Ash Dieback Disease

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

No, I shall make progress.

We had a 15-minute briefing from the Secretary of State last Wednesday, for which I am grateful, and we discussed the spread of the disease with Ian Boyd, DEFRA’s chief scientist. A document containing 10 key scientific facts was produced last Wednesday. Bullet point 10 said:

“Wind-blown spores may be dispersed up to 20-30 kilometres, (high confidence)”.

I was therefore surprised at the briefing to hear that the infection had blown in on the wind across the channel and the North sea, even though the channel is 30 km wide at its narrowest point. I was even more surprised, as the week went on, to learn that it had blown hundreds of miles across the North sea to infect mature trees in Northumberland and Scotland.

The key scientific facts document is quite clear:

“Longer distance spread occurs via infected plants or potentially via wood products”.

That would explain the infection in the south-west that the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) is worried about. However, it is politically inconvenient to have a disease which Ministers knew was in the country, with saplings left to infect their wild and mature cousins. I grew suspicious when I realised that the Forestry Commission's key scientific facts, published on Wednesday, changed over the weekend. Bullet point 10 now says:

“Wind-blown spores cause the disease to spread up to 20-30 km per year”.

The inconvenient fact that the wind blows the spores just 20 to 30 km has completely disappeared. A whole new fact, however, has emerged:

“On occasions, spores may disperse much further on the wind.”

However, unlike every other key scientific fact that is categorised as low, medium or high confidence, there is no scientific reference to back up this new scientific fact, because there is none. As yet, I have not seen any evidence to back up Ministers’ claims about the wind. The disease has moved slowly and predictably across Europe, yet now it has developed new powers to cross great seas on the wind.

Is an alternative scientific theory possible? Is it not possible that ash dieback has spread to mature trees in Northumberland and Scotland from the infected saplings that were planted out last winter and on which the fungus fruited this summer? It is certainly possible, and I would argue more probable than those gusts of wind.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Nurseries have indicated that hundreds of thousands of saplings that they imported from Europe came in because of the “chaotic and unpredictable” system of grants for tree planting on the UK mainland. Is the hon. Lady aware of that? If so, does she think that the disease and the reasons for its spread go much deeper than they appear to do?

[Mary Creagh]

One can argue about the system for woodland grants, but we would argue that it may be much cheaper to grow the ash saplings abroad, which is perhaps one of the reasons landowners choose to buy them from abroad. It is also perhaps why the Horticultural Trades Association wanted the Government to regulate back in 2009, so that there was a level playing field in the industry and so that it did not impose its own voluntary moratorium, allowing others to import cheaper saplings and undercut the market.

What happens next? The Forestry Commission has conducted a tree survey over 29,000 hectares, an area the size of Wales. It has sampled four woodland sites in each 100 square kilometres, giving us a rough idea of where to look next for the disease. As the surveys continue this winter, more disease sites will be found. I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, will he now review the scientific advice he has been given on other tree diseases? Does he have any plans to restrict trade in other species of trees on a precautionary basis? Does his import ban apply to resistant strains of ash species, which are now present in Denmark and, I believe, Lithuania?

Secondly, have the detection and management of the disease been hampered by the cuts to the Forestry Commission? Its budget is being cut from £47.5 million in 2010-11 to £36.2 million in 2014-15. Some 530 staff posts have already been cut and seven regional offices closed. Thirty-eight posts have been cut in Forest Research, with another 22 earmarked to go. These are the scientists and experts who lead the fieldwork on tree health, and they are in the front line in our fight against this disease. Will the Minister review their posts? What assessment has he made of the impact of his Government’s cuts to the Forestry Commission on tackling tree disease?

Thirdly, in 2009, at the request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, the former Secretary of State, the Forestry Commission established a biosecurity programme board, bringing together the industry, NGOs, Forest Research, the Scottish Government, and the Food and Environment Research Agency. What has happened to that board? It appears to have met just twice—in November 2009 and July 2010. The minutes of the final meeting on the Forestry Commission website show that forestry staff had concerns about the Government’s publicity freeze and cancellation of much of the publication budget, yet I know from my discussions over the weekend that the board appears to have continued meeting informally. Was it affected by the re-organisation and cuts at the Forestry Commission?

The Secretary of State told the BBC last Friday that he is re-ordering his Department’s priorities and said:

“There will be some things we do in DEFRA now that we are going to have to stop doing.”

What are those things? And how does he know that not doing them is not storing up a fresh disease problem in the future in another area? Other areas of DEFRA will be quaking as they anticipate fresh cuts on top of the worst settlement of any Government Department.

What contact has the Minister had with councils that are in the front line of dealing with this disease? What advice has he provided to them about council parks? Should they be undertaking surveys of their own trees? The Local Government Association has informed lead officers, but nothing seems to be coming out of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Jim Shannon]

The Northern Ireland Assembly has adopted additional safeguards to ensure that there is no infiltration of ash plants. It has adopted a “Fortress Northern Ireland” approach—in other words, nothing gets in and nothing gets out. Perhaps that has happened in the past, but even with those strict rules and legislation, there is an outbreak in Leitrim in the Republic of Ireland. Will the Minister confirm and assure the House that every step is being taken to stop ash dieback in the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that there is direct consultation with the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly?

[Mr Heath]

I can indeed confirm that. Ministers or officials from all three Administrations have been involved in every one of our consultation meetings on the subject. We want to ensure that they have access to all the information we have, and that we have all the information they have. I ought to mention that we have been working closely with the Government of the Republic of Ireland, because we obviously need to co-ordinate our efforts to ensure that we understand how to treat cases, and particularly those in the wider environment, and how to preserve as far as possible the whole of the British Isles as a disease-resistant or disease-free area.