Environment, Food and Rural Affairs CommitteeFurther written 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 the opportunity to submit oral evidence to the Committee on 26 June. We provided written evidence to the Committee in January when the inquiry was first launched. Since then, there have been several developments which inform this written update. These include the publication of:

the Government Policy on Forestry and Woodlands;

the Chalara management plan;

the final report of the Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Expert Taskforce; and

the European Commission proposals on Plant Health Reform.

All of the above documents indicate that the UK needs to strengthen its biosecurity controls to better protect the UK from future pests and diseases. The HTA fully supports this objective.

In particular, the report of the Expert taskforce makes some key recommendations, as follows:

A. National Context

(i) Develop a prioritised UK Plant Health Risk Register

The HTA fully supports this proposal and welcomes the forthcoming workshops to identify the variety of risks across a range of sectors. It is of vital importance that the industry is kept informed of future pests and disease risks, and that there is a single source of reference of the major threats. The register should be reviewed regularly, and should be transparent and readily available. Industry should be represented at all times of the register’s development and on-going maintenance.

(ii) Appoint a Chief Plant Health Officer to own the UK Plant Health Risk Register and to provide strategic and tactical leadership for managing those risks

Again, we fully support this proposal. As we indicated in our initial written evidence in January, there is uncertainty about the roles and responsibilities for plant health. Appointing a Chief Plant Health Officer with clear responsibilities will remove that uncertainty.

(iii) Develop and implement procedures for preparedness and contingency planning to predict, monitor and control the spread of pests and pathogens

The Chalara outbreak provides the necessary evidence that this recommendation should be adopted in full. There was clearly a lack of effective preparation to combat the threat that the HTA first brought to the attention of the Forestry Commission in 2009. In particular, the Chalara experience exposed the lack of an effective communications programme between the plant health science community and industry.

(iv) Review, simplify, and strengthen governance and legislation

Nobody objects to stronger and more streamlined plant health controls. However, the key question will be that of resource. The Secretary of State has indicated that the Government will make plant health a much bigger priority than previously. If that is to be the case, Defra or HMT will need to find the funds to pay for more rigorous controls and inspections.

B. International Context

(v) Improve the use of epidemiological intelligence from EU/other regions and work to improve the EU regulations concerned with tree health and plant biosecurity

Agreed. It is of vital importance that the UK plant health authorities maintain close cooperation with international analogues, particularly within the EU. The UK’s biosecurity is only as strong as the weakest link in the EU, and we support the proposals for greater cooperation and harmonised plant health controls in the new EU Plant Health regime.

(vi) Strengthen biosecurity to reduce risks at the border and within the UK

As for v) above. In spite of single market complications, the UK should make use of its natural biosecurity advantage of being an island nation.

C. Capabilities and Communication

(vii) Develop a modern, user-friendly system to provide quick and intelligent access to information about tree health and plant biosecurity

The HTA fully supports this proposal. The Plant Health Risk Register should be available electronically, and resources put in place to receive and disseminate information on plant health rapidly.

(viii) Address key skills shortages

We touch on the resource issue above. It is an obvious yet welcome recommendation that the plant health authorities are fully resourced, and adequately trained.

The HTA would like to suggest four other specific recommendations that would help significantly improve UK biosecurity:

(a)The forestry grant system should be improved to provide for longer-term planning, funding and procurement cycles, preferably over a forecast 5–7 year period. This would enable landowners and nurseries to contract grow, thereby increasing UK production and decreasing imports and the associated plant health risks. This would be perfectly in line with the Government’s policy to protect, improve and expand the UK’s forestry and woodlands;

(b)Defra needs to urgently address the void of RDPE grant schemes for the “gap year” in 2014–15, and to plan for future transitional arrangements at the end of future RDPE windows. This can be done, as has been proven in Scotland;

(c)Government should establish and enforce procurement standards to become exemplar clients in terms of contract grown amenity projects, ie learn from the Olympics example and recreate quality landscape schemes for future public-funded projects, eg HS2 ;

(d)It is crucial that the importance of biosecurity is communicated just as firmly to all those involved in the amenity sector as it is to the forestry sector. This includes local authorities, landscape architects, contractors etc, who represent an entirely separate supply chain risk for the introduction of new pests and diseases. Often planting for these contracts is left until the last minute and spot procurement practise is to source the cheapest product, irrespective of quality and provenance.

As a final comment, many HTA members continue to struggle financially because of the government’s handling of the threat from Chalara. The UK’s £2.5 million ash crop is now redundant. We warned of the dangers of the disease in 2009 but were told that no quarantine measures were appropriate because the disease was already in the UK. We now know the science changed in 2010, but crucially industry was never informed of the new science. Worse still the government continued to specify ash in grant funded planting schemes. Whilst we acknowledge it is long-standing policy not to provide compensation for losses incurred as a result of plant disease outbreaks, we believe the Chalara outbreak represents exceptional circumstances and would expect Government to share the cost and responsibility borne by growers.

June 2013