Ash Dieback Disease

Joan Walley Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I can certainly confirm that we are taking all measures possible to deploy colleagues in the Forestry Commission, those working in forest services and people from FERA to identify the incidence of disease wherever it can be found. We will look closely at a suspected further case in a mature tree. It is important to realise that there is a national forest inventory through which symptoms of disease are looked at across the board all the time. There were 8,000 inspections of ash trees under the inventory last year and it was found that the trees were, in fact, in very good health. Only 61 cases of any signs of ill health in ash trees were discovered, and none of them was due to Chalara.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

There is concern because while it is now late autumn, this was discovered much earlier in the year. Leaving aside that delay, will the Minister give the House an assurance that he will work with the Woodland Trust, which has great expertise in this issue and has a series of asks for the Government?

[Mr Heath]

It is important that we work with everybody; this is not something that we can leave entirely to the scientists and the experts. Anyone who spots an incidence of disease in trees would do well to advise the authorities. We can then use the great body of voluntary organisations that are interested in the health of our forests to do all we can to deal with the disease as quickly as possible. I repeat that there was not a delay over the summer. Planting does not take place during the summer period and, as far as we are aware, the voluntary moratorium has worked very well.