Ash Dieback Disease

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

If the Government had blown the whistle when Ministers first found out in April, the saplings would probably have been destroyed earlier, but nursery owners would not have lost the income that they spent over the summer tending and caring for those saplings, and they certainly would not have entered into any more contracts. The problem is that they have entered into contracts to buy from overseas, and that will be hugely problematic. Nursery owners have planted the tree seed and spent the money, and all those saplings will now be burned. Also, there has been unprecedented tree planting this year to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee. That tree-planting effort by the nation to mark a very special event in the nation’s life could unwittingly have spread the disease, so Ministers’ incompetence has cost money.

I want to finish with a chronology of what happened. Even when the ban was announced, it was done quietly. The Minister of State, who is pretty heroic in these sorts of things—he gets all these battlefield commissions—was forced to come to the House to answer my urgent question. There had been no written statement from the Secretary of State and no oral statement. Why are the Government so keen not to talk about ash dieback?

On Friday 2 November, the Secretary of State convened Cobra to discuss the emergency response to ash dieback. That same day, a briefing letter went out—but only to Government MPs. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) raised a point of order with the Speaker about this extraordinary behaviour. Does the Minister not think that, with a national emergency of this size and scale, her Majesty’s Opposition should be kept informed? Why was only one part of the House informed? Do our constituents not deserve to know what is happening to their trees? [Interruption.] I just want to finish this point about biosecurity. May I warn the Minister about the dangers of contradictory advice? The Secretary of State has advised people to wash their children and their dogs when they go to a wood to make sure that they do not transfer the disease to the next wood. On Monday 5 November, however, Martin Ward, chief plant health officer at DEFRA, contradicted him on the “Today” programme:

“It’s not a matter of scrubbing off all of the soil from boots. It’s just a matter of cleaning off the dead leaves…to stop the disease moving…from one site to another.”

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Has the hon. Lady looked at the map showing the distribution of Chalara? Is she suggesting that there are no imports in the south-west or anywhere in the west of the country? How else can she explain the distribution map and the epidemiology of the spread of Chalara? It is quite clear that she is just trying to make cheap political points. She needs to look at the map.

[Mary Creagh]

As a scientist, does the hon. Lady understand epidemiology? The dots are all different colours: the red ones represent mature woodlands, and there are others for trees planted out in newly planted sites and nursery sites. The ones in the south-west are in nursery sites: there are no red dots in the south-west, ergo the disease seems to have spread from—[Interruption.] My theory, and it has yet to be disproved—[Interruption.] No, I shall come on to that, but I wish to make progress. I shall explain it to the hon. Lady.