Environment, Food and Rural Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Horticultural Trades Association

The Horticultural Trades Association represents the majority of the UK’s ornamental horticulture and gardening industry, including a wide range of growers, retailers, landscapers, manufacturers and service providers. The industry has an annual turnover of £9 billion and provides 284,000 jobs in about 30,000 businesses across the UK.

Plant health is fundamental to the industry’s viability, and the HTA welcomes this opportunity to provide evidence to the current Select Committee Inquiry. We have provided answers in the same order as the questions posed in the call for evidence:

Q1. Are the roles and responsibilities of public agencies for monitoring incidences of plant and tree diseases or pests sufficiently clearly defined?

A1. No. It is unclear who has national responsibility for tree and plant health policy. The Chalara outbreak exposed a lack of definition over the roles and responsibilities of the plant health authorities. The first identification of the disease was by a vigilant HTA nursery which raised their concerns to their FERA inspector. Four months later, FERA issued a press release on the finding. However, as the emergency situation developed, the Forestry Commission became the acknowledged single source for up-to-date information on Chalara.

We further believe this is not the first example of this lack of clarity. When Oak Processionary Moth was found in London, there was a lack of clarity for stakeholders as to where responsibility for action lay, whether with the Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate or Forestry Commission.

The interaction between central Government and the Devolved Administrations also gives cause for concern when there is the distinct possibility of different policies and measures between England and Scotland in particular. This could lead to unnecessary bureaucracy on the trade.

Q2. Are the Defra, Forestry Commission and Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) contingency plans for managing a disease outbreak, such as Chalara fraxinea, adequate and appropriate to control its spread and mitigate the impacts of disease?

A2. We are not privy to the contingency plans mentioned, but we would comment that the co-ordination of the response to the outbreak was reasonably well organised and managed given the situation. However, the failure within the system was that the HTA first alerted the plant health authorities to the dangers of the disease in 2009. When science caught up with the disease in 2010, contingency measures should have been taken then to mitigate the impacts of any UK outbreak, including direct communication with industry. Swifter action should also have been taken following the confirmed finding of the disease in March 2012.

Q3. How effective is co-ordination between agencies such as Natural England, the Forestry Commission and Fera?

A3. This is difficult to assess from the outside. As indicated above, the more crucial failing is the lack of communication between the plant health authorities and industry.

Q4. Are there sufficient resources for research to provide effective evidence on the emergence of new threats to trees and plants and for management of existing threats? Is there sufficient coordination of research effort and does the UK have an adequate pool of the right skills to draw upon?

A4. No. The emphasis on food security for government R+D funding has created a significant gap in applied research for the ornamentals sector. Ornamentals do not qualify for research funding under the Technology Strategy Board. This has limited the “pull-through” of basic science into practice, and undermined investment and succession planning in key research organisations. The government has allocated £7 million to R&D over three financial years in the Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Action Plan, but the Chalara outbreak will cost the UK nurseries alone an estimated £2.5 million through redundant stock. The wider socio-economic impacts are still being evaluated, but it is safe to assume that the total cost will be significantly higher. With the ever increasing emergence of new tree and plant health pests and pathogens, we would argue that additional research resources are required to manage future threats.

Q5. Are sufficient resources being put into developing effective responses to plant health threats, such as improving resistance, biocontrols and chemical or management responses?

A5. No. If so, we would not be in the present situation with Chalara, a threat that was identified some years ago. If sufficient resources had been put in at that time, on a co-ordinated international basis, all concerned would have been in a better position to handle the disease once it arrived in the United Kingdom. Recent political moves to reduce the use of plant protection products without providing for alternatives to deal with known threats (let alone new and emerging threats) highlights a further risk to future plant health. This includes a lack of sound science underpinning the rationale for removing PPPs from the market.

Q6. Does the international regime for trade in plants and the EU plant health framework provide a sufficiently flexible and responsive framework to respond to newly identified pests and diseases or to those that are spreading? Can these regimes impede stronger import controls? Are plant health controls sufficiently broad to cover trade in tree and plant products such as biofuels?

A6. No. Whilst the international regime for trade provides a framework, it is not sufficiently flexible or responsive to achieve the dual aims of facilitating trade and protecting against the introduction and spread of plant health threats. With the Chalara situation it became evident that there is insufficient flexibility for member states to act to protect their own plant health status. Ash imports continued because this species did not fall within the plant passport system despite the fact that the disease risk was known about by plant health authorities in the UK and the rest of Europe. It is also clear that whilst plant health authorities within the EU may have regular dialogue on plant health, this does not include industry. This lack of communication between the authorities and the trade means the system was heading for failure, despite the fact that industry sought to be proactive and recommended prevention measures in 2009. Plant Health must take action when the industry raises concerns because it is only such action that will change market demand for “risky” species. The UK industry would love to have reduced ash sales earlier and provided alternative species but customers (including the Forestry Commission who continued to specify ash until 2012) continued to specify ash. Nurseries that can’t provide product will just be by-passed for nurseries or traders that will.

With the increasing use of biofuels the HTA does not believe that plant health controls are sufficiently broad to respond to that as a potential means of spread of pests and diseases. Anecdotally the HTA understands that significant quantities of cut timber have come in from the near Continent to serve the market for log burners. It is not clear whether these are subject to any controls whatsoever. Equally we are aware that a number of findings of Longhorn Beetles have been associated with wooden packaging material, giving a clear indication that controls in that area are not working.

Q7. What lessons are being learnt in the UK from the management of Chalara dieback of ash in other EU Member States: for example on trade in plants, management of infected trees including saplings, and development of resistant trees?

A7. As the UK Chalara control plan indicates, there has been little effort by EU member states to control the disease so the opportunity to learn from European partners is limited. Current scientific advice also deems that it is not possible to eradicate the disease. So whilst industry applauds the efforts to develop resistance within the UK native ash population, we have consistently urged caution to ensure that only proportionate and cost-effective action is taken on managing the disease. Despite warning of the dangers of the disease in 2009, industry is now confronted with both the potential loss of an entire crop plus destruction costs.

January 2013