Japanese Knotweed

Baroness Sharples Excerpts
Wednesday 9th April 2014

(10 years, 7 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Asked by
Baroness Sharples Portrait Baroness Sharples
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress is being made in eliminating Japanese knotweed from the United Kingdom.

Lord De Mauley Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)
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My Lords, we are in the fourth year of the controlled release of the psyllid Aphalara itadori as a means of controlling Japanese knotweed. No non-target impacts have been observed by the monitoring programme but, as yet, the organism has had difficulty establishing self-sustaining populations. This year, therefore, we will conduct caged trials releasing larger numbers to establish higher population densities.

Baroness Sharples Portrait Baroness Sharples (Con)
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Will my noble friend agree to holding a publicity campaign so that this plant can be easily recognised, especially by landowners and, even more importantly, by people seeking to buy a house with land, because in some cases they are being refused a mortgage?

Lord De Mauley Portrait Lord De Mauley
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My Lords, in returning regularly to this question, my noble friend is almost as persistent as the weed itself. I am not sure whether she is a hardy annual or a perennial. We need to spread public awareness of a number of non-native species including, of course, Japanese knotweed. The website nonnativespecies.org is our central point. Other awareness-raising measures include nearly 70 identification sheets, including one for Japanese knotweed, the Environment Agency’s PlantTracker mobile device app, which I recommend to your Lordships, non-native species local action groups, and the Be Plant Wise and Check, Clean Dry campaigns, which target aquatic security and non-native species more generally. Awareness-raising is a key focus of our current review of the GB strategy on invasive non-native species.

My noble friend mentioned mortgages. Two years ago, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Council of Mortgage Lenders agreed that a less draconian approach was needed.