Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing funding to help tackle the knotweed in Nottinghamshire.

The Government recognises the impacts caused by invasive species, including Japanese knotweed.

Funding is available for control and management of Japanese knotweed and other invasive plant species through Defra’s Environmental Land Management (ELM) Countryside Stewardship scheme. Furthermore, Defra funds research to identify cost and time effective ways of managing this species through biocontrol. Information about the research can be found on CABI's website.

Additionally, the Government has developed guidance on how to prevent the spread of Japanese knotweed and other harmful weeds, as well as how to treat and dispose of them, which can be found on GOV.UK: How to stop invasive non-native plants from spreading - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).