Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-07-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much her Department has spent on preventing the spread of ash dieback disease since that disease was first detected in the UK; and if she will make a statement.

Rory Stewart

We are monitoring and managing ash dieback and have invested over £4 million into surveillance and research.

Our surveillance programme involving Government, industry, conservation groups and the public, enables us to monitor the disease and to target resources effectively.

Investing in research on the development of tolerant trees is one of our key commitments in response to the disease. Ash trees have a very wide genetic diversity and have the potential for great levels of resistance compared to other tree species that have been affected by diseases.

The Government-funded research and screening trial of 155,000 ash saplings is unprecedented in its scope. It has now identified native ash trees that show tolerance to ash dieback, raising the possibility of using selective breeding to develop strains of trees that are tolerant to the disease.