massive undertaking was completed by 7 November, and gave us an initial picture of the distribution of ash dieback caused by Chalara. We have also received valuable intelligence from organisations including the Country Land and Business Association and the Woodland Trust, which has mobilised its members to look for signs of the disease.

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[Andrew Miller]

Where are the citations?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman, who purports to know about science, really ought to understand scientific method. I think that a theory from our chief scientific adviser, supported by all the experts in Britain and Europe, is rather better than one propagated by the hon. Member for Wakefield to support her conspiracy theory.

As I have said, these conclusions have been endorsed by the leading experts, who have reviewed the evidence about Chalara to help us to understand how it is spread, its impact on our ash trees, and how we might tackle it. A summary of their conclusions was sent to all Members on 7 November and published on 9 November. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in a written ministerial statement last Friday, the advice from the scientists

“is that it will not be possible to eradicate Chalara.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2012; Vol. 552, c. 49WS.]

The experience in the rest of Europe is that there is no effective treatment. However, that does not mean the end of the British ash. While young trees succumb to the disease fairly quickly, mature trees with the infection can live for many years. We know that the Danes have identified a small number of trees that seem to be resistant to Chalara. That knowledge buys us some time, so what can we do?

It is clear that the Government alone cannot tackle this threat. On 7 November, we convened a summit that brought together more than 100 representatives of the forestry and horticulture industries and environmental groups to advise us. There was a broad consensus on the evidence and on the action that we should take. The strong message is that we should not be panicked into taking draconian action that could be futile or counter-productive. The lesson of the Dutch elm disease of the 1970s is that much of the costly action taken then simply did not work. We have a window over the next few months while the disease is not spreading, and that will enable us to develop the right approach. The disease is not spreading, incidentally, because this is not the sporulating season for it. There are no fruiting bodies, and there are therefore no spores—unless the hon. Member for Wakefield has a theory that there is winter sporulation as well.

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[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I want to deal with the issue of process. According to the DEFRA website, the ash has a high conservation value, and we all agree with that. I presume that in the national risk register of civil emergencies ash dieback fits into the category of

“an event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of a place in the United Kingdom—where environmental damage is defined as ‘contamination of land, water or air with biological, chemical or radio-active matter, or disruption or destruction of plant life or animal life’”.

There is a definitional issue, but will the Minister confirm that that was the basis on which Cobra was convened?

The national risk register—a first-rate document—offers enhanced guidelines for the creation of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. I am unclear—the DEFRA website does not refer to it one way or the other—whether the group has been constituted under the rules in the risk register and is managed as a SAGE process. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed that. I presume that this fits into the level 1—significant emergency—category, which has a wider focus and requires central Government involvement or support, primarily from a lead Government Department or devolved Administration, alongside the work of emergency responders.

It seems that that process has been adopted, but it is not as clear as the Government intended when they established the register—a document that I confirmed to the Minister for the Cabinet Office to be first rate—earlier this year. It is a pity that DEFRA has not followed the rules set out in the document. Only a few months ago, the Select Committee on Science and Technology heard from the Forestry Commission trade unions that about 66 of the 230 members of staff in the Forest Research agency will be lost as a result of cuts. There is also a significant cut in tree breeding for increased resilience, which I am sure, in hindsight, the Minister agrees is a pity.

[Alison Seabeck]

I am interested to hear my hon. Friend’s analysis, but does he share my concern that people with expertise in how to protect not only the ash but the wider eco-system—the insects and flora and fauna that depend on the ash—will be among those losing their jobs? Is he concerned that we are not thinking beyond the current crisis?

[Andrew Miller]

That is precisely why I began by referring to the definition on DEFRA’s website, which encompasses the broader conservation issues. The National Trust, of which I am proud to be a member, welcomes the Government’s commitment to further research and calls for money to be committed to plant health, which is hugely important.

In my capacity as Chair of the Select Committee I wrote to the Minister on Friday—it is perfectly reasonable that he has not replied yet; I do not criticise him for that—asking what scientific evidence there is to support the theory that cases of Chalara fraxinea in East Anglia were caused by airborne spores from Europe. Will he put on the record the scientific citations that support that? He cannot do so because there are not any. An eminent group of people for whom I have the greatest respect has come up with possible explanations, but the Minister did not say that, given the way fungal infections spread, it is equally possible that these cases started some time ago and came from imported seedlings. He does not know the answer and perhaps he will confirm that.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is being fair. With epidemiology there are never definite answers, but I hope he will agree that the distribution is not entirely consistent with the view that this came from imported seedlings—one would expect a much more rational distribution across the country than the eccentric distribution shown in the tests.

[Andrew Miller]

I referred to the SAGE precisely because the Select Committee’s report on scientific advice in emergencies called for an opening up of the process. I believe that one alternative explanation has not been rigorously tested, although it could be by an open call for evidence from the Minister. Nurseries in places such as Lancashire, from where the trees I planted 10 years ago were sourced, source their trees from locally grown seedlings, whereas closer to the European mainland the probability is greater that seedlings were sourced from within Europe. That possibility needs to be tested, and by opening up the SAGE process I invite the Minister to do just that and close the missing link.

There are issues on the DEFRA website that concern me. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) spoke of how the website had changed miraculously, but I remind the Minister that the changes were made without any reference to scientific citation whatsoever, and that must be examined.

Chief scientific advisers ought to be able to give scientific advice, based on the science, freely and openly to the Government, and it is not for Ministers to reinterpret that on their Department’s website. That is an improper use of the scientific advice, which should be available to the whole House and indeed the whole country. There is no reason that the process cannot be conducted most transparently, and if it is we will suck in all the information necessary to solve the problem once and for all. It is a challenging issue, but I hope the Minister takes my advice.