Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend has asked exactly the right question. We know from scientific evidence that Chalara cannot be eradicated, but that there is likely to be a percentage of resistant trees. I have asked DEFRA’s chief scientist, Professor Ian Boyd, to work with experts in genetics, as a priority, to establish the best ways of identifying and developing the sources of that resistance. He began his work in December. We are also working closely with industry—including splendid companies like the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency—on an updated version of the Chalara control plan, to be published at the end of March.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The truth is that the Forestry Commission is in absolute chaos. A total of 530 posts have been lost, 60 of them—60!—in forest research. The Secretary of State has the gall to stand at that Dispatch Box and act as if the world is all right and what he is saying has put everything in order. That is not the case, and he needs to get a grip.

[Mr Paterson]

I think that there may have been a question lurking in the humbug somewhere. The fact is that we have enormously increased research on plant diseases. I pay tribute to all those in the Forestry Commission and the DEFRA agencies who conducted a totally unprecedented survey of the whole United Kingdom—2,500 pieces of land, each 10 kilometres square—and analysed where the disease had come from. We know that, sadly, it has blown in and that there is a genetic strain, and we will work with companies such as Hillier’s to find it.