Tree Health in England

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for tabling this Question and provoking such an interesting debate. I should declare an interest through my involvement at the Rothamsted agricultural institute.

As noble Lords have vividly illustrated, a record number of pests and diseases are arriving on our shores and threatening our native tree population. Species of oak, elm, Scots pine, beech and birch are all at increasing risk from invasive bugs, fungi and bacteria. Quite rightly, there is real concern that our native woodlands could suffer wholesale devastation, with catastrophic impacts for not only the local landscape but our wider environmental and economic objectives.

We all recognise the vital role that trees play in carbon capture and sequestration. This is why we on these Benches have supported the Government’s tree-planting targets, challenging though they have proved to be. For every tree that dies as a result of invasive pests and diseases, meeting the planting target becomes even more of a challenge. So what can we do to prevent the inevitable drift towards woodland devastation?

First, as noble Lords have said, our warmer climate is becoming a magnet for new pests, while others that would have been killed off in harsh winter months continue to thrive and breed in the warmer climates. It is absolutely vital, not only for the obvious reasons but for those reasons as well, that we hit our net-zero targets. Perhaps the Minister can update us on whether he feels that we are playing our part in planting new trees to do that.

Secondly, international travel has fuelled a taste for exotic plants and the globalised trade in live plants has been allowed to outweigh our more pressing concerns about the host plants infecting our native species. As noble Lords have said, we need stronger vigilance and enforcement. We also need an urgent programme to invest in our domestic nursery sector, reducing our reliance on imported saplings.

Thirdly, perhaps most importantly, we need to invest in research into both the prevention and the cure. We need to understand what makes a tree pest-resistant and how we can replicate its genes. We need to understand what natural allies can be harnessed, such as natural microbes that could be enlisted to fight the diseases. We need to understand more about the natural habitats that make trees strong and healthy, including the benefits of planting and protecting diverse native woodlands, smaller woods and natural woodland corridors—a number of noble Lords made this point. We also need to ensure that we have the trained staff for the long-term care and nurturing of woodlands, to maintain them for the longer term. Can the Minister update us on the training programme for a rollout of skilled arborists and foresters to meet those new challenges and provide that support?

Finally, the Government’s tree health resistance strategy has at its heart the need for international collaboration and the sharing of research data, so can the Minister clarify whether we are continuing to participate in the EU pest and disease notification systems? Can he update us on the replacement for TRACES? Are we fully able to map the spread of pests and diseases using this system? Can he also update us on the future of the biological research programmes being funded through Horizon Europe? Will those schemes continue or will the researchers now get equivalent EU funding? As many noble Lords have said, the key and solution to all this is detailed long-term funding, so I would be grateful if the noble Lord could quantify how much actual cash is going into that research. How much is available now and how much in the future? I look forward to his response.