Oral evidence: Invasive species, HC 913Wednesday 26 February 2014

Oral evidence, 26 February 2014.

Witnesses

Dr Niall Moore, Non-Native Species Secretariat, Adrian Jowitt, Natural England, Geoff Bateman, Environment Agency and Stan Whitaker, Scottish Natural Heritage, gave evidence.

Chair

Thank you very much indeed, all four of you, for coming along this afternoon. We expect a vote at about 3.15, so we will proceed. First of all, if you could just perhaps introduce yourselves from your individual organisations and give us your take on this whole issue of invasive species and the concerns that you wish to bring to our attention, just by way of a very brief summary sentence of the issues that we need to be taking on board. Mr Whitaker, if we could start with you.

Stan Whitaker

Stan Whitaker from Scottish Natural Heritage. Scottish Natural Heritage spends about £1 million a year on invasive non-native species, and most of that is on controlling species that have already become established, particularly mink, grey squirrel and also some native species that are in the wrong place, such as hedgehogs in the Uists. Those definitely have shown impacts on ecosystems, on native species and on naturist sites, so that is the reason why we spend a lot of time and effort on non-native species.

Dr Moore

I am Dr Niall Moore. I head the Non-Native Species Secretariat, a small secretariat established in 2006. My main point is that it is an important area. I agree with a lot of what Chris had to say, particularly on European native and non-native species, but it is growing in importance as well, and it is an area we really need to tackle significantly in the future.

Adrian Jowitt

I am Adrian Jowitt, Principal Adviser for Species for Natural England. We are the Government’s statutory advisers on nature conservation. With others, I agree: invasive non-native species are a big issue for biodiversity in this country. If there is one message, the thing I would get over is about the need to take a precautionary approach and act very quickly when something happens.

Geoff Bateman

Hello, I am Geoff Bateman. I am head of Fisheries and Biodiversity for the Environment Agency. We are unique, in that we are an operator as well as a regulator, and certainly around our flood defence operations, invasives can cause quite significant problems of flow, and other things that you will be well aware of. But also in compliance with the Water Framework Directive we are charged with aiming for good status, and invasives have the potential to cause significant problems. We choose our battles but we also adopt disproportionate costs, which is part of the answer to the question about how you choose your battles.

Chair

For the record, would you say there were big differences between Scottish Natural Heritage and Natural England in terms of the approach towards this?

Adrian Jowitt

No, I do not think there is. I think the way it is organised in Scotland is slightly different at the moment but, other than that, we would have a general approach that we agreed with each other that invasive non-natives are a big issue.

Chair

But the roles that you have are roughly the same in respect of the remit that you have?

Stan Whitaker

One step that we have taken in Scotland is the organisations that have powers and responsibilities on non-native species are Scottish Natural Heritage, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Forestry Commission and Marine Scotland, and we have agreed a framework of responsibilities, which ensures that roles and responsibilities are clear, with SNH taking the lead on open ground habitats and wetland habitats, SEPA, the Forestry Commission and Marine Scotland covering fresh water woodland and marine habitats.

Chair

I know that you all sat through the previous session that we just had, and it would be very useful for us to know whether or not there are points of agreement or disagreement, and whether or not there are issues that you particularly wish to respond to, in terms of what we just heard in our previous session.

Geoff Bateman

Yes, specifically, there is not very much that we disagree with. I think invasives is a matter of time, and timescale is significant in this. If you act quickly you can eradicate invasive species that could cause harm, but it depends on how well you carry out the risk assessments and undertake that kind of monitoring surveillance and research into pathways. But in terms of cost, disproportionate costs is something we borrowed from the Water Framework Directive. It is not just a costs and benefits exercise. If the cost in dealing with the invasive is going to be more than the amenity or the activity or the process you are protecting, then there is a balance that at least gives you some information about whether to take action and when.

Dr Moore

Just a quick one about European non-native species. I do agree with a lot of what Chris said. I was just looking at some of the figures the other day, and up to about 1950, 56% or so of the non-native species that were becoming established in Britain were European non-natives, but since 1950 that has dropped to 26%, so now 75%—effectively three quarters—of them are from further afield, which are the ones we were more worried about, and they are definitely more invasive than the European ones, so I definitely agree on that point. Chris said that nothing has gone extinct yet. I beg to differ with that. I was talking to Plant Life and they said their starfruit is probably going to become extinct due to Crassula, which is New Zealand pygmy weed from the Surrey and Berkshire heaths. Some of those species, of course, we are keeping going. The tansy beetle in York is a beautiful little metallic green beetle and is only found in tansy. Tansy is threatened by Himalayan balsam and without active intervention that species is likely to go extinct. Himalayan balsam first turned up about 1850 so it is only now that it is threatening a species, 160 or 170 years later. It is all about time, so in 100 years’ time we will have far bigger problems.

Stan Whitaker

Just one point about conservation translocations in the face of climate change. What Scottish Natural Heritage and others are doing is interpreting the IUCN guidelines on species reintroduction and translocations for Scotland and, as an example, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh have an ex-situ conservation introduction programme for rare and threatened conifers from around the world. Planting goes on mainly in arboretums and plantation woodlands, but plantation woodlands are definitely in the wild, so SNH licenses that. We go through a rigorous risk assessment process, as we would for any other species introduction under section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

Chair

Native invasive species or non-native invasive species: which would you say are the biggest issues that we have to deal with, in terms of priority?

Geoff Bateman

For water it is the non-native invasive species, aquatic invasives.

Chair

You are all nodding.

Dr Moore

I would agree. Even things that people complain about, like nettles, for instance: a whole suite of the butterflies that we like are dependent on nettles, whereas Himalayan balsam does not have anything that we want that depends on it.

Peter Aldous

Dr Moore, I am looking at you on this one: a new British non-native species strategy is currently being prepared. I would welcome an update on how that is progressing and what changes are likely from what was done in 2008. In that respect, how have the challenges changed in the last six years?

Dr Moore

The review of the strategy started last September, so the secretariat is assisting with that. I think there have been six workshops with stakeholders in various meetings that DEFRA have held with them, and they have taken lots of evidence. We also put it out to peer review from two external international experts. The feedback from that was pretty good. We are ahead of things in Europe but we do not need to be complacent. It is an important first step, and going forward, we need to be far more ambitious. A step-change, as I think the Environment Agency said at one stage, is what we need now. Yes, we have the framework in place but we need to take it from there and go up to the next level. I would hope that the strategy will reflect that.

Peter Aldous

What are the challenges that you face today that you did not face in 2008?

Dr Moore

More species, particularly the Ponto-Caspian species, are turning up virtually annually at this stage or maybe several per annum. Also some areas in the strategy that we have lagged behind a bit in are strategic research and pathway analysis, so prevention is key, as we know; but we have lagged behind on pathways a bit and in our analysis of pathways.

Peter Aldous

Do you think the new strategy is likely to differ from the draft EU regulations at all?

Dr Moore

I think the two will have a similar approach, with the stress on prevention, early warning, rapid response and finally long-term management and control. There is a lot of synergy between the two and we are already doing a lot of the stuff that the EU strategy calls for, like risk assessments. We have the most comprehensive risk assessments in Europe by far. But, yes, I would think there would be a lot of overlap between the two.

Peter Aldous

Is there a problem, given there might be a difficulty that you may be diverting effort into dealing with a list of European invasive species that are not necessarily a problem here?

Dr Moore

With the negotiations in Europe we have tried to endeavour not to be saddled with a whole lot of issues that are more a European concern, so for instance having to eradicate grey squirrels, which clearly is impossible. [Interruption.]

Chair

We will adjourn. We will return as soon as we can after the vote. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming—

Chair

We are ready to recommence. We were in the middle of a series of questions from Mr Aldous, so back to you, Mr Aldous.

Peter Aldous

I just had one more. The proposed EU directive does not envisage action on invasive species that are native in other parts of Europe. Do you think that is going to cause us a problem here?

Dr Moore

Potentially, yes. The main thing we are worried about, once again, is these Ponto-Caspian species, the species from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, which have been coming over slowly but surely, and we are getting a reasonable number of them now. The UK’s position is that we want EU natives included, but the latest proposal I have seen from the presidency has suggested a third list, a different type of list, which is a regional list. That could potentially include native EU species, and it would force member states to do things like pathway action, monitoring and surveillance, and management, which is exactly what we need. If that stays in the text, I think we will be satisfied, yes.

Peter Aldous

All right, that is fine. The others have had an opportunity within the interlude to think about this one. Do any of you have any comments?

Adrian Jowitt

We have been feeding in through Niall.

Peter Aldous

All right, thanks very much.

Chair

Thank you. We will move on to Dr Whitehead.

Dr Whitehead

We have touched on this in our discussion so far, but could I get a better feel of what your organisations do in terms of monitoring and surveillance of potential invasive species? In setting out what you do, obviously you have very substantial other roles in your organisations as well as watching out for invasive species, I would imagine. Therefore, there is a question of what sort of choices you take within your organisations on what sort of resources to allocate and, indeed, what level of priority you might give such activity within everything else. How does that work in terms of the resource and activity you provide? Is that, in your view, sufficient for what you know are the purposes in front of you?

Adrian Jowitt

I will go first. We do a number of different things around invasive non-natives. You mentioned specifically monitoring. We do monitor as part of our work around monitoring of SSSIs—sites of special scientific interest—and also on our national nature reserves, particularly those in the south where we might do special monitoring if we were looking out for a particular pest or invasive species that may be coming in. We sit on the GB programme board, so we are part of that along with other colleagues. We have a statutory role to do with licensing under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, section 14 and that type of thing. We also have an operational role. We are identified in terms of rapid response if a species comes in that is having an impact on terrestrial biodiversity. That would be Natural England to lead the co-ordination on that. We also carry out control on national nature reserves and protected sites. Some of that work, to pick up your point about how we prioritise, would be cross-cutting, because things like carrying out control of invasive non-natives on protected sites and national nature reserves would be a requirement in terms of SSSI conditions as well. There are those types of things. It is always quite difficult in terms of balancing different priorities. Some of this is stuff we would like to do. One of the big issues around something like a rapid response is the requirement to quickly mobilise resources within year, and that would be a problem for any organisation. A rapid response requires just that and we have not had that requirement as yet, but it is something that I think we need to be aware of. If something needed a quick mobilisation of resources, that could be quite difficult.

Geoff Bateman

From the Environment Agency’s point of view, as I was saying before, it is really in support of our main functions, and if invasives cause interference with the operation of our functions, either our flood defence, water quality, water resources, fisheries or biodiversity functions, then we would concentrate on those invasives that were causing either social, economic or environmental harm in that respect, or difficulty in achievement of environmental standards.

Dr Whitehead

Would you have an in-house list to guide your work before you have even started on that?

Geoff Bateman

Yes. With the Invasive Species Secretariat we look at the risk analysis of where species might be. We have plenty to deal with at the moment, but somewhere between 30 or 60 we concentrate on. In particular, fish is a specific economic, social and environmental duty that the Environment Agency has. We are doing an eradication programme for topmouth gudgeon, for example, and that we concentrate on.

Chair

Just before you move on to the response from the other members of the panel to that question, could I ask in terms of the Environment Agency’s remit where the funding for the work that you have just outlined fits, in relation to the priority of allocation of resources of the Environment Agency within the current reduced amount of funding that they have to work with?

Geoff Bateman

We put a very small amount of funding into invasives directly.

Chair

How small?

Geoff Bateman

£2 million.

Chair

As a percentage?

Geoff Bateman

That does not include flood defence operations for maintenance, if waterways get blocked and sluices cannot operate and so on. It is about £2 million. We do specific monitoring surveillance for dikerogammarus, the so-called killer shrimp. We are containing that, in the sense that it does not seem to be spreading out of the four locations we have found it in. It is very minimal in terms of our environmental monitoring and surveillance. We really depend on the third sector helping us to find out what is going on. In fact, the killer shrimp was found by one of my staff going fishing in Grafham Water and the shrimp just happened to be all around him. That was the first time it had been noticed.

Chair

How does that funding that you have now compare to the previous year and the future year?

Geoff Bateman

It has been around about £2 million for the last three years.

Chair

Okay. Sorry, Alan.

Dr Whitehead

Thank you. Yes?

Dr Moore

All my work is related to invasive non-native species, so that is all we do. The secretariat runs the risk analysis mechanism, but we also are involved heavily with the alert scheme. For instance, I have brought along a few Asian hornets just to show people if they wanted to see them today. One of them is a queen, so it looks rather nasty and large. They are doing a contingency exercise up in York today and I would be at that if I was not here. Having an alert system, as far as I know, is pretty unique in Europe. We are the only ones to run this at the moment. It involves people like beekeepers, and sentinel apiaries where they are asked to watch out for this, and we send out promotional material saying, “If you spot this, let us know straight away.”

Stan Whitaker

In Scotland, I have already said Scottish Natural Heritage spends about £1 million on non-native species control, and that is out of a total grant-in-aid budget of about £53 million a year. In terms of monitoring, again we rely very much on citizen science monitoring. We have put money into, along with the Environment Agency, an invasive species app for mobile phones, so we are hoping to get more records that way. A lot of our monitoring also comes through national recording schemes like the Botanical Society of the British Isles and so on. In terms of rapid response, obviously we do not have a contingency fund for funding these things, but we prioritise on a case-by-case basis. The other thing that we do have is a contingency plan for muntjac deer, which are not currently in Scotland but are very close to the border. That is one area where we feel that we can make some progress in terms of putting in place contingency plans for when things arrive, so we have the response in place and we will be able to respond much more quickly.

Dr Whitehead

The European regulation arrangement is looking like it will require some pretty detailed analysis of pathways for the introduction of non-native species. I presume what you have described as your monitoring and surveillance would look at how those pathways would work as far as your work is concerned, and would work on updating risk assessment elements of those pathways. Is that right?

Dr Moore

DEFRA at the moment is funding a project, and has been for about a year, looking at the pressure coming from individual pathways, including some rather strange and obscure ones—things like prayer release and stuff. I think there are about 37 pathways and various sub-pathways as well. Pathways are very complex because, for instance, if you look at the horticulture trade, we have 17,000 or so non-native species and types in the horticulture trade in Britain. Most of them do not cause a problem, but about 10 or 12 years ago there was a tree fern, a cycad, coming in from New Zealand and Australia. Just one genus of trees being imported had something like 340 individual species of non-natives stuck in the bark, which was really frightening. We have only had 2,000 species in the whole of the history of introductions and here we were getting 300 on one genus. Luckily, our plant health authorities noticed this and contacted and dealt with it via the plant health authorities in Australia and New Zealand, but that could have been disastrous.

Stan Whitaker

One thing I should have mentioned was a pathways analysis that is going on in the marine pathways project that we are just a partner in. It is a GB and Ireland project and Cefas has done some work in identifying and analysing the pathways of spread into Great Britain and Ireland. They are currently refining that analysis. We have also been trialling some surveillance networks, both onshore—looking at marinas and agriculture sites and ports, places where non-native species are likely to arrive first—and also an offshore network using the offshore buoy network to try to pick up things that are in the wider environment. That is partly to discharge our duties towards the marine strategy framework directive monitoring.

Dr Whitehead

Do you think the regulatory risk assessments work as fast as they should? We have had evidence from previous witnesses that there are concerns about the slowness of that process. Indeed, bearing in mind the changes that are taking place, by the time we have done the risk assessment things may well have moved on.

Dr Moore

Yes, I agree entirely. It does not work as fast as we would hope. The mean length for risk assessments—we were looking at the data—is about two years. The minimum length you can get away with for a comprehensive risk assessment, because there are so many checks and balances and there is peer reviewing and going through a panel, is about 16 months. We have recently developed a shorter risk assessment, which we call a rapid risk assessment. That can be done in a few weeks. For killer shrimp, that was the case. It was done effectively within about a week, so we knew the risk from that was pretty high and we knew then to pass that information to the agency to act.

Geoff Bateman

It is more or less on a no regrets basis, so that you are not expending huge amounts of money but you are monitoring what you do and then seeing the impact of what you are doing. You are getting that feedback loop all the time.

Mark Lazarowicz

I am exploring what you have been discussing about the most cost-effective way of using resources that are available. When it comes particularly to managing and controlling already established invasive species, what would you say are the most cost-effective ways of approaching that particular objective?

Adrian Jowitt

The starting point in some things is to say that managing ones that are here and established is very, very difficult. We all know that. There is therefore a need to act quickly, and that is why that is the case, and for prevention—trying to build in a change in our culture to this sort of thing, so that they do not even get here. In terms of how we deal with them, it is about picking our fights, as Chris said earlier on, and being very clear about where there is an economic benefit to tackling some of these things, because they will cost a huge amount of money. In terms of what is most cost-effective, there are all sorts of ways we can do it, but there is some really interesting work going on. I think you have probably had evidence from other people about it in terms of biological controls and pursuing that line. If we could pursue that and we could put the money into the research around that, once we can get those established, we could really change. There is an example that I was given. I cannot remember the particular species or the countries involved, but effectively it was a species that came from South America that was established as an invasive species in another country. In that country that it was in, it was a really big, invasive shrub. It took three attempts to find it in its natural habitat, and when they did, it was a small plant. The basic thing was that the pests, the things that predated on that plant in its natural environment, were not there in the country that it had become invasive in. If we can get some form of biological control that brings them down, that would be very cost-effective.

Mark Lazarowicz

It can only be in a very limited number of cases, by definition very limited and extreme cases, when you are going to pursue eradication, because once it is established, the cost-effectiveness is presumably much less.

Dr Moore

Over the years, we have not done it very often. I think pick your fights is definitely the way to go. Ruddy duck is an important example of one case where we have gone for national-scale eradication. It has cost about £5 million to DEFRA, but that is over about 15 years. It is highly successful. It is a world leader in terms of eradications, but we were doing the same back in the 1980s with coypu and even back in the 1930s with muskrats. We have saved ourselves enormous problems since then by eradicating muskrats in 1939 after seven years, whereas in the Netherlands now they kill something like 400,000 of them per year. We killed 4,000 of them in the 1930s and we got rid of the problem. Bio-control is an important issue as well, but I think it is also useful to harvest the keenness that members of the public have and get volunteer effort in. We have collated something like 130,000 hours of volunteer effort into controlling non-natives and also educating people on that as well. It is a very useful way of getting cheap labour out of people and getting people involved.

Stan Whitaker

Two points from me. Address problems at an appropriate scale in defensible areas with appropriate biosecurity mechanisms. For example, with our mink project, it is a landscape-scale. With invasive plants, it is very often catchment-scale, because they are spread by water. With rats, swimming distance between islands and the mainland is quite important, so they cannot swim back again. The second point is to maintain links with and apply lessons from research. For example, in our mink projects, Aberdeen University and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust research has very much guided our strategy: population modelling to establish presence of breeding populations, and network to map migration routes and likely re-invasion routes.

Geoff Bateman

I agree with everything that has been said, but do not underestimate communication and promotion of the problem. We are using rod licence money that is paid by anglers to ensure that some waters in East Anglia are kept clear from weeds, so that anglers can get the bait in the water so that they can fish. They are quite happy with that money being spent in that way. Providing we communicate it with them and explain what we are doing, they are very happy. Anglers themselves spending a lot of time in waters tell us what is happening in still waters and in rivers.

Mark Lazarowicz

Is there anything in particular that you think you have learned from eradication programmes of already established species from other countries—anything which is a particularly good lesson to draw, or something that you definitely should not do? I appreciate there will be a vast variety of responses, but is there anything in particular we have learned from elsewhere in the world that you would like to draw to our attention?

Dr Moore

I think for eradication you need to sustain your effort. There is no point in doing it for a few years and then saying, “Oh, we have nearly done it” and abandoning that. That would be a wasted effort. Having some clear lead agencies is very useful as well, and I think we need to get away from waiting until things turn up and become a big problem. We need to go towards rapid responses, of which we are doing quite a few, particularly in the Environment Agency and Natural England. Some have already been successful. Also, contingency planning: having been ready and alert for something to turn up; for instance, with the Asian hornet, we have staff trained. They are ready to go. They are equipped and we have an alert system in place. We might not keep it out, but if we do not try, we will not succeed.

Adrian Jowitt

Yes, I would agree with the point about very clear lines of responsibility and clear leadership around it. On the point about the continued resources, if you are going to sustain your effort you need to be sure that you can maintain resources financed to do that over time. That is obviously quite difficult to plan over multiple years, even if you have the opportunity to act. We are doing a project at the moment on bullfrogs and finding money to plan three years in advance to be sure you will have the money to finish the job in three years is hard.

Mark Lazarowicz

On a slightly different focus, finally, I understand the proposed EU regulation requires the restoration of invaded ecosystems. Is this something that has been done with much success?

Adrian Jowitt

For most habitats, in terms of restoration, we know quite a lot. There are gaps. Interestingly, in the case of invasive species, we do not always know all the impact of the species. The obvious one is that in the case of a plant species it may invade the space, but it may change the soil biology and the soil fauna and things like that. Even when you have removed the plant, we do not fully understand the impact of it once it has been taken away. We have talked about how we eradicate, and you have asked what the best ways are of dealing with it when it is very well established. That is one of our big areas, a gap. The first thing you need to do to restore the habitat is to remove the invasive species, and if we do not know how to do that, we cannot do step one. If we can remove it, our knowledge of habitat restoration is pretty good in most cases.

Mrs Spelman

To what extent can tackling invasive species make it more difficult to meet your organisation’s other objectives? You have quite a substantial range of objectives in many cases. Is that affecting the overall objective? You all have different objectives, but is it proving a distraction?

Geoff Bateman

Well, in every case you have to balance dealing with the invasive against what the prime objective may be for that particular location or community or landscape. By working together and using public funds sensibly across our organisations and particularly with a GB focus, I think we are able to agree on priorities that make sense.

Adrian Jowitt

Yes, I would agree with that. Through the GB programme board, we have worked in partnership with all the agencies, and the other agencies are working in partnership together to make sure that we are making the best use of our resources. Earlier on I mentioned, in terms of what Natural England does, that some of this is cross-cutting. We are doing stuff on invasives through the agro-environment schemes, for instance. At the moment there is about £2.4 million of money going into it as part of agro-environment schemes, so that work is picked up there. We also have a budget to spend on WFD stuff, which is specifically aimed at protected sites. We have £450,000 under that one. Other than the licensing, we do not have statutory duties. Obviously, in terms of priorities, which I think is slightly where your question is coming from, those things that are a statutory duty for us to do and to discharge take the priority. They have to.

Mrs Spelman

Absolutely. I would expect that. That is the same for the rest of you, I should think, yes.

Geoff Bateman

Can I just make a point about biosecurity as well? For all of us who work in the environment, we have people going into the environment and working in different water bodies, and on different land. Biosecurity is the key, and that is fed into all of our monitoring and surveillance activities for other activities that we undertake for our statutory duties, so that we are aware of invasives being transported at all times.

Adrian Jowitt

Yes, and we have built that now into our contracts. For any contract we are setting up for people to carry out work on SSSIs or protected sites we have built a biosecurity requirement into those contracts that all contractors must observe those standards.

Mrs Spelman

I think you have answered the second part of my question there with regard to the Government’s plant biosecurity strategy, because essentially what you are telling me is that there is a case for developing regulations on invasive species in tandem with a policy on biosecurity. You have to have the two things running together.

Dr Moore

That is biosecurity at a different level. I think you are more talking about biosecurity at a local operative level, whereas on biosecurity at a national or at a GB scale, it is fair to say that currently DEFRA is looking at all the risks posed by biosecurity issues in the round—not only animal health and plant health, which get a lot of looking at, but also invasive species and bee health, and looking at coming together and comparing all the risks posed by all the different threats in each sector together, which I think is very good.

Mrs Spelman

Yes, which is this part. I have a little cluster of questions about the use of poisons, pesticides and herbicides against invasives. To what extent do you think they bring collateral damage at the same time? Okay, it might get rid of the invasive species, but then it can affect the water quality; it can affect the soil health.

Adrian Jowitt

It is a very good point, and there is a need for balancing the long-term and short-term desires around that. We have had a recent case around oak processionary moth, which as you are probably aware is an invasive. It was preying on oak, obviously, and it also potentially has human health impacts. Although it is established in some of the parks in London, there was a population just outside of London. The response to that was that the Forestry Commission applied to do aerial spraying with a lepidopteracide on a site of special scientific interest. Obviously, you have a woodland site that you are going to spray a lepidopteracide on, but the oak processionary moth is not the only lepidoptera there. There was a challenge. At Natural England, we allowed that. We licensed that and said yes, that could happen, but there is a balance to be done. We have to make a decision on the long term versus the short term. Interestingly, in something like that there are societal choices as well, because it may be a perception about the use of the chemicals, rather than always a scientific or an evidence-based view.

Mrs Spelman

Absolutely. There are some restrictions on the use of certain chemicals, sometimes the only chemicals that we have to combat an invasive species, and even a native one. Do you think there are any particular problems for controlling invasive species that arise from those restrictions? Do you have examples of that? I do not think I can supply one, but I am sure you can.

Geoff Bateman

I can give you two examples. One is glyphosate, and we are working with the industry to ensure that we get more specific, so that the material cannot be washed off easily. We are doing some research, but the standard for water quality is an annual average. Sometimes the use has to be enough to kill the plant and, therefore, it could kill other plants as well. Perhaps a better one is rotenone and the use for the eradication of topmouth gudgeon. The point there is we would only use that or have only used it in enclosed waters, and generally in commercial waters where it is having an impact on the commercial viability of a fish farm, for example. The fish farmer would pay for some of this, although most of it is done voluntarily. There we would fish out elected fish and remove other species, leaving the topmouth gudgeon there, so we reduce the impact on other resources. The decision must be made that if there is too much collateral damage you do not carry out that method. You do not use the poisons; you use mechanical means or you use other means.

Chair

Just before we leave altogether this issue of biosecurity frameworks, which Caroline Spelman just referred to, can I follow up with you, Dr Moore, a little bit on how you see those frameworks, including the effects on humans, being integrated with the whole issue of invasive and natural species? We have covered animal and plant health but not so much human health. I do not think we have had much evidence on this either.

Dr Moore

Our risk assessments do have a slot for human health. They look at the environmental impact, the economic impact and the social or human health impact. We think that is important as well. One of the reasons we are responding to this little chap is the fact that if it gets to Britain it will definitely kill people. It has killed six people approximately in France to date, about one a year. Not a huge number but still worrying. We do take account of human health, certainly in the risk assessments, but I think we need to be more integrated, yes, definitely, on the human health side.

Chair

How would that integration come about? What would need to happen? Do you have members of your group, say, including environmental health officers, for example?

Dr Moore

No, we do not have links. What we could do is incorporate people from Health Protection England—I am not sure what the current bit of Government is—perhaps on the GB non-native species programme board to which I report. That could be a way of doing it there.

Geoff Bateman

If ever we are using poisons to deal with invasives, we certainly involve the Environmental Health local authority, so we let them know. If there was any danger from invasive species, then we would be talking to them as well: keep away from the water and so on. We would ask the health professionals to give their advice.

Chair

Right. Do you feel that they are sufficiently proactive in this discussion to the level that is needed? Where does the whole issue of integrating the lists fit into this?

Geoff Bateman

I think we have some work to do on this.

Chair

Who has?

Geoff Bateman

We all have, and the health professionals.

Mark Lazarowicz

A question, first of all, to Mr Whitaker. We know that the Law Commission in England are proposing that the Government adopt the system of species control orders that already exists in Scotland for England and Wales. How widespread is that system now used in Scotland? How important has that been in the strategy that has been adopted by yourself and the other agencies towards invasive species?

Stan Whitaker

The change in the Wildlife and Countryside Act that brought in these new powers came into force in July 2012. To date, we have not issued a species control agreement. We are in negotiations with one case at the moment. One of the reasons we have been taking it quite slowly is because we want the first case to stand, so we have been taking advice from our solicitors and so on.

Mark Lazarowicz

Just to be clear, if you can get an agreement that does not require an order to be put in place, the agreement is then presumably legally binding on the landowner or other interests concerned?

Stan Whitaker

It is. If the agreement is not adhered to, then we have the option of either modifying the agreement or moving to a species control order. What we did not want to do was to get into a position whereby the agreement had been partly adhered to but there was a loophole that would mean that for whatever reason we could not move to a species control order. It is really following on from our experience with deer control agreements and orders in Scotland that we felt that we had to get the agreement process right before we start to tackle things through orders. To that end, it is very important that we set clear targets and time-limited targets, and have robust monitoring, so that we can show that the objectives of the agreement have or have not been met, which might be to remove or eradicate a plant, or to enclose a zoo animal that is free-living and make sure the enclosure is secure and there are no animals living outside the enclosure.

Mark Lazarowicz

Compared with the use of deer control agreements and orders, how extensive do you expect your use of the species control mechanism to be?

Stan Whitaker

Initially, we saw species control agreements and orders as a mechanism of last resort, and thought that we would try to negotiate through a voluntary approach before we moved to a species control agreement. As an example of that at site, American skunk cabbage was spreading from a garden in Strathspey into Insh Marshes, a special area of conservation and special protection area. The RSPB, who manage the reserve there, had not been able to persuade the owner of this plant to do anything about it. I think they had been trying to persuade them to remove the plant altogether. With the promise of a voluntary agreement in the offing, we agreed that by removing the flower heads, basically, after flowering, stopping it seeding, the problem was solved. We felt that having those powers helped to crystallise things. We are moving now towards seeing species control agreements as being a useful tool to formalise where action needs to be taken. Examples of where we are likely to use them in the future are to support rapid response cases. The example I have just cited there of free-living animals in a small zoo would be somewhere where we could go down the route of a prosecution but we would rather resolve things on a voluntary basis because it is basically cheaper. We would offer a control agreement just to be absolutely clear what has to be done by when, because very often these cases can run and run, if you let them. The other case where we are likely to use them in the near future is in support of these catchment-scale co-ordinated approaches to control, particularly for invasive plants where you have a stand of rhododendron that is left next to an area that has been cleared and acts as a seed source. In the past, we have had projects where we have been unable to tackle those seed sources, because we could not get access to the property. Either we did not know who the landowner was in some instances, or it is somebody’s garden and they like their rhododendron. In the future, we would potentially have the ability to offer an agreement and part of that agreement was that we would carry out all the work. We would offer to replace like for like with a similar plant that was less invasive.

Peter Aldous

I was just going to look at how we might apply these orders to England and Wales, but just one thing, Mr Whitaker. The plant you were describing in, I think you said, Strathclyde—

Stan Whitaker

Strathspey, yes.

Peter Aldous

Scottish Natural Heritage does not have powers of step-in if there is a problem, so that you go on site yourselves and address it?

Stan Whitaker

Yes, we do for sites of special scientific interest, for example. We do through nature conservation orders through the Nature Conservation Act, but in this example, the plant was growing in a garden outwith the site, seeding into a stream that flowed through this person’s garden and out into the important European site.

Peter Aldous

Could you have gone into their garden to have addressed it?

Stan Whitaker

Not through our existing powers, no. The only way we could have addressed it was through getting the police to take legal action, but that would not necessarily have ended up with the plant being removed.

Peter Aldous

Would you not have liked what I would call step-in powers to go and address this situation where time is of the essence, so to speak? Could this be a deficiency or limitation in what powers you have at the moment?

Stan Whitaker

For SSSIs, potentially that is outwith my field where I work at the moment. Effectively, we have those powers for non-native species because we have the powers to make emergency control orders, in which case, yes, we can go in and take access to control something. If the relevant body can show that it is urgently necessary to prevent something becoming established and spreading, we have those powers, yes.

Peter Aldous

Looking to Mr Jowitt and Mr Bateman, I just wondered how Natural England and the Environment Agency are looking forward to the possibility of having these new powers. Is it something you relish? Do you think it is going to make a difference?

Adrian Jowitt

We think they will be a useful tool in the armoury, yes, and we said so in our evidence to the Law Commission. We were recommending them. It is for DEFRA to decide whether we get them in place, as I understand it. There are situations currently at the moment—and monk parakeet springs to mind in North-East London—where the eradication is not completed because we cannot gain access to the main colony in a garden.

Geoff Bateman

We already have powers of entry under the Water Resources Act, the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act and the Import of Live Fish Act to go on to sites. We have to be careful because public authorities going in and then taking action will spend money, and it could be huge sums of money. You really need to be very clear that you are going to be able to recover some of these costs if you do that kind of action. In our experience, in the whole of the topmouth gudgeon exercise, only one fish farm owner gave us any problem at all. Everyone else wanted to do it voluntarily. We communicated in the right way. It is a much better action to do it voluntarily, but we do need a back-stop in extremis. Where we do have one last problem on a catchment or a river or in the country, we need to get in.

Dr Moore

Yes, I agree. I think powers of entry are very necessary. Another example is ruddy duck. I was talking to the guy in charge of the ruddy duck project a few weeks ago. I used to manage him many years ago and he said that not having powers of entry has delayed the programme by about two years, which is a cost of a few hundred thousand pounds.

Peter Aldous

Do the Law Commission’s proposals give you sufficient powers to investigate the possible presence of invasive species as they stand?

Geoff Bateman

Well, from our point of view, we would only be investigating on the basis that it was part of our other duties and powers to investigate invasive species, so yes.

Adrian Jowitt

Yes, as I understand them. I am not an expert on them, but as I understand them, yes, it would.

Peter Aldous

To accompany the regime that is proposed by the Law Commission, would the roles of the Environment Agency and Natural England be clearer if they also had a statutory duty to investigate and institute control orders on problem species? Would that help?

Stan Whitaker

One note of caution there would be on the Japanese knotweed situation. One of the things that we have to be quite clear about is that SNH is not responsible for managing invasive species on other people’s land. Land managers are responsible and there is no legal requirement for them to do so. It is only when we deem that they are a threat to either a catchment-scale project or something becoming established and spreading that we will make any agreement or order. We make it very clear it is not within SNH’s remit to intervene in neighbour disputes about Japanese knotweed, for example.

Peter Aldous

How will species be prioritised as to whether they are given a control order or not?

Adrian Jowitt

Control orders, as I understand it, are on a site-by-site basis, so it would be on a site. The situation where they would be useful is rapid response. That would be the real one. I completely agree with Geoff. Obviously, we would wish to do it through communication and getting people on board, but it is about having those powers to go on if it was necessary in a rapid response, and also in the situation just referred to of a catchment, where you were trying to do something on a whole-catchment area. They are not something that would be used day to day. It is a back-stop. I think the fact that they are there helps with the discussion in the first place. They are also a continuum, aren’t they? You start with a conversation. You then go to an agreement and they are really there just as a last resort. It is so that you do have somewhere to go. You have a last resort. You can say, “We have the means to do this if necessary”.

Dr Moore

One of the species they would be vital for is something like an Asian hornet. I am sorry to bring it up again. We have a contingency plan, we have staff trained, but if this thing turns up and we do not know on whose land it is, we can sit there and twiddle our thumbs and do nothing. Having an emergency species control order, so that agency staff can go in and take action, is what we need, definitely.

Peter Aldous

This is my last question. I will look to everyone, but also to Mr Whitaker for guidance on how it is weighed up in Scotland. Concern was expressed by the Law Commission in their consultation about the imposition of burdens on landowners, and whether these would be onerous and burdensome or not. How would Natural England and the Environment Agency go about assessing the proportionality of a potential control order? What lessons are there to be learned from Scotland about what you are doing so far? Would you like to go first, Mr Whitaker?

Stan Whitaker

Yes, certainly. We assess each situation on a case-by-case basis, which is proportionate. As part of our guidance, we insist that the relevant body makes an assessment, that a test of reasonableness is applied, effectively, which I think is in the Law Commission recommendations. Then it just comes down to what our priorities are. Our top priority is preventing spread and establishment and then support for the voluntary approach, support for co-ordinated, cost-effective, catchment-scale approaches, and I suppose also maybe for protecting strategic resources like sites of special scientific interest or a particular water body that is failing a Water Framework Directive target.

Peter Aldous

Any concerns from the England and Wales position?

Geoff Bateman

We have experience already of waste disposal, for example, on land, and landowners are often caught with that problem, but the responsibility does rest with landowners to take responsibility for what is occurring on their land. We would take a similar approach. It has to be proportionate. Disproportionate action is just nonsensical. It is about taking the community and the landowners with you. We will fall out occasionally, but we do not fall out very often.

Chair

Okay, there we must leave it. Can I thank each of the four of you for the benefit of your expertise this afternoon, and for being patient with us during the Division? Thank you very much indeed for coming to give evidence. Oral evidence: Invasive species, HC 913 2